VOLATILE (I) : peter pan ouat

When Rain Happened

 

When Rain Happened

"He had another seizure?" I whisper harshly.

James nods, from where he leans over the bucket, drooling into it. "It wasn't as bad as the last time though. He just stood there staring, smacking his lips together before he realised what was going on."

"His fever has been through the roof." Robert wheezes.

"You don't need to talk about me like I'm not here." Max moans.

His skin has gone sickly. If he looked like sleeping beauty before, now he looks like cling wrap. Translucent and stretched thin over his body.

"Sorry," I say. I'm not sorry. "But you really need rest."

"It's only escalating." Robert says. "Tomorrow with any luck, I'll be seizing."

"That's not the kind of think you say "with any luck" about." James's voice is hoarse. I can only imagine how raw his throat must be.

"I meant so that we know that's how it works in everyone's bodies." He explains. "If tomorrow I begin to bleed internally, or get hives all over my body, then we have a problem."

I scratch my neck. "I don't know how I feel about watching you all have seizures."

That was too emotional. Never again.

"I told you that you shouldn't be in here." Robert warns me, his voice like a whistle.

"What are you going to do about it?" I ask.

"I'll make you sick is what I'll do." He coughs once, as he attempts to chuckle.

I shrug. "I feel like it's not air born. Otherwise everybody would have it. I get the vibe that you have to accidentally ingest it. You know, like pink eye."

"How do you think you get pink eye?" Robert demands.

"You know what I meant." I said. "Physical contact. And by no means am I going to have any contact with your bodily fluids."

"All the same, he'd feel better if you left." James laughs, lowering the bucket. "You know Robert, once he gets his mind worked up one way, you can't change it. Not even slightly. You're lucky if-"

"I get it." He wheezes. "I'd throw a pillow at you, but mine is too valuable."

"I dropped the dinner off, is there anything else you guys want?" I cut it.

As much as I like them, it's probably only making Robert worse to make him talk. We don't need another Steven. Another dead boy.

"No," James says. "If we need anything I'll come and get you."

He hasn't touched his dinner, and I doubt he will. There's nothing like constant vomiting to turn you off from eating. If there's nothing to throw up, what can you throw up?

I tell them goodnight and I exit the tent. The sun is setting early tonight, it has already begun to disappear behind the trees.

"How are they?" Harry's voice rings out.

His hands rub together as he waits for my answer.

"They'll be alright." I tell them. "Not too much to worry about. They are doing much better today."

"That's what happened with the Spanish Flu." Alex alerts me. "You look fine and then suddenly you die."

"You're old enough to remember the Spanish Flu?" I ask. "I didn't know you lived through the First World War? Didn't you say you were older than that?"