After Earth

Chapter 8: Coming In Hot

        I woke up in the middle of the night because my arm was feeling like static, and I sat up with my eyes droopy and my posture crooked. I stopped imaging Rentie there beside me, so the other half of the bed felt rigid and cold. Below, I heard the sound of Nashi snoring and shuffling in her bed, which felt like enough for me to turn over and head back to sleep. But I couldn't. My arm started hurting even more as I lied back down, and I tried shifting so it would go away. It didn't. With enough frustration plaguing me, I switched on the bedside lamp to see what was wrong.
     I wished I hadn't.
     My arm was oozing both blood and that black garbage from that infected monster, and it seemed to be bulging in all directions. The pain was immeasurable now, but there was no way I was going to attempt to touch it. This was something I had to deal with before Nashi woke.
     "Your mother is sick."
     I snapped my head to the sound, seeing a wisp of light move from one room to another. It came through my door wit a lopsided movement until its body formed into the image of Rentie. Rentie stared right at me- at my arm. I wanted to hide it from her even though I was aware that this was just a hallucination. A part of me felt that this was a dream. Despite my wakefulness, my limbs were ghostly and my mind was hazy.
     "Didn't you hear me, Tayas? Rentie snapped at me. "Your mother is sick!"
     I knew this conversation. This was something in the back of my mind. "I know," I answered meekly.
     "Are you not upset about it?"
     "I... am. I just... have to think."
     This would have been the point where I would grab my carton of cigarettes and try to reach air. Rentie would grab me. Her hallucination even made the motion to.
     "What do we tell Acki?" she asked frantically. "He's ten now, he's figuring things out. We can't protect him from everything anymore. Acki needs to know."
    "No, no!" I fell back on my bed and hid my face. "No one needs to know." I eyes my arm, feeling the pain reach its peak. I would have screamed if I did not already hear footsteps coming. Nashi heard me mumbling to the air, she heard me trying to hide. Though Rentie wasn't really there, I felt her voice against my ear.
    "Acki needs to know the truth."
    Nashi came in and shook me awake. Which, I already was, and I turned to her in weakness as my bulging arm followed me. She backed away into the wall as she saw my skin puss and move without my meaning to, and I tried my best to mouth that it was okay. Nashi didn't think it was okay. In her mind, she saw Artomer, but this was not the same.
    "You're sick!" she exclaimed.
     I shook my head. "No, no, this is different. Nashi, I-I'm not sick."
     "Give me a reason why I shouldn't turn you in."
     I closed my eyes. "It will go away." I didn't know that. "It has to go away."
     As if it listened to me, the blood and black ooze began to retract into my body, the puss bellowing onto my sheets to stain them to hell. The black and the blood went under the skin as these large spots that still hurt if I touched them. Like bruises. Nashi approached me to examine my arm, but there was no way she was going to touch me. Not now. Not ever.
    "How did you get infected?" she asked me.
    "I told you," I spat. "I am not sick. If I was, it would have been my whole body days ago."
     "You've been like this for days? Tayas!" She wanted to hit me on the head, but she couldn't.
    "There was an infected in Agitit's office. I... killed it."
    "With your hands?"
    "Yeah, but-"
    "But what?" Nashi crossed her arms and paced the room. "You're infected."
    "Nashi, I'm telling you it's not the same."
    "Why isn't it?" It's inside of you."
    "Nashi, I would have been dead by now. You and I both know that whatever this is, it would have eaten at my brain and turned me into one of those monsters. And you would be sick by now. By being close."
     She realized it, but she didn't want to believe it. I had no idea why this was happening to me now, why I wasn't dead already. Maybe it was the meds changing the composition of my body. Nashi sat down next to me and managed to grab my arm, and she looked me in the eyes with a tired gaze. She was tired enough to have bloodshot eyes and unnecessary bags, and she turned away in an almost embarrassed way. Like always.
    "I heard you talking to yourself," she whispered. "Were you... seeing someone?"
     I looked at my feet. "Rentie. It was just a memory of her."
     "Yeah. I saw Artomer in a similar way a few nights ago. "She closed her eyes and yawned. "we need to clean your sheets."
    "Okay."
    With out slow movements in the night, we pulled the sheets away and shoved them into the wash machine where the sound of it drowned out the silence of the house. We were leaving the laundry room, and I was going to sleep on my bare mattress. Nashi snatched my hand.
     "Sleep in my bed," she whispered.
     I followed her down the stairs into the dimly lit bedroom that had her sheets scattered across the floor from her panic of before. I slept closer to the window, which had a small draft coming in I was unable to feel. The ground was frosted with snow, lights dim in the town. Nashi and I had our backs to each other, my arms and legs outside of the warmth of the blanket I could not feel. Because I could not feel the warmth or chill of my own body anymore, and that was somehow okay.
    "We'll be awake in a few hours," she whispered. "All eleven of us."

    We woke to the sound of sirens and expected the worst. We didn't want to leave out in the cold looking like lost wanderers that spied in on people, so we spied through the window in Nashi's bedroom. My eyes focused in on the shape of the person on the stretcher. None of us, but a family member.
    "That's Kagre's husband," I blurted. "He looks burned."
    Nashi let out a breath. "You can tell that from here? I just see shapes."
   "It was a breakfast accident. The stove exploded."
    "Tayas, how do you-"
    "I don't know how, but I know." I shut my eyes. "Kagre's also burned on her left arm, but she's healing quickly. It's the meds, I think."
     Nashi paced, and I turned to look at her. "You need to write your symptoms down. Like, you should not be able to do that normally."
    "Later. We have to make breakfast and head out."
    We headed into the kitchen as the ambulance sirens began to run away into the near distance. I made sausage and eggs with my tired mind somewhere else. Nashi and I distracted ourselves with small talk about the weather and the oncoming snow that we were getting. Just small things. Before we were even beginning to eat, there was a knock on the door. I called the person to come in and stabbed my egg.
    It was Kagre, but I knew she was coming before she did.
    "Are you okay?" Nashi asked in a concerned tone.
    "Do you want breakfast? I asked in a monotone. She would say no.
    "No. No, I... You wanted us to be open about what's going on." She showed us the slight burn on her arm that was healing at an incredible rate. Nashi looked at me all funny, but it only because my observations were correct. "The oven busted while Vannor was making breakfast for us, and it just exploded. I'm lucky to be the daughter of an experienced fire fighter... I think."
Kagre was shy and embarrassed of her ability to do anything at all. Her scales glistened in the kitchen lights.
    "Are you still going to the lab despite the burns?" Nashi asked.
    Kagre closed her eyes. "I cannot feel it. The pain."
    "At all?"
    "I discovered this a few nights ago when I stubbed my toe on the bed frame." Her face flushed. "I fear that we all are painless."
    I thought about my arm last night. The insufferable pain. I hoped that pain went away soon.