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"Tam?"
I looked down the hall as I headed back to my room. "Sitara, what are you doing here? I thought you would be resting, especially after everything that's happened."
"Is…is it true?" she asked, looking at me with those light blue eyes of hers.
"I don't know what you're talking about." Sometimes with my friends a conversation would start up as a continuation of a discussion days earlier. The trouble was always in figuring out which conversation was coming up again. That was especially true in times like this when no hints came to clue me in.
"Earlier, when you said that you had never lost a charge, not in the five years that you've been an active Resurrector. Were you telling the truth?"
I let out a deep breath and nodded. "It's true. I wouldn't lie about something like that, especially with what's going on right now." I said it as gently as I could, not wanting my words to come off as arrogant.
"But…how can that be?"
I shrugged. I couldn't give her an answer. It seemed like they were thinking there had to be some sort of reason for why I was doing so well. Perhaps they thought I was being given easy assignments or something. Anything I could say would sound horrible to them. It was because I spent more time at Resurrector school, learning more advanced techniques than they did. Also, I focused mostly on my work, not really allowing myself to get distracted by anything else.
Sure I read, but mostly it was all material that could help me perform better. As for the time I spent in the gym, I was keeping myself in shape for when I was dealing with a charge. The reason I was better was because I spent more time focusing only on my duties as a Resurrector. To me nothing else would ever be more important than my job. I enjoyed it when I was allowed to take on extra shifts and could help more people.
We weren't like normal people. We couldn't have normal lives. Our work schedule revolved around our charges around the world and when they needed us to save them from an unnatural death. It didn’t matter that we had time off. There were so many Resurrectors that we could have hours between charges, though we had all dealt with the busy days where we had a few charges in an hour or two.
Sitara looked down at the ground for a moment and I could tell that she didn’t like my non-answer. As she looked back up at me she sighed. "Why don't you trust me? Have I done something wrong?"
"No," I said quickly, shaking my head as well to emphasize the answer. "Why would you think something like that?"
"You seem distant." She took a step closer to me. "And it feels like you're keeping something from us. I thought you told things to the people you trust. Then again, maybe I was just fooling myself."
"That's not it at all." This was not going well but there was nothing I could really say to make things better. I didn’t like being looked at as the anomaly amongst Resurrectors and admitting that I was better than everyone else would make my time with others so much worse. As much as I hated to admit it, Sitara was right about me being distant. How could I explain to my friends that I preferred the solitude in my work to being with them?
"Then what is it Tam? You're drifting away from all of the people you used to spend time with. Whatever you're going through, we can help you. All you have to do is trust us. We're not going to abandon you or anything."
"I've just been busy lately. I promise; nothing is wrong." I was busy because I was taking on extra shifts and extra charges. The Leaders had never needed to ask me to be on the always on-call list but I was there, near the top. I would drop whatever I was doing so I could go to help a charge, whether mine permanently or temporarily.
"Then you'll go down to Kiran's room with us later? We're holding a memorial for Bem and Alena."
A memorial was respectable though they were not held after such a tragic loss of Resurrectors. We held remembrance celebrations whenever a Resurrector decided to pass on to the next stage of existence. They were cheerful, with everyone talking about the good memories shared. I heard about them from my friends but I usually volunteered to work through the memorials. Because of those who wanted to attend there was a demand for people to cover the shifts. I nodded. "I'll be there. Unless I have a charge to help I'll be there."
She gave a small smile. "Good. Thank you, Tamesis."
"You're welcome." We walked a short distance down the hall. I opened the door of my room and turned to look at Sitara. "I'm just going to rest some more, all right?"
"Okay. See you later."
"Bye." I shut the door and walked back over to my bed.
She was right. I was drifting away from them for a number of reasons but they had nothing to do with any of them at all. My friends were wonderful but…there were just some things I didn't think I could tell them, and they were the things I couldn't tell the Leaders either. How could I explain to them that I could reclaim the soul of a charge that had already been crossed over? I couldn't. It still didn't feel completely real to me. I knew that it happened but still, maybe I didn't want to be set so far apart from everyone else. My life was difficult enough as it was without any more news of my oddities coming out in the open.
Somehow I had beaten the Angel of Death. There was something different about me; that much I could feel but I still didn't know what to think about it. I could heal without touching my charge and pull souls back. Even my looks were different from everyone else. At times it seemed that the only thing I had in common with my friends was the fact that we were all Resurrectors. Most days I tried to hold onto that fact. If there was really something wrong with me then the Leaders would have dealt with that. Since I was still around it had to mean that I was supposed to be here, healing and saving lives the same as everyone else.
Otherwise I felt like an impostor.
Project Death: Resurrection Page 7