Chapter 30: A History Lesson
Jasmine and Xant sat comfortably on his bedroom floor, the events of the morning meditation had allowed them to take most of the day to rest and recuperate, well, for Xant to rest and recoup, Jasmine hovered to ensure her friend didn’t need for anything.
“I really am fine Jasmine,” Xant reassured her for the thousandth time, “I’m becoming quite resilient to the terrible thoughts you humans insist on keeping in your memory banks,”
“You say that as if it’s our prerogative…” Jasmine replied, sitting on a cushion.
“Prerogative? maybe not, but it certainly is becoming an accumulating factor,” Xant retorted playfully.
Jasmine shook her head with a smile, if he was able to make snarky comments then he wasn't suffering from VEFS anymore. The doctor pointed to his large steel carrying case, while removing his signature white coat.
“Would you be able to gather the data-slates? One for yourself and I,”
“Sure thing,” Jasmine agreed and opened the Essander corp case, pulling out two of the four slates from snug foam inserts, handing both to Xant for him to activate.
“You’re going to have to teach me how to read the standard galactic text,” she stated, watching the alien tablet’s icons flicker across the screen.
“In time,” he answered, pressing the required icons for the tablet to sync up with their translators, “its not entirely necessary at this stage though, the voice commands should work just fine for what you need,”
Jasmine frowned, not entirely convinced of his statement.
“Standard galactic is a complicated text written several thousand years ago for original strain Qzetillian,” Xant further explained, “there is no intuitive way for humans to read it other than learning the language outright,”
“So?” Jasmine asked, “teach me that then, humans are pretty good at learning languages. Funny though how you have everything else standardised yet have your written text esoteric,”
Xant shook his head and chuckled to himself.
“The Council still uses it as standard because most software written before the Painful Dynasty still runs on it, but when the translator is so much more efficient in conveying messages, the written word is more a nuisance for the day to day lives of citizens.” Xant looked up as he passed her the booted up dataslate, “I would be happy to teach you regardless, but when we have more time.”
Jasmine sighed, took the tablet, found a comfortable cushion and thought about her questions.
She had her own phone lined up beside her, she needed to know more about the history of the council. The pressed the green icon of GC banner, a ringed planet surrounded by several moons and felt the dataslate connect to her translator directly, like pressure in her ear popping.
“Welcome to Civnet” The pleasant gender-neutral voice echoed in her head, “what are you searching for today?” It was the same voice the doors and computer terminals used back on Uleesia station.
‘I wonder whose voice they used?’ she thought to herself, only for the dataslate to immediately answer:
“The voice used on all standard galactic council terminals was crafted by Doctor Eve’ta Dule on day 35 third quarter year 12 of the Divided Dynasty, it was designed to be as pleasing as possible to all species so as to be easily integrated with the Universal Frequency Translator”
Jasmine blinked, the computer knew exactly what information she wanted and how to deliver it to her, finally, an upgrade from the single program use tablets she had been given.
“How many Dynasties are there?” she asked the slate, it pinged pleasantly with the answer.
“There are 8 Dynasties recognised by the council: One, Heavens, Revelation, Prosperity, Divided, Painful, Salvation and Rejuvenation, we are currently in day 126 of the second quarter, year 182 of the Rejuvenation Dynasty.”
She’d heard the aliens use ‘Dynasty’ before, but back on earth that was for the families of kings and emperors, as far as she knew the council was a ‘council’.
“What constitutes the founding of a new dynasty?” Jasmine asked for clarification.
“A new Dynasty is proclaimed after an event that changes society irrevocably, it is often announced decades into said dynasty and backdated to the time of its inception,” The informational AI responded.
“This is incredible,” Jasmine said outloud.
“Incredible?” Xant asked, looking up from his own work.
“I get it now, your tablets can only do one thing but they do that one thing incredibly well,” she held the delicate device tighter in her grip.
“It’s what they’re designed for,” Xant reminded her, “but I’m glad you’re excited.”
What they’re designed for.
Jasmine remembered that the dataslate was biotech and probably a distilled brain, that’s why it could answer her questions so intuitively. She tapped the back of the slate with her fingers and looked over at Xant, to distract herself from thinking her dataslate was a person. Even if it responded exactly like one.
“What are you researching?”
“Our conversation on judiciary concepts had me realise how much of my memory had been lost during my vassal incident, I aim to remedy that lost knowledge.” His ears lay flat and focused, “it is prudent I know what happens to citizens who go rouge,”
“‘They're removed from the population’,” Jasmine recalled, Xant nodded his head.
“...And found more ideal work environments, rouge citizens are cycled through job placement, before ending up in military facilities,” he answered relieved, “It appears only those who can hide their deviancy and refuse society become pirates in the reclamation space,”
“So, they’re rehabilitated and you can confirm that?”
“Yes,” Xant smiled, “but I will keep researching, there is a few circumstances I need to investigate,” he nodded his head back down to the slate, leaving Jasmine no longer with a distraction. It didn’t feel right, referring to a voice without a name, even the rudimentary AI back home had names. Jasmine decided GC voice needed a name too, or at least a respectful designation.
“Computer, How old is biotech?”
“Biotech has been practised since the One Dynasty, Qzetillian scientists discovered they could manipulate the DNA of their own offspring to accentuate traits. This extended to corals and cephalopods to grow larger dwellings structures, this is the first instance of genetic manipulation used to advance technology.”
Jasmine was pleasantly relieved when the voice still answered her, even if it was a little silly, it was comforting putting a name to the voice.
“Computer, How did the Qzetillians discover genetic engineering?”
“The Qzetillian original strain, was an amphibious race who learned how to use the genetic structures to their advantage from the breeding pools and their translucent eggs. They used this observation to make their species stronger, smarter and longer living.”
Well, that made sense, Laandi’s skin was grey and super thin, its easier to notice how DNA works when you can see it. They must have dedicated their entire civilisation to genetics, that also explained why Laandi was ghast at how slow human progress on the matter was, they'd been doing it for millenia at that point!
“Computer, When was the council founded?” was the next question on Jasmine’s mind.
“The current council was seated at the Rejuvenation Dynasty founding, 182 years ago, welcoming the Arvas as the 12th member to galactic standard,”
Okay, that wasn’t quite what she was asking, but it was a concise answer, Jasmine tried again with a bit more detail.
“Computer, How old is the Council as a system of government?”
“The Galactic Council was founded during the Prosperity dynasty, after 285 planets (on record) and as many species were met exploring the local star cluster. The council was proposed so that every species could have their grievances heard, trade negotiated and the future of the galaxy discussed on equal footing. Note, while it is documented in the audfiles, many species and planets were lost in the Painful dynasty.”
“Computer, How many species are apart of the council today?”
“There are 12 recognised species active in the council today, four at creator level, five at modifier level and three at user level.”
Qzetillians, the greys, Sulins giant lizards, Zenthi, psychic anteaters and the insect Arvas were all Creator level, she had seen a few other aliens aboard Nako’s ship, but she didn’t really get to interact with them. From 285 to just 12, the devastation was harrowing.
“Computer, What is the name of species who are tall and with white fur coats and black eyes?” The soldiers who had escorted her through the tube system, the ones Rynard had called ‘Vat fresh’.
“The Savori, Modifer level, original habitat an arctic moon, the Savori’s most outstanding feature was their ability to communicate via raido waves,”
“What are the names of the other Galactic council Races?”
“Crenek Modifier, Khiitarish Modifier, Lobodi Modifier, Falmanaus Modifier, Umin’gi User, Lilii User and Talphor User,”
It was like having a pokedex on different alien species, soon to add two more in the sway, humans and dogs. She’d have to take the time to learn everyone of them.
“Computer, What are the goals of the council?”
“The Council’s current goal is the rebuilding of the galaxy to its prosperity dynasty productivity. Restoration is at 32% former levels, gaining .2% each [year], projected completion in 340 [years],”
Jasmine put the tablet down in her lap.
These people were centuries away from where they wanted to be, she recalled the hologram in Laandi’s office, the hundreds of glittering planets, they wanted to restore all of that to before the war. If the size and the scope of what they were trying to do could be believed, it was phenomenal...
She looked over at Xant, engrossed in his own work.
Built for a specific purpose, they had the technology to build him exactly how they wanted, on a ‘cost effective’ scale. Would they stop doing so once they had achieved their goal?
Were they building a better future for people like him?
Jasmine put down her tablet and moved to sit beside her friend.
“Hey,” she said softly, hugging her knees as she sat, “Did you find the circumstances you were looking for?”
Xant tapped on his dataslate, sharing the link with her translator.
“I believe so yes,” his voice was equally as soft, “Research seems to indicate that many instances of deviant behaviour arises from stress accrued from the environment, mental capacities over estimated or underestimated from training testing. Its actually a far more common occurrence than I realised, affecting nearly 1 in 50,000 citizens…”
“Huh,” Jasmine pondered, “that's actually really high,”
“It is,” Xant confirmed, “Under stimulated citizens were quickly rehabilitated with more challenging work, trained to take on more responsibilities or more complicated equipment, while over-stressed individuals respond well to lower capacity work, but…”
“But?” Jasmine prompted,
“But the most in demand low capacity work is in shipping logistics, the report ends quite abruptly, suggesting that over stressed individuals be sent to sites with high military surveillance, but the conclusion appears to be on Milnet instead of Civnet.” Xant sighed disappointed.
“I mean, I get it,” Jasmine reasoned “If shipping is anything like it is back on Earth, its long boring hours watching the goods be shipped, shouldn't be too complex until you get into port-”
“If you ever make it to port,” Xant interrupted, his ears and tail stood on end, Jasmine had to jump back as his whole body became stiff, the rippling swells of his Freq lashing out.
“What is it Xant?” she asked, worried about his mental state, he was still adjusting to human levels of emotion.
“Pirates, thats why theres so many pirates in the Reclamation,” he jumped to his feet, angry at himself for not realising it sooner, “they were literally sending rouge citizens to work the logistic routes, without proper monitoring they'd be in the best position to desert or join an armada with a ship and cargo on board. Why would they determine that to be a solution at any stage of the process? Why was it even considered as an option?”
“Are pirates that big of a problem?” Jasmine asked.
“Yes…” Xant almost growled under his breath, not as Jasmine but at the sheer audacity of the society-planners thought process “Nako was hunting Pirates when he found you, it is what this whole military facility exists to do, to protect the fragile peace from those who would ravage it. Ships carrying life sustaining goods to establishing planets are targeted relentlessly by pirates who cannot produce the goods themselves,” The doctor was quite heated about the subject.
“So they have to make soldiers to stop them, which is more pressure on the GC resources, which then dont get used in restoring planets,” Jasmine figured out loud, holding her knees tighter. Greater politics, the stuff that happened in the background that she wasnt privy to, yet still impacted her life.
“Exactly,” Xant ran both hands over his ears, shuddering his tail from its tension, “compounded with Pirate princesses from the Imperium, we’ll soon be fighting over inhabitable planets with rouges and we’ve had enough war.”
Enough war, Jasmine understood that stance well enough.
“Princesses are like me, right? Super powerful Freq users, emotional too?” She’d been referred as one countless times by other Arvas, imagining someone like herself on the war path and how much damage she could do if she wanted to.
“Deathly so,” Xant confirmed “and thankfully small in number, but when one goes rouge it is usually of great loss to the imperium. They can sway entire armadas with them, swarms onto themselves loyal to their Princess, pray to The One they don’t take a maiden with them and start their own lineage,”
It was fascinating listening, there were so many moving parts to the world outside the Military Branch, Jasmine wondered if she would be able to see them once the negotiations were done.
“Wait, maidens and princesses aren't the same thing?” she asked.
“No, maidens are fertile and become queens, Princesses lose fertility for the sake of amplified Frequency control, often a Princess chooses a suitor for a maiden, but Princesses lead the imperium colonies,”
Jasmine could feel herself reaching information overload, rubbing her temples. A lot of how she was being treated made sense now, why Dr Jess and the others on Uleesia station were so worried about her ‘going rogue’, Why Nako was so nice to her and how quickly they had her moved to a military facility, they had precedent for this sorta thing.
“You know, I think we making good progress, a lot more things have started to make sense,” Jasmine relaxed a little, “I’m starting to see the bigger picture, and its a hell of a picture,”
Xant folded his arms behind his back and tilted his head in acknowledgement.
“It is, but one we are starting to get the grasp of,” Xant walked over and lifted his dataslate from off the floor, “The last answer to my questions only just out of reach,” he offered Jasmine a hand to help her off the floor, a fond smile in his eyes “We’ll have to arrange with the Lieutenant to get access to the Milnet.”
“And whats the question?” Jasmine asked as she reached for his hand, Xant answered with determination in his voice.
“Where do military grade altered citizens, such as myself, get stationed?”
-*-
Chapter 31: Psychic Damage
Ryo didn’t want to open his eyes.
His body felt like lead, his brain caught in a vice, slowly squeezing his brain to the point of torture.
He’d had migraines like this before and they were never pleasant to deal with, let alone face the outside world at the same time, but he had exhausted his resistance, his stomach and bladder screamed at him, one to be filled the other desperate to be emptied.
‘Can’t even face the day, coward…’
The voice hissed at him, a whisper in his ear and a knot in his chest.
Ryo forced his body to move, dragging his legs over the bedside before he finally pried open his eyes. The dark of his bedroom gave the shadows more license to move, they shifted and slid without sound from the corner of the room to the corner of his eye.
Always there, never welcome.
He decided to kill two birds with one shower, water to drink and a place to piss. He felt around for the taps but not the light switch, even the brightness from the window was enough to cause painful pulses behind his eyes. The hot water hit his skin and did nothing to relieve the pressure in his head, yet Ryo stood there hoping in vain that it would change. He let the water flow over his face and drip into his mouth.
It stank of chlorine and tasted of plastic.
Old water, stagnate water, tank water that’s been sitting for god knows how long.
‘Just perfect for you…’ the voice jeered again.
Ryo closed his eyes even in the dark, he was forced to hear the truth, he didn't have to look at it.
He haphazardly threw on a dark t-shirt, sweatpants and hoodie, pulling over the hood to keep his head warm, before heading down to the kitchen, to search for some paracetamol. No drawer in the stainless steel room was left unopened, in the end, he found some forgotten blister pack of ibuprofen, 6 tablets left in the tab. It wasn’t exactly what he wanted, but it was better than nothing, either they did work (anti-inflammatory relieving the pressure in his head or relaxing the tension) or the placebo effect would get him through.
He swallowed them dry and shoved the blister pack back into his pocket.
Ryo stood in the kitchen for a few seconds, trying to decide his next move, he didn’t want to go back into his bedroom with the shadows jeering at him all day.
Then he remembered the speakers up on deck.
Little Miss Sunshine had an entire band set up plugged in, amps base and everything, he figured he could find some sort of music to play and help him drown out the world around him.
Ryo shuffled his way up the stairs without having to open his eyes more than necessary, it wasn’t long before he met his first, big obstacle.
“Hey, Ryo!”
Sunshine and Beau were already on deck. Even with his eyes closed, she was still too damn bright. She waved at him and said something, but his brain wasn’t in the mood to listen to any voice other than his own. Ryo didn’t wave back and contemplated turning around but he hated the shadows more than her, he’d just stay out of her reach until the migraine went away.
He raised a hand in the least amount of effort of acknowledgement and walked through the bar to the speakers.
She was still trying to talk to him, choosing a wide birth and no eye contact as his answer.
Sunshine wisely took the hint and returned to talking to her alien sycophants.
Ryo was left alone to inspect the sound system, a couple of the guitars lay in cases but a car stereo had been ripped out of a dashboard and placed neatly between the amps.
Several CD files were splayed open, he searched through their contents.
Everything was in English or Portuguese, smatterings of other international disks but nothing before 2010. Old tech, old songs. Ryo then decided if he couldn't listen to his own music, he was going to listen to something loud.
He picked something at random, a disk with blood, skulls and spikes on the cover and let it autoplay. Norwegian death metal shrilled in his ears, and it wasn’t nearly as bad as he was expecting, but it was enough to drown out the latent words of the shadow.
He sat back on one of the sunbeds on deck and finally took notice of what Beau and Sunshine were doing.
Beau was shirtless, holding up padded gloves for Sunshine to hit. She was in a loose shirt and shorts throwing punches in time to the music.
Beau was teaching her how to box while the aliens watched with amazement at the demonstration. Ryo gritted his teeth in disgust.
It was fucking pathetic.
What the hell were they doing? They were sitting on an alien spaceship, that they were free to explore and all they can think to do is stay on a yacht and pretend to punch each other…
It wasn’t what he would do.
He’d seen the other items in the hangar, the fabricators, the crates of weapons, the fighter ships, just sitting there while dull alien scientists got them working again.
It wouldn’t take much force to take a ship, hell, if Sunshine asked they’d probably just give it to her.
But no, they were stuck playing pretend that everything was ‘fine’.
‘Like you’re any better…’ the dark voice cackled, ‘why haven’t you taken a ship yet hmmm?’
While the death metal band blasted themselves into a sick rift, Ryo turned the music up.
The loudness itself didn’t drown out the voice completely, but the ringing afterwards helped.
Little Miss Sunshine stopped sparing and walked over to the speakers, turning it down enough that she could talk to him.
“Hey uhh, you doing okay?” she asked him.
Ryo barely looked up.
He felt like shit.
“I’m fine” he lied.
“Oh, well, did you want to join us?” She offered him a set of gloves.
“No,” he lied again.
“Oh, okay well, if you change your mind…” she left the gloves on the floor beside him and walked back to the others.
Ryo felt the wave of warmth fade as she turned around, it was a small reprieve from his headache, which was lost the moment she wasn’t in range. The pain came flooding back and he rubbed his temples.
The music level was low enough the voice began creeping back in.
‘Coward…’ it hissed, lingering in his ear, ‘like you’d have a chance anyway…’
Ryo’s eyes watched as Jasmine threw another punch into Beau’s hand, as she changed stances, as her shorts shifted when they threw a punch.
She wasn’t shy about showing off her legs.
He bet her thighs were soft.
‘She’d do the aliens before she’d even touch you…’
Ryo turned the music back up.
He felt her before he saw her.
The bright heat became like the unforgiving summer sun, determined to burn him for his digressions. Jasmine stormed over to the speakers and ripped a cable from an extension cord, the music died instantly and she threw the cord down in frustration.
“What?!” she demanded, hands on her hips and slightly out of breath.
Ryo’s heart flew into a panic while the rest of him wanted to fall into a hole and die, she hadn't heard that, had she??
“What?” he answered dully, getting ready to dive into his own grave.
“What the fuck is your problem?” Jasmine demanded again, “I get that you’re not happy with your situation but sitting there pretending you don’t want our attention isn’t fucking healthy.”
The relief that she hadn’t heard what the voice had said was brief, cause her anger caused the sun to burn with more than just heat, her frustration seared his senses.
Too hot and too bright.
‘Fine, you want to know my problem?’ he growled through his mind, he stood from the sunbed and glared from bloodshot eyes, ‘My problem is that you’re pretending like nothing’s wrong,’
“Fucking what?!” Jasmine shouted, giving him a chance to reword his answer before she ripped into him, but Ryo didn’t.
‘You heard me, idiot” he replied, feeling the punch of the swear as he fired back at her “You’re over there, all smiles and sunshine while we’re prisoners aboard an alien ship, and you have the audacity to think this is okay.’
Ryo’s words felt like poison dripping from his mouth, while she was the blazing sun he was the darkness lashing out from the depths.
“Well, what the fuck do you want me to do then?!” with her statement came a flash in his brain, a vision of her alone, small and lost, “I can’t do anything until the councillor arrives!”
‘Why the fuck are we waiting for the ‘councillor’?’ he fired back, the memories behind his words, the monstrous things he had seen and felt these aliens do, he saw her eyes flicker as he mind-screamed back, ‘Why the hell haven’t we commandeered a spaceship and left this god damned hell hole?’
Jasmine clenched her fists, ready to bite back.
“And then what genius? Be chased for the rest of our lives? Charge out into the void of space and go where?!” The vastness of space hit him like a truck, the emptiness, the infinite, the chances of being alive under such circumstances... The desperate need to find security.
“We’d fucking starve before we got anywhere. I’m trying to forge alien-human relations-”
‘Forge alien-human relations?’ He remembered the clinical room where they cut his head open, the cold, callus words of the so-called ‘doctors’ ready to dissect him alive. There were no relations as far as he was concerned, ‘You’re prancing around like a goddamn idol, sucking up the adoration from these stupid fucking monsters. You haven't done anything worth a damn!’
Ryo threw the evidence in her face, when she was laughing and singing, trying on different outfits and lounging around the yacht, she could have been doing so much more to help them escape from this nightmare.
“Oh, I haven't done anything worth a damn?!” Her voice raised louder, fury burning hot, “You’ve been nothing but a selfish asshole the entire time you been here!”
Ryo saw visions of himself, the disgusted look on his face when she offered him a drink, the harsh shove he gave her when they first met, when he accidentally shot the back window of her car...
“You think you’re the only one with trauma?! You think you’re the only one who is scared and angry?!” she cried, voice cracking under the pressure.
He saw the fear.
Her body splayed open on the table.
The needle in her eye.
The indifference they treated her with.
Ryo stumbled back, blinking his eyes furiously to remove the images planted in his brain. she knew, she knew all of this and still wanted to play ambassador?!
‘At least I’m not pretending I’m the goddamn saviour of the universe! These aliens are dispicable monsters, they don’t care about you!’ Ryo felt the memories coming to him easier, throwing them like weapons, to show her the truth, to hurt her with it. ‘They’ll cut you up the moment you’re not useful to them, and you would offer us up on a silver platter.’
He showed her the cryo-vats, the thousands of decaying bodies, the insect soldiers dying to capture him and Beau, and the white caped captain who finally did.
Jasmine’s clenched fists opened and wrapped themselves around her, to protect herself.
“You think I don’t know how precarious our situation is?! Do you have any idea how this world fucking works?!” she covered her eyes to stop the tears.
Ryo was bombarded with faces and names, hierarchy structures and contract codes.
Executive Directors, Companies, Galactic Governments, Imperium, Princes, Princesses, Rangers, Knight Commanders, Engine Lords, Pirates, Rouges, Creators, Modifiers, Users, DNA Contracts, Citizenship, Progenitors, Benefactors… An entire world was shoved into his brain. He stumbled, crashing into the sun beds behind him as he struggled to digest the information.
“It’s horrifying, every time I learn something new I have to try not to break the fuck down!” She screamed, her voice cracking with despair.
The Rajava’s holographic spectre consumed the universe.
Melting those she loved with acid and made new into unthinking, unfeeling zombies.
“I thought everyone was dead, I thought the Rajava wiped everyone out…”
Earth was alone and lost.
Humans would rather burn the world than suffer such a fate.
The unsaid words her heart believed.
“I did what I needed to survive before I got sliced up for a production line! You’re right, I am pretending everything is okay, because if I felt how I really felt I would have accidentally killed everyone on this station already!”
She showed him the Doctor’s she injured and paralysed.
Their bodies lying unmoving by her own hands.
The pain she had caused Xant…
Jasmine’s body slumped forward, breathing heavily from the screaming.
Ryo sat stiff, his body like stone, eyes cast down to the floor.
He was so tired.
So angry.
He just wanted all of this to stop.
‘You’re weak and a coward…’ Ryo’s voice involuntarily growled, ‘Crying won’t help you now, get the fuck up-’
He felt a tickle creep up his cheek.
A coldness wrap around his throat.
The shadow formed in front of his face and his father’s voice screamed at him.
‘No ones coming to save you, you’re not special, you’re a piece of shit like the rest of us!’
Jasmine screamed.
Her hands clawed at the apparition, trying to get a hold of it.
Trying to fight it.
Watching it melt through her fingers and then staring back at him.
Ryo’s eyes went wide.
She could see them, the bugs, the shadows.
He turned his head and saw the aliens freaking out, Xant trying to remove the bugs while the dinosaur literally began sinking his claws into his face and tearing into his skin.
Ryo ran.
He panicked, he had to run, he had to get away, he heard Jasmine scream again.
He tried to get off the yacht, away from the aliens away from all the psychic bullshit, but the hefty weight of Beau’s entire body mass pile tackled him to the ground.
The force of which knocked the wind out of him, Ryo could barely breathe let alone answer the man. Beau quickly and easily grabbed his arm, twisting it behind his back like he had done so many times before.
Ryo struggled to get out of his grasp, but Beau held him tight.
“Let, me, go!” Ryo tried between struggled breaths.
“No, what in the hell is happening here?!” Beau demanded. Beau didn’t have a translator, he couldn’t have felt or seen what had happened between Jasmine and him.
He glanced back over at the deck.
Jasmine was calming down the aliens while trying not to freak out herself.
He looked up at Beau, expecting him to be angry, disgusted.
But he wasn’t.
He was concerned, scared, searching for answers.
Ryo stopped struggling, his English sucked, his head hurt and non-existant bugs were crawling all over his face.
“What is going wrong?!” Beau asked again, voice filled with worry.
Like a parent.
Ryo answered Beau using the only words he knew how.
“I’m... sick”
-*-