Chapter 12

Mellite

The lights of their room gradually lit up to wake up the two sleeping young women. Opening her eyes, the first thing that Mellite saw was the face of Syphony who was waking up gently, putting a hand in front of her eyes to protect them from the light that now bathed the place.

She is too cute when she does that. Thought the young stranger, her head still resting on the chest of her mat... her companion of misfortune.

“Hello sleepyhead !” She finally exclaimed, breaking free from Syphony’s embrace.

“Hhhhm, is it morning already?” Asked the girl while grimacing, to which Mellite laughed slightly by standing in front of the wall where the door was, a little to the right of it.

She did not even wait a minute before a slot formed on it, growing until it formed a hole in the metal. Inside, two trays presented themselves to the young woman, each with a cup of coffee, an apple and a bowl filled with some sort of grayish gruel. On top of that, there were two metal glasses and a pitcher full of water.

“Come on, get up or I’ll eat it all !” Said Mellite a little louder to motivate her partner to get up.

“Hhhm okay, okay, I’m coming !” Syphony replied furiously with a pout, rising with great difficulty in the bed.

Meanwhile, Mellite had put the trays on a table that had come out of the wall, then sat down on a chair coming from the floor. Syphony joined her in two steps, the room being not that large, and she began to drink her cup of coffee while the other young woman looked at her tenderly.

She’s not a morning person either. She thought while remembering her friends who, without exception, had trouble with mornings, making Mellite the only morning person in her group.

“Clac.” Made the cup of Syphony when she rested it on her plate, attacking the bowl of gray gruel with her spoon and an enthusiasm that made her mate smile.

Mellite herself was still struggling to get used to the strange texture and bland taste of the mixture, even though it was actually quite fulfilling. She forced herself to eat it, crunching in the apple every two or three spoonfuls to get sugar and aroma, making the rest of the meal bearable. As usual, Syphony took Mellite’s mug of coffee, the young foreigner having a very firm opinion about all bitter foods.

They ate silently for a few minutes and, when they were finished, Syphony put the various things on the trays which she then put back in the wall hole, which closed after having swallowed them. She then went to stand on one side of the bed and prepared to exercise, warming up a bit.

“You want to exercise with me?” She asked Mellite who, like the four days before, refused.

“I’m not good at sports. Push-ups, not for me.”

“You should do a little bit of it, just to stay in shape. You’ll need it when we get out of here, you know ?” Added the soldier.

It was the first time she insisted a little, which sparked Mellite’s curiosity.

“Why?”

“You’re with us now, you’ll have to work to feed yourself, and it’s better to be athletic for most of the jobs available, unless you’re a genius.” She replied to her.

“We need a lot of soldiers, technicians and mechanics as well, nurses, all the pretty grueling stuff. You’re not that young anymore, so you won’t be able to partake in long-term studies to become a doctor or an engineer, so you’ll have to fall back on that.”

“Tsss…” Did Mellite, dissatisfied with her future’s prospects.

“... Okay. What do I do?” she ended up yielding, her mind permeable to her partner’s logic.

“Start by warming up, do as I did.” She showed her, preparing her arms and legs for the effort ahead.

The two young women thus warmed themselves for about ten minutes, so that Syphony was sure that Mellite was well warmed up, and she then showed her how to do push-ups.

“...and you go down, the movement must be complete or it doesn’t help much, understood ?”

“Yep !”

“Good.” Said Syphony, the energy and good mood of Mellite making her smile.

“For starters, give me as much push-ups as you can, so we can see how far along you are, okay ?”

“Ok!” the young stranger replied, putting herself on the ground, taking the position that Syphony had shown her.

She then began to do the classic back-and-forth training.

1 ! 2 ! 3 ! She counted in her head every time she did a push-up.

Strangely, and totally contrary to her previous experiences, moving her muscles was making her feel good, as if she felt her arms, legs and abdominals getting washed of their toxin. She soon stopped counting, carried away in the sports trance quite common among people who train regularly.

“... You’re good, not tired ?” Syphony asked after a while, getting Mellite out of her trance.

She was sweaty, her white clothes stuck to her skin and drops pearling on her face.

“Fff...I’m...fff...good..fff…”

“You can stop now.”

Mellite frowned and stopped, but stared at her companion, who herself looked at her with a strange look.

“Didn’t you tell me I had to give everything to see how far I could go ?”

“Yes, but you told me you were bad at sports.”

“... Well, that’s right. I’m out of breath, right ?” She retorted using her body’s condition as an argument.

“... You have just did more than 500 push-ups. I myself only do 150 of them every morning.” Syphony said in disbelief.

Mellite looked at her while frowning before smiling with a look of understanding.

“You’re messing with me, right? It’s not nice to…” She started answering, interrupted by the the door opening.

Doctor Rahato entered the room as if she were the owner, which might just as well be the case then thought Mellite, and contemplated the two young women who were facing each other.

“I’m interrupting something?” She asked, the voice distorted by the mask she wore, which strangely recalled those of Code Vein to Mellite.

“No doctor !” Syphony replied, putting herself at attention.

“You can tell me, I can come back later.” Rahato added, and before the soldier could add anything, Mellite spoke.

“Hooo, I recognize the voice. You’re the peeping tom who was spying on us, right ?”

Rahato strangled herself a little when she heard her dear patient call her a pervert, but quickly resumed.

“Rest soldier. You know you don’t need to do this with me, let alone in private.”

“I prefer to do it, ma'am.”

“Tsss… always so cold. Anyway, I didn’t come to talk about that. I have good news: I’ve run a number of test batteries with your RV-a1 strain, and it turns out its infectivity is null. You will be able to get out of here.” She said to them, Syphony smiling and clenching her fist, happy, Mellite jumping on the spot of excitement.

“FINALLYYYYYYYYY !”

“However, I will still make you wear special masks for security reasons and to monitor you.” She added while handing them two masks identical to hers.

Syphony took it and put it without hesitation, clearing her long blonde hair to place it correctly, but Mellite looked at it while pouting.

“Do we really have to wear this ?”

“I’m sorry about that, honey. I don’t want you to carelessly make someone sick. Or you can stay here, your choice.” Said Rahato while watching Mellite, who finally decided to put on her mask.

Once the hair were cleared and the mask put on well, she realized that it was actually quite pleasant to wear, it did not weigh much, did not scratch, was well ventilated, in short, well designed.

“Did you create these masks ?” Mellite asked, her voice slightly distorted by the mask.

“Oh no, I just strongly modernized an old model to take advantage of recent advances in medicine and engineering.” Rahato replied, discarding the question with one hand, Syphony raising an eyebrow of scepticism.

“Come on, come with me.” Rahato said as she came out of the room, taking off her mask when she was outside

***

The trio had gone through a decontamination room where they had to change their clothing before moving into the non-quarantine area of the station. The corridors were cold, the bare surfaces were dry and colourless, a mixture of metallic grey and plastic black.

“If I may ask so, where are we going, Doctor ?” respectfully asked Syphony.

“Captain Sirgan wants to see you.” Rahato dryly replied.

“Ha. Yes, I guess I made him worry.” the young woman said, rubbing her head.

Leaving the medical area, the trio met some of the staff, men and women in uniforms looking strangely at the two masked young women who were walking behind the so famous Doctor Rahato. All of them, moreover, moved away from the passage of the scientist, putting themselves at attention along the walls while waiting for herto pass, then leaving again quickly.

“Worry ?” Picked up Mellite when she got out of her thought.

“Oh my God, I had forgotten.” Rahato said when rubbing her brow with fatigue.

“I’ll have to explain everything.” She continued by massaging her temples.

“To put it simply and give some context, we are currently on one of the seven orbital stations around Sarn, the Everest station. John Sirgan is its Captain, and it turns out he’s also Syphony’s godfather.”

“O-okay.”replied Mellite without fully understanding the implications of this explanation, while Syphony was turning red beside her.

“And we’re going to see it… because Syphony almost died and he’s worried. Okay. Logical.” She says more for herself than for others.

After some time walking in silence, the trio arrived at an elevator in which they entered. It brought them to the crew quarters where Dr Rahato guided them through a maze of corridors with doors aligned to the left and right. They passed a sort of airlock and then entered a clearly richer area, the doors were less close from one another and the hallways were immaculate white rather than bare. Finally, Dr Rahato stopped in front of a door and carried her wrist to a chip reader. The electronic padlock beeped green and the door opened. The doctor and Syphony entered as if they were arriving at home but Mellite was a little more nervous, expectant for her meeting with the Captain of this place.

She watched the other two take off their shoes and did the same, leaving the soft white boots on a shelf designed for this purpose, and then followed them through the lobby and through a door that likely looked out onto the living room. The place was nicely furnished, with two sofa sufficient to accommodate eight people, turned towards a wall, the ceiling of the room a large window overlooking space.

A gigantic metal structure floated there and, Mellite taking a better look at it, she could see that she was currently in a ring anchored to the central cylinder by monstrous cables. She then realized that the ring was spinning because, at the edge of the glass, the silhouette of a blue planet began to rise, seemingly emerging from behind the main cylinder like the sun rising over a mountain.

They use the centrifugal pseudo-force to create artificial gravity… Thought Mellite while remembering one of the things that Eleonor had explained to her when they had played together at a science fiction fps of which she had forgotten the name, something with rings created as weapons of mass destruction.

A man then entered the room from one of the other doors, and froze when he saw the three women. He must have been more or less the same age as Professor Rahato, his salt and pepper hair tied in a bun, like a samurai. He threw himself forward and, with his powerful arms with well-drawn muscles, he took Syphony in his arms, hugging her, which she gave back to him with the same power.

Eleonor

She was trapped in a feverish nightmare, unable to distinguish illusions from reality. Spikes of pain ran through her randomly, she was dying of starvation, or maybe not, people spoke to her in incomprehensible way, all giving her the feeling to be swept away by a storm of madness. She cowered more and more on herself, the situation less and less bearable for Eleonor as pain and madness grew.

I want it to stop ! Please ! She kept repeating herself in loop until she was drowned in darkness.

***

The chirping of her alarm took her gently out of her sleep. She turned it off and stretched extensively in her bed like a cat that had been disturbed, before finally pushing the blanket to get up. She turned on her computer which sat on the desk next to her bed and, waiting for him to launch, she began to dress, taking off the panties which alone served as her pajamas, uncovering her abundant femininity covered with a thick carpet, as dark as the long hair that fell on her breasts as she lowered herself to pick up some clean clothes, creating a definite contrast with her white skin of a homebody introvert.

Once dressed in a disparate set of clothes, she retrieved her backpack, the necessary syllabi for the day already filling it, launched a program on her computer and went down to pick up some dessert in the fridge as well as a spoon in the kitchen.

Her father was already waiting for her in the car, so she hurried to get in, being very careful to close the door behind her. They did not speak while her father was driving her to the station, both of whom had just come out of a too short and restless sleep. He dropped her off with a kiss on her cheek, wishing her a good day before returning home to start teleworking. She sat on the stone platform, back against the train shelter, some other people with sleepy faces standing here and there waiting for the train like her.

A headache attacked Eleonor and the world seemed to waver slightly, small cracks opening up here and there. She rubbed her eyes and massaged her temples, and the illusion disappeared as if it had never existed. The rest of the journey, an hour by train and a ten minute walk to her school, went without worries. She slept through it, trying to get as much sleep as she could for her class day. She arrived in class without paying attention, her tired mind wandering, imagining various scenarii for the pen and paper rpg of which she was the game master. The day went like all Monday always go, slow, tiring but interesting when she could muster what little focus she had on the subject of the courses. A new pain had passed through her head around noon, again accompanied by the small cracks, but she did not pay attention. She preferred to talk and play with her friends, in particular she enjoyed watching Mellite draw, the way the girl was able to reproduce human bodies was fascinating, and in addition they had the same preferences when it came to their styles of boys and girls, even using coded language to be able to talk about the people they were watching in public. The week passed quietly, in the evening she played Monster Hunter World with Mikael, or Lol with “é'çjk! èkkERROR”! çmù:/%, sometimes she chatted with Mellite, the girl sharing her screen to show her current drawing to Eleonor, who watched her draw while relaxing with a cup of hot chocolate or tea.

On Friday, as she walked into the Nord Station to return home, her eyes lowered on her tablet, focused on the new chapter that her favorite author had just published, and she bumped into someone.

“Fuck !” She screamed while doing an acrobatic arm movement to catch her tablet before it touched the ground, not again. She managed to save it from this tragic fate in extremis and turned around while frowning angrily, ready to yell at the moron who had bumped into her. Suddenly, a hand grabbed her shoulder firmly and she found herself face-to-face with a woman with an ethereal blue face.

Wake up ! She screamed while whispering, her mouth not moving.

Eleanor blinked, and she was gone. She felt a new attack of headaches looming on the horizon, and she hurried to join her platform so as not to miss her train, quickly forgetting the incident. The world, however, seemed a little more foreign than usual, the colors, sounds, smells strangely shifted…

***

The world was getting more and more grey, she felt like she was living the same few days in loop without learning anything new, without discovering new things in her games, without seeing new drawings or new stories. Without knowing why, she had been experiencing severe headaches for several weeks now, sometimes with pain in her hands, eyes or shoulder. She had gone to see a doctor, but he had found nothing to explain the condition of the young woman. Evilyn had tried to cheer her up by making a raclette with everyone in her apartment, but it had only brightened Eleonor for a time, her condition returning quickly to its previous state, or even worse. One evening when she was returning home, the shadows became thicker than usual, without her realizing it, too busy contemplating the stars filling the clear sky. She looked down when she heard a noise coming from the road, and froze when a colossal creature with a blurry outline blocked her way. A pain then burst into her left shoulder, pulling her out of her stupor, and she began to run, feeling the blood flowing along her arm and body. She called for help while she was fleeing, but no one seemed to respond to her call, and she finally arrived home breathless and weakened by the loss of blood. She had to try and do it three times before successfully opening the door of the house with her shaking hands, rushing inside by closing the door with a slam that resounded throughout the house. She locked the door and dragged herself to the dining room, where her father was already making her little sister and her little brother eat, where she collapsed.

***

She opens her eyes before the anxious gaze of her family, flickering her eyes, still weak.

“My God, Ele, are you okay ? How do you feel ?”

“S-something attacked me ! Argh !” She said while painfully holding her bleeding shoulder.

“Oh God I’m still bleeding….ffff… when is the...ffff… the ambulance coming ? I need something to make a tourniquet, anything !” She said, hysterical and breathless.

Her family, however, looked at her strangely, their eyes filled with worry.

“But my dear, you’re not bleeding.” Her father said in an incredulous tone, showing the shoulder she held like a maniac.

She lowered her eyes again and realized that there was no blood, she felt only a piercing pain where her hand was placed. Her breathing became even more chaotic, Eleonor panicking even more as her mind mixed reality and fantasy. She then felt surrounded by powerful arms, those of her father hugging her, and two smaller pairs, her brothers and sisters following the example by sticking to her to try and reassure her. A few minutes passed before her breathing calmed down, and they sat down again so that she could eat something, even if the atmosphere was heavy…

***

In the weeks that followed, crises became more frequent. As soon as she left home, she ran the risk of being attacked by one or another nightmare creature, getting hurt in the shoulder, eating her hands, piercing her body, tearing her eyes, before someone, a stranger or someone close to her, could get her out of those waking nightmares, most of the time finding her curled up in a ball in a corner, crying. She remained more and more cloistered in her room, closing herself in, fearing the outside world and the pain it could brought her. She stopped going to school, talked to her friends only by Discord, no longer took classes and tried to forget by watching anime on anime, reading manga on manga and novel on novel, playing game on game. From time to time the world seemed to crack and she sometimes saw the ghostly face that asked her to wake up, but she classified these things in the same category as the chimeras of which she was victim. Her father had tried to get her out, to take her to a doctor and a psychologist to help her, but she refused to come out, hiding in her room of which she had locked the door. Finally, she had to be forcibly taken to a psychiatric hospital, the world around her filled with shadows so dense that they were palpable, monster looming in them, ready to tear her apart.

Well well little mouse, you're trapped aren't you ? I hope you've what's needed to break from your own mind ahahah !

Said a voice she nearly recognized...