Meh Yewll lay inert, face down on the lab table. Despite her intent to remain awake through the night she had lost consciousness. Throughout the night, the uhaku concentrate she had applied to herself was neutralizing the human toxins that had entered her blood stream through the wound they had carved in her back a few hours ago. Through her unconsciousness, the terrible fire on her skin reached around her abdomen as a stabbing ache through her core. In her troubled sleep one hand still lay atop the cold-beam gun beside her.
With an echoing click, the light above her snapped on. Alarmed by both the fact that she had lost consciousness, and by the presence beside her, she sprang from the table, stumbling backward with a yelp, and crashing into a rack of metal trays, while blindly aiming the gun into the light.
"Peace, Meh, you are safe."
She knew the voice well. Her eyes adjusted and focused as Lev leaned into the light and approached slowly, with outstretched hand.
Meh lowered the gun to the floor and fought to pace her panicked breath. "What is this?" she gasped as the injury seared anew.
"We don't have time." Lev knelt beside the crouching doctor. "Let me see what they did." She gently pulled Meh forward into her lap, and uncovered a violent purple gash the size of her hand. The drying blood had already locked in chemicals that were hazardous to the Indogene system. The flesh surrounding the wound was hot, indicating little time to west before infection spread.
"Lay down, Meh" Lev coaxed, lowering Meh the rest of the way onto the floor. She rifled through drawers and cabinets until she had found a scalpel and a bottle of urtica compound.
Meh strained and clenched her jaw as Lev swathed the wound with the compound. Lev sat down quickly and removed one of her own boots, exposing her bare calf, and applied the compound to her own skin.
"What are you doing?" Meh breathed through gritted teeth.
"Shh." Lev held a thick roll of new gauze to Meh's mouth. "Bite on this as hard as you can."
Then Lev swiftly re-opened the infected wound, removing the scab. Meh screamed into the gauze. Not hesitating, Lev cleansed the flowing wound again. Then just as deftly, she applied the scalpel to her own calf, and choking back a cry, removed a hand-sized piece of her skin, as tears flooded her eyes and nose. She quickly transferred the skin to Meh's wound, and it contorted, melded, and closed the gash. When it had healed closed, Lev finally release and anguished gasp.
Meh struggled to sit up. "Lev!" she exhaled, pulling Lev into her arms.
"I will be ok. I am ok."
"Stay with me, love!" Meh scrambled for clean gauze. "Are you really here?" She hurriedly sanitized and wrapped Lev's leg.
"In a way."
"We have to get away from these people," Meh continued in a panic. "I don't know what else they'll do to us, now that they know what our flesh is worth."
"I don't know what they'll do either," Lev replied in a strained whisper. "But you don't have the strength right now to run, or to survive alone."
Meh listened as she fastened the bandage. "I wouldn't be alone."
"You need to recover, and prepare quietly to leave, and start again somewhere else." Lev stared up into Meh's eyes.
"But I want to be where you are." Meh gently rested her hand on the side of Lev's face.
Lev silently held her gaze.
"Is there a place on this planet where you are?" Meh's voice trembled through rising tears.
"Yes, I am-" she slid her hand under Meh's clothing, and rested it on the healed wound "- here with you always."
Morning sun peeked in the door as Irisa slipped into the room. "Doc," she whispered through the curtains.
Meh startled awake and slid clumsily off the lab table, testing her mobility. "What?" she asked, "What do they want me to donate next?" He angry voice was tired and weak.
"No, doctor. I just wanted to see if you were ok. I stayed with you most of the night."
"Such a martyr. Well, I'm going to be ok. I can take care of myself." She left Irisa there and retreated to her personal quarters.
Locking herself in the bathroom, Meh leaned against the basin and noticed that the fire in her skin, and the vice grip around her torso had disappeared. Her knees and elbows remained sore and bruised from being through to the ground by Amanda and Nolan the previous night. She turned her face to the mirror to see a swollen bruise below her left eye.
The dream flooded back to her- a train of images past her eyes- Lev sitting beside her on the floor as she burned with fever. Lev carving flesh from her own body to cover Meh's torn flesh. Lev laying in her arms gazing up at her.
Meh unfastened and removed her jacket. Looking over her shoulder in the mirror, she observed that the injury from last night was now whole skin, a shade darker than her own, as Lev's complexion had been.
