AWKWARD ZOMBIE

--- The Lightning and the Eagle ---

It was a humid day in Vietnam.

Of course, to the natives, humidity was not out of the ordinary. The thick air, which was stifling to any outsider, was like a familiar blanket. However, a new layer of familiarity had woven itself into their daily lives of late: the monotone roar of fighter jets. The constant cacophony only lent a voice to the smothering atmosphere.

Private Mark Aquila had never gotten used to the humidity.

He lay caked in the thick mud of a steep bank, his sweat mixing with the thirsty earth. He glanced at his watch, then slowly rotated his head to listen to the sky. The jets had not yet arrived. He wanted to sigh, but decided against it. One never knew how much movement would attract the Viet Cong’s attention. He had seen men gunned down for merely scratching their noses. Unnecessary movement was not an option.

He returned his attention to the scene below his bank. It was an idyllic, ordinary Vietnamese village. A few ragged chickens strutted proudly between the dingy straw huts, lords of their domain. Mark sometimes wondered what it would feel like to be one of the peasants of a village, and have to go out into the surrounding paddies with the leeches and the snakes to hack a living out of the swaying rice stalks. It seemed like an honest life. A shame they had to turn Commie, he thought.

The jets roared in the distance. Mark blinked, capturing the scene in his mind.

As the jets screamed closer, Mark felt the familiar rush of adrenaline begin seeping into his body, like a Roman citizen about to see a man executed in the Coliseum. He gently lifted a pair of camouflaged binoculars, waiting for the spectacle with a macabre eagerness. The rumble of the angels of death overhead became almost unbearable, until Mark let out a whimper that was drowned out by the whine of falling napalm.

The gates of hell opened, and its tiny victim was instantly engulfed in flames. A few screams echoed out of the inferno, and a gust of wind pushed the scent of roasting flesh up the little hill as the blood-red column of fire bleached into a pillar of smoke. Mark watched the village burn. It was one of hundreds, thousands; there was no use in crying over it. Napalm still flickered in the center of the little town, giving the swirling white smoke a frantically beating heart. A young woman burst from the clutches of the pale beast, her ragged shirt pulled over her face. She stumbled a few yards away from the column of smoke before falling face-first to the ground. Mark held his binoculars’ gaze on the shaking figure, nearly entranced. She raised her tearful gaze to the rice paddies beyond, and then cut her own throat.

The binoculars refused to budge from the corpse, no matter how strongly Mark forced himself to look away. In truth, the woman was nothing special to look at: a weak chin, unfortunately coupled with a large nose. She was ordinary; and yet, Mark could not tear his eyes away. In another world, she might have been his wife. He couldn’t help but imagine their life together: a pair of children, a boy and a girl, a cozy little shack in the middle of the village. He would come in from the paddies, ankles caked in mud and carrying a basket of rice on his shoulder, and look up to see his beautifully ordinary wife sweeping their small porch. She would turn her gaze upwards and smile; and he would smile back.

The wind shifted, and the white beast of smoke swallowed his dream.

---

I love writing short stories.

Shit man, how do you guys get into the habit of writing? I always go to write something and then go "Jesus christ this is stupid" and give up.

Man, I wasn't expecting to become so drawn in. I was just reading along, thinking that there was some really nice language used here. Then the shit went down and I didn't realise I was holding my breath until I finished reading.

I may not have written much on my own in recent years, but I can tell you, you just have to force yourself to do it. A lot. It's going to sound bad, but at least at first, quantity over quality is what you have to deal with, much like working on art. The first things you produce, and the majority of things you produce overall, are probably going to be things you don't really like. And that's okay. There's a difference between slapping together a lot of things you don't care about or put effort into period, and accepting that not everything you write/draw/whatever is going to be perfect or even good and accepting that you'll only get better through more practice. There's only so much you can do to improve a previous effort before you're just stalling for time. The important part is practicing. Challenge yourself. Do things you aren't comfortable with until you're more comfortable with them, then make yourself do a new thing. Get comfortable with what you perceive as failure and accept that it's not indicative of a lack of ability, but a lack of experience, and then make yourself get that experience. Personally, the biggest challenge for me in the immediate future is going to be making myself write in the past tense, and in large quantities; books in present tense tend to be cumbersome and awkward, but it's my favorite, and the tense I've been writing in since high school. I'm also not currently much good at preparing more than kind of bite-sized pieces of story because most of my writing experience has been collaborative or roleplay rather than solo work.

A really good thing to keep in mind, in my own opinion, is that much like the director of a film, the writer's job is not to alter the world or people themselves to make them seem artificially interesting, but to manipulate the small window through which the audience can see that world.

Not that I'm experienced myself like I've said, but for example with the above in mind, the blurb on the previous page is relatively sparing with detail and casually hints at past and future events because I want it to, not because I have nothing else to put down.

Is it odd that your avatar is appropriate for your comment?

But thanks, I think

I started a new story a couple of weeks ago that has a sub-theme which I believe is a cliché (and I try to avoid clichés like the plague), but I've gone along with it because it's a theme I find endearing and it's not a bad thing for a writer to try and put their own spin on a cliché.

I've recently figured out that I'm a debate-driven - rather than character-driven - writer, meaning I find a story that carries a hidden argument in its narrative more engaging than one that relies solely on its characters to drive the story forwards.

Because I had been led to believe that character-driven stories are the way to go I have spent a lot of my time developing characters - only to find that too many characters are actually detrimental to a story's debate (trying to keep track of too many different points of view is more than I can currently handle). The aforementioned story that I came up with two weeks ago has an incredibly strict cast of all-new characters constructed solely for the purpose of the story - the two main characters (heroes) stand for each side of the debate - and the 'villains' are more to do with hindering their progress - because neither villain has a big speaking role.

I think my biggest problem with writing stories has been not seeing each story as a self-contained entity - I concern myself too much with the story that follows the one I haven't written yet - getting too bogged down with concerns of where my characters need to end up in three stories' time and how I need to meet those conditions. I need to become less attached to my characters and accept that some stories have to be told in their own universes that are closed off from each other. I try to deal with all my stories in one universe but some of my stories deal with characters who are all robots living in a robotic society - and others deal with stories relating to alien (i.e. non-human) survivors on apocalyptic planets. Also the reasons as to how a group of robots came about in one story may jar with that of how robots in another story came to be - so I have to keep each of those robot characters separate from each other in their own respective universes to prevent cross-story interference.

I've also learned that having a clearly defined location helps massively with writing a story. In the past I had one story hop between forests, towns, mountains, castles and warships as it progressed; I've learned very recently that I work better if I make a story focus on just one of those locations - because if you take the time to understand a location you can find all the stages/scenery you need in one place - sparing you the need to 'location hop' too much.

I'm currently sitting on three stories which have a strong debate at their heart - so I've come to the conclusion that having a strong debate act as the 'glue' which holds a story together is the most important thing for me when it comes to writing - much less so than individual characters who only really act as 'advocates' for each side of the debate in their given story.

The exception to this would be a crime story I have written which uses the mystery of how the murder was committed to be the story's 'guiding logic' - I also hope to finish up and illustrate this story at some point because it still occupies my thoughts even though I initially conceived it almost two years ago now.


I agree, but personally I have to be in the right frame of mind to work on a story - and I find it difficult to be a writer and an artist at the same time.

Sometimes I have the mindset of a writer and I have to make the most of that time to work on a story; Other times I have the mindset of an artist and I have to try and get as much artwork done as possible.

It's another example of that Jekyll/Hyde thing I have going on.


I did not intend to write that much but it's difficult to be concise while at the same time not giving any detail re: my stories/characters away.

Naw it's okay! I get what you mean. Personally, I enjoy writing character-based stories, but everyone has a different approach and preference, like how I tend to write in present-tense but many people write in past tense, especially in books.

I just wanted to impress that the most important step in "how do you make yourself write" is... to make yourself write. Write anything, write everything, just make sure you're doing it. There are tons of people in any creative medium, but writing especially, who introduce themselves as a creator, think of themselves as a creator, pride themselves on being a creator and don't actually create. They get hung up on the "what if I fail, this is very hard, I just need to prepare more" stage and that only makes it harder for them to accept that it's okay for your efforts to turn out less than perfect, it's even okay for them to be bad, but you can't let yourself stagnate and you absolutely have to practice. The first and maybe hardest step is just learning how to do the thing; every artist started with "put a mark on a thing" and every writer starts with "write some words." You have to have the habit before you can perfect it, you know?

I suffer a lot with that with my artwork - I generally won't submit something that I think is less than my best and I actually do a lot of experimentation pieces that I would submit if I wasn't preoccupied with keeping up the appearance of being a 'good artist'; I did get into the habit of submitting doodles/scraps for a while but doodling for me is something that comes and goes as well.

You're right - I still need to work on that part of myself.

I understand that too! For me it's part anxiety over giving appearances that maybe I don't care about my drawings or that someone will click on my blog and be like "oh these are bad" without ever seeing the stuff I really pride myself on having done, and I sometimes even go back and hide or delete pictures I just find really genuinely bad for whatever reason, but I'm getting better at it a little at a time. It's just hard.

On approaches to writing an ongoing multi-arc story (split into an indefinite number of sub-stories):

I can't decide whether I want to stick to to having just two leads in a story I'm developing, or to have more lead characters join them and build on the dynamic as the story progresses.

I'm starting to realise my best stories tend to focus on two main characters who are different from one another - not only in their opinions/outlook (re: my debate-based approach to writing) but also different in regard to them complimenting each other with their strengths and weakness.

For one story I'm developing, one main characters is on a quest that carries him across different lands and terrains - each with their own challenges - covered in a separate story arc from one another - each story dealing with its own debate and secondary character advocating a point of view relevant to that debate.

What I can't decide is whether I want this main character to part ways with the other lead character at the end of each arc - allowing him to meet a new character in the following story for a fresh two-person debate without the complication/interference of having another 'third wheel' in tow, or whether I want the characters from preceding story arcs to accompany him on his quest - allowing character relationships to build - also offering up more points of view from different characters.

More characters open up possibilities for more bickering and conflict within the group of main 'hero' characters too - I like having arrogant and opinionated characters to play with - but characters like that really need more than one other character to butt heads with and keep them in check.


So, in summary I'm really weighing up these two options:

----------

a) Strictly two main characters per debate/story arc - with one character parting ways at the end of a story to avoid complicating/distracting from the hero's individual quest.

b) A party of characters that builds in size with each passing arc - increasing the hero party's dynamic and inner conflict (arguably better for debate - but also arguably not).

----------

Thoughts on each approach? What would you opt for?

Hmmm, I disagree with the first part more, but the second would get out of hand before too long. I’d suggest something along the lines of having the hero, he does his tasks, and meets someone, they go and do tasks, and a small party could form as more people join in with the party. One or a few may have extreme differences in opinion with others in the party, leading to arguments and disbandment, or a task the hero embarks on becomes too much/ to offensive. Personal problem or a local attraction could get them to leave.

In my opinion, one person with a temporary partner could develop to the point where the hero may forget what permanence is, that whatever happens to drive the other away, there would always be someone to take their place, or they may become depressed, thinking that no matter how long or how far they go, the other will leave, and he will be alone until someone else comes, who he might know would leave just like all the others.

tl;dr: Door Number 3

The lead character I was thinking of is more in the vein of a 'Samurai Jack' style character - not really looking to form any relationship distracting from his ultimate goal - but he stops to help people/beings/creatures in distress or difficulty. Each story featuring this lead character would be self-contained - as the 'Samurai Jack' stories are - but are part of a much larger story about him reaching his ultimate goal.

In actual terms the lead character's ultimate goal isn't what matters - it just provides a way to define him and give him a motivation to keep moving forward - the individual stories are what matter and are my actual focus of interest. I was just worried about not having a constant 'partner' for him to reflect off of - I suppose I'm worried about the lead character having to repeat his motivations to every new person he meets - though not every individual he meets will necessarily greet him in the same way (in fact they definitely won't) so I may not need to worry about that.

I like the Samurai Jack 'lone wolf' style story approach - but I also like stories that feature a pair of characters - especially where one character is older and more experienced (the wise teacher) - the other character being younger and inexperienced (the eager youth) - a lot of my recent story concepts use this format.

Maybe if I focus on pairing up another main character with my lead character and have the two of them go through the whole story together - with other tertiary characters coming into the mix every so often to set things off a bit. If I really like how a tertiary character develops in a story I can have them stick around for a few more later stories - of course I can always write them out if they become cumbersome or unworkable.


Also it feels really weird to be the only one really talking about story writing theory like this in this thread - am I the only one here who thinks this much about writing stories from a pre-planned formula-based approach?

I typically start writing when I come up with a character or event, come up with a loose series of characters/events to accomplish, and just kind of run with it. There's usually some structure and plan, but I don't rigidly enter it into a mathematical equation. Keeps the process more organic. Then again, that's kind of how I do everything, haha.



Also, I've been cooking up something entirely unrelated to 117 or Haven. CHECK IT.


CHAPTAH ONE

He didn’t know where he had gone wrong. It should have all come together this time. He had exhausted all of his other options to no avail. But no matter how much he tried, everything always just blew up in his face.

As in, the tonic bodaciously blew up in his face. He quickly wiped it off, just in case it had caustic properties he hadn’t anticipated. Well, it certainly smelled awful. If nothing else, he might be able to sell it as a ladies’ hair remover at the market next week. After all, just the fumes had already done a pretty good job of that in his nose, and he wasn’t sure if he smelled singing hair that could be located in the general vicinity of his brow. Great, now he needed to air the apartment out.

The window let in a dull blue light, and the damp hiss of rain. Traces of watered-down smoke wafted in from the dusk view of the city of Kerioth, the brick and stone growing just as cold as the light they rested in.

Perfect time for a walk, no? He thought to himself as he pulled his coat down from the hook on the back of his door. A quick check to his pockets confirmed that his notebook and pencil were indeed still there, should he find anything new worth noting.

After fighting with the door latch (push completely shut until you hear the click, lift up and then pull with all your might), and disregarding the ever-growing pile of mail getting kicked to the side of his door, he finally stepped into the alleyway, his shoes clapping against the wet, brick-paved road.

Oh, daisies it all, he forgot his hat. He turned back around and fought with the door some more, leaned into the apartment, quickly snatched the old and misshapen felt monstrosity and crammed it on his head. There we go, he thought, much better.

Most of the shops were shutting down for the night, leaving the streets relatively empty. He whistled as he made his way toward the bakery. The storefront may have been closed, but their trash bin certainly wasn’t. He looked through the pile of two-day-old bread, and pulled a clean-looking loaf out of the middle. Perfect, dinner for free! And it even looked like he had gotten here before those two hobos, Jack and Jack. Lord knows that when those two find a stash of food, no one else will even want to see if there are left overs.

Hmm. Where to go? Anywhere was an option on this delightfully dreary autumn night. Ah, why didn’t he think of it immediately? The glass factory, of course! Or at least, the construction of it. He marched on down the street, munching on his supper of stale bread, making his way toward the recently-roofed structure that currently only functioned as a store house.

He did a quick check to see if there were any guards around. Upon finding none, he stepped over the debris and building materials, climbing the fence around the perimeter. The tall, barely finished shell of a building left several open windows that sat a little more than twice his height up the wall. Did they really think that would keep out anyone who really wanted to get in? They didn’t even pane the windows! A glass factory that didn’t have glass for windows yet!

The ladder that had been carelessly left lying about the construction site the last few times was still there this evening. He pulled it up from under the damp papers and other debris and propped it up against the wall. After an easy climb up, it was time to heave himself up through the window. He strained his arms, attempting to at least lock his elbows so that he could just kind of swing over. No luck. Maybe if he held his breath and jumped a bit, he could get up over the ledge.

After a painfully long thirty seconds of struggling to get his wiry frame through the window, he managed to swing a knee up and flail to brace his hands inside of the building. He managed to get so that he was sitting in the window, adjusting to land on the neatly stacked pyramid of boxes that he could easily climb down.

Once he was on the floor, he quickly surveyed the open store room to find what he needed. Mahirah down at the market had mentioned the other day that she was having a hard time finding affordable blue glass. And then, of course, he was in need of a few more vials and bottles, himself. But first, he would need something to carry it all in. Preferably a box rather than a sack.

After a few minutes of hurried searching, he found a wooden hinge-lid box that was small enough for him to carry. He searched the contents of it to find it was already full of one kind of vial that he needed. He scooped a few of those out and set them to the side, cracking the crate that had the larger beakers and bottles. He swapped the empty spaces in the crate with the vials that he had pulled out of the hinged box.

Alright, his “shopping” was done. Now, to see if they had any blue glass for Mahirah. The way that the storage was organized was…well, not organized. His house was in better shape than this. It was going to take him forever to find anything in this mess.

Then the stamp on a crate caught his eye. “COLOR PANES” with the word “DAMAGED” stamped over it. Those were going to be small enough to fit in the box! He climbed up the stack of crates until he reached the one with the damaged panes. Mahirah re-melted her glass to shape it to her liking anyway. She wouldn’t mind that the panes were broken. He pried the top off and carefully shuffled through the musically clanking pieces until he found some that looked blue. It was hard to say for sure, because the light was so dim. Just to be sure, he grabbed some that he thought looked red and violet as well. Mahirah always had plenty of PANK and green glass on hand, so there was no point in wasting space with those.

He filled the box as heavy as he could carry it (which, admittedly, wasn’t much), and made his way toward the one-way waste chute that led down to the beach near the docks. As long as he didn’t run into any suspicious guards, he would be home free. And really, the guards usually only watched the docks, not really bothering with the beach. So as long as he took the back path into the market place before going back home, there should be no problem.

His feet hit the sand and he stumbled, dropping the box. He swore, but picked it back up, deciding to just do inventory when he got home. He glanced over his shoulder toward the light of the guard tower and lanterns, but didn’t hear anyone telling him to stop, so he just trekked through the sand until he got to the firmer soil of the back path.

Along the way, he stopped to grab a few olives from the trees lining the path, since the single piece of bread had left him rather hungry. There would be no one following him now. He had as much time as he wanted. So what started out as a few olives to snack on soon turned into a coat laden with the fruit. If he didn’t harvest them, someone else might. He made a note to come back and get the rest the next morning. Most people didn’t bother with the trees, because they didn’t want to have to go through the trouble of fermenting the fruit. But that was because they didn’t know that these ones were good fresh.

Alright, he thought, that was enough for the night. He picked the box back up carefully so as not to crush his coat full of olives, and continued walking home. By the time he left the cover of the tree-lined path, it had stopped raining. It was dark night, now, broken up by the orange of the lanterns.

The rest of the walk home was uneventful. Just the peace of strolling down a well-lit street at night, where it was quiet and refreshing from the rain. He opened his door and unloaded the box, coat and olives.

Hunger made him wash the olives before doing anything else, drawing a bucket half-full from the pump and then dumping the fruit into it. He hummed while rinsing the fruit off, and was pop flyin' to see that he had gotten a nice mix of green and purple. He tried one of each, to make sure that they were ready to eat that night, and congratulated himself on choosing the perfect night to harvest the fruit that was not his.

That was when he realized, he’d need something to set the olives out on. Hm. He didn’t really have any spare paper. Except he did. Finally, all those rotten letters and whatever else people were mailing him would come in handy! He stepped out to the entryway and pulled some of the dry envelopes and papers out of the pile.

He stopped with a slight jolt of dismay at one of the letters, which he realized was from his parents. Did he dare read it? They were probably just pestering him to switch into a different trade and get married. That was what they usually talked at him about. Then again, what if it was something important? What if—

A loud bell began ringing and a grinding noise could be heard from the direction of the docks, just before a thunderous explosion. What in the blazes? He ducked out of his apartment and stepped into the main street, along with a few dozen other people, looking to see what the commotion was. The docks were too far away to actually be able to see what the damage was, but an angry orange and red glow shone on the mist and clouds above.

A guard came riding on a horse, shouting at everyone to get inside their homes. A stray ship had drifted in and caused explosive damage to the dock when something inside ignited, and they hadn’t ruled out some sort of pirate scheme yet.

That quickly sent everyone on their way back into their houses, where they hushed their children and snuffed out their lamps.

But he was curious. He really should have been back inside his apartment. But he wanted to see what was going on.

Maybe he’d pick up a few more olives tonight after all.

CHAPTER TWO: Fever and Stitch


He quickly set down the back path to the beach, ducking into the shadows as he ran for the sand. There might be something to salvage, and there might be something to see. He didn’t know, but he wanted to find out.

As soon as he left the shade of the trees, he immediately felt the warmth from the burning ship that was still a twenty minute run away. The black smoke from the explosives in the demolished watercraft billowed over everything. He figured it had probably even reached the town by now. It was so hard to see anything in this abysmal mess that he wondered whether or not it was even worth going down to the shore. What little of the ground that he could see was covered in debris, some of it still burning.

But then something glinted in the red light. He checked to ensure that it wasn’t just embers burning. It was actually metal protruding from something. He ran forward and skidded through the sand until he found the metal. It looked to be an ornate silver sword that was haphazardly stuck into a sack.

He pulled the sword out, noticing that there was more resistance than what just the fabric of the bag should have given. When he had the sword completely free and lifted it to the light from the fire, he immediately dropped it. It was covered in dark smears of blood.

That was when he noticed that the sack was filled with a rather conspicuous form. He quickly fumbled around to look for the opening, finally giving up and disgustedly picking the sword back up out of the sand and sliding its now sand-crusted blade through the fabric to create an opening large enough to lay the bag almost completely flat.

There was a woman, bound and battered and naked. He just stared at her for a moment, unable to put a coherent thought together. He finally collected himself enough to look back at the burning wreckage. Had she come from there? Clearly she wasn’t in the explosion, they threw her overboard before attempting to dock. Did they intend for her to hit shore so close to them?

He had no time to worry about this. He carefully moved his finger toward her neck to check for a pulse, only to choke back vomit as he felt a laceration there. This woman was dead. She had to be. There was no way that anyone would survive something like this.

But then he felt just the faintest rhythm where his forefinger was positioned a bit beneath her jaw. She was just barely still clinging to life. He cut the ropes tying her hands and feet, removed the gag, and then folded the fabric of the sack up around her to cover her nakedness. He’d have to carry her to the hospital.

But how was he going to do that, when he was barely strong enough to push himself up through a window? That didn’t matter, he told himself. He needed to do this now. Ability didn’t get to be a part of the equation.

He positioned his arms under her and heaved her up, sucking in his breath to try and gain momentum and to steady himself. Well, she was up off of the ground. The hard part would be walking across sand and rough ground to bring her to the hospital.

He barely avoided dropping her as he stumbled across the dark. He didn’t think of anything except “move forward”. He was sure that if he did let anything else into his head, his arms would remember that they couldn’t do this and fail on the woman they were carrying.

Finally, after an eternity of choking on smoke and his arms and chest burning hotter than the fire that started this mess, he reached the entryway to the hospital, just out of view of the blazing docks.

He didn’t dare move either hand to knock, but he needed to keep moving, or else his strength was going to fail. He kicked the door and barely managed to keep his balance by setting his weight against the door through his head and shoulder.

He heard the door next to him open a crack. He started to move toward the entrance into the building, but then the person opening the door peered out.

“No admittance! Go home!”

He shakily stepped toward the old man at the door. “But this woman needs help now! Please let her in!”

“With pirates attacking? Are you dense? Do you think I am? No strange admittance!” The old man slammed the door.

He could feel his mind start to burn just as painfully as his body. What kind of hospital would reject a patient in this dire state? What kind of doctor—No, What kind of person would do that? They were all cowards, and he hoped that they would all meet their just “reward” when their time of judgment came.

He mentally apologized to the woman (he might have said it out loud, he wasn’t entirely sure at this point) that the skills he learned before dropping out of university would have to suffice for her. He used his rage to propel him the rest of the way home, stumbling and sprinting through the nearly empty streets until he met his apartment door, which he had thankfully left open. He tripped over the chair and barely managed to get the woman to a bed before he lost his balance and fell to the ground.

He just lay there for a minute, feeling his heart pound against the floor, the cold surface collecting the sweat from his brow. His vision pulsated, and his legs felt as though they were still moving. He choked on the dust that he accidentally sucked in when he was gasping for breath.

Finally he stood up. Or, rather, he attempted to. His legs wouldn’t hold him up any more, and his arms weren’t of much help either. Once he did manage to get to his feet, he promptly leaned out the window and vomited. It seemed like his rage and fear had followed the half-digested bread, leaving him only with an ache of exhaustion.

He shuffled over to his pantry and pulled down the bottle of salts, pouring some of the blue-white crystals into his sweaty hand before inhaling it directly. He licked the remainder off of his palm and took a drink from his water pitcher as he felt a jolt of mania course through him.

He could do this. After all, the only reason he had abandoned a year of medical courses at university was that he had no passion for it. He had much more fulfilling things to move onto in chemistry. It had nothing to do with any sort of incompetence. He shuffled through the various tonics and herbs, searching first for something to clean the wounds with. He settled on a couple of bottles that contained cleaning solutions and tonics to promote recovery.

He stepped back over to the woman, practically leaping over the toppled chair on the way. Now that they were in a lit apartment, he could see the full extent of her injuries. The lacerations on her throat and all over her torso and legs were accompanied by burns on her hands, feet and face, on top of the massive wound where she had been impaled with the sword. Not to mention the bruises that covered every part that wasn’t bleeding. Only divine intervention could possibly be keeping this woman alive.

Thread. He would need thread. And bandages. Lots of them.

He dropped the bottles and went to search for the needed materials. The needle and thread he quickly found stuck into his shirt that he had been mending. But after a search (he couldn’t tell exactly how long he spent looking), he found that he had no bandages. Instead, he tore the large, tattered shirt he had been mending into strips and decided to make do with that.

He dashed back over to the dying woman. Upon closer examination, she didn’t really appear to be bleeding too profusely, despite the massive damage to her body (divine machinations were looking more and more likely). But she couldn’t have already bled out, because she was still alive. She was still alive, right? He checked at her neck again for a pulse, to feel that faint rhythm again. Well, he thought, it’s best not to look a gift horse in the teeth. If this would make it easier, he wasn’t going to question it…yet.

He cleaned and closed as many of the wounds as he could, but hesitated when he came to her throat and the wound beneath her ribs. His lanterns were running low by this time, and these two injuries were so much more…specialized than what he had treated previously.

His hands shook as he tried to decide what to do. He couldn’t. He didn’t know what to do about something that went all the way through a person. And the woman appeared to be lucky enough that the slit throat had missed her major blood vessels, but there was so little margin for error. What if he did it wrong? Even with a book, his hands could still fail him. Even if he did know how to do it, he couldn’t see. He was out of lamp oil, and he could tell by the dim blue shining through the cracks in his window shutters that daylight was still at least an hour off. What was he going to do? He couldn’t think. He needed to, but he couldn’t. He pounded his fists against his brow in frustration, covering his eyes so that he didn’t have to see where he was and who he was with.

In a move of pure desperation, he just dumped two bottles on the wounds in tandem, hoping that their chemicals combined would compound the healing effects rather than make some sort of toxic alkali.

His head felt numb as he just collapsed to the ground, his mouth dry and his head resting against his bedframe. Well, at least now he knew that the adjudicators were right when they kicked him out of the medical program. He had failed in this, just like he had failed in everything else. He wished that he could just go to sleep and never wake up. He felt his foot twitch and his entire body ache with a vengeance as the salts completely wore off.

CHAPTER THREE: Mahirah


He awoke with a start as someone grasped his hair and pulled back. He looked to the side to see the woman give him an unfocused gaze with dark eyes, and rasp, “Asante.” She then released her grip and her hand fell limp again.

He sniffed through his dry nose, and tried not to wince as he felt the skin on his tongue and lips split when he yawned. He slowly stood up, feeling very heavy with his slow head and aching body. The woman appeared to be asleep again. Well, that wasn’t exactly accurate. She appeared to be peacefully sleeping now, rather than knocked out from a violent event like before. He figured that she would be fine without supervision for a little bit.

He opened the window and quickly leaned out to avoid having to hold up his own weight any longer. The bright sun hurt, but the air was mostly refreshing. The smoke had dissipated overnight so that the air was almost completely clear, and a dog appeared to have eaten most of his vomit from beneath the window. He took a deep breath and ducked back inside. He needed water.

The pitcher was still full of water that he was pop flyin' to see he hadn’t done anything to soil. He drank the remaining contents and then made his way to the toilet.

Now that that was taken care of, he needed to buy some more lantern oil and something to eat. He was starving. He washed his face and hands before putting on some clean clothes (his shirt and trousers were covered in smoke dust, sweat and blood), along with a vest to keep himself together. After a quick search that ended in the rediscovery of his wallet, he went out to the market.

He had made it no further than two steps out of his door when, ah, daisies it all, he forgot his hat again. He went back into the apartment, grabbed his hat and realized that he needed to bring the box of glass to Mahirah. This time, he left the apartment with his hat on his head, fully dressed, and carrying the box of colored glass. He made his way to the marketplace, stopping and saying hello and trading a coin to the old woman who always sold him a dark red citrus fruit from the west (he really needed to learn what those were called).
Apparently, the suspected pirate presence hadn’t done much to hinder anyone now that it was daylight. He was halfway through the fruit when he ran into Mahirah’s shop.

“No, you can’t just expect me to materialize some cobalt and burn it into the glass!” she shouted at an old woman. “It takes time and proper chemicals, and you might not have noticed, but with the pirates and the northern countries being at war with each other, cobalt salts are very expensive!”

The old woman grumbled something in an argument, to which Mahirah replied very simply by turning around and stepping back into her furnace house.

He strode up to the door of the furnace house and knocked. Mahirah threw the door open and leaned out, already shouting, “For the last time, you old crow! I cannot get you blue gl—“ she stopped and looked to the side. “Oh, hello, Ra’d.”

He tipped his hat to the pretty woman, and set the box of glass down on the ground. He showed her the various colored pieces he brought, and she examined them and held them up to the light to check the quality of the glass itself.

“This is great, Ra’d. Thank you!” she hesitated and looked around, then leaned forward and facebattled him on the cheek.

Ra’d felt a smile tug at the sides of his face and he squirmed a bit while looking at the street, where all of the people were rushing around to do whatever it was they did. Good thing he had washed his face before coming here.

“Do you need payment for this? I’m sure it was difficult to come by,” she questioned him with a light in her dark brown eyes.

“A nice dinner alone with you?” Ra’d mumbled without looking at her.

Mahirah sighed and smiled, her face rosy from both heat and blush. “I’m sure I’ve already told you that I don’t think my husband would approve of that.” She pushed a loose strand of her hair back behind her ear.

“Oh, so you’ll facebattle me, but you won’t eat with me?” Ra’d laughed quietly.

She lowered her head and turned away so that Ra’d could not see her face. “You know that I…” she thought a moment of what to say. “I have no problem with you joining me for dinner. Just remember that my husband and children will be present.”

Ra’d looked at her for a moment, seeing only her tied-back hair instead of her face like he wanted. “I’m sorry, Mahirah. I didn’t mean to—“

“It’s fine,” she snapped. “Thank you for the glass. Arrive at my house at sunset.”

Ra’d picked up the hint that Mahirah didn’t want him there anymore, but he pushed a conversation anyway. “So, that explosion last night sure was something, right?”

She faced the door to the furnace house so that Ra’d could see her profile. “I should think so. Seems everyone is too busy talking about it to do business today.”

“They say it was a failed pirate attack.”

Mahirah raised her eyebrows and rested her hand on the door. “Hm. So I’ve heard. It was probably just a poorly managed trade ship that was carrying explosives for the war up north.”

“I found a woman last night.” Ra’d blurted, skipping straight to the topic on his mind. “On the beach, I mean.”

She gave him a sharp look. “What do you mean, you ‘found a woman’?”

“I mean she had drifted ashore or something, and I found her. I couldn’t get the hospital to treat her, so I had to take her home.” Ra’d could feel himself getting worked up again. “She looks foreign. Really dark.”

Mahirah stared at him for a moment. “You find some random girl stranded on a beach, so you just ask her to come home with you?”

“Well, she was unconscious, so…”

The stare became wide-eyed shock.

“I mean her injuries were so severe when I found her that she was unconscious!” Ra’d corrected. “I told you I tried to take her to the hospital, remember? Well, they wouldn’t take her, so I had to bring her home and treat her myself.” He couldn’t help but say that last bit with pride.

“But, Ra’d…” she looked hesitant. “You’re not a doctor.”

“Yeah,” he deflated. “I, uh, remembered that in the middle of an existential crisis.”

Mahirah pressed her mouth tightly shut and looked around. “Well, I’m not going to get any business with everyone too busy gossiping. Let me just get Abbas and we’ll go over.”

Ra’d’s eyebrows went up. That hadn’t been what he was going for, but he’d take any time that he could get with Mahirah. He waited for her to shut down her furnace and find her son beneath the next shop’s counter, where he had been playing a hiding game.

When they got to the apartment, Mahirah saw him fighting with the latch and remarked, “You still haven’t fixed that?”

Ra’d didn’t answer and just rammed the door open, stumbling into the apartment as it gave way. He quickly reevaluated the state of his apartment and shuffled his papers into place, and clamped the top down on his bottle of salts and tossed it into his pantry. Unfortunately, he was too slow, not that he really had any chance of keeping Mahirah from noticing.

“It’s filthy in here!” She put her hand on her hip. “Praise be, your mother might have been right about you needing a wife.”

“Mama?” Mahirah’s son pulled at her hand. “Where are that girl’s clothes?”

“Hm?” She followed the boy’s gaze to Ra’d’s bed and then promptly clamped her hand over her son’s eyes. “Ra’d!” she hissed. “Why is the woman naked?”

“Oh! I found her without clothes. She was just tied up in a dirty sack.” He informed her quickly.

“Well,” Mahirah said slowly through clenched teeth, “Would you mind covering her, so that I can uncover my son’s eyes?”

“Ah, right!” Ra’d jumped to pull his blanket over the woman, but gave her a twice-over to examine the injuries. Hey, he thought, it looked like combining the two tonics had actually been a good move! The wound beneath her ribs and the slash at her throat were already closing, although it looked like they were going to scar terribly.

“Ra’d!” Mahirah snapped at him, staring at her friend that was looking at the naked woman in his bed.

Ra’d dropped the blanket. “She had—I was just, I was check—never mind.”

As soon as the strange woman was covered to her shoulders, Mahirah took her hand off of Abbas’s face and stepped over to the bed.

“Well, I definitely see what you were saying about her looking foreign. I’ve never seen anyone from the Midlands who looks like that. I’ve only even seen a few travelers from that far south.”

Mahirah stopped and looked more closely at the woman’s neck. She gasped and snapped back up to Ra’d. She glanced back at Abbas, deciding not to say it out loud. She motioned toward her own throat.

Ra’d just looked at her for a second. “Do you need some water? No? Then wh—oh! Yeah, that wound wasn’t too deep or wide, so it didn’t cause any real damage. I am concerned about what effects it might have on her voice, though. It looked a lot worse last night. Speaking of which,” Ra’d lifted the blanket. “So did that.” He pointed Mahirah toward the sword wound beneath the woman’s ribs.

Mahirah put her hand to her mouth. She looked like she wanted to say something, but no words would come out for a while. Ra’d waited for her to come up with what she was trying to articulate.

Finally, “How is she…How is she not dead?”

Ra’d realized that he had forgotten to remember to look into that. He walked over to his notes and took his pen, marking in large, scrawling script, that he needed to ask the woman as soon as she woke up. “Maybe some sort of divine blessing? Maybe someone has plans for her.”

Mahirah glared at the woman with new suspicion. “Or maybe, she’s a witch.” She gave Ra’d a scolding look. “Think about it. You find a pretty foreign woman (who for all we know comes from some demon-infested tribe) at the sea’s edge, and she has inhumanly fast recovery?”

Ra’d held his hands up in front of him and tried to appeal to Mahirah’s spiritual line of thought. “Hey, she doesn’t have to be consorting with demons. She could be reserved for doing God’s work.” He tried to mimic Mahirah’s scolding look. “We won’t know until we ask her. And even if she is bad, it wouldn’t make it right to have left her there without knowing.”

“And since when do you even hold scriptures to be true?” Mahirah hissed, leaning in toward Ra’d while he leaned back, almost out the window.

Ra’d searched for a way to answer this that wouldn’t put him in a bad light with Mahirah. That had always been their one point of argument, and, he suspected, the reason that she had never followed through with her promise all those years ago.

“Ra’d?” Abbas’s small voice rang from the pantry. “May I have an olive?”

“Of course!” Ra’d called, still backed against the window. “Why don’t you bring a couple for your mother as well.”

Mahirah backed off and sighed. “Well, if you’re going to treat this woman as a patient for the time being, you could at least make sure that the place you’re keeping her is clean.”

“Yes, my good lady.” Ra’d nodded. They both knew that there was no chance of him remembering to clean the apartment.

Abbas brought a handful of olives, dropping two along the way, and held them up to his mother. She smiled and took a few, thanking the boy. Mahirah looked past Ra’d, out the window.

“Well, are you sure it’s a good idea to leave her alone for extended periods of time?” She began to bite at an olive. “If you’re going to do this, you had better do it right.”

Ra’d shrugged. “She’s just sleeping. And she’s improving at a startlingly rapid rate. Even just between last night and now, she’s already got two weeks’ worth of healing.” The woman would be fine. It’s not as if she was going anywhere.

Mahirah rolled her eyes. “Fine,” she sighed. “If you want to deal with the consequences of a panicked stranger left unattended in your apartment, then I guess that’s your business.” She took hold of Abbas’s hand. “I should probably go if I’m going to be making dinner for extra people. You came to town rather late today.” She started out the door and then stopped, turning to look at Ra’d while Abbas waited patiently just outside. He stood against the wall, looking out the window, the sunlight reflecting in the dust, creating a light haze about him, softening everything. She changed her mind about saying her last thought, and left.

As he heard the door shut, Ra’d looked back down at the woman in his bed. “Who are you, my unfortunate friend?” he wondered aloud.