"Aria, Aria," Emily is calling my name as my sleepy eyes crack open. "Wake up, it's time for breakfast."

"Emily?" I ask. It feels like I've been sleeping for a long time, I have no idea how long those nightmares went on for. But I'm still so tired I can hardly keep my eyes open. Everything feels muddled as I stagger to my feet, Emily supporting most of my weight. What was I doing? We slowly go downstairs, where we sit, and I immediately nod off while sitting up. It feels like my nightmares are beginning again, but I'm being shaken awake.

"Come on Aria, eat," Emily urges me gently. With the smell of food in front of me, the painful growling of my stomach cuts through my sleepiness. Even though I can't keep my eyes open through much of it, I eat the meal one bite at a time. I'm even given a few cups of water to drink. The next thing I know, I'm being put back in bed. "Here, you'll need this. I'll see you tonight."

"Goodnight..." I mumble before something is pushed into my mouth. I don't have the presence of mind to question it, because I'm already asleep.

Then the nightmares come again. I wake up over and over, too tired to stay conscious for very long before I go under again.

"Aria, wake up." Emily gently shakes me awake. I hardly feel like I've gotten any rest. It's been nothing but endless nightmares, even worse than usual. All of the terrible images overlap in my head to the point it's hard to pull it all apart anymore. I don't even want to think about it. I stand, and Emily takes my hand. It makes me wince, my hand really stings. I look down, eyes going wide as I'm shocked awake. I can actually kind of think again. My hands are all bandaged up. What happened to them? When I try to think back, I come up completely blank. What happened? What was the last thing I was doing?

"Emily, what happened to my hands?" I ask.

"You don't remember?" She suddenly looks really worried.

"I... No. Last was... umm?" I press a stinging hand to my forehead. "I went to the forest with Jack. We gathered tamarans. I caught a hobin. I came home..." I trace through the memories one at a time, "But... After that..." I just have a vague idea that I came home, but... there's nothing distinct after that. "I guess I went to sleep... how long have I been sleeping?" Without waiting for an answer, I shake my head. "No, then my hands wouldn't be like this." I touch one of the bandages.

"This one is from the hobin." I peel up the edge to take a look at the wound. The first thing I see is bright red skin. I feel a dull shock looking at it.

"Aria!" Emily takes my hand. With a frightened look, she carefully peels the bandage away from my hand. Underneath, it looks terrifying. The skin is blazing red, ragged edges pulled up around each of the tiny punctures. It looks even worse than when I was first injured.

"I don't understand, this should be healed already!" I shudder, suddenly very awake. We remove the rest of the bandages as well. My hands are covered with cuts and bruises on my palms and knuckles. For some reason, the ones on my left hand are much worse than the ones on my right. But the worst of the injuries are the bites on my right hand, and long, crimson gouges running down my right forearm. They feel hot, like there's fire beneath my skin.

"These are really infected, I don't know what to do..." Emily mutters. "We need to get Mister Fredricson." We rush to his office.

"What is it now?" he asks as we enter.

"Aria's injuries got infected, what should we do?"

Mister Fredricson closes his eyes and presses his fingers into the bridge of his nose. "Of course they did," he says flatly. "Come on, let's see." I hold my hand up for him to inspect. His eyes go wide for a moment, before he narrows them again.

"This is really bad. The safest option at this point would be amputation." I don't know what that is, but he keeps speaking. "However, that would make you worthless." Unlike Emily who seems really worried and shocked, he just looks displeased. "I'll ask about holy water at the church tomorrow, but it's probably not worth the price," he shrugs. "Just keep it covered until then. Pray to Baro for a miracle maybe," he chuckles like it's a joke. Actually, I guess it is a joke, since the gods don't bother blessing commoners. He wouldn't know about it, but that probably goes double for me since I'm not even human.

He chases us out of his office, and we return to our room. I sit on her bed, looking away so Emily can wind a long roll of fresh bandages around my arm. Then she falls to her knees. "Baro, I pray that you grant Aria health, so she can heal from her injuries. Please, just heal her..." I'm shocked, she's actually praying? Even though she said it was pointless? She's praying for my sake. I would feel terrible if I didn't at least follow her lead.

"Baro, I pray that I can heal from my injuries." I say the words, but I don't feel anything. It's not like the time I prayed in the church, where they had that divine totem that reacted to my mana. Where it felt like my words were actually reaching out to some far off being. Now it just feels like empty words.

"Come on, let's get dinner before it gets cold," Emily pulls me off of the bed and out of our room.

I'm kind of nervous bringing it up after that display, but I still want to know. "Hey Emily, who is Baro?" I ask quietly as we walk.

"That's right, we didn't get that far..." she mutters. "Baro is The God of Health and Prosperity."

"Oh, I get it." Of course that would be the god we pray to for healing.

We arrive at dinner as everyone else is finishing up. We get our food, which has mostly started to cool off, and begin eating quickly. "That's right, I didn't finish teaching you about the gods. I'll tell you more about them, ok?" It seems like Emily is forcing herself to stay cheerful, but I don't want to ruin her mood, so I go along with it.

"Sure." I make myself smile back. I'm really tired, so I'm not sure if now is the best time, but maybe it will keep my mind off of my arm. "We've covered Arcanas, Venar, Herat, Saras, and Hurena." I fight to recall the names from memory, but manage it somehow. With great effort, I push away all of my other worries and just focus on Emily's explanation for now. Just don't think about it.

"That's right. So next are Shana, Firos, and Nuvo." There are three this time? At least I recognize the name Shana. "First is Shana, The Goddess of the Large Moon and Water."

"Large Moon? What's that?" I ask.

"The- the moon? In the sky?" She doesn't seem to understand. "You know, the big thing in the sky? Every night?"

"Uhh..." I think back. I spent my life in the AR program building without going outside. After that, I went out during the day. "I... haven't seen it. I've never gone outside at night."

"You what?" Emily has no response for that. Well, I guess that's not entirely true, but both times I went out after dark, I wasn't in my right mind. I was completely delusional with fever when that happened, so I didn't really look up at the sky at the time. "Come on then, I'm showing you the large moon." We quickly finish up eating and she pulls me outside. Standing in the doorway, she points up into the sky. Just beginning to rise over the buildings, there is a large, white colored thing. It looks like a circle, but it seems like a small slice is missing from the right side, so the shape is a little off.

"Wow, it's really big," I comment. It looks about as big as the house across the street. "But... it doesn't move?" I lean from side to side. Compared to my perspective, the door frame moves a lot because it's close. The road and houses move a little because they're farther away. The moon doesn't seem to move at all. Just how far away is it?

"It's up in heaven, above the sky," Emily explains, "it looks like it moves across the sky, like the sun does. Shana keeps it spinning around us. That one is the small moon," she points up at a spot next to the moon, where I see a small crescent shaped sliver of white. It's hardly a fraction of the size.

"There are two moons?" Even though there's only one sun?

"Yes, the large moon and small moon. It'll be a full moon tomorrow." She points back at the large moon. "That's when the large moon is completely lit up, you see the missing part there?"

"Yeah. So it changes shape?"

"No, I think it's always a circle, it's just that it lights up differently each night."

"Huh," it seems a little hard to imagine it lighting up differently all the time. "That's pretty amazing..." I stare up at the large moon for a bit. I feel like its white glow is mysterious, and strangely beautiful. I... really like it for some reason.

"Come on, let's go to bed now," Emily says after a while. I nod, and we make our way upstairs. "Shana is The Goddess of the Large Moon, and Nuvo is The God of the Small Moon," Emily explains as we walk. The last two days of the week are called the weekend because it's the end of the week. Like the end of the day, they're related to night and rest. So we call them Nuvoday and Shanaday."

"Nuvoday and Shanaday," got it. So those are the last two days of the week. "That makes it Arcaday, Venaday, Saraday, Hureday..." What was the fifth day again?

"Oh, sorry. Firoday is named after Firos, The God of the Sun and Light."

"So it's Firoday, Nuvoday, Shanaday."

"Yes, that's the whole week." Emily nods happily as we approach our door. "I'll tell you more about them later, we should get you in bed." I nod, I'm starting to get really sleepy again. I've used up the little bit of energy I woke up with, even though I haven't been up very long at all.

I lie on my bed. "Rest is the most important thing for helping your body heal," Emily says. That's right, I needed to rest for two whole weeks at Marrianne's when I got that fever. If there's any chance of overcoming the infection in my arm, I need to make sure to get as much rest as I can. But how should I do that? It feels like my nightmares have been way worse than usual. Now that I'm thinking about it, I just woke up, but isn't it nighttime already? When did I go to sleep? I'm drawn from my sleepy, wandering thoughts by Emily.

"Hmm, I suppose you could eat some..." she mumbles while digging around under her bed. She withdraws a yellow colored fruit I don't recognize. "Nutrition is also really important..."

I feel an odd pang in my chest, but can't place it, so I just tilt my head and question the unknown word. "What does 'nutrition' mean?"

Emily's head snaps up like something just attacked her. "Nothing! Don't worry about it!" she says with so much force I recoil a little, as she throws the yellow fruit back under her bed. Her face is absolutely screaming 'don't ask,' so I drop it. "Anyway! You didn't wake up screaming last night." She immediately changes the topic while walking over to my bed. "You absolutely need to rest tonight. Do you know what might have helped last night? Anything we can do to help you sleep better?"

"Well..." I look away.

"You do know? And you never mentioned it before?" she asks, shocked.

"It's not like I could ask..." I mutter.

"I don't think you get it, Aria," Emily suddenly speaks very seriously, grabbing my shoulders. "The odds are stacked against you. With an infection like that, you'll need your arm amputated or you'll die." My eyes go wide. They didn't put it like that earlier. "And Mister Fredricson already said that if that happens, you'll be worthless, so he'll throw you out. That would also mean death."

"W-what does 'amputated' mean anyway?" I ask while trying to actually wrap my head around this. Emily mentioned infections being deadly before, but it never really clicked until right now. I could die from this? Why am I not healing like usual?

"It means when you cut off the injured body part. You would need your arm cut off."

"Cut off?" my voice catches. Before that, I should go back to the handlers, wouldn't they be able to fix whatever is wrong? They always did before. My thoughts get muddled as the reality of the situation settles in.

"I'm betting on the tiny chance of you beating the infection. There's no chance if you keep waking up like normal," Emily squeezes my shoulders and stares into my eyes. "Tell me what I can do to help."

I lower my head. She's doing all of this just for the meager chance of saving my life. "The only time I could sleep through the night was by sleeping together with Marrianne. Uhh, that was the nice woman who helped me before. So it would be fine if you slept with me..." I mumble.

"That's it?" Emily blinks a few times. "Why didn't you mention something so simple?"

"I couldn't just ask you to sleep with me, could I?" Even though I already told her, I feel so embarrassed.

"Of course you could. You've spent weeks waking up screaming all night instead!" she replies angrily.

She grabs the blanket off of her bed and lies down with me, throwing it over both of us. Then she wraps her arms around me tightly. "There, that should work, right?" Despite her confident words, her face is bright red.

"Yeah..." I mutter, my face must be bright red too. But I don't even think of protesting. Emily is literally doing this hoping to save my life.

"Baro, please grant Aria the blessing of healing. Shana, please grant Aria the blessing of longer life. Venar, please grant Aria the blessing of more time..." she mutters one prayer after another under her breath with eyes closed. I close my eyes too. I need to sleep. I don't think I can beat the infection on my own. I'm not healing right for some reason. I need to slow it down enough that I can go to the handlers tomorrow so they can fix whatever is wrong. For that, I need sleep.

So I hug Emily, and let myself sink into the darkness. I have to shut out the nightmares, I have to rest. I hold tight to her warmth and close myself off. I shut myself in a tiny box, holding onto my little flickering candle with all of my will, block away all of the screaming terror outside as much as I can. The endless nightmares pound at all sides, I just curl into a ball and focus only on the tiny fire. It's painful, fighting with everything I have to endure the bottomless darkness with only a tiny spark of light, but it's all I have. Even the small flame itself is painful, burning me as I draw it close. It feels like I'm going to crush the little light I have, but all I can do is hold onto it as tight as I can anyway. Until it burns me up, or I snuff it out.