Chapter 11: Kill and Try Again

Following Ashe’s sudden return, Fiori and Hana departed from the hotel for a few days leaving the rest of us free to do as we pleased. I ended up hanging out with Eli and Meyer.

If Meyer and I were the same height, Eli was almost a whole head shorter than us; though, her athleticism and her characteristics made her quite the fighter. Meyer and her often engaged in a friendly kick boxing match. Every time, Eli won. Meyer didn’t seem to mind.

I never partook in their little games. Most of the time I would completely ignore their match as I was too busy reading whatever books I could find. However, once the fight was done, what really interested me was to see how quickly they both recuperated; especially Eli. If the wound was shallow enough, you could see the flesh selfheal with your naked eye.

It was Meyer who had the idea first. They had just finished one of their friendly fights and we were all staring at a cut on Eli’s hand. I was astonished when he proposed that we use Eli’s recuperation ability so that I could practice not killing.

“No way!!!!!” I said. “What if it doesn’t work! What if I kill her by accident?”

“We won’t know if we don’t try,” Meyer said rationally.

“Well, I’m ok with not knowing AND not trying,” I declared.

“Fine, but sooner or later, you will have to do it you know. I mean kill.” Meyer was intentionally rubbing it in.

Eli who had kept quiet so far chimed in: “I’m ok with you trying. I think I can do it. But whether it will work or not, doesn’t concern me. I’m fine with dying.”

That was the weird thing with Eli, she truly didn’t care whether she lived or died. She didn’t care about her body. She could throw herself in front of a bullet or offer to kiss a stranger. The emptiness of her soul was well hidden by the smile on her face.

Deep down I wished I could change that. She wasn’t a girl who needed defending, who needed saving. But she was a girl who needed a caring friend. And I wanted to be that friend.

“How do we do it?” she queried.

“Hum… I don’t know. I mean, I think, I just need to make skin contact and then I… I don’t really do anything. It’s a sensation. It’s more like our heartbeats will synch and then I just concentrate on your energy and slowly sip it away. I just don’t know if I can stop once I start.”

All three of us were silent, lost in our own thoughts. The cut on Eli’s hand was now fully healed.

“What if we tried on something smaller first?” That had been Meyer proposing an alternative. He didn’t seem as sure of his plan anymore.

“Something smaller?” I repeated.

“And where are you going to find that?” Eli asked blatantly. “I’m pretty much as small as anyone gets around here!”

“No! No! I meant like a small animal! I don’t know… like a rat.”

“A rat?!” I laughed.

Eli laughed too.

“You can bet, if there were any rats around here, we’d be having meat for dinner. Good luck finding one!” I chided.

“Ahhhhh! Meat! I’ve always wanted to try meat!” Eli interjected.

“So, you’d eat rats?” Meyer asked unimpressed.

“Oh! Excuse me for not having fancy taste Mister-I-got-to-eat-meat at Senex Centralis.”

This was accompanied by the biggest eye roll I had ever seen. Eli was clearly not pleased with Meyer’s elitism. But she didn’t stop there: “Well let me tell you something! I would much rather eat rats then eat the beef raised at Nova Cibus. I hope you enjoyed your blood tainted meat Mister, because my comrades died for it!”

And that was that. Eli huffed a few more times. Meyer stared at his feet. And I just stood there scratching my forehead. We were off to a bad start.

“So…” I reluctantly asked. “What do we do then?”

“I don’t know,” mumbled Meyer.

Eli got up and stood right in front of me. She had fire burning in her eyes. I got up and faced her.

“Meyer’s right. With my healing ability, I am your best choice,” she said to me.

She had decided for all three of us. There was no backing down.

It shouldn’t have come as a surprise; she was daring by nature.

Meyer gave in and took position at her side. He grabbed her wrist: “If her pulse gets too low, I’ll break away your point of contact. For now, just try to take a little. Just enough so she knows it worked.”

I nodded.

I gently placed my right hand on her left cheek. Right over top of where the red ink would have been. I took a deep breath and tried to concentrate on our heartbeats. But before I could even begin the synching process, my heart started racing.

My head filled with doubts.

What if? What if?

What if I can’t stop?

What if Meyer doesn’t stop me?

What if I kill her?

I pulled my hand away from her. I took a big step back. My hand was shaking. My whole body was shaking.

“You can do it,” whispered Meyer. “Trust us.”

Eli took a step forward, took my hand and placed it back on her cheek. She didn’t let go of my hand. She held it firmly in place.

“I’m ready,” she said. “I trust you won’t hurt me.”

I looked into her eyes. A glimmer of hope had replaced the emptiness: “I trust you,” she whispered again.

I closed my eyes. I concentrated on my heartbeat. My heart wanted to race, but I had to keep it in check.

“Calm and steady,” I said to myself.

I was taking deep breaths, counting from one to ten. Then I heard it. It was faint at first and progressively got louder; her heartbeat. I started listening to it, until my own heartbeat joined in unison. I could feel her energy. I started pulling on it. It was warm. It felt so good. I had to be careful. I only needed to take a little. But it felt so good.

Just a little more, I thought. Not yet. Just a little more.

And the more I took, the more I wanted. I could feel the energy infusing my body, giving me strength like never before.

How much had I already taken? I had no idea. I started to panic. I needed to stop. But I couldn’t stop. I needed more. My body needed more. I opened my eyes in complete panic, just in time to see Eli’s body hit the ground. Before I knew it, Meyer had pushed me, at full strength in the chest. I flew backward and landed on my back.

“Oh my god, oh my god,” I despaired.

I couldn’t look at her. I took my head between my hands and impulsively started rocking. Meyer was on his knees next to Eli. He was checking her vitals. I was crying. I couldn’t stop. This had been a horrible idea, and I had been stupid enough to think I could do it.

I started wailing.

“Shut up,” Meyer screamed at me. “She’s alive you moron!”

I looked up. Eli seemed waxy. The blood had drained from her face. I couldn’t see her chest move up and down. She didn’t look alive to me.

I started sobbing again.

“Help me!” Meyer ordered. “Get me something to put under her head. Get me a blanket too.”

I quickly looked around. I grabbed a small cushion from a chair and slipped it under her head. I unzipped the hoodie I was wearing and laid it down on top of her; tucking in the sides so she could keep a little warmer. I hadn’t noticed how cold it really was. Meyer was holding on to her wrist, checking her pulse against his watch.

“It’s improving,” he said looking up at me for the first time. “But it came close, it came way too close. I said just a little.”

My heart sank. It was entirely my fault. I had been selfish. I hadn’t been able to stop myself. I hadn’t even tried until it was too late. Without thinking, I started brushing the hair back from her face but pulled away quickly. I shouldn’t touch her. I had better be careful. So instead, I whispered in her ear: “I’m sorry.”

Meyer and I stayed by her side for a whole hour. By then, Meyer assured me that her heart rate and her breathing were perfectly normal, and she was most likely just having a really good sleep.

It was a full two hours after she collapsed that she finally opened her eyes.

“Ahhhhhhh!” she said. “I was having such a nice dream. I wished I could have slept longer.” Then she smiled at me. A big heartfelt smile. She complained too that she was starving. Meyer volunteered to go get her some food and left us alone together.

There is so much I wanted to ask her. So much I wanted to know. But all I said was: “I’m sorry.”

She grabbed my hand and looked at it for a while.

She sighed: “You really are dangerous… but you know,” she continued. “It felt so good, I didn’t even want it to stop. It was like gently falling asleep with your heart at peace. I thought, if this is what dying feels like, then I’m ok with it, right here, right now.”

She was still holding my hand. She placed it back on her cheek.

Once again, all I could find to say was: “I’m sorry.”

“It’s ok,” she said. “I’m ok. We are going to try again. We are going to keep trying everyday, until you can figure it out. I didn’t die today. So, I’m not going to die tomorrow. I’m not going to die. You can do it.”

She looked so determined. She almost had me believing I could do it. But deep down, I was falling apart. That feeling of power, of strength I had felt while nearly killing her had been intoxicating. It tasted so good. And still now, I could feel my body wanting more. Is that what being blood thirsty felt like? It was eating me from the inside. It was like a whole different person was trying to break free. And it scared me shitless.

She dropped my hand and said: “We will try again, ok?”

I smiled back but answered unconvincingly: “Sure.”

“You’re getting a lot better at smiling,” she pointed out.

I blushed.

Meyer arrived with sandwiches for all three of us. I had no appetite. I gave my sandwich to Eli; she really was starving. Meyer had also brought back a notebook and started asking me a million question about, “the experiment.” That’s what he called it. I answered him as accurately as I could. Even if it was painful to do so. Eli was listening, quietly. I would have rather she didn’t. Meyer was taking notes, lots of notes. I could hear his pencil scratching on the paper.

Once he was done, it was my turn to ask the question: “Why didn’t you stop me?” I couldn’t understand why he had let me go that far. “We had agreed, I would only take a little of her energy and then we’d stop.”

“I tried,” he said. “But it all happened too fast.”

“What do you mean too fast? You could have stopped me. You could have checked her pulse. You should have seen her heartbeat decreasing,” I said, in an accusatory tone.

“I would have, if I had could. I was checking her pulse, but it all happened too fast. I didn’t have any time. The only thing I could do, was to shove you as hard as I could so you’d break contact. There was no time to think. I had to act quickly.”

I was confused. How long had it taken me? I had no real way to measure, but I am sure a few minutes had gone by. Meyer squinted and leaned in really close to my face. Like he was trying to see through me. Then he exclaimed: “No way! You have no idea how long it took you? Do you? Well guess what? Just under 3 seconds.”

I gasped.

“It took you less than 3 seconds to kill Eli. You really are amazing!”

I am not sure that amazing was how I felt. I just couldn’t share his excitement about my killing ability. It wasn’t something I could be proud of. I timidly smiled at Eli. She smiled back.

“In any case,” he added. “You do need to figure out how to stop yourself. Or, at the very least, you need to find a way to measure how much energy you’ve taken and how much energy the person has left.”

The thing is, I had no idea how to do that, or if it was at all possible.

“Maybe we should find someone who has the same characteristic as me,” I said. “Maybe they could teach me.”

“We can’t. According to your file, your Heighten Characteristic is unique. It seems that no one else has ever exhibited an energy manipulating capacity. You are the first one, and most likely the only one. Here’s the weird thing; Eli’s characteristic is also unique. Almost like the 2 of you were engineered… of course, that’s just a thought.”

“But, don’t you have the same Heighten Characteristic as Eli?” I asked confused.

“In some ways I do, but as I said, mine isn’t nearly as advanced. Mine is more like a… beta version.”

Eli was now done eating her sandwich. She was up stretching and looked like nothing had ever happened. “Get up,” she said. “Let’s do it again.”

“We can’t,” I objected. “I need to figure out a way to stop myself.”

“And you think you are going to figure it out while sitting around here moping about the present circumstances?” she sternly replied.

She had a point. Besides, I knew now, there was no stopping her. She wouldn’t let me rest until we figured it out.

Does she ever just sit down and chill, I wondered.

Meyer got up. I got up too. “As soon as I close my eyes, you count until 2, then you push me away. Got it?”

“Got it,” he said.

I took a deep breath, put my hand on Eli’s cheek and closed my eyes.

This time, I was able to hear her heartbeat right away. I concentrated on it. Then I started drawing away her energy. I had to pace myself. I had to fight the urge to take more.

Her energy started infusing my body.

It felt so good.

It felt so warm.

I wanted more.

More, more, more…

I wanted…

My head hit the floor. It was Meyer. He was sitting on top of me. My head was hurting badly. My skull felt like it had been cracked open. I moaned in pain. I pushed him off and turned to my side. I saw Eli on the floor and forgot all about my head. A jolt of fear ripped through me. I crawled next to her. She was breathing, ever so faintly. Tears welled in my eyes again. I raised myself up and sat there by her side. Meyer joined me.

“I think that’s enough for today,” he said.

I nodded in agreement and thought, there has to be a better way!

That night another vivid dream found me. I was inside a luxurious house. The little girl was playing the piano. The song was light and airy, but she was playing it with such anger and melancholy. She was four, maybe five. Everything about this scene should have been beautiful but instead it filled me with dread.

Next, I was outside. I recognized the house right away. This was the place where the lonely boy would be. But he wasn’t there today. Instead, piano girl was running around. Laughing. The heaviness was gone. All gone. I could feel the sun on my skin, the wind on my face. As always, it was just so vivid, it made me doubt my own reality.

A man arrived and talked with the young girl. I couldn’t make out what they were saying. I walked closer to them, hoping I could hear. But the sound was like static getting progressively louder. I woke up with a terrible headache. A terrible, terrible headache. My whole body was aching too. In the back of my mind, I could still hear the piano playing, melancholic and heavy.

Liszt’s La Campanella, I recalled.

The name of the song came to me, just like that. Like a far away memory, bubbling to the surface.

I was about to close my eyes again, hoping to sleep off the headache, when my bedroom door swung open.

“We need to talk,” she said.