036. Transmigration, 5

(Gamya)

It's always a little slower and harder to climb back slopes along the mountains paths.

Some places look far less workable than they were from the other perspective.

But I press on, with my bags of medicines to thin blood, reduce coagulation, boost her system and allow field blood transfusions.

I know what mom needs in order to make it. And she needs to make it for the child to survive.

To swap flesh is impossible, except for that. I'll share my blood where the amount of these tiny alien spirits are lesser and better accepted. And we'll discard what she can let go off in exchange.

It's the only way to lower her rising level of instability.

I build my resolve and my arguments to make points of in the upcoming discussion, while I'm climbing.

I know it will be hard to convince my parents to obey me.

It's a little nerve-wrecking for me. I get nervous as much as I am anxious, still climbing my way up to meet with them.

Hong on mom... I'm going to save you and your child. I promise you.

~

I took another day of dread, but I was reunited with them. I hugged my father tight and dear, no matter if he reeked.

Mom whom he carried on his back now was barely looking herself anymore.

Veins were protruding along her entire body, her skin swollen and stained from within all over.

We sat and lied her between us. She was barely breathing. I tensed up, but I was clear.

G - Dad... Listen to me...

He looked at me with weary eyes, but still deeply himself and aware.

I spoke.

More firm and confident than I've ever been. I did not shake nearly as much as I thought I would. I explained and he listened. How I know what is going on inside. I know what to do now.

I know what is coming for them.

The pieces have aligned and I know what is ticking ahead.

Dad was afraid. Afraid I'm likely wrong, too young to really know what I'm dealing with when it comes to medical symptoms and medicine.

He's also afraid I might be right, because I'm able to see things differently from him.

He always told me I was smart, and that his words were not vain.

He always saw my ability to reflect, noticing things about me and my surroundings as I grew. I am bright he sometimes said.

Now arrived the time where his beliefs had to be proven with trust more than faith. He had to trust my judgement and help.

We held mom alive, and I was asking him to trust my childish knowledge and understanding over his adulthood and common experience.

There are people in town, and smart ones too.

But they won't be able to help her. None of them saw the faeries they fled from were already there as well.

No one realised these subtle truths beside me, and therefore as much as it put pressure on me...

G - Only I... can save her, them... Please...

Mom made the effort to nod in her pain. She had heard me as dad had. Dad felt awfully conflicted but agreed to make that leap of faith.

I - Do it Gamya...

We couldn't tell very clearly anymore whether mom was really awake now, given how much her face had swollen. But she moved to confirm she had been with us and agreeing to my theory and plan.

I crushed four grams of aspirin to dust and dissolved it in water. I added the content of pills with mild thrombotic medications I had found, and made her drink the first sips slowly.

Gradually we made her drink enough of mostly this mixture, thinning her blood and releasing some of her infection to these thing's effects.

Then I pricked one of her veins in her arm, sticking a needle in it. It took me a few times to reach the clearly visible vein, but I got it, as if I was about to force her to donate blood. My hands were steadier than I expected.

Her blood dripping out was more syrupy like honey than water at first. Dad saw that.

No wonder her veins are clogging and her heart pounding as if going to burst.

As the medicinal and water intake grew, her blood thinned down, and she recovered some of her normality. The swellings and colours were reduced. She could see through her eyes again and cried.

Don't thank me yet mom...

Right now this was just the beginning of the treatment to save your life.

~

I pierced my own artery. It hurts, but I endure. Dad helped me get the vessel right, looking pale.

I stood above mom, and brought the hopefully sterile pipe to connect with both ends, to start transfusing forcefully some of my blood inside of her.

As we do, she now truly seems to recover. It' not a complete cure, but right now and as the day ended, she looked healthier than she had been since we left civilisation.

She thanked me again, now with her own voice that had return. She felt as if her fever had fallen entirely, as if my blood had been a panacea somehow.

It wasn't that easy or simple, and I stopped giving her my blood as I felt dizzy. Dad stopped mom's bloodletting that had continued in parallel, evacuating more thick syrup in slow droplets oozing from her cut.

We were exhausted, but she could breathe normally and even speak for the first time in weeks, if not months.

She hugged dad and they exchanged tearful kisses, between words of gratitude toward me.

As much as I appreciated their recognition of my foresight, I was still concerned for the mother and baby as well. It was still small, but her tummy was quite big.

All this sheltering water inside of her... Hopefully it was safe too, but I suspected better...

I remember weighing in as I passed out suddenly.

~

I had strange dreams. As if I was underwater and gazing at the surface of the sea. It was all orange and red, unfamiliar. I wasn't really swimming. I didn't feel the pressure of water.

It was more like... nothing.

Nothing was left of me and around me. All I could still see were these waves under cold light above me.

I woke up a little concerned, as this wasn't a sight the tiny gods had ever shown me. Everything had always been about these impulses of life, blind and transgressive.

For this time, I had seen something else, from a different perspective. And it haunted me slightly, as I couldn't comprehend it right away.

I woke up, tired but well. Dad was just there, smiling.

And mom was sitting there too, also smiling. She drank a little more aspirin.

As much as it tormented me, I had to tell her this wouldn't cure her.

G - All it will do... Is buy you some time... It could take more blood than I can give, before you're cured...

She still did her best to smile. For me too.

She thanked me in tears, kissed me and hugged me kindly.

Rapidly her blood would spoil again. And her weakened organism feared less and less what no existing medicine could face. Her face didn't swell as much, but we could tell her blood was clotting more and more. Some chemical reactions were occurring again.

She gave us her last wishes and goodbyes right on time, that very same day. Because she a tougher thrombosis coming her way. The house was in sight, but her symptoms growing worse so fast, I decided to give her blood again right away. Her last words and trust in me weren't enough to let her go just yet...

Dad brushed his tears and obeyed. Mom had passed out after her last words of live for us and the coming child.

She too wanted this life. I pierced my other arm, missed, cried, and tried again.

At some point the jab turned right and my blood gave mom a little more time and her child a last chance to develop a little longer.

Dad opened his wife's leg with a knife, to let coagulated clots drop like small faeces, more mineral than fluid now as they were pumped out of her veins.

It's over for her... But it's not the end yet for the child.

Dad was petrified seeing these grains of sand dropping out. He heard me the third time as I was raising my voice.

He listened to my command and drugged what was left anyway to die. What had once been his wife... Mom...

Her body recovered some colours for another short while, but she would never reopen her eyes, too many vessels clogged or broken now inside her head. All we could hope now, it was for her wish to survive her.

I felt dizzy again and cut my blood donation there. I let dad pick mom up and carry her home.

He walked in front of me, and I felt as if the ground betrayed me for a moment. As he stepped his way toward the door, I felt as if I was falling and all my peripheral sight turned suddenly very dark.

Was it all red in the sky outside? Did I really give so much blood I would pass out, too much for me?

Something red and dark was wavy in the corners of my eyes.

As if I was trying to walk now in the bottom of a red tainted lake.

~