The Wall Between Our Worlds

Chapter Three

The surprises kept coming.

Trep was still alive—that was the first surprise.

The Easterners could speak the Western language—that was the second surprise.

The Easterners didn't think that Easterners and Westerners made each other sick—that was the third surprise.

There were glowing vines on the ceiling of the little house that provided a generous amount of light—that was the fourth surprise.

He could only wonder what new revelations would attack him next.

While he chewed over everything that had happened, he fought to stand up. Krimson had made a comfortable bed for him on the floor of her simple house, but getting out of the bed was a problem. He grabbed the edge of what looked like her bed and used it as support as he waged war with gravity. By the time he stood up, he was ready to collapse.

His head throbbed. Breathing sent stabbing sensations through his body. His leg ached. Still, the pain wasn't as terrible as he would have thought. Maybe his injuries weren't as severe as he had imagined.

He hobbled outside and urinated, but before he went back inside, he took a moment to breathe. The air was... richer here. In Amanta, the Western capital, the air was clean, but it didn't have the odors of countless trees, rich soil, and more. Trep liked the air here. And the trees. He had seen trees before, of course, but they were all perfectly manicured, the inhabitants of designated arboretums or decorations in shopping malls and in wealthy neighborhoods.

This was true wilderness, and there was nothing like it in the West. It was almost intoxicating.

It wasn't a bad place to die.

As much as he would have liked to believe Krimson's story about the war, he knew it wasn't true. The Easterners did not have the means to create a biological weapon of that caliber. They might know things about plants and poisons, but they didn't possess the technology to do what Krimson suggested. Her house didn't even have indoor plumbing. People who didn't have plumbing wouldn't stand a chance in a war against the West.

When his body told him that it could no longer stand, he shuffled into the house, resumed his place in the bed on the floor, and drifted to sleep.

Some time later, the scent of something delicious roused him.

Krimson gave him a little smile from where she crouched by the fireplace. "I got a deer. The meat looks very tender. It will taste good."

"A deer... Is that an animal?"

She raised an eyebrow. "You do not know what a deer is?"

"I... I've seen one at the zoo, but we don't... we don't eat animals." A deer. Was that the one with the scaly skin and creepy tongue?"

"You ate part of an animal earlier."

"I... huh. I guess I did. We, uh... all of our meat is grown in laboratories."

She frowned but didn't vocally express her disapproval. Trep was still trying to figure out how he felt about eating a real animal. It smelled amazing, so he knew he would eat it, but the idea of eating something that had been alive a few hours ago... strange. Downright strange.

"Drink this," she said, handing him a cup of something.

He sipped it and realized it was the same thing she had given him earlier, the tingly stuff. "What is this?" I asked.

"Crior tea. You had major internal bleeding, but the tea stops it. It also has a mild painkilling effect."

"Wow. How did you know I had internal bleeding?"