037. Transcendence, 5

(Gamya)

Dad fed me.

I was feeling week and quite sick now.

G - I'm fine...

I - You're not. Rest today.

G - I don't...

I tried to stand but a dark veil fell over my head like a weight hitting me. I passed out.

Dad forced me to stay in bed.

Thinking back, I know I didn't donate enough blood to save her. I probably never would have had enough in the best of days.

But I didn't donate so much I would now pass out so weak I think.

It was something else I began figuring out while dad carried me to my bed. I felt my own weight as if multiplied all through myself.

I felt how the shifts in concentrations and balance through my body played against me.

How I had tipped a fragile balance, which I thought was more solid and steady.

A cascade of collapse had been triggered in me, as I lost some of my otherwise steady blood. I was beginning to shiver about myself now.

I thought I was fine with them, when the truth was just an equilibrium.

It tipped temporarily the scale for mom to give her a little more time.

But the cost was growing into absolute distress for my own body.

I hadn't seen enough how it worked inside...

I was wrong about me, about where the innate levels of stability could be. I mistook my stability for resilience.

It was as if giving some blood to her, I also took her disease in me.

I've failed myself... And now I see how I'm going to die.

I'm scared, feeling how my body won't manage to recover from that disease we all share. Dad's blood isn't compatible with me.

Mom really died while I was passed out.

Dad couldn't do anything else anymore. I saw how lost he felt, thinking he was losing it all.

I managed to stand, shivering, breathing poorly, feeling painfully dizzy. I walked to him unsteadily and told him it was still fine.

I could see it now. My eyes could in this last dance see through our skin. The turmoil in me growing bad, and more importantly the steadiness inside mom's tummy, hopefully still salvageable.

The baby passed the trials and found its own stability with the fairies.

I could see its brain activity beginning to dance.

G - Do it. She's ready...

~

Dad's hands were trembling as he opened her.

My own mind was constricting, struggling to stay awake. My thoughts began pouring out to imprint on him while he was in this focused and weakened state.

G - I need you to promise me something...

I could see the stars through the roof and daylight sky. I could see the scattering paths of our likely fates. How these petals of new gods danced around us and also inside our every cells.

How they twist, vibrate and move. How they become one, looking for organisation and steadiness. How they try to become one with us or just like us, stumbling blind without any perception of senses or flesh.

Dad... Father, I need you to survive. I need you to promise...

My words escaped me like my soul, as we both witnessed the odd birth of my sibling.

Her flesh may be a little twisted now, but she will have more stability and resilience than any of us ever could.

Because she has grown in unison with them since she was just a shorter pack of cells.

Because mom and I helped them, helped her, in all the required biological ways. For them to grow, together...

Between dad's hands, she took her first breath soon after I cut the cord linking her to mom. Her head may be odd, but her brain is fine. I still can see it shine, as all the fairies are also brightly structured there.

She will be fine, as far as biology now fares.

But my sticky hands go hold my father's shocked and confused face. I stain him, skin and soul, so he never forgets.

Because we both know the hardest trials are yet to come.

So with my remaining strength I peer into his eyes and carve my will there.

Promise me you will hide her.

From the warlords.

From the humans.

Promise me you will never tell of her.

Promise me you will never betray the real day of her birth.

I pressed his head between my hands as I made him swear.

Dad... Never betray her.... For mom, for me, for her.

His fears will continue to righteously drive him, but I need him to swear this oath for me. For me first honestly...

He felt confused and more pressed to care for the premature baby.

I let him go, but I must water the seed of devotion I've now planted in him.

I helped him wash and warm the baby, feeling I was doing too much but knowing I was already condemned anyway.

I held her dear, at least once...

She's the size of a kitten right now, but she will live on... She already carries our hopes and hearts.

I spoke too few words to her she will never remember, before the next ripple in my flesh took me away.

~

There are clouds in the air sometimes raining, pouring and storming as the meteorological times and events are changing.

The leaves and countless petals of the new gods are the same. They flow, they concentrate in random patterns, and they can condensate to rain down.

What they do to animal fluids and cells as they're nearing death, it's just the most visible aspect of a much wider meteorological system.

I see that now, but it's too late.

And just as dad could foresee the future of society unfolding with care and concern, I can begin to see where this will all lead.

He can as well. Or he soon will.

How society will come to treat new-borns like her. All the unfolding implications of our situation.

It's painfully obvious they will be rare, and never the same. He will eventually get the entire picture...

But he must promise to keep her truth a secret before it's too late.

Before my errors become widespread.

Before they make a definitive mistake.

I wake up one last time in twilight. I know I don't have much time left and can't stand up anymore.

I yell. I call him. I'm reaching my own end in a way like mom. But before I'm gone, I again make him swear.

Swear! Protect her from everything...

Prepare her, for what will come next.

~