Prognostics

Dad and I were still stunned in the bedroom without speaking for a long time, watching the place where Siever had disappeared. In fact, I could believe that he really had left this time, cause the cold became more and more intense. Daril also noticed as soon as she saw me shivering, trying to warm my hands rubbing one to another.

"I don't understand…" Daril questioned worried "he is going to arrange for what I asked for, or just ran away?" I could feel the distress in his words. He looked at me as if he was afraid I'd torn apart in a little while. "Shall we get you to a hospital soon?"

"I don't know... I did not understand either…" I said uncertain. In fact, Siever really had very few reasons for try to help me. If he happened to find any of Daril's demands difficult or counterproductive, wouldn't he choose to follow such a 'practical plan'?"

But whether I wanted to or not, Daril was already in a panic. I had become very tired and sleepy, and getting colder. I felt Daddy's skin like fire against mine, and yet, slowly cooling down just to touch me.

I slept. I heard voices sometimes spacing out, commenting on meaningless things. I had the impression that sometimes I was sleeping in a very dark pool, and everything was calm, as if nothing else mattered and sleeping was the only thing worthwhile in the entire universe. Sleeping would not give me cold or pain, but on the other hand waking up would be terrible in return.

Hours later, I woke up wrapped in an electric silvered blanket, radiating warmth incessantly to my body. It was contradictory: it felt as if it were roasting on the outside, and freezing inside. All my joints ached. All bones, muscles and skin. Even blinking and moving my eyes seemed like an endless effort, anyway my vision was blurred. It did not take long for me to realize that I also had a tube tucked deep into my windpipe, forcing me to breathe.

As soon as they realized I was awake, the people who were talking around me came closer and leaned over the side of the bed. Despite seeing them as shadows, I realized that the first was Daril, and the other probably a doctor, because of the white outline that came from his clothes. Daril seemed about to collapse at any moment, questioning him, and the doctor was impatient.

When he spoke, then, I realized that there were no voices speaking nonsense. It was me who could no longer understand what they were talking about as if I was underwater. Was anything stopping me from listening? Would they have covered my hearing in any way that made it difficult to understand what they were saying so close to me?

The doctor swung over my eyes a flashlight that looked terribly dazzling. I followed her and blinked in confusion trying to avoid the annoyance of the light. I tried to move my arms and take the doctor's hand away with his hateful flashlight, but I was feeling as if someone had stolen my motor coordination, and I could not rule my own arms to go where I wanted to. It seemed as I were moving them from a remote.

The two of them, Daril and the doctor, seemed to interpret my reaction in a positive way. I tried to speak, but the tube prevented me from making any sound whatsoever. I felt terribly tired again. Just daring to move was beyond my physical possibilities this time.

I was almost panicking. I need to keeping me alive, he said. He just forgot to tell me how to do it, I thought bitterly. Not even the blanket seemed to be having much effect beyond the painful and uncomfortable sensation of being burned alive.

It seems that they had perceived my agitation as something good, but they needed me to be quiet. Soon after, I thanked for it, as an awkward sensation filled my body, and in a few minutes the cold and the heat stopped bothering. Maybe I had gone back to sleep, and maybe I had slept and woke up a thousand times.

Dreams and nightmares streamed into unrelated images in the vast empty space of my mind. I did not understand what I was dreaming, if I was dreaming at all. Nothing else made sense, only the intense explosive feelings that came out of nowhere, and they left with the same speed. Fear, anger, joy, euphoria, sadness... and soon after... the emptiness.

Long after, or maybe only seconds had passed, I woke up again. I did not open my eyes, but I did not feel any confusion about where I was or the torture I was feeling. People were by my side, talking. I could feel them, as if they were living fire dots radiating near me.

"… and no one even has a prognostic" I could hear someone say, faintly realising, that I could understand what were being said now. "They have never seen such a disease before and have no idea what to do…" the person seemed to be giving the news to someone. I shook my head a little and tried to see who it was. My vision was still very blurred, but I assumed it was Mom by the tone of her voice "... no, we can not suppose that she contracted the disease after disappear, since she complained of that cold on the day of the explosions, but there is no way to question her, she is being kept sedated most of the time…" Alya talking through her personal Link. Probably passing the news to one of my aunts "... no, the doctor ruled out the possibility of contagion... because it is, the only symptom they identified was this abnormal and intense hypothermia... They are keeping her with appliances... I don't know... it seems that if the situation does not reverse, she can go into shock and suffer a cardiac arrest at any moment…"

I groaned at the words. The last thing I might be wanting to hear now was my mother's dismissive tone of voice about my probable death. Mother had always seemed to be careless. I imagined now, ironically, if she would not miss her own daughter if Siever came back and took me away, or if the worst were to happen... he didn't come back and just let me die. Where had he gone, anyway? Had he really given up on saving me?

I moved uneasily on the bed. Someone came slowly and looked at me. With his hands, he gently moved a lock of hair from my forehead, and I could feel his skin tremble at the touch of mine. I couldn't focus and distinguish who was there, but somehow I assumed it was my brother Alan.

"She's awake!" he whispered to the sides, and I heard a movement around me. "Hey Alésia... can you hear me?"

I blinked hard as I looked at what I thought was the head of my brother, hoping he would understand that sign as a yes. Alya barged a quick farewell and also approached the bed beside Alan. On the other side, another person also approached, and the way I felt it was Alan to my right, I felt it was daddy to the left.

"Hey, my dear!" Daril whispered fondly, "Do not try to move, okay? Doctors are doing their best... it will be all right…" I figured Daddy hadn't talked with Siever to anyone. Maybe he was still waiting too. But it occurred to me in that morbid moment that Siever's first required test was being demonstrated at that moment. Any doctor from there could save me.

Without having more to think, to do or to feel, unable to speak, and quite believing that I was not even breathing, having forced the air into my lungs for some mechanical fan, I finally resigned myself to the emptiness of that moment, and I felt incredibly very lucid about the people around me.

Some time later, Alya decreed that she had to go, because she had to rest to work the next day, and that was no use staying there only to wait for more news. Daril insisted on staying, and made himself available to pass on any new information as soon as he received one.

And I, despite the feeling of exhaustion, remained awake until after Daril fell asleep on an armchair by the sides. I spent a long time imagining random shapes for the figures dancing in front of my hazy eyes.

In a beautiful moment, the forms stopped dancing, and although my vision was still very bad, I saw someone approaching. From the intense heat that radiated, which I could feel more clearly than anyone else's and that somehow comforted all this pain, as I suspected, it was Siever.

A sense of relief filled me. So he had not abandoned me. But he came with a mischievous air of someone who had prepared, carrying something in his hand, which pressed against the skin of my forearm. I suspected that I had felt a sting, but I did not have time to digest this doubt, because soon afterwards he said:

"I apologize for the inconvenience, but I just poisoned you."

I did not have time to question, even if I wanted to, I couldn't... poisoned me? Why? I didn't even have time to panic. Siever had decided my prognostic himself. Then, in the next few seconds, my conscious vanished.