Triple Point

Chapter 38: Facing the Enemy

Eventually, Elsie led her over to the living room, which looked strangely unfamiliar. It took Camilla a few seconds to realize why: the place was actually clean and organized. She was tempted to comment on it, but she couldn't seem to find the words to form a sentence. Instead, she followed Elsie's guidance and sat on the left end of the couch, then froze when she saw the TV in front of her.

The news was covering the attack on the Barracks, and while the voices of the newscasters merely sounded like white noise, the footage of the destruction was clear enough. From her spot next to Camilla, Elsie must have noticed Camilla's reaction since she quickly grabbed the remote from the coffee table to turn it off.

But ignoring problems wouldn't make them go away, so Camilla reached up and put a hand over the remote, a silent gesture that it was okay to let it play. Surprised, Elsie looked to Camilla, nodded in understanding, then placed the remote on the table next to Camilla. As she did so, she suddenly froze, her eyes wide open as they stared at Camilla's hands and the burns that covered them.

"Oh my god," she exclaimed again, reaching to take Camilla's hand. And again, she stopped just before making contact, then looked to Camilla for permission. When Camilla didn't pull her hand back, Elsie held one of Camilla's hands gently, examining the injuries with concern.

The next look Elsie sent Camilla was a question: can she heal it herself? Camilla would try if she could, but she was having trouble trying to get her uncooperative brain to even form simple sentences. She didn't know how to explain that though, so all she could do was shake her head slightly and slowly.

"I can help with that," Olomana's voice chimed in from the side, and Camilla had almost forgotten he was there. He sent a tentative look at Camilla. "If... if that's okay with you."

Was that okay? Camilla wasn't sure. She looked to Elsie for guidance, as if she held the answers to all of her problems.

"Can he try?" Elsie asked, and that didn't really answer Camilla's unspoken question. But the fact that Elsie wasn't completely against Olomana's proposal was worth something, so Camilla slowly nodded her head in reply.

While Olomana sat to her right on the couch and worked on her hands, Elsie had disappeared somewhere, so Camilla let her eyes follow whatever was happening on the TV. The scene hadn't changed much from the last time they showed it, but Camilla was slowly starting to understand the words on the screen and the voices of the newscasters.

From the sound of it, there surprisingly hadn't been any deaths from the attack, but there were a couple hundred being hospitalized for injuries of various severities. Silently, Camilla hoped they all pulled through. They needed to.

"Water?" Elsie's voice suddenly asked from beside Camilla.

She was holding a glass of water in one hand and a mug in the other that was probably filled with coffee if Elsie was holding it. Behind her was Jordan Song, Elsie's friend and ex, who was holding two mugs of his own.

Camilla wasn't sure if he had always been there and she just hadn't noticed, or if he just arrived, but it didn't really matter. He was there now, looking at Camilla curiously as if he was a shy child following his mother around. Camilla didn't fully understand his and Elsie's relationship, but she supposed she didn't understand healthy relationships in general.

Camilla nodded, but since her hands were occupied, Elsie set the cup on the side table next to her. Afterwards, she sat in one of the two armchairs on Camilla's left and took a sip from her mug. Song walked by afterwards, leaving one of his mugs on the coffee table for Olomana and passing the couch to sit on the loveseat on the right side.

For a long time, no one spoke. The only sound came from the TV, and Elsie and Song only moved to take sips from their drinks as they watched the news in solemn silence.