Good, Evil, and the Gray Area (FIRST DRAFT)

Chapter 23

I stood uneasily at the African gathering. Zahir was next to me, and Ava sat in a wheelchair of sorts on my other side. Her knee was wrapped securely in a bandage, after several days of trying to heal it. We had tried everything. And I mean everything. All ne normal cures, all the abnormal ones. Finally, we were seeing if any of the healers from the other tribes could help.

I just watched as our healers conversed with the other ones. There was a lot of head shaking. I feared the worst.

Then, five men walked toward me. They looked solemn. I sighed, thinking that they probably didn't have a cure for Ava, just like everyone else. They spoke to Zahir for a moment, and he turned to me to translate.

"They think they may have a cure." He said. His face was expressionless, but his eyes twinkled happily.

My head snapped up, my eyes wide. I was so shocked, for a second I couldn't speak. They had told me that Ava was going to die, that it was to late even to amputate. I had been in a state of shocked depression since then.

"Oh- oh my gosh. That's great! I'm so glad, I didn't think there was anything-" I started babbling, I was so happy. I was grinning so wide, I thought my face was going to split.

"Thank you. Thank you so much!" Ava said, forgetting that the Africans couldn't understand her. Zahir quickly translated for them. They nodded, still looking completely impartial to anything that was happening.

My smile shrunk a little. "What do we have to do?" I asked.

"She has to get bitten by an extremely poisinous spider. The poison may counteract this, but then we have that poison to deal with." Translated Zahir."

"Anything." Whispered Ava.

"This may be painful. Extremely painful. She will be in total agony, but will survive, hopefully." Translated Zahir.

And with that we headed back to the camp, hopefully to cure Ava.