A&AvZ

Someone New (17)

(Third Person POV)

The next morning, pretty much everyone was ecstatic about a digital cure being found, and a real one being underway. It was also nice to meet Bubbles, the woman that Blue saved. Second and Alan had a good time drawing a pair of prosthetic legs for her, testing them and figuring out how to work them. It was calming for both of them, drawing after all of the craziness they'd experienced in the past few days, even if it was just a pair of legs. Once she got them on, Bubbles was substantially taller than everyone else, pretty much the same height as King.

Once that was all done, Blue sat down with Bubbles and started to ask her some questions.

A lot of her answers were just a simple "I don't know" or "I don't remember." Though there was one response that she did give that was pretty clear.

"I remember.. I think I was in love with.. a guy. While I don't remember much.. I remember that we had some really happy memories together.. and some bad ones? Hitting.. kicking.. It's blurry. One of my memories has someone different. I still don't know what they had to do with me, but they were leaning over me.. somewhere very white. That's all I have."

Blue's heart slightly sank at those sad answers. He carefully took note of them before letting her off to eat.

The other sticks were very curious, and loved having someone new to talk to. Alan mainly kept an eye on them all.

Thankfully, that gave Blue some time to talk to DJ privately, as that was definitely something they needed to do. Letting Blue onto his phone and slipping into the bathroom, he propped his phone up and sat down himself. He checked the door's lock twice before settling.

"Let me see the bite."

Nodding, DJ unwrapped the newer bandage and showed him. It was still glowing, now a bit more than last night.

"Eugh.. yeah, that's bad. Is there anywhere on your body that has been particularly itchy besides your arm?"

"My sides."

"Ok.. tell me your symptoms?" He jotted words down.

"Coughing up blood, numbness, I've gone immobile at times, but never for too long. A lot of my senses are more.. well, sensitive. Itchiness, insomnia.. there's probably more but I'm not paying attention to them."

"Have you noticed any weird behaviors about yourself?"

"I've been eating, but I get hungry easier. Sometimes I just blindly walk around. I feel a lot more awake at night.. and I'm a lot more tired at daytime."

"How frequent are these?"

"Almost every day."

Blue wrote more down. His concerned expression gave a lot away.

"Well, what I can tell you is that you shouldn't be so active physically, rather mentally. Sorry to say, but I don't think sleeping would be the best option right now. In the physical section, you need to move a lot less, give your joints a break."

"Why wouldn't sleeping help?"

"The parasite in your body will take any chance it gets to spread. It doesn't need you to stop moving to spread. Keeping your brain active and alert will push it away. Physically, moving will move the bug to different parts of your body faster than it would normally. Scratching an itch, running, anything like that will shoot it through your body faster. So take a load off. Try to minimize moving your joints."

"So.. I'm just supposed to lay in bed and think.. and not sleep?"

"It sounds ridiculous, I know, but from what I've been able to study from Bubbles, your pacing has been enabling the parasite. If you follow my advice, you should be able to last up until the real-life cure is done. Or at least get close."

"But I need to help out Alan."

"You'll be around longer to help him. Please, take it easy."

He went quiet for a second before just nodding. "Alright." Quickly wrapping the bandages back around his arm. 'Guess I better lay down.' He thought while grabbing his phone and walking out of the bathroom. Everyone else was still busy. Quickly, DJ plugged his phone into the laptop and let Blue back in before unplugging it and just going to lay down. Only bad thing about laying down is that it made him want to sleep, but sleeping wouldn't help. So he just laid there.

He looked over to Alan, who was back in bed and sleeping more. DJ didn't blame him, the whole thing was exhausting. Everything was going numb again.

At least Alan was ok. At least he could sleep.

For a while.