(Rose)
Bleue is smiling again. Her cheeks have recovered fully their colours, though they still look a little hollow.
Her right arm with open wounds still rests in a sling and is covered with bandages we keep changing twice a day.
On morning, after waking up, she sits still and I carefully remove the bandages sticky with sweat and plasma.
Bleue’s right hand still can’t really move. It doesn’t look like it’s decaying, but it sure doesn’t look very healthy either.
She holds her arm up using her left hand and lets clean this weird flesh carefully. It grows back slowly. The bones are almost covered with flesh now. The sa goes for her open shoulder. The bone is now covered with a thin translucent skin and thin muscular fibres.
B - Thank you.
I’m wiping gently the coloured sweat that covers this new skin.
R - What for?
B - Taking such good and kind care of .
R - Of course. I wouldn’t want to let my beloved little sister decay in filth.
She stays silent as I wrap new bandages made from pieces of my old clothes. I wear naught but rags now, but I don’t mind.
B - We... are bound together.
R - Even though the world is open, I’d rather explore it with you by my side yes... If that’s what you ant.
R - In sickness and health...
Ah. That’s you alright. I lift her bluish cold hand and kiss it slightly.
R - I don’t want to think about death bringing us apart yet. Please, stay with Bleue.
Her heart jumps at those words and my actions. It echoes through her mind.
Please... Stay with ...
Her pale hand trembles in mine but can’t move. So her left hand cos instead to rest on top of mine.
B - I haven’t forgotten that. I feel vulnerable right now, but I haven’t forgotten our promise. It still holds in this new life, right?
R - Yes it does. Perhaps more than ever.
I hold her hand and help her to stand up. She’s looking at with large open eyes as I hold her.
R - We’ll keep caring for each other as much as possible, especially when we feel vulnerable.
B - Yes, please.
I smile and brush her hair with my hand. She has this shy smile she rarely has.
I will take care of you as long as you need, and keep caring for you as long as I can.
Till one day of course, the story of life will bring us apart. Not before many, many years I hope. I wish. And wishes now tend to co true.
I hold your hand as we begin walking again. I want to be with you for many years to co. As many as we possibly can.
~
My throat itches and I cough. It sounds odd when I do. The sound was unexpectedly hoarse and humid.
Bleue noticed. I’m lightly dressed as most of my clothes are her bandages now.
I must have caught a little cold.
I don’t recall ever being sick in this lifeti. I an genuine sickness, not parasites and things like that. Fever and weakness, swollen lymph, sneezing a lot...
Well... Whether I’m right or wrong, at least I know what I’m really sick from right now and it’s nothing surreal.
I cough more and more. Up to a point where I begin to feel dizzy about it.
Bleue helps to sit that day, and holds my back as I cough up to tears. My eyes hurt and I lack air in my lungs.
For a minute or so I feel like I’m suffocating.
Bleue holds as I breathe painfully, and slowly I recover my sight, my breathing and myself.
B - You’re looking feverish also. I think you should rest for a day or two.
R - I guess you’re right. I do feel awful. Will you manage?
B - I should be fine. You rest, ok?
And then I’m the one being nursed back to health now. She ventures around this countryside of hills and woods, to return with her findings in the bag over her left shoulder.
I have weird feelings. I’m shivering.
I’m feverish and it brings vivid and painful dream when I sleep.
Colours. Darkness. Monsters. Blood and flesh everywhere. An explosion of at. I can’t see where I am anymore.
Bleue screaming and fighting with rage against an invisible monster. And Licht’s gaze filled with stupor.
My mont of panic as I discovered the other roses.
As I wake up in anxiety and cold sweat, all is calm and Bleue is gently taking care of . Not unlike how I did for her before. Nothing more is happening.
R - Thanks...
I’m sweating a lot and feel awful. She simply helps .
A few days and nights pass like a drunk day dream. I’m unable to follow the ti. Sotis I’m alone in dreams. At other tis, Bleue helps survive.
Eat, drink, sleep, change clothes, loo, washing, cleaning.
B - You’re beginning to look better. I think your fever is coming down.
I rember these words clearly.
The middle of my chest itches. It feels as my left hand felt after I had lost half of it. Phantom pain was it? It hurts.
Sothing pains and hurts my heart. I grab Bleue’s hand.
R - Please, don’t go...
It’s her turn to pat my head gently and to whisper a few comforting words in my hear.
It’s only been a few days... But I already miss the sun. I miss walking with you by my side.
In this wonderful world.
Peacefully.
I don’t like these looping dreams born from sickness.
Reality feels so much better than being lost in my own brain.
~
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