It was dark in the Cattank. Dark and quiet, except for the soft sound of Reynir's ragged breath. Tuuri still hadn't gotten used to the quiet noise, and it jarred her every time he exhaled.
It had all happened so quickly. The troll had surprised everyone. It wasn't anyone's fault that Reynir had been standing in exactly the wrong place when it attacked. Of course, Tuuri still wondered if she could have stopped it. If she had been two steps to the left, it would have been her shivering under the layers of sheets. She would be the one with the rash illness. Not him. Not Reynir.
She placed the cool cloth Mikkel had given her over his brow and asked him how he was feeling.
"Not... great..." he managed to whisper, the words drifting like smoke from his lips. "S-sorry."
Tuuri wondered what he was apologizing for. Not being immune? Standing in the wrong place? Ever leaving home at all?
"It's okay," Tuuri lied, unable to stop her voice from trembling. "Sigrun and Emil and Lalli will be back soon, and then we'll see... we'll see if you can eat dinner."
Reynir nodded and let his head fall back on the pillow.
They were alerted to Sigrun, Emil, and Lalli's arrival when Sigrun flung the door open with a bang and Lalli slipped in with an air of great alarm.
"I don't like them!" he hissed as Mikkel sprayed him with disinfectant. "I don't like them, they're creepy!"
"Hiya Mikkel! We found people!" Sigrun announced.
"What?" Mikkel asked.
"Yeah, it was the weirdest thing! They were just sitting there. In the middle of the Silent World!"
Three tired humans filed into the Cattank after Emil.
"This is really against protocol... but I suppose we can't just leave them there," Mikkel observed, spraying them with disinfectant as well. "Do we have any idea what country they're from?"
Sigrun shook her head. "Nope! They haven't said a word. I guess I'd be traumatized too, if I had survived living in the Silent World."
"Hmmm," Mikkel agreed, staring at the newcomers.
All three were adults, one man and two women. The man had short, dark hair and a long nose, one of the women was short with curly red hair and freckles, while the other was blond with pale eyes. Lalli hissed whenever she looked at him.
"I don't like them," he repeated stubbornly. "Their eyes are too shiny and they have too many shadows."
"What are you even talking about?" Tuuri asked him crossly.
He didn't explain, just kept saying, "Too many shadows."
"Lalli, we've talked about this," Tuuri began, and Lalli pressed his hands over his ears in preparation for a lecture about using his words.
Tuuri gave up halfway through the halfhearted lecture as Reynir squeezed his eyes shut and stifled a whimper. It wasn't fair, she thought. Reynir was possibly the nicest person in existence. Why should he get the rash illness?
That night, as she listened to Reynir's labored breathing, she knew something had to happen, or she'd go insane. It wasn't fair. It wasn't right. And it wasn't going to happen. If the gods weren't going to do something about it, she would.
She was going to find the cure, and they were going to see if it worked. Impulsive? Maybe. But Tuuri was not going to watch Reynir die. No matter what, she was going to stop this.
She slipped out of bed, stepping over the sleeping strangers, searching the darkened tank. Then she saw a glint of glass in Mikkel's dark bag. She reached for it, her fingers brushing the glass. Then something grabbed her ankle, and she fell. As if it was in slow motion, she saw the needle with the cure fall too, shattering on the ground, scattering drops of precious amber liquid into the air. The darkness grew, twisting and writhing until it was one gigantic shadow with shiny eyes. Tuuri could see the limp forms of the three survivors at its feet. It wrapped around her, covering and filling her with freezing shadows.
"No." Tuuri heard the raspy, broken whisper through the layers of darkness. A flickering light grew in the tank. "Not... Tuuri. Go... away."The figure at the center of the light shuddered painfully and collapsed. Tuuri felt a sudden feverish warmth at her back, and heard a hissing noise. Maybe it was the ghosts laughing at how helpless they were. It was so dark and so cold. Someone was screaming her name, someone else was shouting. It sounded like Lalli. But it couldn't be Lalli, he was so quiet. Then nothing. Dark and silence.
"Well now, this is interesting." Mikkel's voice cut through the lingering dark.
Tuuri opened her eyes. Sunlight was streaming into the tank through the driver's seat window. Tuuri was huddled up against Reynir, and she realized with a start that she wasn't wearing her mask. She sat up quickly, trying to take in her surroundings. There was Lalli, seeming relieved to see her awake. "Told you they were creepy," he said.
Tuuri realized she couldn't see the three strangers anywhere.
"We have Twig-mage to thank now that we're all still breathing this morning," Sigrun commented. "Apparently those three were... they had the ghosts inside them or something?"
"Weird spirit vessels," Lalli confirmed.
"Anyway, they're dead now," Emil chimed in. "If they were ever alive in the first place, that is."
"Huh," Tuuri said, rubbing the back of her head. She didn't look at Reynir. She felt guilty enough already, seeing the splinters of glass scattered everwhere.
Then Reynir yawned, a huge, healthy yawn, and Tuuri whipped around faster than anyone else could react. The mangled, twisted, bloody rash had disappeared from his arms and neck. His hands steamed where they rested in a pool of amber liquid as the cure eradicated the last of the infection. "Good morning," he said sleepily, picking bits of glass out of his braid.
Tuuri couldn't help the happy "Eee!" that left her lips. Because it was, she thought, as she tackled Reynir with a hug. It was a good morning.
