Scarlet Prison

Chapter 21

The light shuddered and faded into a new room.

"The room changed," I informed Nes. She glanced up at me from the hospital-looking equipment she was fiddling with. I was halfway propped up in a comfy hospital bed, and Nes was crouching between mine and the one beside me. The small room had no windows, and I recognized the hand scanner by the door as the only way to open it, meaning only certain people could get in or out. "Why did the room change into a hospital?" I wondered. Was I sick? I felt good. But beyond the general feeling of goodness, I felt a little uncomfortable in my skin, now that I thought about it. Like the blood was trying to break free from my veins. And I felt hot.

I sat all the way up. "Nes!" I shouted, "I forgot to drain my blood on Thursday!" How could I have been so stupid! I thought back to Thursday, wondering why I hadn't done it. I remembered looking for the draining tools. Oh yeah, then Lissa came! And as Lissa was leaving, Nes came, and by the time she left, I had forgotten all about it! "Is that why I'm in a hospital, Nes?" I asked, hoping it was so I could release the burning fire in my veins.

"Kind of," her angelic voice answered. That was good enough for me!

"You are amazing, Nes!"

She rose and went to put a needle in my arm, her light brown hair flowing over her shoulders as she moved.

"I can do it," I said, thinking maybe I could just use the needle to slice open my arms. That would release the terrible pressure more quickly. I reached to take the gleaming tool from her.

"You don't trust me?" She asked, her brown eyes glistening.

I pulled my swollen hand back in surprise. Trust Nes? Of course I trusted Nes! She was the most trustworthy person in the world! I didn't care whether my trust was misplaced. I owed her my life, after all. The least I could was trust her, and let her take my blood.

I held my arm out to Nes, just as another shimmer spread across the room.

I moaned in pleasure and relief as my body was purged of blood. "Thank you, Nes," I whispered, turning on my side so I could face her. She was lying in the bed next to me, her hair arranged perfectly around her head as she gazed at the ceiling with a pleasant expression. She had red tubes sticking out from her, and I followed them with my gaze, trying to make sense of them. Some of them seemed to be connected to me. I looked back and forth between us to confirm what I was seeing. "Nes, what's happening?" I asked, although I had that much figured out. My blood was being pumped into her veins, while her blood was being drained into a clinical bag.

Nes rolled onto her side and smiled at me. "You're helping me, Zermia. And I'm helping you. Is that okay?"

"Of course, I owe you my life," I said, glad that my love for her was flowing into her veins.

"I won't take your life." Nes frowned.

"You can have it," I insisted. "But I just need you to do me a small favor."

"Zermia, listen to me. Pretty soon I'm going to be really drunk off your blood. It should help that I'm draining my blood, but I may eventually lose coherency. See that machine up there?" I followed her gaze to the machine between our beds that my blood was passing through. "It will stop the blood transfer automatically before you die. Understand?"

"But..."

"I need to know you understand because I may not be able to comfort you when you begin to fear death is approaching."

"I understand," I said, and Nes seemed to relax into the bliss of type neutral blood.

The shimmer swept across the room, but nothing seemed to have really changed after it passed.