Post by Arihant on Feb 13, 2008 22:05:45 GMT
Arihant gulped nervously before placing one of his gloved hands against the daunting door that led into the hospital ring and slowly pushing the door open. It was finally time – he was going to be free.
To be honest, he could hardly believe it. It was really… it was too good to be true. It couldn’t be true.
Well, there was only one way to find out.
He glanced around the bustling room for a moment, trying to ascertain where best to go before he ended up looking like a gormless fool as he had done when he arrived yesterday, but he was soon saved the trouble by a small, frail-looking boy who came up to him with a helpful smile on his face.
“Excuse me, are you lost?” he asked politely.
How did he know just by looking? Did Arihant really stand out here so very much? Actually, come to think of it, he was yet to see another Indian person here, particularly one with hair as flyaway and messy as his own. Maybe it wasn’t as international as it was rumoured to be. Although…
No, that can’t be it, he thought, as he remembered the pretty Asian girl he had been speaking to the night before – she must have been Japanese, with a name like Misa Matsuyama – and numerous others he had passed in the hall on the way here who were evidently just as foreign as he himself was. It must have been something else. Some subconscious signal he was giving out in his dress or his expression or his manner – something about him was giving away the fact that he evidently didn’t belong in this wondrous place.
The school was busy already, despite the time. He guessed that a lot of the people here were early risers like himself, but he would have preferred to be a misfit in that respect as well. Many people, particularly those of his own age, realised that he was a new student, and so he walked along with his eyes studiously fixed on the ground and his gloved hands tucked in his pocket (even in February, he knew that it wasn’t normal to wear gloves indoors, but… he couldn’t not) to avoid anyone making a misguided attempt at ‘looking after the new kid.’ He just wasn’t in the mood at this time in the morning. He was pretty tired after his trip to the… what was it called? The training ground or something or other – last night. It probably wasn’t the best idea.
Then again, he hadn’t exactly been able to sleep. He’d gone to his dormitory pretty much directly after… after she’d left him. (He glazed over the thought, as he’d noticed he had a disturbing tendency to the strange, electric-y feeling shooting down his spine that he had first experienced the day before when he thought about that ethereal blue-eyed girl.) He hadn’t even been able to bring himself to look into the common room – he had found himself filled with inexplicable panic when he heard the hum of dozens (maybe even hundreds, he thought with a shiver) of his peers’ voices. The dorms had been quite empty at that time of the day, so he’d happily sat on his bed and worked at reprogramming his laptop until he heard footsteps heralding the first of his roommates’ arrivals. Then he promptly dived under the covers, bringing the computer with him, and by the time his unknown companion opened the door he was a perfect picture of innocent sleep. He wasn’t pretending for long – he guessed the journey had tired him out more than he had registered.
He hadn’t wanted to leave the dorms last night, per se, but he couldn’t bring himself to lie alone in bed listening to the snores of others for much longer than a few minutes. He was sure that if he hadn’t left he would have gone quite mad.
“Um… yes, I think” he replied to the child, who really must have been one of the youngest children in the school if he didn’t even manage to intimidate Arihant. Well, it wasn’t like he was trying. “I was looking for a” – he paused to remember the name he had heard those Englishmen say in an Austrian dive bar that now seemed a lifetime away from this magical place – “Ms Gornray?” He was sure he was pronouncing the name wrongly, but he was well used to that by now. It wasn't so bad with English, he was more used to that; German, however, had sounded atrocious when combined with his slight but undeniable Hindi accent.
“Nurse Gornray,” the child corrected, evidently amused by his mistake. “Yes, you’ve come to the right place. She just got in. Her office is the first door around that corner,” – he gestured in the appropriate direction – “and don’t forget to knock. You don’t want to do that.”
“Oh… All right,” said Arihant, slightly disarmed by the easy answer he had received. He didn’t know why, but he just… assumed that it shouldn’t be so easy. Some fantastical quest would have been altogether more appropriate, given his situation. “Thank you very much.”
The boy nodded, still smiling, and then went to talk to one of the other Carers that were milling around. Arihant wondered if they all congregated here, and then decided that if that were so it was certainly fitting that he had ended up in the battle… arena thing, whatever it was – last night.
He walked round the corner and carefully knocked the door, waiting for a call from within to permit him entrance. He wasn’t expecting her to come and open it herself.
A friendly, busy face appeared just inside accompanied by a faint, antiseptic smell.
“Ah, Arihant,” she said, not needing any noticeable pause to recognise his face. How on earth did she do that? “I was expecting you. Come on in.”
She was expecting him? This was odd. This was very very odd.
He decided not to question this strange place any more than he already had. There’d be plenty of time for reflection later when he was cured.
‘When he was cured.’ He liked that. It sounded… it sounded nice.
He followed her into the office and let her
“Now,” she said, settling herself behind an imposingly large and exceedingly untidy desk, and opening a drawer in the file cabinet beside her. She didn’t say anything else until she drew out an empty folder and turned around. “Pupil medical records,” she explained, opening the yellow card and pulling a blank piece of paper from the mound beside her. She looked up at him.
“Gracious, child, what are you doing?” she asked, when she saw he was still standing. “Sit yourself down, for goodness’ sake. I have a feeling you’re going to be here for a while. It’s lucky for you that I’m not busy.”
He swallowed and quickly tossed himself on one of the two chairs that faced her. “S-Sorry,” he apologised. Ugh. He was acting even more disgustingly nervous than usual. At least he wouldn’t have to deal with any other teachers.
“Shush, don’t apologise,” she intoned matter-of-factly, and licked the tip of her pen.
“Now, Arihant. Let us begin,” she said, straightening her page and poising her pen to write. “I presume you’ve come here to ask me for help?”
“Yes… Yes. I think I- I’m sick,” he replied. He should have rehearsed this, he realised. He had no idea what to say to her – what if he incriminated himself? She could send him back to Austria – to India! But there was no way he could lie here… Not if he wanted to be fixed properly.
“Really?” she asked, with faint surprise, and wrote something down on her paper. “And so soon after your arrival, poor thing. You have my sympathies. Symptoms?”
“Um, I- Well-” Her business-like matter caught him slightly off guard. He hadn’t been to a doctor in over four years, after all. “I don’t know if there are any symptoms,” he ended up answering, rather pathetically.
“You don’t know?” Well, that was the wrong thing to say, clearly. He remembered teachers in primary school who had been equally irritated with his occasional lack of decisiveness.
“There… there aren’t any, I don’t think.”
And that didn’t rectify the situation at all. She looked at him with a steely glint in her eye. “So, you’ve come here to tell me that you are sick without having any evidence to suggest you are so?”
“I- There is evidence, just not… not symptoms.”
She was silent. He was just digging himself in deeper and deeper. “I think it’s more a… a condition,” he tried saying, hoping that it would calm her down a little.
“A condition?” Well, that had worked. Very well, actually. She just seemed surprised now. “But Arihant you didn’t mention any allergies on your application. Or asthma, or diabetes, or-”
He interrupted her, sure she had the wrong idea. “No, it’s not an… it’s not an allergy.”
“Then what is it?” She was annoyed again.
“I…” He swallowed again, no idea how to go on. How could he tell her? He’d never told… he’d never told anybody.
“You…?” she prompted him, growing further impatient. She seemed rather volatile, really.
“I can’t touch people,” he blurted out awkwardly.
That was that, then. No going back now. No going back ever.
She looked at him for an interminable while, incredulous but not shocked. Why wasn’t she shocked? Had she seen… other people like him?
No, she couldn’t have. No one else could have had this. It wasn’t normal. He wasn’t normal. There wasn’t anyone like him.
“And you want a cure for this?”
Arihant started a little. Was this it? Was it going to be so very easy – so unbelievably simple – again?
“Y-Yes. I do.”
“Well, I’m afraid that’s not feasible,” she said shortly, and wrote something else down on her page.
It was too easy.
“It’s… it’s not?” he asked, practically whispering, practically begging. He felt as if someone had slapped him across the face.
She looked at him, perhaps alarmed by the tone he was using. She seemed to try and search his face for a moment for some inkling of how best to continue, and soon seemed to find it. She set down the pen she had been writing with and glanced shortly at the door before briskly saying – “Arihant, I feel that before I continue to talk to you I should warn you that this school has a much greater knowledge of your circumstances than you might presume.”
Oh God. Oh God he thought as he began panicking. They knew – they knew – how did they know? How could they possibly know? He had been so careful, so very, very painstakingly careful not to give anything away, never to be sloppy, never to be suspicious – how could they know? He hadn’t even been here for a day yet and already they knew. How could – how did they do it? It wasn’t fair – wasn’t humane, wasn’t human, d*mn it!
His voice came out so strained and tense he hardly recognised it as his own. “Y-You- How?”
The nurse smiled placidly and enigmatically, seemingly oblivious to his distress. “Orchid has its ways, and never you forget it. Of course, we haven’t violated your privacy in any way – that would be unethical, and we take ethics very seriously, never fear – but we have obtained truthful answers for all the details you… would have misled us about in your application.”
She paused for a moment and realised how frantic he was becoming. “Don’t worry, you’re not in trouble,” she said, by way of comfort, but that effect was pretty much ruined by her next sentence. “Well, that’s glazing over it a little – we shan’t hand you over to the authorities. Not until you give us good reason, anyway.”
He would have been a lot more comforted if she’d said ‘if’ instead of ‘until’. And if he actually believed her, come to mention it. They had no reason not to turn him in, none whatsoever. He was sure he was doomed – he expected to hear sirens come wailing behind him at any moment, despite that behind him lay many hundreds of feet of building that would not easily be traversed by police vehicles. He never did well with sirens. He had always tensed when he heard them, and when he was younger he had even started to cry.
He was so scared of being caught, even though he had so little left to lose. He couldn’t give up on life so easily.
He should leave this place before he lost what he had left.
“Well, evidently you’re not convinced of this just yet. I won’t worry; it’ll come in time. But I’m very sorry to have to inform you that there are no cures for your powers, Mohana.”
And there they were, predictably – he blinked furiously to clear the tears that clouded his vision at the mention of that old name. He wasn’t that person anymore. He never would be again. “Please… please don’t call me that.”
“Very well, Arihant, I assure you I have no particular preferences.”
He paused for a while, trying not to think about the police for now. There was so much happening – and he remembered, there was no cure, and there was no hope if there was no cure. He had to ask one more time.“ You’re sure? There’s… there’s nothing?
She folded her arms and tipped back her chair, reminiscing. “Many have asked me the same thing before. None with powers quite as destructive as your own – or at least, as destructive in such a restricting way. I haven’t found one that could be cured yet. It’s… it’s not a disease.”
Liar.
“Well, I can see you don’t believe me about that either. That is unfortunate.”
No cure. No hope. No love. No life.
What did he do now?
“I… I have to go.”
“Not just yet, Arihant,” she said sternly. “We need to discuss something.”
He couldn’t leave, though. He was always too easily persuaded, he knew that. He should run now while he has the chance. Run, for God’s sake!
Not just yet.
“I am aware that the principal reason you came to this school at all was for a cure, and I’m sorry to disappoint you on that front” – she did sound sorry – “but I hope you do not wish to abandon Orchid altogether.”
How idiotic did she think he was? He was easily persuaded, but he wasn’t gormless. “I’m too dangerous to stay here,” he muttered through gritted teeth.
“The faculty is not so sure about that, actually. Do you think we would have accepted you if we thought you were responsible for those people’s dea-”
“Please,” he begged her. Please don’t talk about them. I can’t… I just can’t.
She paused, aware of her mistake, but not for long. “We cannot stop you from leaving,” she continued, “but we think it would be good for you to stay here. We do not think that you are as dangerous as you imagine.”
OK, so she was an idiot. It didn’t make much difference either way. He did nothing but stare at her incredulously.
“You have shown yourself to be remarkably cautious in your past behaviour, Arihant, little though you may think it,” she tried to persuade him. “After all, you’re wearing the gloves as we speak.”
“That was… that’s just a necessity,” he mumbled, embarrassed that people were noticing them. But what did it matter when they were going to-
He couldn’t even finish thinking that. And why did he believe her? Why did he think that she wouldn’t hand him over to the police? He didn’t manage to stay alive by trusting people. No one could trust him, anyway.
But he still didn’t think that they were going to betray him, and he didn’t know why.
“Because you didn’t want to hurt anyone else,” she finished for him.
“Of course.” It would kill him if he ever did that to anyone else. He knew that as surely as he was sitting there. He would die with them.
“You see?” she said, satisfied that he was right. “You are careful. And we have numerous other students here with very dangerous powers. It’s an unavoidable issue with a school of this nature.”
He was silent. He had no idea what to say. What to do.
“We think it would be advisable for you to stay here with others who will underst-”
He began to protest, but she waved a hand to quiet him.
“Who will at least in part be able to empathise with you.
“We’d just want you to be careful with them as you have been with everyone else. And to tell them of what you can do. That would only be fair.”
That was ridiculous. It was ridiculous. No one could understand – he pitied any poor fool who could have suffered enough heartache to even partially understand what he’d lost. Only someone on death row could understand his guilt.
And yet… and yet why did he get the feeling that someone could? Someone he’d already met. Someone whose face sent shivers down his spine.
He really was delusional. What the hell was wrong with him? No one could understand. He wouldn’t let them.
He couldn’t let them. He was too dangerous. It would really be better for the world if he just killed himself now. No cure. No hope.
“I’m sure you’ve already met people who you think you could be friends with,” she said, and Arihant started. Could she read his thoughts? He… It sounded ridiculous, but if there was anyone who could, they’d probably be in this school. Maybe she was just used to teenagers. “I’m sure you don’t hate the environment you’ve found here. I would certainly be sick of the fear and squalor you were living in before.”
“It wasn’t… that bad,” he said weakly.
“Well, irregardless, I think you should consider remaining,” she said, with the confidence of someone who wouldn’t even consider the possibility of their request not being granted. “I know it’s a big decision. You may take a few days to make up your mind, if you want.”
“All… all right. I’ll consider it, I promise you.”
Yes, he’d consider it. As of now, he had no idea whatsoever what he wanted, what he needed, what he should do for the greater good. He had to consider it.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t able to help you in the way you wanted,” she said, with an air of finality that told him quite clearly that their conversation was over.
“No, it’s- it’s OK.”
It wasn’t. It really wasn’t.
“Thank you very much, Nurse Gornray.”
Thanks for nothing.
“It was my pleasure,” she replied, and turned back to her filing cabinet. She placed Arihant’s file – marked Mohana Dayakara, he noticed, flinching violently – in its rightful position and began searching through the pile of pages on her table as if he wasn’t there. Time for him to go, he guessed.
He left the room quietly and stood motionless outside.
And what should he do now?
He should run.
He should hide.
He should leave.
He should stay.
There was no cure. There was no hope.
So why did he feel like there was?
To be honest, he could hardly believe it. It was really… it was too good to be true. It couldn’t be true.
Well, there was only one way to find out.
He glanced around the bustling room for a moment, trying to ascertain where best to go before he ended up looking like a gormless fool as he had done when he arrived yesterday, but he was soon saved the trouble by a small, frail-looking boy who came up to him with a helpful smile on his face.
“Excuse me, are you lost?” he asked politely.
How did he know just by looking? Did Arihant really stand out here so very much? Actually, come to think of it, he was yet to see another Indian person here, particularly one with hair as flyaway and messy as his own. Maybe it wasn’t as international as it was rumoured to be. Although…
No, that can’t be it, he thought, as he remembered the pretty Asian girl he had been speaking to the night before – she must have been Japanese, with a name like Misa Matsuyama – and numerous others he had passed in the hall on the way here who were evidently just as foreign as he himself was. It must have been something else. Some subconscious signal he was giving out in his dress or his expression or his manner – something about him was giving away the fact that he evidently didn’t belong in this wondrous place.
The school was busy already, despite the time. He guessed that a lot of the people here were early risers like himself, but he would have preferred to be a misfit in that respect as well. Many people, particularly those of his own age, realised that he was a new student, and so he walked along with his eyes studiously fixed on the ground and his gloved hands tucked in his pocket (even in February, he knew that it wasn’t normal to wear gloves indoors, but… he couldn’t not) to avoid anyone making a misguided attempt at ‘looking after the new kid.’ He just wasn’t in the mood at this time in the morning. He was pretty tired after his trip to the… what was it called? The training ground or something or other – last night. It probably wasn’t the best idea.
Then again, he hadn’t exactly been able to sleep. He’d gone to his dormitory pretty much directly after… after she’d left him. (He glazed over the thought, as he’d noticed he had a disturbing tendency to the strange, electric-y feeling shooting down his spine that he had first experienced the day before when he thought about that ethereal blue-eyed girl.) He hadn’t even been able to bring himself to look into the common room – he had found himself filled with inexplicable panic when he heard the hum of dozens (maybe even hundreds, he thought with a shiver) of his peers’ voices. The dorms had been quite empty at that time of the day, so he’d happily sat on his bed and worked at reprogramming his laptop until he heard footsteps heralding the first of his roommates’ arrivals. Then he promptly dived under the covers, bringing the computer with him, and by the time his unknown companion opened the door he was a perfect picture of innocent sleep. He wasn’t pretending for long – he guessed the journey had tired him out more than he had registered.
He hadn’t wanted to leave the dorms last night, per se, but he couldn’t bring himself to lie alone in bed listening to the snores of others for much longer than a few minutes. He was sure that if he hadn’t left he would have gone quite mad.
“Um… yes, I think” he replied to the child, who really must have been one of the youngest children in the school if he didn’t even manage to intimidate Arihant. Well, it wasn’t like he was trying. “I was looking for a” – he paused to remember the name he had heard those Englishmen say in an Austrian dive bar that now seemed a lifetime away from this magical place – “Ms Gornray?” He was sure he was pronouncing the name wrongly, but he was well used to that by now. It wasn't so bad with English, he was more used to that; German, however, had sounded atrocious when combined with his slight but undeniable Hindi accent.
“Nurse Gornray,” the child corrected, evidently amused by his mistake. “Yes, you’ve come to the right place. She just got in. Her office is the first door around that corner,” – he gestured in the appropriate direction – “and don’t forget to knock. You don’t want to do that.”
“Oh… All right,” said Arihant, slightly disarmed by the easy answer he had received. He didn’t know why, but he just… assumed that it shouldn’t be so easy. Some fantastical quest would have been altogether more appropriate, given his situation. “Thank you very much.”
The boy nodded, still smiling, and then went to talk to one of the other Carers that were milling around. Arihant wondered if they all congregated here, and then decided that if that were so it was certainly fitting that he had ended up in the battle… arena thing, whatever it was – last night.
He walked round the corner and carefully knocked the door, waiting for a call from within to permit him entrance. He wasn’t expecting her to come and open it herself.
A friendly, busy face appeared just inside accompanied by a faint, antiseptic smell.
“Ah, Arihant,” she said, not needing any noticeable pause to recognise his face. How on earth did she do that? “I was expecting you. Come on in.”
She was expecting him? This was odd. This was very very odd.
He decided not to question this strange place any more than he already had. There’d be plenty of time for reflection later when he was cured.
‘When he was cured.’ He liked that. It sounded… it sounded nice.
He followed her into the office and let her
“Now,” she said, settling herself behind an imposingly large and exceedingly untidy desk, and opening a drawer in the file cabinet beside her. She didn’t say anything else until she drew out an empty folder and turned around. “Pupil medical records,” she explained, opening the yellow card and pulling a blank piece of paper from the mound beside her. She looked up at him.
“Gracious, child, what are you doing?” she asked, when she saw he was still standing. “Sit yourself down, for goodness’ sake. I have a feeling you’re going to be here for a while. It’s lucky for you that I’m not busy.”
He swallowed and quickly tossed himself on one of the two chairs that faced her. “S-Sorry,” he apologised. Ugh. He was acting even more disgustingly nervous than usual. At least he wouldn’t have to deal with any other teachers.
“Shush, don’t apologise,” she intoned matter-of-factly, and licked the tip of her pen.
“Now, Arihant. Let us begin,” she said, straightening her page and poising her pen to write. “I presume you’ve come here to ask me for help?”
“Yes… Yes. I think I- I’m sick,” he replied. He should have rehearsed this, he realised. He had no idea what to say to her – what if he incriminated himself? She could send him back to Austria – to India! But there was no way he could lie here… Not if he wanted to be fixed properly.
“Really?” she asked, with faint surprise, and wrote something down on her paper. “And so soon after your arrival, poor thing. You have my sympathies. Symptoms?”
“Um, I- Well-” Her business-like matter caught him slightly off guard. He hadn’t been to a doctor in over four years, after all. “I don’t know if there are any symptoms,” he ended up answering, rather pathetically.
“You don’t know?” Well, that was the wrong thing to say, clearly. He remembered teachers in primary school who had been equally irritated with his occasional lack of decisiveness.
“There… there aren’t any, I don’t think.”
And that didn’t rectify the situation at all. She looked at him with a steely glint in her eye. “So, you’ve come here to tell me that you are sick without having any evidence to suggest you are so?”
“I- There is evidence, just not… not symptoms.”
She was silent. He was just digging himself in deeper and deeper. “I think it’s more a… a condition,” he tried saying, hoping that it would calm her down a little.
“A condition?” Well, that had worked. Very well, actually. She just seemed surprised now. “But Arihant you didn’t mention any allergies on your application. Or asthma, or diabetes, or-”
He interrupted her, sure she had the wrong idea. “No, it’s not an… it’s not an allergy.”
“Then what is it?” She was annoyed again.
“I…” He swallowed again, no idea how to go on. How could he tell her? He’d never told… he’d never told anybody.
“You…?” she prompted him, growing further impatient. She seemed rather volatile, really.
“I can’t touch people,” he blurted out awkwardly.
That was that, then. No going back now. No going back ever.
She looked at him for an interminable while, incredulous but not shocked. Why wasn’t she shocked? Had she seen… other people like him?
No, she couldn’t have. No one else could have had this. It wasn’t normal. He wasn’t normal. There wasn’t anyone like him.
“And you want a cure for this?”
Arihant started a little. Was this it? Was it going to be so very easy – so unbelievably simple – again?
“Y-Yes. I do.”
“Well, I’m afraid that’s not feasible,” she said shortly, and wrote something else down on her page.
It was too easy.
“It’s… it’s not?” he asked, practically whispering, practically begging. He felt as if someone had slapped him across the face.
She looked at him, perhaps alarmed by the tone he was using. She seemed to try and search his face for a moment for some inkling of how best to continue, and soon seemed to find it. She set down the pen she had been writing with and glanced shortly at the door before briskly saying – “Arihant, I feel that before I continue to talk to you I should warn you that this school has a much greater knowledge of your circumstances than you might presume.”
Oh God. Oh God he thought as he began panicking. They knew – they knew – how did they know? How could they possibly know? He had been so careful, so very, very painstakingly careful not to give anything away, never to be sloppy, never to be suspicious – how could they know? He hadn’t even been here for a day yet and already they knew. How could – how did they do it? It wasn’t fair – wasn’t humane, wasn’t human, d*mn it!
His voice came out so strained and tense he hardly recognised it as his own. “Y-You- How?”
The nurse smiled placidly and enigmatically, seemingly oblivious to his distress. “Orchid has its ways, and never you forget it. Of course, we haven’t violated your privacy in any way – that would be unethical, and we take ethics very seriously, never fear – but we have obtained truthful answers for all the details you… would have misled us about in your application.”
She paused for a moment and realised how frantic he was becoming. “Don’t worry, you’re not in trouble,” she said, by way of comfort, but that effect was pretty much ruined by her next sentence. “Well, that’s glazing over it a little – we shan’t hand you over to the authorities. Not until you give us good reason, anyway.”
He would have been a lot more comforted if she’d said ‘if’ instead of ‘until’. And if he actually believed her, come to mention it. They had no reason not to turn him in, none whatsoever. He was sure he was doomed – he expected to hear sirens come wailing behind him at any moment, despite that behind him lay many hundreds of feet of building that would not easily be traversed by police vehicles. He never did well with sirens. He had always tensed when he heard them, and when he was younger he had even started to cry.
He was so scared of being caught, even though he had so little left to lose. He couldn’t give up on life so easily.
He should leave this place before he lost what he had left.
“Well, evidently you’re not convinced of this just yet. I won’t worry; it’ll come in time. But I’m very sorry to have to inform you that there are no cures for your powers, Mohana.”
And there they were, predictably – he blinked furiously to clear the tears that clouded his vision at the mention of that old name. He wasn’t that person anymore. He never would be again. “Please… please don’t call me that.”
“Very well, Arihant, I assure you I have no particular preferences.”
He paused for a while, trying not to think about the police for now. There was so much happening – and he remembered, there was no cure, and there was no hope if there was no cure. He had to ask one more time.“ You’re sure? There’s… there’s nothing?
She folded her arms and tipped back her chair, reminiscing. “Many have asked me the same thing before. None with powers quite as destructive as your own – or at least, as destructive in such a restricting way. I haven’t found one that could be cured yet. It’s… it’s not a disease.”
Liar.
“Well, I can see you don’t believe me about that either. That is unfortunate.”
No cure. No hope. No love. No life.
What did he do now?
“I… I have to go.”
“Not just yet, Arihant,” she said sternly. “We need to discuss something.”
He couldn’t leave, though. He was always too easily persuaded, he knew that. He should run now while he has the chance. Run, for God’s sake!
Not just yet.
“I am aware that the principal reason you came to this school at all was for a cure, and I’m sorry to disappoint you on that front” – she did sound sorry – “but I hope you do not wish to abandon Orchid altogether.”
How idiotic did she think he was? He was easily persuaded, but he wasn’t gormless. “I’m too dangerous to stay here,” he muttered through gritted teeth.
“The faculty is not so sure about that, actually. Do you think we would have accepted you if we thought you were responsible for those people’s dea-”
“Please,” he begged her. Please don’t talk about them. I can’t… I just can’t.
She paused, aware of her mistake, but not for long. “We cannot stop you from leaving,” she continued, “but we think it would be good for you to stay here. We do not think that you are as dangerous as you imagine.”
OK, so she was an idiot. It didn’t make much difference either way. He did nothing but stare at her incredulously.
“You have shown yourself to be remarkably cautious in your past behaviour, Arihant, little though you may think it,” she tried to persuade him. “After all, you’re wearing the gloves as we speak.”
“That was… that’s just a necessity,” he mumbled, embarrassed that people were noticing them. But what did it matter when they were going to-
He couldn’t even finish thinking that. And why did he believe her? Why did he think that she wouldn’t hand him over to the police? He didn’t manage to stay alive by trusting people. No one could trust him, anyway.
But he still didn’t think that they were going to betray him, and he didn’t know why.
“Because you didn’t want to hurt anyone else,” she finished for him.
“Of course.” It would kill him if he ever did that to anyone else. He knew that as surely as he was sitting there. He would die with them.
“You see?” she said, satisfied that he was right. “You are careful. And we have numerous other students here with very dangerous powers. It’s an unavoidable issue with a school of this nature.”
He was silent. He had no idea what to say. What to do.
“We think it would be advisable for you to stay here with others who will underst-”
He began to protest, but she waved a hand to quiet him.
“Who will at least in part be able to empathise with you.
“We’d just want you to be careful with them as you have been with everyone else. And to tell them of what you can do. That would only be fair.”
That was ridiculous. It was ridiculous. No one could understand – he pitied any poor fool who could have suffered enough heartache to even partially understand what he’d lost. Only someone on death row could understand his guilt.
And yet… and yet why did he get the feeling that someone could? Someone he’d already met. Someone whose face sent shivers down his spine.
He really was delusional. What the hell was wrong with him? No one could understand. He wouldn’t let them.
He couldn’t let them. He was too dangerous. It would really be better for the world if he just killed himself now. No cure. No hope.
“I’m sure you’ve already met people who you think you could be friends with,” she said, and Arihant started. Could she read his thoughts? He… It sounded ridiculous, but if there was anyone who could, they’d probably be in this school. Maybe she was just used to teenagers. “I’m sure you don’t hate the environment you’ve found here. I would certainly be sick of the fear and squalor you were living in before.”
“It wasn’t… that bad,” he said weakly.
“Well, irregardless, I think you should consider remaining,” she said, with the confidence of someone who wouldn’t even consider the possibility of their request not being granted. “I know it’s a big decision. You may take a few days to make up your mind, if you want.”
“All… all right. I’ll consider it, I promise you.”
Yes, he’d consider it. As of now, he had no idea whatsoever what he wanted, what he needed, what he should do for the greater good. He had to consider it.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t able to help you in the way you wanted,” she said, with an air of finality that told him quite clearly that their conversation was over.
“No, it’s- it’s OK.”
It wasn’t. It really wasn’t.
“Thank you very much, Nurse Gornray.”
Thanks for nothing.
“It was my pleasure,” she replied, and turned back to her filing cabinet. She placed Arihant’s file – marked Mohana Dayakara, he noticed, flinching violently – in its rightful position and began searching through the pile of pages on her table as if he wasn’t there. Time for him to go, he guessed.
He left the room quietly and stood motionless outside.
And what should he do now?
He should run.
He should hide.
He should leave.
He should stay.
There was no cure. There was no hope.
So why did he feel like there was?
