It took them a few minutes to walk through those very same empty halls and corridors that they did last time to reach Dr. Haur’s office. Emika couldn’t help but feel a little bit of tension build up, as the woman didn’t show her cards at all. Good results? Bad results? There were no inclinations either way on her face.
Which, especially in Emika’s case, likely spoke for the worse kind of result, didn’t it?
After growing her own place to sit in as she was getting accustomed to, Emika glanced at Dr. Haur, who was going through a few documents on her desk while getting ready. Finally, she started speaking.
“If it’s okay with you, I’d like to ask you a few questions before we get into it. I promise it will be short, and make sense when I’m done.”
Okay? Okay, sure. Emika said nothing, though, just keeping Dr. Haur in her gaze.
“We usually do things like these through questionnaires, but since I am not on a clock here, I’d like to talk to you openly. So, my first question to you is — did you notice any changes about your behaviour ever since the curse manifested?”
Emika stared, but this time, it was more out of confusion at the question. Had she changed? Had she been different before getting cursed?
Out of left field, she couldn’t really say she had. She didn’t feel that much different.
“I don’t know? What kind of changes would that be?”
Dr. Haur wet her lips and leaned back in her chair. “I have some ideas. If you didn’t notice anything specific that rings any bells, then I can ask you some pointed questions to help you, if that’s alright. Also, I am asking these things to help you understand your situation. I don’t mind either way if you think you have changed or not. This is only for you to consider.”
Emika simply gave a nod. This was ominous in a way, but she hoped it wouldn’t go exactly like the Viktor Felton situation with them trying to gaslight her into thinking she’s an evil monster. Insinuating in some way that her judgement is impaired.
“For example,” Dr. Haur began, “Do you get annoyed or angry quickly?”
Somehow, that question really ticked her off. She didn’t get ‘annoyed quickly’, there was just so much to get annoyed at! So it was like the Research Branch, after all. A simple repeat. At that thought, Emika wanted to smash something, but she held back.
She tried to calm down, if only to properly consider the question for a moment. Did she get annoyed quickly? Turning it around in her head, she could definitely come up with some situations lately where she’d been terribly annoyed or angry. She was angry right now, after all.
But… Even if the answer to the question was ‘yes’, was that even relevant? Because Emika felt like she was angry because other people kept making her angry. Kept shooting her in the thigh and her stomach, kept abducting or stalking and gaslighting her, and she was in a terrible situation that made her a danger to everyone around her — and she’d lost everyone she’d cared for.
She might get angry quickly, but was that a question worth considering if all the anger was justified?
As she reflected, Dr. Haur simply gave her time. She didn’t even make her feel like she needed to answer out loud. When Emika had finished her thoughts and looked up, the woman nodded at her, and then went on.
“There are a few other things, but just one more question before I show you the results, because that question at least has some relevance to us. Us, as in, our entire institution.” She frowned for a moment, took another look at one of her papers, and then asked, “Do you have any issues with recalling memories? Are you forgetful?”
Emika didn’t feel like she needed to consider this much. She was able to recall details from way back rather quickly, wasn’t she?
“Not as far as I know,” she replied.
Dr. Haur nodded, and looked slightly relieved. “That’s good.”
Maybe she hadn’t been looking forward to negotiating terms with someone who was losing their memory.
With that, Dr. Haur pulled out a small document folder and opened it up to flip through the pages. “Let’s start with the easy things. Apparently, you have two hearts.”
What?
“I think only one of them is made out of flesh, though. The other one appears to be part of your curse, but it still seems to pump blood. We can also see that the curse growths seem to be able to substitute simple body functions. There are wooden blood vessels between parts of flesh where you have been…” She trailed off, bit her lip, and then continued, “I don’t want to make assumptions, but, where you appear to have been bisected. You retain usage of your legs, so my assumption would be that it can even replicate nerve tissue to send information to and from your brain.”
Well, having that spelled out was nice, but it also seemed rather obvious. Yes, her curse was replacing parts of her body, and apparently doing a good job at that?
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“There are limits, though. It’s just wood. It remains just wood, so what it is able to do is constrained. You mentioned you don’t feel any input in your wood extremities, so it’s likely that the curse cannot create new nerve endings, just connect between existing ones. And that is what makes our main finding rather worrying.”
She pulled up a dark piece of plastic paper, and pushed it over the table to let Emika take a look. The imagery showed what looked like an intersection of a brain as shown from above, although even Emika could understand at first glance that most brains didn’t look like that.
There appeared to be a plantlike structure growing inside of it. Mostly in the centre of the picture, but there were some more in the top. Branches cutting through what seemed to be brain tissue, some closing off entire areas of grey matter, as if containing them within a fence. It looked so bad, in fact, that while the implication was clear that this was her brain, she felt like it may as well have been one of her victims’.
“That’s me?” she asked, just to make sure.
Dr. Haur nodded. When Emika placed the image back down on the table, she picked out a pen to show some of the areas. “This region here is the limbic system. It’s where, among other things, anger and inhibition are handled,” she explained, and pointed to the centre of the brain with a large branch cutting through it, with many smaller twigs embedding themselves into the surrounding tissue. “It is impossible to say if this actually impairs your emotions. It could just be nothing. Or, maybe, it affects you in a different way. The limbic system has many purposes, but I am pointing anger out specifically because it is something you may want to know. You can handle yourself as you see fit.”
Then, Dr. Haur proceeded to show a subset of the limbic system, and gave an explanation. Emika’s hippocampus had a few tiny twigs growing through it, though it didn’t look as bad as other regions. That said, according to Dr. Haur, it was possible that Emika may experience issues with her memory at some point. “Not accessing old ones, necessarily, with the current expression of the growths,” she specified. “But it may be that at some point, collecting new memories may become harder for you.”
After leaving Emika to process this for a moment, she added, “We will need to make more of these images over the next few days or weeks, if you would allow us. That way, we can see if and how fast it grows, and how much time we have left.”
“How much time we have left,” Emika echoed.
Dr. Haur nodded. “I’m sorry, Emika. Your curse takes over bodily functions when it replaces your tissue, but it really doesn’t seem like the wood is capable of emulating something as complex as brain function. Even if it is, once it has replaced your brain, what remains will probably not be you.”
That made sense to her.
“What we are looking at here,” Dr. Haur continued, “Is… well. Again, I’m sorry. But it looks like this is what you will die from.”
With a grave look, she kept Emika in her gaze, but there was something questioning about it, something apprehensive. Dr. Haur was apparently checking out Emika’s reaction.
“What is it?” Emika asked.
“How are you feeling right now, Emika?”
With a frown, Emika looked back down at her brain. “It’s confusing, I think,” she said. “A lot of information to parse through. Well, it’s not exactly news. I have always worked with the assumption that this curse will kill me. Now, I know how.”
“So, you are not afraid?”
Afraid? Right now, Emika just felt empty. What was there to be afraid of?
“Not really? It’s bothersome. I don’t want to die.”
Melisande had been right — Emika needed to make the best out of their remaining months. She wanted her to find a cure, and if anything, this would give her a concrete timetable to work with. So, wasn’t it good news, actually?
Dr. Haur placed her finger on another, small part near the centre of the image. In fact, what she was pointing at was mostly a dark web of twigs and twirling growths. “Again, I don’t know how much these growths affect your brain function so far, but this,” she tapped on the part, “Is also where we feel fear.”
“Oh…” Emika let out. Did Emika have trouble feeling fear?
She hadn’t been afraid when something grew from her wrist. She’d only been annoyed. She hadn’t been that much scared when Lester had followed her around and broken into her apartment. She’d just been angry, and even gone as far as to confront him. She hadn’t been scared about meeting that Well of Abstraction, and looking back at how that went, maybe she should have been. Research Branch, Maxime. Just angry, not much afraid.
On the other hand, it wasn’t like Emika was never afraid.
She had been an emotional wreckage the moment Melisande had been in danger. And she’d been afraid for some other people as well. Not all, not always, but sometimes, in very extreme situations. So, maybe her fear wasn’t totally gone, just very muted, and didn’t much pertain to herself. And even that… wasn’t news? She’d always been reckless.
Yes… She remembered Eva’s reaction back then when the curse had first manifested. Eva had been upset with her, but acted mostly like this was just another Emika-thing to do — and she’d been right. Emika felt like she’d always been the odd one out. Always been unreasonable to some extent. That’s how her friends had treated her too, albeit with a lot of affection.
Perhaps Emika had never felt a lot of fear, throughout her entire life. Or other emotions, even, except for anger and annoyance. She didn’t know if it made any scientific sense, but perhaps the curse had just grown into this region so easily because there hadn’t been much to be found there from the start.
In a way, none of this really changed anything. It shouldn’t change anything. Maybe she’d think about it more later, but for now, Emika couldn’t help but just stare at these results apathetically.
The one piece of information that was definitely new, the one that had surprised her the most about all of this, was that apparently, Emika actually had two hearts… instead of none.
And, the prospect of receiving a concrete time window was something to look forward to, for her planning. Then she’d know how much time she had left before turning into a mindless unkillable tree.
Hopefully, however large that time-window was, it would leave her enough room to… find a cure? Seeing all this evidence of her upcoming demise in front of her, and running through the concept of ‘time remaining’ in her head, wasn’t she still very far away from finding anything that could help her survive?
She wasn’t ready to give up on that yet. But the truth was, right then, she just wished she could see Melisande.
“Dr. Haur,” Emika started, eyes finding hers. “Is there a place on this island with phone signal?”