The Azureans

by R Gene Curtis

  “Dying?” The word is colder than the frozen floor. Jarra can’t die! Not after everything Mara has done for him.

  “He’s very sick.” Mara’s voice cracks and her body shakes. She puts her arms around my shoulders and I hold her. Her tears wet my shirt and her grip crushes my ribs.

  What can we do? I’m in this strange world. There aren’t doctors or medicine here. You can’t just pop some amoxicillin and expect to be better. We’re miles from the portal, a path that is impassible with all the snow anyway.

  The only thing I can think to do is to try hemazury. But I only know how to heal wounds, not sickness.

  But I have to try. “Maybe I can help,” I whisper. It’s more of a wish than anything else.

  Mara wipes at the tears in her eyes. “Would you try? I’m sorry I woke you, but I couldn’t watch him die, not without talking to you first.”

  “Thank you for getting me.” I squeeze Mara’s shoulder as she steps back. “I can’t promise anything, but I’ll try.”

  Mara, who is scared to death of fuma skins, touched one to shake me awake. Despite the desperate situation, she’s trying to be brave. I need to be brave, too, and to keep a level head.

  I need to save this little boy.

  I pull the blanket off Jarra’s face. He lapses into a fit of coughing once exposed to the frigid air. He has grown a lot. I feel like Rip Van Winkle.

  “What’s wrong with him?” I kneel next to his small frame and gently touch his hot forehead. I don’t sound like a doctor; my voice is trembling too much.

  “He can barely breathe. The sickness is in his lungs. Every breath he takes sounds like it will be the last.”

  My eyes fill with tears, but Mara doesn’t need sympathy right now. She needs action. I come from a world where disease is understood. Doctors train for decades to cure disease and help little boys who have lungs full of fluid.

  Am I acting irresponsibly, thinking I can heal him?

  I have to try. I have killed with hemazury; I saved Ler’s life. I healed my knee. I know a little about pneumonia.

  The floor is cold against my trembling fingers, yet my hands are sweaty. I feel the dirt beckoning, and I become the dirt. I send my consciousness into Jarra’s body.

  Microbes. There has to be a lot of them, and I need to get rid of them. But, I don’t find any—my vision is limited to bigger pieces of tissue. If I remember right, a bacterium is only the size of a single cell. I’ve never seen a body with that much resolution using hemazury. I try now, but I can’t.

  I nearly pull back. If I can’t see what I’m doing, there might not be anything I can do. But Mara is sitting next to me, her eyes glued on her son.

  I don’t want to let her down.

  If I can’t see the bacteria, how do I get rid of them?

  My frustration level grows as I look at the same pieces of tissue over and over again. Jarra’s lungs are full of fluid and mucous. The coughs rack his body in regular intervals, shaking the fluid and mucous inside the lungs. I see little sacks in the lungs, vying for air, but blocked by all the gunk.

  If I could get all of the fluid out, it would help him breathe. I could get rid of the fluid, clear the lungs, and heal the damaged tissue. That would at least help him get more oxygen than he’s getting now. And then maybe the healed tissue could fight away the sickness.

  I start clearing the gunk away from the tissue, working carefully and concentrating harder than I’ve ever had to concentrate before.

  Mara’s scream nearly breaks my concentration. I push my consciousness back into Jarra’s lungs.

  Then she knocks me backward, and I lose the connection.

  “What have you done to my baby!?” she yells. Jarra is squirming on the ground, choking. I stare at him in shock. How?

  “He can’t breathe!” Mara yells.

  Oh no! I must have been paying too much attention to the bottom of the lungs and clogged his windpipe with the fluid I was trying to clear out.

  I push back panic and reach down to wipe dirt off the floorboards. I need to clear his windpipe. Now. I wasn’t paying close enough attention to what I was doing.

  “No!” Mara clutches Jarra to her chest and backs away from me. “You’re not touching him again.”

  “I have to Mara, he’s choking.” I reach out, but Mara pushes me away and opens the door to run away. But instead, she trips and falls onto the floor, crying too hard to get up.

  Thanks to Cylus’s last piece of advice, I know what to do. I bite my finger until I draw blood, and I throw my consciousness back into Jarra’s body. Somehow, it works—I’m back in that little body. I feel him fighting. I feel him dying.

  I have a hard time keeping my concentration—I’m stressed and Jarra continues to struggle. I take deep breaths and tune out Mara’s wails.

  Within seconds I feel Jarra gag, and I push the mucus out of his throat. I’m sure it’s spraying all over Mara. I don’t care. I keep working, but more carefully now. I move the fluid from the lungs out the windpipe and onto Mara. Then I do it again. The windpipe doesn’t get blocked again. Jarra keeps breathing.

  After what seems like forever, the lungs are clear. I don’t know if I have killed the microbes or if Jarra will live, but I stay in his lungs for a long time, cleaning, strengthening, and healing.

  When I can do no more, I leave Jarra. He’s breathing deeply now, without coughing. Mara clutches him tightly, asleep as well.

  I nearly killed him.

  I sit up and hug my knees, rock my body back and forth in the dark. I don’t feel sleepy—I’ve already slept half of the winter.

  The scene with Jarra replays in my mind. Again and again. When I got back into him, I felt him dying. I was clumsy, slow, and painfully ignorant of human anatomy. That isn’t new—I barely got by when we were attacked in the mountains.

  But this is unacceptable. If I’m going to practice hemazury, if I’m going to have any chance against Wynn—and why am I here if not to fight Wynn—I need to understand human anatomy. I need to know my way around a human body, and I need to be faster.

  I haven’t practiced yet because I’ve felt crippled by all my questions, and I do have a lot of them. Cylus said there were three hemazuric fluids. Why only three? Why did he say to be careful with how I use blood? What does saliva do? How do I make portals, or put flowers on people?

  I need to stop worrying about what I don’t know and focus on what I do know. What I know is how to use sweat for hemazury. And I’m terrible at it.

  I need to practice, and I have the rest of the winter to do it. Because I’m not going back to sleep.

  I pick up some dirt and gently touch Mara’s toe, and I start exploring. I don’t know what everything is—I never liked biology—but I need to be an expert. I need to know what a normal body looks like inside. I need to know how to fix it, and I need to know how to break it.

  I go slowly and carefully, learning, paying attention to detail.

  When I get to Mara’s womb I find two small male fetuses, and I forget all about practicing hemazury.

  I don’t know a ton about human development. But, from what I do know, the twins are not old enough to have been there when I fell asleep.

  I close my eyes.

  My impulse is to wake Mara and ask her about it, but I can’t. How could I explain why I was feeling my way around her womb? What would she think of me if she found out I knew her secrets after only a few hours of being awake?

  I lie on the floor, but I don’t fall asleep.

  ✽✽✽

  The next morning, I wake with a dull headache. I didn’t sleep well. I think of the fuma skin rolled up against the wall in the other room, and I crave it. I stand up and jog around the room, trying to think about something else. Yes, I could sleep well, but I would never wake up again.

  Mara has hard, cold food for me to eat.

  Maybe I would rather be asleep.

  “He sounds better,” Mara says. Jarra is still breathing steadily, and I haven’t heard
him cough since I woke up.

  That is encouraging.

  “I hope so. I cleared his lungs of that fluid. Hopefully his body will fight the disease now.”

  My statement doesn’t make sense to Mara who gives me an odd look. Sometimes when I talk, I choose which words to say, meaning I communicate with words instead of thought. I think that means I’m learning the language. Most of the time, though, I still let my thoughts dictate what comes out of my mouth. I’m not sure the words always come out right when I do.

  “My little sister died when I was young,” Mara says. “She choked and coughed and got weak. Mother was so sad, she stopped doing the housework. Father was so angry! He beat her until she died from her sorrow.”

  My body tenses and I look away. Domestic violence hits too close to home. “I’m sorry Mara,” I say. “I lost my mother, too, when I was young. She died in an accident.”

  Mara’s tears drop onto the floor and freeze into ice. “You saved him,” she whispers. “He should have died.”

  “Thanks for waking me.” I take Mara’s hand. My headache still pounds, and I feel claustrophobic in the dark, small house, but I’m glad I’m awake. Mara needs me, but I need her, too. I’m alone and scared and uncertain. Sometimes I’ve thought that Mara and I couldn’t be more different. In this moment, I feel like we’re the same.

  ✽✽✽

  Snow crunches under my feet as I walk around the village. The light from my oil lamp reflects off the ice-crusted walls and ceiling of the corridor.

  The village is completely buried under ice and snow.

  I was awake when we made this corridor, of course. When the snows started, everyone moved into the center of the city. Half of the people crawled into their fuma skins and went to sleep right away. The rest of us worked around the clock for a day or two. We shoveled the rapidly falling snow into mounds and built tunnels between buildings. Eventually snow covered the village.

  Now, we’re living in a huge under-snow groundhog tunnel. Passageways just big enough to walk through; small holes leading into the few houses that are connected. Bodies are packed onto the floors in each one.

  The guard is the most important person in this village right now. His job is to keep the airways open. If the main airways close, everyone in the city dies. If a smaller airway closes, everyone in that house would die.

  So, it isn’t just one guard. They have a second, rotating guard. His job is to keep an eye on the main guard. It’s a long winter, and the main guard can get sleepy. From what I saw inside Mara’s womb, he can get bored, too.

  I want to strangle him, whichever one he is. If it’s the rotating guard, he’s probably asleep now.

  At the end of the tunnel, I find a hole leading into a house. I don’t know anyone in it. That’s good, I’m not going to explore any more bodies of people I know. I crawl through the tunnel into the house and take inventory. 25 people line the floor.

  I rub my hands on the floor and pick up some dirt. By the end of this winter, I’m going to be an expert on human anatomy. And the people in this village might have a few remedies healed. I reach my hand under the first fuma skin until I hit something warm, take a breath, and get started.

  9 Interworld

  Brit

  Today is the day. I already know some people who have finished their finals. As soon as Lydia’s roommate finishes her finals and goes home, my chance to meet her will be lost.

  Not that it matters. She probably doesn’t know anything more than I do. Still, I have to ask; I want to ask. I take a deep breath and run the words I’m going to say through my mind again. I’m lame—I bet most people wouldn’t have any problem with this.

  It seems like ages ago when I approached Lydia at the dinner table during soccer camp that night at Mount Rainier. I’m not sure why I was so brave that day, but I was lonely and so was she. I’m glad that I did it, though. Lydia helped me with soccer, helped me with my brother dying, and even gave me advice about Greg.

  I need to go today, or I may never find out what happened to her. I’ve called the police station, but they won’t give any information to a “teammate”. To be in the know, I need to talk to someone who might be closer to Lydia.

  Blushing furiously, I push the door open into the building. A couple guys sit on a couch in one of the corners. They both look up as the door opens. Do they know I’m not supposed to be here? I leave my arm on the handle and fight the impulse to run. The guys look away from me and start laughing about something else.

  Come on Brit, this is a girl’s dorm. These guys don’t know everyone who lives here. Besides, you can come in if you want—people visit friends in other dorms all the time.

  I close my eyes and hurry by the guys to the stairwell. I don’t see anyone else until I’m on the 4th floor. Room 419. Lydia’s room. I knock on the door.

  The doorknob turns and a girl opens the door. Her blonde hair is cut in a trendy style, and her makeup is done in a tasteful way. She’s cool. Way too cool for me. She glares at me, challenging me, daring me to try and talk to her.

  Well, no one else is here to explain why I knocked on the door.

  “Hi, I’m looking for Lydia.” My voice comes out confidently, even though my knees are clattering.

  “Lydia?”

  “Yeah, I’m a friend from the soccer team.”

  Her scowl softens in recognition. “Brit?”

  She knows who I am! I blush. I always blush, and I hate it. It’s bad enough that I have pale white skin with black hair. I wish that someone smiling at me wasn’t enough to give me an instant sunburn.

  “Yeah.”

  The girl steps into the hall and gives me a hug. “I’m Maria,” she says in my ear. “I was Lydia’s roommate. But don’t you know? No one has seen her for more than seven months.”

  I blush again. “I know.” That’s all I say. I don’t tell her how worried I am, or how it might be my fault if she committed suicide. I don’t tell her how I never had a better friend outside of my family until she reached out to me, or how I would have never made the soccer team and kept my scholarship if it weren’t for her. I don’t tell her any of that. I just say, “I know,” and then stand there like an idiot with tears running down my cheeks.

  Maria gives me another hug. It’s a nice gesture, but I don’t know this girl. I pull away and force myself to stop crying.

  I’m mature. Not. Oh well, I can do this anyway.

  “Come in,” Maria says.

  I follow her into the room. Lydia’s side looks like she still lives there. Her picture of her Mom is still on her bookcase. Last semester’s textbooks lie open on the desk. I walk over to her desk and flip a few pages in her textbook.

  “I asked my parents to keep paying her rent,” Maria says. “I kept hoping she would come back.”

  If only I hadn’t been so involved with Greg! I would have spent more time with her. I could have saved her. I could have helped her work through the disappointment of her injury.

  I’m not sure how to talk to this stranger. I blush and look down at my hands and shuffle my feet.

  “So, you came over to find out about Lydia?” Maria puts her hand on my shoulder. She’s smiling. Her voice seems too nice for how she looks.

  “Yeah. Have you heard anything from her?”

  “Not since she went down to Moab.”

  “Moab?”

  “You don’t know about Moab?”

  I shake my head.

  “Well, after she visited Karl in Pittsburgh...”

  “Wait,” I interrupt. She’s made me feel strangely comfortable if I feel like I can interrupt. “Who is Karl?”

  Maria gives me a confused look. “I thought it was your car she took to Pittsburgh. Didn’t you need a ride to Minnesota or something?”

  “Oh yeah. My brother died. Lydia took me to his funeral in Wisconsin, but I don’t remember if I ever asked her where she went afterward.”

  “I guess that’s understandable,” Maria says. She must think I’m pret
ty stupid to drive thousands of miles with someone and not know where they’re going.

  Still, the story doesn’t seem at all like Lydia. She went to Pittsburgh to find a guy? I wonder if she was murdered.

  “Anyway, Karl called her up and asked her to meet him in Moab. The police found Lydia’s rental car right by Double Arch at Arches National Park. She told me she was going to a passageway to another world. She was either telling the truth, or something happened to her in Arches.”

  “Where is Karl now?”

  Maria shrugs. “I don’t know. I don’t have any contact information for him, and the police confiscated Lydia’s phone, which they found near the car. I don’t know how to find out who he is.”

  I’m glad I came. It’s nice to talk to someone who knows Lydia.

  “I had a policeman come by my apartment,” I say. “He told me his name was Officer Bob, but when I contacted the campus police, no one knew who he was.”

  Maria’s face lights up. “Really? He came here, too. He asked me a lot of weird questions, but I never saw him again. Several police have visited, you might guess, but none of them had any idea who Bob was.”

  “I’m not sure he was a real policeman.” I don’t remember what I told him—did I give away important information to a stranger? Why would he care about Lydia? Was he involved in her disappearance?

  “I’m not sure either,” Maria shrugs. “But I don’t know what he could have done with any of the information I gave him.”

  “Me neither, but it’s been at least three months.”

  I look back at Lydia’s bed, lost in thought without anything else to say. This was where she lived. What thoughts did she have before she left? What people was she talking to? Did she run because she was scared?

  “Can I get your contact info?” Maria asks.

  I give her my number and say goodbye. It was good to talk to her, but I don’t know what else to say. Maria is nice. Lydia deserved a nice roommate.

  Is Maria crazy to think there might be some credibility to Lydia’s interworld travel story? I don’t believe it. Lydia must have been kidnapped or murdered by this Karl character.