The Lives We Weave

Chapter 6 - Go Thank Healthcare Workers

A deal of time later, things really began to take off for Malady. I was incredibly proud of how she was handling her first mass extinction, if that is the right word for plague. Malady would return each day with stories of the plague, of how it was affecting people like no disease before. She expressed feeling guilt for reaping so many people at once, i assured her that it wasn't her fault, it was just their time. It was during the beginning of the plague, remembered as 'the black death' that I went with Malady so she could show me the state of England at the time. Many homes were boarded up and painted symbols on the doors, Malady explained it was because sick people had been there. There was no one in the street, save for a lone inhuman figure walking quickly toward us. The figure was dressed in all black and had a kind of strange beak for a face, they were small, most likely a younger teenager.

When the figure reached us, she took off the beak mask, and it was a young male with bright green hair.

"Ahly! Why are you being a bird? You know you can just choose to be born a bird?" I exclaimed

"It is a mask, my friend. I am a healer in this lifetime once again, and needed more than ever."
Malady gasped "you're taking care of the ill? I've seen them, the ones that died. It's a sight I do not wish to beholden again."

Ahly sighed "someone has to care for them, and they are my creations, as are the rats which spread it."

"Can you not heal them with your powers?" I asked, regarding her pale skin and wondering if it is supposed to look like that.

"I can heal wounds, but I cannot kill a disease once it has entered the body." she paused, glancing to the people looking at her from across the street "I should be off, there are people to help."

I recounted the events at book club that evening, Ash and Maku nodded thoughtfully.

"I just don't understand it!" I exclaimed "it would make more sense for her to get far away from the sick people!"
Maku sighed "I know, but that isn't who she is. She loves being alive but she loves protecting life even more, and you can't protect life without putting yourself in the firing line."

"There is no fire, it's a disease."

"It's a metaphor, what I'm trying to say is that Ahly wants to help people, and often helping people means risking yourself too, at least in the way she does it."

"But I don't understand why it matters! They will all die soon anyway, so why try to save them?"

"It calls to her much like the souls in need of reaping call to you. It is her nature."

I thought for a minute, before sinking into the incredibly comfortable chair I stole from Terra and opened the book we were all reading, titled 'The Divine Comedy' of all of them, it was my favourite so far.

I returned home feeling inspired that night, and I remodeled Elsewhere to resemble the nine circles of hell, and I shuffled around all of those in Elsewhere to fit into each circle (I couldn't put everyone into the correct categories because I do not punish people for the same things as Hell did in The Divine Comedy, so I just divided them evenly), but I left the ninth circle empty and found each person who had maliciously hurt any of my friends during their lives and I put them all together in the freezing cold.

When I was finished, I went to Ira and showed them around the now remodeled Elsewhere.

"Huh you've softened over the years, Mori. This is so much kinder than what was happening to them before."

"Is it?"

"Well I'm less terrified of you now." They joked. I thought back to the punishment I had devised in my complete and utter state of bloodlust all of those centuries ago and shudder at the thought. Yes, perhaps this torture was kinder.

As I went to sleep that night, my mind drifted back to the Divine Comedy, back to Virgil and Dante. I do wish they could have been married in Paradiso, it would have been a better ending.

A short while later, I was having my morning jellyfish observation time when Terra came rushing into my domain. He had been crying.

I rushed to him and quickly guided him to a chair in my sitting room. I put the kettle on and returned to find his sobbing slowing now.

"What happened Terra?"
"Maku and Ash have both decided they want to become corporeal together. They asked me to join them but I am not ready. They said they were going to go without me, they will leave me for an entire lifetime! I haven't been without at least one of them for a very long time.

"You are welcome to stay here for as long as you don't want to be alone, I can even give you an official tour of the place, your own resting house and a jellyfish tank if you'd like?"

"Is that okay? I don't want to intrude or take up too much space."

"Nonsense! This is Somewhere! There is infinite space."
He sniffled and thanked me for the tea as we drew up plans for his resting place. He only wanted a small jellyfish tank.

His resting place is relatively far from mine and my siblings, though he was staying with me I thought it best to give him space to be himself. He was incredibly grateful.

It did not take very long to reap Ahly in this lifetime. I do not even think she had come of age before contracting that horrible ailment. Malady had told me when she first got sick, and all of us non-corporeals stood by her bedside during the course of her death. The plague made quick work of ending her, and by the end I'm unsure she was even aware of what was happening around her. It was awful to watch, but we all agreed that we wouldn't leave her bedside, not for one second.

She died 3 in three days.

"Mori." she brought me into a long hug, saying little else.

I held her back tightly.