Drowning Utopia

Chapter 39: The Calvary

It was not long before Tessa and most of the survivors found themselves pulled out of the ruins by the New Albanese military. They were piled onto small patrol boats and spirited away up the river a short distance to an awaiting ship.

Tessa and the Marlow Twins sat on one of the racks huddled together. Diana and Vain found themselves on the same boat with them. Vain was unwilling to leave until the rest of her men were accounted for, but the soldiers and those few of her men present insisted.

When they disembarked onto the hospital ship, the S.S. Mercy, they saw many of the more severely injured, including Sir Cornwall, two of Colonial Veers's boys, and several of the Black Coats being offloaded from another smaller craft.

In rapid succession, they were all medically checked, cleaned, fed, and given a place to recover. All the while, the report of cannon fire in the distance attested to the continued fighting raging deeper in the flooded city.

Everything happened so fast that before Tessa knew it, she found herself in a large bunk room with the other recovering survivors. Many of them moaning or crying from exhaustion, pain, and loss. Tessa herself was a mess, covered in bruises and cuts, stitches, and more bandages than she thought possible to have on one person. Yet the painkillers they prescribed her helped immensely with the discomfort. Though the kind nurse told her to try to rest, and even though she quite wanted to, the suffering and noise prevented Tessa from adequately sleeping. So, dressed in a medical slip and with a blanket draped about her shoulders, the beleaguered inventor forced herself to her feet and wandered the ship.

After some time, Tessa ran across Miss Le-Ren, sitting in one of the hallways by herself. She, too, had already been attended by the medical staff. She had several lacerations bandaged on her forearms and legs. The horned woman quietly sat staring intently at the door with a red sign that read 'Surgery.'

Tessa approached cautiously. "Dev Le-Ren? What are you doing here?"

She glanced at Tessa with tears in the brim of her eyes. "I don't know whether to be happy or horrified." Diana motioned to the door, stammering, "He...he is still alive. All that time, I didn't realize, and I just left him there."

Confused, Tessa sat beside the distraught Oni, asking, "Who are you talking about?"

Diana choked, "Gray. He is in there right now, barely holding on. They're trying to save what they can."

Tessa was shocked. "Gray? He's alive?"

Diana nodded, cupping her face in her hands as she bent over, her jet-black hair trailing over her hunched form.

Tessa took the blanket she had and wrapped it around the Oni, trying to comfort the distraught woman. But she did not know quite how to feel herself about the situation. She sat with Diana for a long while, waiting for the operating room to open.

Quietly, the Oni asked, "Did you ever love him?"

Surprised by the question, Tessa looked back at her catlike gaze. "Once," she admitted, more to herself than to Diana. "I am not sure you could have called it love, though. You and Gray, I can tell what you have is genuine. Far more than anything I ever had with him. That said, I do still look up to Gray. I don't really know what it is. Certainly not love."

The red-skinned Oni gazed down at her hand, rubbing a small band of wood around her pointer finger. "You can't go that long together without caring. He still has feelings for you. However, he would never admit it. He told me that one of his greatest regrets was letting his pride get in between... I don't know why I am telling you this," she finally admitted smiling, before laying her head back against the wall. "I guess I just wanted to know if you have feelings for him still."