The next few hours passed in a relative flurry of activity as Aeneat and Anai did their best to get Lars stabilized. Aeneat helped lower Lars onto his bed before grabbing the keys to the hover and leaving to fetch the doctor. He returned barely fifteen minutes later with a pale man in tow, and the two disappeared into Lars’ bedroom. They sent Anai out for various supplies over the next several hours, partially due to a genuine need for materials but also in an attempt to keep her from wringing her hands and worrying in their way.
The man labeled 08 did not witness Anai’s forays outside. He’d fled into one of the empty rooms, closing the door behind him and sinking down in its middle. Without any windows to let the light in from outside, he found it was almost as dark as where he had lived before, and he closed his eyes and was still.
At first, he thought the darkness in the small room was different than what he was used to; it seemed less sinister, less worrying. Then he realized that the dark had remained the same, that it was him that had changed. Unlike before, now it calmed him, enveloping him like a mother might a frightened child. Comforting in its familiarity, it was the only thing that didn’t seem dizzying and threatening. It alone felt safe.
Everything else he had seen confused him. Between the movement and the noise, there seemed to be too much of it all. Nothing seemed capable of helping him get his bearings, and for a moment he wished he had never left the room where he had first discovered sound. There, he had been a god. Here, he was only a small lost thing. Here he was helpless.
Stretching out on his back, the man resented the floor for its cold solidity. He hated the thin streak of light under the door for its glowing intrusion and the sounds of Anai's comings and goings for their very existence. He wanted to erase everything from his mind, to undo the last couple of hours that had seemed to have stretched into days. He had been unprepared for any of it. He didn't see how he could ever be prepared.
So he returned to what he knew: the sound of his blood in his ears, the air in his nostrils, his throat as he swallowed. He became lost in his body, so much so that he failed to notice when the noise outside began to die down. When the light under the door winked out, he paid it no mind. He fell asleep and dreamed fitful dreams that began and ended blurrily and left him with a feeling of familiarity when they finally faded into the corners of his mind.
He wasn’t quite certain that he was awake when he peered out into the living area, nor did he plan on carefully opening Lars’ door and slipping inside. Once he had done so, however, he gave into the urge to look around. The room was dim, the only light coming from the small table lamp a short distance from the bed. Everything had been left much the same as when he and Anai had ventured inside earlier with the exception of a table that was now laden with various medical instruments and pill bottles. The man hovered near them for a moment, lifting one amber colored container and turning it over in his hands as the medicine clinked against his hands through the glass. He sat it down again and moved on, thumbing the edge of the medicinal tape and the soft fuzz on one white bandage. Then he looked back at the bed.
Lars lay unconscious, frowning slightly even in his sleep. The blankets were folded at the level of his navel, revealing the bandage that stood stark against the dark skin over his ribs. His slow breathing was refreshingly even, and the man felt reassured as he kneeled near the bed to peer at the Drow more closely. He looked tired, worn, but nowhere near as forbidding as he did while awake. While the quiet was calming, the man realized he preferred Lars when he was awake and able to pass judgment from behind the dark lenses of his glasses.
Shifting to relieve the weight on his knees, the man lowered his gaze back down to Lars’ bandage. He wondered what had happened to him; unable to connect the sound in his ears to the redness that had bloomed underneath Lars' fingers, he knew only that Lars had looked unwell – that he had been unwell if everyone’s reactions were a sign of anything. He considered what it might feel like, to seep out from inside one’s body, and remarked to himself that it certainly seemed unpleasant. Looking down at his hands, he wondered if the pale skin contained the same fluid or if he was filled with something different. What colors did Anai hide inside her? Or the other one, Aeneat? Perhaps people hid rainbows within them. Maybe that was what made them work.
“What are you doing?” He startled, raising his gaze from Lars’ chest. The Drow’s expression was remarkably bland, eyes clouded by a haze of painkillers, and the man couldn’t help but stare, his jaw slightly slack. He had no real memories of the sky, but something told him Lars’ eyes were the color of threadbare clouds: a blue so pale it almost seemed white. There was no darkness to them at all, and the shock of their unfamiliarity left him in awe.
Lars made a sound of mingled pain and impatience, frowning deeply. “Anai is willing to tolerate your silence. I’m not. What are you doing in my room?”
The man shifted, Lars’ slow glare pulling a quiet response from his throat without his permission. “Looking.”
If Lars was surprised, either at the answer or the fact that he received one at all, it didn’t register in his expression. Instead, he frowned more deeply. “At me,” he said. “Why?” When the man remained silent, fingers gripping the folds of fabric over his calves, Lars' voice turned steely. “Answer me. Why?”
“I don’t know,” he swallowed thickly around his voice, reducing it to a whimper.
For a moment it seemed as though Lars was going to push for another response, one that was more satisfying than professed ignorance, but instead he turned his head, looking away from his visitor in silence. It was a dismissal, and the man recognized it for what it was. Still, he sat there for a minute longer, half hoping Lars would turn toward him again so that he could stare into the strange lightness of those eyes once more. When it became clear waiting would get him nowhere, he finally pushed himself up, biting his lip before turning to leave the Drow in the solitude he obviously desired.
“What’s your name?”
The man hesitated in the doorway. He thought of Anai, of her reaction to the tattoo he had never seen, but still shook his head, “I don’t know that either.”
“Then choose one,” Lars watched him for a moment longer before closing his eyes, and the man bit his lip once more before shutting the door behind him.
Monday, June 16, 2008
Chapter Five
