My eyes snap open and there’s a throbbing pulse in my arm. The only thing I see is a dirty white ceiling, which is when I feel the uncomfortable rub of the paper blanket on my chin. What? My blanket isn’t made of paper. I don’t even remember covering myself last night. I sit up, but my body combusts in a ball of flames. A deep ache begins in my bones, which is normal, especially after trainings.
“Oh, man,” I groan as I drop back onto the bed. Where am I, even?
“Oh Ven, I’m so sorry.” I startle, until I realise it’s my mom sitting beside me. She is pale, and there are dark shadows under her eyes. There’s a surgical mask wrapped around the lower half of her face. That’s when I see the guardrail for the patient’s bed, identical beds all filled with sleeping patients spanning out to my side, and everything clicks into place.
The hospital. What is a hospital? I shake my head. Don’t be ridiculous. A hospital is a...a… The only word coming to mind is “human thing”, which can’t be right. I furrow my eyebrows, think harder.
But it hurts to think. What happened, really?
“You’re having an infection. The wound from your ankle yesterday got infected overnight and you had a very high fever when I found you in the morning. Half an hour ago your degree was 102 degrees. You had hyperthermia, over the night. How do you feel?” Mom looks concerned. Her thin eyebrows are stitched tight together, locks of stray hair frame her face, and she’s wearing her crinkled police uniform. She is a lean, muscled woman who lost her youth at a younger age than most.
Mom also loves law-abiding citizens. They make her work “easier”, although too many of them also means she has no work. Irony, right?
“Ooh, my ankle hurts a lot.” Actually, it hurts like it beens cut to the bone, gnawed by a crocodile, burned by a bonfire, and crushed by a hydraulic press, but she doesn’t have to know that. I feel bad enough she hasn’t slept because of me.
“Oh well. They’ve given you medicine that makes you sleep so you can rest. I have a shift from evening to tomorrow morning. I got Lily to fetch you if you get discharged. Now, go to sleep.”
I do, and the next time I wake up, Mom isn’t beside me, but Liz is. Her homework lies abandoned in front of her as she watches Netflix on her sparkly phone. She is leaning on my bed, sitting on the floor.
“They have Wi-fi here?” I raise an eyebrow. Liz jumps and turns. “You wake up from hyperthermia and that’s the first thing you say? You ask about the Wifi? Girl, you abandoned me at school, we had History today, you know. What was I supposed to do without you? Listen to Sowalski? The thing yesterday has spread all over school. There are conspiracy theories that there’s a hidden alien species at the reservoir now! And you, you stupid little piece of shit, just dumped all this crap on my life then suddenly up and flew away! First time I’ve seen you today after going through Hell, you ask me about the Wifi. Not me. The Wifi. Because why? Humanity is so stupid, the Wifi is above everything else. I bet if you gave a man in the desert a choice, Wifi or water, it would be Wifi.”
I laugh through Liz’s entire rant. We both believe humanity is getting worse by the day, but the way Liz phrases it always make me laugh.
“It is not funny,” Liz growls, her dark, short bangs flying as she huffs. I love it when she does that. We’ve been friends for about as long as I remember.
“So, did Sowalski call on you again?” Our History teacher calls on Liz almost every lesson. She often grumps about it (“one more time, I am going to bloody sue him!”), and this time is no exception.
Time flies with Liz, and soon enough she has to go home. “Dammit.” Liz checks her watch. “Mom’s going to freak if I stay any longer. Oh, the doctor said you can probably go home by midnight. Well, bye, Hav! Stay alive!” She winks at me and goes out.
The silence without anyone is deafening. I try to work on one of my newer story ideas about a girl spy, but thinking makes my head pound.
Devoid of my greatest form of entertainment, the meds carry me off into a deep, twisted version of sleep.
*
The woods are dark, with intermittent moonlight filtering through the canopy. I’m taking a walk through the forest, admiring the shadows of finger-like twigs, reaching out for the sky.
Rustle.
I turn, curious. What is this beautiful forest hiding?
Rustle.
I know I should be getting a little nervous, but somehow I don’t. The trees feel like spindly, welcoming cocoons, their branches the warm arms encircling me.
Two glittering green eyes appear in the middle of the darkness, and that’s where the wonderful dream goes wrong.
The initial peace and quiet is ruined as a large cat springs from the trees and bounds after me. The air is saturated by a thousand screaming voices, and for a moment I freeze.
The world pauses; the cat hovers over me. Then the clock restarts and the cat falls straight on me. It’s like a hundred pound weight has been dropped on my lungs. I gasp in shock.
“Haven.” The cat is saying my name. Oh, god, it’s talking. “Haven.” Those glittering green eyes morph into something that looks a little more human.
“Haven, you’re going into cardiac arrest. If you don’t calm down, you will die. Calm down. Don’t f-” The cat’s face morphs into a look of pain. “Wake up. This is a dream, Haven. Wake up. We need you.”
I gasp awake to see my hospital gown is open and the defibrillators poised just above my chest. The female nurse holding them has her mouth open, eyes wide.
The face reminds me of The Scream, by Edvard Munch, and I burst out laughing at the mental image. My chest aches a little. The nurses, five in total, give me a pucker-lipped expression of concern.
“Sweetie, honey, are you okay?” The one holding the defibrillator asks. I grin and nod. The nurses take my blood pressure, murmuring among themselves as the move around me warily, like they’re afraid I’m going to fall apart anytime soon.
But I’m not in the mood for the present. In my mind, the dream replays again and again. There is no feeling to the dream, though, since it was only a dream. That doesn’t mean I don’t remember the cold dread trickling into my blood at the sight of the cat, or the fear as it pinned me down on the floor.
Yet how was it possible that a dream could tell me to wake up from a cardiac arrest? My brief brush with death has had no effect on my mental health; I feel perfect. The only thing I gained from the experience was a nagging feeling rooted deep in my skulls. Think harder, it says. There’s something wrong.
The nurses sedate me again, but this time the medicine doesn’t work. No matter how much I toss and turn, I can’t fall asleep. I stare at the ceiling, count sheep in my head, close my eyes. Nope, nope, nope. Sleep doesn’t come, no matter how much I’m trying to make it.
My throat is parched. When was the last time I drank water? Frankly, I can’t remember, and it scares me. Maybe this entire thing is happening only because I am dehydrated.
I sit up slowly. A stinging pain shoots through my ankle at the sudden movement, but it disperses the moment I stop. The cup of water shakes in my hand as I raise it to my dry lips.
The water is icky and freezing. Disgusted, I set it down on my lap. Should I drink? But if only the water was a little warmer-
The water warms.
Oh my god.
What’s happening? Why is it warming? Was it just my imagination?
I drink the water and it scalds my tongue.
Impossible.
I glance down at the cup. It looks normal, average. What if… I close my eyes and wish for the cup to go cold. It stays warm. Then I wish for it to warm some more, and this time it does. A side effect of my hyperthermia? Sure, my body temperature might be way above average, but this? I don’t have to be a doctor to know it isn’t normal.
“Haven.”
“Oh my god!” I shriek and splash the water in the direction of the voice.
“Shit. How hot is this thing?” It’s a boy. A boy with a hoodie, emerald eyes shining in the sliver of moonlight that brushes his face, a long, messy mop of hair that peeks out dark brown from under his hood. I don’t recognize him, and the fact that a boy I don’t know is standing in front of me with a confused frown in the middle of the night makes me lose my manners very quickly. I stare at the boy, furrowing my brows, as he touches his face and winces.
That’s when my eyes trace out the dark red blisters on his cheek.
“I’m sorry!” I search frantically for anything to salvage the situation. The first time I meet this guy, and I burn him?
“Whoa, calm down, I’m fine. It’ll go away soon.”
The patch of blisters smoothen out and shrink before disappearing altogether.
What the heck did I just see?
“Oh, god.” I scramble away from the boy. “What was that?” His hands hold no sign of a secret trick or anything. It’s legit, whatever he did.
My ankle is hurting again, so I stop moving. The boy has to see this, because he frowns.
“Let me help you with that.” He pulls my blanket off me gently and unwraps the bandage.
“Wait.” I stop him with a hand. “Get away from me. I don’t even know you. You’re just a random guy, and you’re here after visiting hours, and you’ve definitely got some weird shit on. It’s either you explain or you leave.” I sound surprisingly calm, although I’m freaking out inside.
The boy blinks. He seems surprised. Then he sticks out a hand.
“I’m Rune.” I take it, albeit a little warily.
“Haven.” We shake and let go.
“I know. I’ve been looking for you. This is going to sound really crazy, but I’m going to need you to pay attention.” He steps a little closer.
“That day in the reservoir… it will change your life. That bite on your ankle contains a gene-changing poison. I don’t know how else to say this, but I’ll get straight to the point.” He pauses and breaths.
My heart is thumping in my chest. Is Rune keeping me in suspense on purpose? If he is, it’s working. But I don’t even understand. What gene-changing poison?
“You will have something...different in you. Something like that.” He points to the cup crushed in my hands.
“A cup?” I’m joking.
“Haha. At least you have a sense of humour. I meant what you did. I can’t tell you too much, now, but I can tell you we call them Anathem. I just have to ask you a question. There are many like you across the world. Some leave their lives and devote themselves to protecting us. Many other stay under the protection of the fighting group. Which one will you join?
“Protection from what?” My heart is beating fast and I’m suddenly hyperaware of the bite on my ankle.
Rune bites his lip. “A lot of things.”
We stay silent. I don’t understand it. I don’t understand any of what’s going on. What poison? Anathem? What kind of weird ass name is that?
“What if I don’t want either? I don’t want to leave my life, but I don’t want to live under protection, either.” I have no idea what Rune is talking about, and there’s a nagging seed of doubt in my chest. But why not humour him?
Rune’s face darkens. “You can choose neither and we will leave you alone. But I know no one who has taken that option and lived longer than five days.”
A chill races down my spine.
He’s not lying. I can tell. His dark brows are furrowed. I realise he’s actually very good looking, although it probably isn’t the time now.
“No.”
It slips out of my mouth. Evidently, my mouth-to-brain filter has holes the size of Russia. No? What the heck?
But the more I think about it, the more certain I am. Rune could be lying. All of this could be a fake. This kind of thing only happens in story books.
And it just so happens I’m not exactly in a book right now. So, no. Rune looks confused.
“But-” He stutters, running a hand through his hair. “You… you could die. Don’t you see? The poison in your veins now has spread, developed. YOu just saw proof of it.”
“No.” I shake my head. This nutcase isn’t going to be moving me anytime soon. “Out. Now. I want to rest. Or I’ll splash you with some more hot water.”
Rune’s jaw hangs open. He looks completely, hilariously, gobsmacked. I turn to fill the cup with some water so I can splash him.
“Come on, you little-” I fling the cup as I turn back to face him.
The cup falls to the ground without hitting anything.
The water splatters to the floor.
Rune is gone.
I think I’m going to piss my pants.
ns 15.158.61.20da2
