"You do not know the value of what you throw away." The proclamation echoed in his mind over and over again. The creature seldom used words when communicating, but now it seemed that was more of a choice than a limitation.
Norman woke.
He had somehow made his way to a muddy river bank a few leagues away. An old guard had found him and was now thumping on his chest. He turned aside and retched.
The experience was burned in his mind - The memories of the Yaskh warrior.
"What the hell were you doing in the waters, boy?" The guard bore into him once he was moderately stable and had sat up.
Norman racked his brain to come up with a story, but eventually decided to just go with a version of truth, "I jumped. The pressure has been getting to me lately. I regret doing it now."
After enduring a brief lecture on the amount of effort and money the academy puts into their education and how his family would be utterly heartbroken, Norman was finally let go. After some pleading, the guard agreed not to report the incident to the academy. He had to promise that he would never try anything like this again.
While taking the pod back to the torus, and then the train back to his apartment, only one thought echoed in Norman's mind again and again: He had been denied the privilege to die. And that was unacceptable.
Arianna was waiting for him in front of his apartment. "Where the hell did you go? Do you know how many times I have called you..."
Norman stammered, "After what happened to Gorka, I couldn't bear it. I needed some air - needed to be alone." He was unable to bring himself to tell her that he had tried taking his own life.
Her eyes were red - she had been crying. "So you intended that ball to hit him? Did you really mean to kill him?"
"No". Norman replied. He braced himself for the inevitable. Some part of him knew this relationship could not go on - she was just too good for him.
"Then why didn't you push the ball towards one of your own jostlers? Why did you push it sideways where nobody was there?"
Norman remained silent. He didn't have an answer. Not one that would make sense, that is.
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"He messed with your hoverboard, didn't he? I saw how you staggered." Arianna continued after a brief pause.
"I think he did." Norman nodded.
"And you still found a way to make sure he didn't win!" Arianna was practically yelling at him now.
"I didn't intend to kill him." Norman quietly replied.
"I'd like to believe that you didn't. I'd really like to. I want to believe that you aren't capable of cold-blooded murder. But the math in front of me just doesn't add up. Do you know what the probability of such an accident is? It is the first death during Yokidon in the academy - in all its known history."
Norman told her then. There was no other option. He told her all of it. About their trip to the planet in Sector 59. About the creature who had come back. About how it had been helping her.
Arianna sat down. For a long while, she said nothing.
"We will figure out a way." she eventually said, her voice a whisper.
That was not what Norman expected to hear. But a glimmer of hope ignited within him again. Yet, he added, "I don't think I can get rid of it. I have tried Arianna, I have tried so many things... It is difficult to get rid of something that can peer into your every thought, stop your every action."
They sat holding hands for several minutes in silence. Eventually, she said, "Maybe you don't have to."
"I am sorry?" Norman looked at her incredulously.
"Get rid of it, I mean." Arianna continued, "You are the brightest student in the academy? Perhaps you will find a way to suppress it. Or even, control it?"
When Norman just continued to gape at her, she continued further, "I mean the Yaskh had coexisted with the wyrms for centuries, right? They had managed to keep it contained. It didn't spread out and take over all of humanity, yes? And it did mention it had disagreements with the Saan? They are certainly powerful enough to destroy it, if it tries to break free?"
"It is evil, Arianna!" Norman suppressed the blossoming pain in his legs, and forced through his words, "The things it is capable of. The things it had shown me. What it did to Gorka. It is dangerous to have an infestation like this hiding in plain sight inside one of the most powerful institutions in Irvania."
Arianna continued to play the Devil's advocate: "It is not asking to be unleashed, is it? Maybe it is just showing you what would happen if someone evil were to gain access to the Wyrm-field. Or what had actually happened when someone evil did access. The incident with Gorka was heinous, but I am confident you will get better at controlling it given time."
Norman looked down at the floor. He imagined the blood splatter once more. The scene of the ball crashing into Gorka's frustrated face, his skull caving in, the fountain of blood... he shut his eyes.
Arianna continued, "You know it better than anyone, Norman. No technology and no life form, at its core, is inherently good or bad. It all boils down to what it is used for and who it is used by."
Norman gazed into the distance for a while as thoughts churned in his head. Had he truly been objective? All that they had explicitly asked from him was that they wanted to find a safe haven. Could much of what he had been shown, truly be a warning? Was there a chance he actually could find a way that enabled not just him, but the Irvanian society at large, to control the wyrms?
Norman could not sleep. Long after Arianna had fallen asleep, he kept reminiscing about the words that Arianna had spoken.
Could he really envision a life where this parasite was perpetually a part of his life? He imagined the darkness pooling in the shadows of the dimly lit room. He imagined the walls cracking, the ceiling dripping with blood.
He got up and began to research more on Saan. So much of Irvanian technology relied on the alien mycelial network that was spread throughout the sub-dimensional substrate of the universe, and yet they were taught so little about it.