Exulansis #JustWriteIt #EarthLove

:-> 11

My head throbbed and my hands instinctively reached up to hold on to it. It felt as if it has just come out of the spinning part of a washing machine. My eyes felt heavy as I opened them up to a blinding light. That all-too-familiar smell--from some kind of medication, or is it from all that bleach? -- floats around in the air like a constant presence, never wanting to go away and leave me alone. I figure I am at the healer. I hear Travark's voice boomed outside my room door, asking how soon I'll recover.

"She's been in there two days now and you keep saying she's recovering quite quickly, and all I see is her skin getting paler and shedding AGAIN," he said, straining to hold in his anger.

I would've actually enjoyed listening in on the argument between Travark and Navra, the healer, but I needed to know when I'd be able to return to work, saving my fellow Zephronians.

"I'm awake," I yelled hoarsely, alerting them.

Before Navra could say anything, Travark was alreading stomping towards me. He sat on the edge of my bed, grabbing my right hand tightly into his. "You need to stop doing that else you won't have any more skin colour to shed into and you'll lose your limbs Z," he scolded.

"I'm just waking and before you express your happiness at that, you're scolding me," I said. "What a nice greeting," I scoffed.

"Your hand hasn't fully healed yet Zaria," Navra told me. "Yet, you cut off your leg. What were you thinking?" I rolled my eyes at her.

"You need to stop cutting off your limbs Zaria," Navra shouted way too serious, but not serious enough to shake me. "You are here more frequent than anybody else. I can expect you at least three times every two week with a broken or missing body part," she told me. "Your leg's new color will be pink," she told me.

I sucked in my breath. "Isn't that..."

"Yupp," Travark nodded, getting up from the bottom of the bed. "That's the last color you can shed and heal into.

"So you're saying that if I amputate myself again, this one will be permanent?"

"Yupp," Travark said getting up. "You need to stop doing it, Z. I know you wanna do your job and save people no matter what, but how do you expect to do it dead?" he queried, sounding genuinely concerned about me.

Travark and I have grown extremely tight over the years. Whatever hell was keeping us apart.

I roll my eyes, ignoring the worry that was threatening to take over my mind. "Can I leave now?" I asked Navra.

"Ah...ah...in...a...few," she stuttered from surprise at my sudden change of topic.

I'm use to this. I get lectured about it everyday since nine years ago, one year after I had joined their security force. The same year I got promoted to their Supreme Commander. I've been making grave sacrifices since. I looked down at my scars, remembering the many sacrifices I had made too get my job down. I am a walking color wheel. Some of my body parts were closer to deteriorating than some. My left leg will be the first part of my body that I'll lose if I cut it off or hurt it a next time.

Travark and Navra left me to change and think of the past by myself. As I drag on my shirt, I look down on my belly. Blotches of orange and green could be seen. I got engulfed in the flames of a burning building, saving a little girl's pet. I looked at my partially healed red right hand, turning it around. It's most recent wound was three pieces of metal jabbing into different parts of it. I can still hear my agonizing screams as I ripped them out of it one by one. I always thought the incident of the metals piercing through my hand reminded me of something else, but I could never figure out what.

I shook my head, clearing it, and grab the remainder of my stuff so that I could leave this cruel place that was holding me hostage, and go and save the world. Whoaw I love these people.