Indigo (NaNoWriMo13)

Chapter 16 - Breaking the Mask

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Chapter 16 - Breaking the Mask

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Shift cradled Athira’s limp body in his arms, looking around the room for anything that could help.

Damn it, damn it!

She was fading fast. Unintelligible words formed at her lips, some just below the reach of hearing. Her eyelids fluttered as he pressed her cheek against his chest, trying to keep her head upright. The heat from her skin bored through his suit despite any claims by the Elites that temperature protection was standard.

The heat. That’s it.

 He tightened his grip on Athira, ignoring the way his hands felt like they were pressed on a hotplate. “Zoe, watch Will. See if he stirs again, I’m going to try and cool her off.”

Zoe nodded silently, dragging her gaze from her friend.

Shift moved for the small bathroom he’d noted on their way in, taking six steps to reach it. He grabbed for the handle, trying to push down on it without dropping Athira.

It proved nearly impossible. Why? Why is this the one door in the hospital that has a handle instead of sliding?

Shift swore under his breath and kicked open the door. Black flecks from his borrowed colour engulfed its frame, crumbling it into a pile of wood shavings on the floor a second later. Before he was sure they were there, they vanished.

Grateful to simply have a way in sooner rather than later, he dismissed the thought in favour of searching for the shower.

His eyes locked on to the small area in the corner where a silver headpiece sprouted from the wall along with a simple control panel. With one sweep of his foot, he cleared out the stool and its accompanying storage thing, leaving the shower floor space dictated by frosted glass walls wide open.

Athira stirred in his arms, fingers curling against his arm that secured her to his chest. Her temperature hadn’t dropped. The runes on her body still glowed with such intensity that he could see their outline clearly through her suit.

“Hang on, Thira,” he muttered.

Shift laid her against the wall, one hand behind her head so it didn’t crack against the tiles. He tried not to rush, but the sense of urgency was building. Her eyes were closed, skin flushed by the invisible, blazing aura around her. Her rambled words drifted into silence, a horrible silence that he felt the need to fill.

 “Easy does it,” he said quietly. “You’ll be okay.”

He kept mumbling short words of encouragement, reassurances, anything to plug the nothingness otherwise plaguing his ears. Somehow, it signalled something final. If the silence took over, that was it. The end.

Hurry up, hurry up.

Once he was sure she wasn’t about to fall, Shift turned his attention to the control panel. He pushed the buttons in frenzy as he tried to make it work. Why it didn’t simply have buttons for on, off, hot cold was beyond him, but apparently someone felt the need to have at least fifteen of the little buggers and that someone was not on his list of favourite people at the moment.

“Why can’t I be a water elemental?” he asked no one in particular.

He grabbed the showerhead and redirected it, a trickle of water running out but not nearly enough. More button mashing. Nothing.

Shift slammed the panel with his palm. “Come on!”

Something beeped, and the showerhead came to life.