If You Asked Me To (UWOC)

Three

"I want to believe I am close to discovering the truth of this virus, but each day, I feel as though I'm going in the wrong direction," the Kymari male said.

"I feel the same way. We must get the answers we need," the female said. "I overheard the head doctor stating there were four more cases over the last lunar cycle."

"This virus does not act like anything we have come across before. It is only on this planet and has steadily worsened over the last few years."

I took a moment to read through their minds, and it was an interesting puzzle. Humans had many viruses with protein bases that would attach to the central nervous system. It could be anything from AIDS to Whipple's disease. But in about ten percent of these Kymari cases, the virus did not attach, which baffled them. When it didn't, their bodies would fight it off without help. But when it did, it could kill without intervention. 

So far, none have died.

These Kymari were scientists, like I was. I missed science.

I closed off my mind and curled into a ball to nap. Not my problem.

Over the next month or so, I ignored all references to the virus and only checked on the other dragonets in the park to ensure all were okay. The virus didn't seem to affect us, just the Kymari, although some worried about the aliens abandoning the planet. If they did, I hoped they would take us with them, as I didn't want to live in the wild outside the walls—again.

We needed to find out what was happening to the Kymari. The question was, how?

I thought back on what I had seen in the minds of the two Kymari scientists. The doctors were managing the symptoms of the sick Kymari, but they needed to find the cause, and they were a bit frustrated with the lack of human history. The humans could have encountered or solved the virus at some point, but the Votaks had destroyed everything. There is no history of our race left—just us, the dragonets.

I sometimes thought about those years of trying to understand why someone had turned us into these mini-dragons. I now believe it was so the human race could live on. 

I've spoken to the bonded ones, who stated the Kymari language was impossible to learn to read. Although we talked in English in the mindlink and used the Dragonet language when we spoke out loud, we also hatched with Blood Memories, which allowed us to understand thousands of other languages.

These Blood Memories were our own from when we were human, and they also gave us information about all the different aliens and their customs across the galaxies. Our brains translated it into English. Even the bonded ones, when talking to their handlers, thought in English, but somehow, when it got to the Kymari, it was in their language. 

The new generations hatched with memories from both parents, too, and that was another reason I would never pair off. I would not give my anxiety or ability to read minds to a child.

The other dragonets believed I had been a research doctor, had just graduated, and was hoping to work on researching new medications for cancer, which was my aim before—...well before. None of them knew I was the scientist who fixed the formula that turned them into dragonets.

If we had encountered the virus before, it was probably in my brain somewhere.

For now, I decided just to let it go and keep my mouth shut. Hopefully, the others had forgotten I had been in the medical field. While I would have liked to help, the last time I used my love and passion for science, I destroyed many lives.

I went to the big pond, bathed, and lay in the sun. But no matter how much I tried to clear my mind and nap, my brain continued running.

I could talk to a scientist or a doctor and learn more about it, or I could leave it be. 

My brain wanted the high of solving the puzzle. My heart still hurt from the damage I caused the last time I felt that high. But the euphoric feeling of solving what no one else could, would never equal the pain I felt after seeing the terror in the mind of a newly hatched dragonet in that lab.

No. Just no.

I could feel the tears coming, and I started to shake. I couldn't control the whine that left me as my chest began to ache. The emotional pain became physical sometimes for me, and this was one of those times. But I'd been in this situation many times over the last fifteen years and knew what to do. I hopped off the rock I was on and walked into the water. 

I pulled on my memories of the Morning Song and let myself feel that, blocking out everything else. 

A few of us originals had tried to hide from the sunrise in our dens or burrows, so we didn't feel the song's pull. After about a week, we no longer wanted to eat or survive. It was a form of suicide. We had a dragonet who succeeded after his mate was killed. He blocked the mindlink and hid in an old burrow. But as a flock, we knew who was missing and why. If someone didn't show up, someone would come looking for them. 

I'd tried a few times, but they would find me or send their feelings from the song into my mindlink. I couldn't stop my mindlink—another fun fact about my mind-reading ability. Although I could pull back, I couldn't completely turn the damn thing off.

I guessed I deserved the pain of those memories. It was rare for old feelings to surface in other dragonets now. They were all pretty happy and content with their lives, but I still had flashbacks of my time in the lab.

Sometimes, I wished I had never been born.