Artifice - Man x Man - Book Six

Chapter 21

When I open my eyes, I find that I'm alone. The room is small and dim, cluttered though it looks as though someone tried to straighten up recently. Some of the dust on the weathered shelves is freshly disturbed, and the floor is swept. 

Wood, instead of tile, is something I'm not very familiar with. My body hurts, though truly everything hurts, I feel as though I've been hit by one of these monstrous vehicles and it returned to back over me again in the night. 

I touch my painful side and flinch, not wanting to look at the cuts. I don't wish to see what is festering in my wounds after all the movement of the past two days and sleeping on this less-than-clean bed. I try not to outwardly groan at the discomfort as I scoot to the edge of the bed; as if on cue the door opens I see the elderly woman bustling in what I wouldn't have given for a healer to come through that door.

"Oh! You're awake." She doesn't sound all too surprised, I imagine she heard me stir. Her arms are full of clothes and various items in a small basket, a bucket tucked in one arm that sloshes gently as she waddles towards me. 

Her body is more heavy set than I remembered, though I was so exhausted this morning I don't even recall the day of the week. 

"Unfortunately." I sigh, rubbing my eye with the back of my hand. "Good.... afternoon?"

"Evening." She corrects. "You slept through lunch; Verando asked that I let you sleep if you would do it." She sets the clothes on the bed and dunks one of the rags in the clean water. "I've been told you have some injuries?" 

My nose wrinkles at the thought of this insistent woman cleaning anything on my body. 

"These are some creams that are good for healing, it's been too long to stitch it. Might as well let me have a look." 

Reluctantly, I reach for the zipper of my suit and find that my arm on the scratched side is much too stiff to be of good use.

Abuela helps me out of my clothes, the lycra clings to the unwrapped, untreated injury in an offensive way that burns and stings as it's peeled away. The puncture in my shoulder and the road rash across my back leave an intricate tapestry of what a fight with a feline could look like.

 Her breath doesn't catch as Verando's did, she doesn't look too surprised by what she finds. "These look infected." She comments as she warns me with her eyes before dragging the rag across the road rash. 

It's nearly enough to take my breath away with the discomfort and I shut my eyes tightly as I try to think of anything else. 

"There's a bit of dinner for you when we're finished here. You need to rest until this infection dies down, there are antibiotics that Soli's people can put you on. I'll give you something to bring the fever down and take some of the pain away for now. These on your side need to stay wrapped."

 She might as well be speaking another language for all that I'm listening to her. My eyes wander around the room as I try to shift my attention. The big fluffy gauze she pulls out of her assortment of bandages looks excessive, but I am impressed with the stark cleanliness. I haven't seen much as far as healing in this new world.

The cream she applies burns like hellfire at first but then begins to make the area feel numb, taking away the initial discomfort. She applies the flat bandage, then gauze, and then a tape-like substance that keeps it firmly pressed to my body, the same is applied to my shoulder. To my relief, she leaves the rash uncovered as it's painful to even touch, let alone have a bandage on it.

 As I stand, she pulls me out of my suit and hands me an oversized t-shirt and some loose, soft pants that she refers to as 'sweats.' I step into them and while they're relatively comfortable, they are none too flattering.