Ani smiled all the way back to Ward E, even going so far as to get herself a chocolate chip cookie, out of celebration and peckishness. I grabbed a strawberry milkshake protein bar to tide myself over.
Dr. Lokanok was desperate to know what “gweel” meant.
Ordinarily, I was a bit averse when it came to sharing some of the more colorful bits of my life, but Ani was hardly a stranger. I genuinely enjoyed regaling her with the tale of “gweel”. At first, it left her pleasantly perplexed, not knowing how to react. But then she broke out in peals of laughter and the tension evaporated. It was a moment of pure light, as was the scene that soon played out all across WeElMed’s Wards.
Kindness is light.
There is something uniquely beautiful about kindness. To take away someone’s pain and make it your own… it’s an otherworldly feat. Kindness is a stranger, a traveler from a foreign land—someplace different; someplace better. Its flashes bejewel our moments, filling life’s awesome indifference with a warmth that is justly called sublime. It makes us weep, because it is too beautiful, and we fear that, in our fallibility, we might break it.
I felt that sublime, holy warmth as Ani and I doled out doses of kindness to people who had been convinced they weren’t worthy of receiving them. The world had convinced them of this, and—worst of all—they themselves had fallen into the same trap. We helped the children. The sick children. The frightened children. The aching children, twisting in pain. We swept them off the floor and brought them comfort. Blankets and supple sheets. Perfumed pillows. A chance to play a game on a console, or catch some episodes of their favorite cartoons.
And what we started, others quickly joined. Kindness, when contagious, was the best kind of contagion.
I only wished I could have done more. Though Hobwell had bent, he hadn’t broken. And he certainly hadn’t bent over backward, either. Children, you see, tugged at the public’s heartstrings—indisposed children, especially. After several tense minutes in a videophone call he’d held with Ani and I out of the room, Director Hobwell brought us back in to tell us that he could approve the dispensation of treatment to low-priority (that is, uninsured) patients… provided they were children. When Ani asked about extending it to adults, the Director only replied that anything more would likely end with us shot dead in a hallway.
Still, some progress was better than no progress. At the very least, we were able to bring comfort to the children and to their families—at least, those families that cared. Some brutes griped about how giving treatment to children who weren’t qualified and could not afford it was robbing rightly-earned pay from our hard-working medical professionals, or perhaps take away the rights of the more uppity parts of the public to enjoy the fruits of their labors in the manner of their choosing. I’m sure many of the old goats in the National Diet would have agreed with them, as would the wild-eyed reactionaries goose-stepping behind them. Though I wasn’t the kind of person who took to calling deeds sins, the idea that public welfare was an undeserved “entitlement” did, in my view, qualify as one. Welfare wasn’t an entitlement; it was a responsibility, and an obligation—an oasis of kindness on our parched, scorched earth.
Although split-screen news panels were almost inevitably depressing, insensate kerfuffles, I was looking forward to tonight’s debacles. Yes, I’d given Hobwell the recording, but it was not the only copy of the recording. Yes, it was dishonorable of me, but it was unfortunately all too likely that DAISHU and Hobwell would have reneged on their end of the bargain had Ilzee and CBN not brought down the hammer on Hobwell and the Board. Sad though it was, I think the only way we could have secured any more policy improvements would be if we’d gone in with footage of the hospital management—or other public servants—going around shooting people in the streets. And, as troubling as things were getting, they hadn’t gotten that bad—at least, not yet. More importantly, however small a victory I’d won, it was still a victory—a much needed victory—and that was a whole lot better than nothing.
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Fortunately for me, it wasn’t my only victory.
I sat on a bench in a hallway, resting my aching legs. It troubled me that they weren’t getting any better. I feared the ache and numbness were portent of changes yet in store for me, and I’ll be the first to admit that I wasn’t yet brave enough to look and see what was happening.
Baby steps. To keep sane… baby steps.
“Mr. Genneth!” Andalon said, happily.
The little spirit-girl sat beside me, invisible to all the world, save for me. For all that she was—and, in that regard, I was still utterly in the dark—Andalon was a child, through and through. A capricious child. A child unaware of her own strengths. Literally. But a child, all the same.
“Did you see how I did the thing?” Andalon asked, bubbling with pride. “I made bad Frank-Frank go away! It was like… booom!” She pantomimed an explosion, complete with crunching, air-cracking sound-effects.
I nodded. “Yes, I did.” I pursed my lips. “What did you do to him, Andalon? And what did you do to Aicken? Are they in the not-here-place?”
Andalon shook her head. “I wanna save everybody,” she said, “but, sometimes, people are mean and bad. Even wyrmehs can be mean and bad. When that happens, Andalon puts ‘em someplace where they can’t hurt anybody else.”
“And, back in the Hall of Echoes, that’s what you did?”
Andalon smiled broadly. “Yeah! “ She stuck her hands up in celebration.
After I’d grown a tail and broken my neck, if you’d told me that I was still in denial about what was happening, I would have happily scheduled a psychiatric evaluation for you, pandemic permitting. And yet, looking back on it, I would have been mistaken to do so. In a way, I had still been in denial.
I’d been denying unreality.
“Andalon, have you remembered anything about who or what you are?” I asked. “About where you come from?” I lowered my head in thought. “About where the dark fungus comes from?”
I wasn’t a hero—certainly, I wasn’t nearly impressive enough to qualify for that—but, I was caught up in something greater than myself. Something mysterious, and horrific, and incredible, and incomprehensible. The pandemic was just one piece of the puzzle.
I did not ask for this role, I did not want it, and—frankly—I did not enjoy it. But I couldn’t sit back and do nothing. Darkness was sweeping across the world, sowing death and transfiguration in its wake. A long Night was rising. More than ever before, suffering was oozing out from every nook and cranny. Every pained breath. Every tear, shed in heartbreak.
“The darkness…?” Andalon said, “I don’t know where it’s from. But it’s older than Andalon. And… I’ve been lost for a really long time. Really, really long.” Andalon looked me in the eyes. “I need to save everybody, before it’s too late. Before they’re all monsters, and…” Her eyes narrowed. “There’s… there’s something I need to find, Mr. Genneth. Something I’ve been looking for in all the lonely times. But,” she wept, “I don’t remember what it is!” She kicked her legs in frustration.
I nodded in sympathy. “I don’t like this situation either, but… we need to work together.” I nodded again, resolutely. “Our survival depends on it, as does any chance of getting answers.” I looked her in the eyes. “Answers for you,” I pointed at her, “and answers for me,” I pointed at myself.
“You’re really smart, Mr. Genneth.” Andalon smiled. “I like being with you.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. Did I hate her? No. Did I like her? I dunno. But, for better and for worse—come what may—we were stuck together, at least for the time being. When it was a toss-up as to whether holy scripture or award-winning manga made for a better predictor of the end of the world, you knew you were in for a bumpy ride.
I’d always told myself, if there was ever a chance that I could truly make a difference, I’d chase it all the way to the horizon. There was too much sorrow in the world. Something needed to be done about it. Now, more than ever, I needed to live up to my ideals. I hadn’t asked for any of this to happen—wyrms, powers, the Green Death—but, since when did anyone get to choose their lot in life? No: it was up to us to make the best of what we were given. And so that was what I was going to do.
How I felt about what was happening to me and to all other Type Two NFP-20 cases no longer mattered. I didn’t have to like what was happening to me for it to be useful. Heck, it was now clear that if I didn’t get a handle on my abilities first, they would get a handle on me, and, if that happened… the sky was the limit. I no longer had the option of stuffing my resentment into a dark drawer, ignoring it, and hoping it wouldn’t strike back.
It was time to get to work. And the stakes were nothing less than Hell and Paradise.