A continuation of Don and Angelica, my little bbies.
"Professor, isn't that enough? She can barely stand."
"Since when have you cared?"
"It's not a matter of caring," I look past the bullet-proof glass and at the orb Mia is suppressing her screams in. "She's been through a lot. She needs more time to rest."
"If her vitals are fine, as indicated here," the Professor jabs at the screen pointing to Mia's fluctuating vitals and a diagram of her body. "Then she's being tested. Besides this is the last test and then I'm going to spend the next two days analyzing. Friday is her last day, remember that Don."
"How can I forget?"
In just a day, Seth is coming to end this world and everything else. Why can't he just leave me alone? Some part of me wants to stay safe behind these bars that keep everyone out. Don is going to make sure I'm trapped here for sure, but for how much longer until they don't need me anymore for whatever the Professor has in store?
"Are you-going to finish that story?" I ask Don feebly, wondering how much he must hate me by now. I screamed at him and lost control of myself yesterday, I must seem like a lunatic to him whose lost grasp of reality. If I only-if I only I was strong enough to beat Seth the first time we fought, I wouldn't be here. I squirm in my fresh undergarments and clean shorts, waiting for an answer. He clears his throat and continues to tell the story.
Angelica was reading in the library, where I had read half of all the books in there. I brought in a tray of the food she had a weakness for. She narrowed her eyes at me and then went back to reading. "What's that?" she asked briskly.
"A grilled cheese sandwich. You want some?" I uncovered the plate and the bitterness I thought was her face vanished into thin air.
"Yes!" she dropped the book on the couch and stopped herself from grabbing the other half. Warily, she took it and slowly bit into it. She hummed contentedly as she took more greedy bites of the cheesy sandwich. "You want the rest?" She nodded and I placed the tray in her lap. Seeing her moderately happy made me a little happier. Her cheeriness highlighted the pretty features of her dark face.
That night when we were in our room, she spoke to me in a tone softer than her bitter one. "Why did you give me everything?"
I shrugged but I doubted she could've seen me in the dark room. "I wasn't hungry. Do you hate me Angelica?" I was impulsive when I was young, I didn't think before I said things. It's almost embarrassing to recall how rash I was back then. Anyway, I saw Angelica's face turn away from me and she folded her arms while sitting up against the wall.
"No, I was really upset. Do you...hate me?"
"I don't know how to hate people." I was still a stupid child. That ended our midnight discussion and every day after that night, I always brought her grilled cheese sandwiches. One day I dared to ask her about her fits of screaming.
"The doctor told me that I had an illness that makes me really feeble and shaky all over whenever I'm stressed. I was born with it, I forget the name, it's so long," she explained calmly to my surprise while we walked to our room. "It also causes some skin discoloration and the treatment makes the roots of my hair grey. You can ask the Professor for the name if you're really curious-"
I didn't know how to react hearing her talk to me so kindly, I decided then and there that I liked her voice, so I asked her another question. "Why is your hair like that?" She explained how her cousin would come to the hospital to take synthetic hair and twist it within her own hair, making it long and beautiful. She also told me she had a lot of friends at her hospital and told me about a sick boy named Eddie who she really liked but died the day before she had to leave. "One of the scientists visited me and my mom and told us that I'd be better if I came up here and I would get better treatment. My dad figured it was a good idea since that scientist worked with my uncle, Professor Ivory. That's why I got mad that night and had to get taken away, I didn't want to come up here."
"Why?"
"I didn't want to lose my mom and my friends! I never even-" her anguish dissipated and became sorrowful and regretful. "I never got to go to the carnival Mom promised to take me to. Summer Carnivale." I wasn't sure why but seeing her eyes filled with sorrow made me feel sad. Angelica had an influence on me and I couldn't grasp why back then. All I could tell you was that when she was happy, I was happy and when I overheard her calling her brother tearfully begging him to bring her back home, I felt sad and sometimes angry that I couldn't make her happy. I absorbed every one of Angelica feelings like a sponge. I became a reflection of her more and more each day. Nobody had ever made me feel like that before. So every day I tried to make her feel more welcome up there.
A year later, Professor Ivory tested us at the same time and he concluded that her illness had significantly improved-he mentioned some biological factors that I couldn't remember-and that my growth was "simply amazing". I was faster, smarter, and according to Professor Ivory I was "starting to look handsome". She changed a lot physically, she was taller, her face had a deeper, richer color, and her chest developed. She was prettier than ever before when she stopped sulking around on the Air Fortress. We had gotten close enough to share intimate details with each other and we would talk about everything as we sat in our spot by the window, looking down at the milky clouds. "Do you still wish you could go back home?" I asked her.
"I never went to Summer Carnivale. I was always too sick to go so I guess so," said Angelica forlorn but quickly added cheerily, "But I'm happy up here." She deserved the world and as my best friend, I was going to do everything I could to make sure she was always happy. "Could I ask you something?"
"What?" I crossed my legs and turned to her.
"Why do you and the Professor live up in here in the sky? Haven't you ever wanted to see down there before?"
"The Professor always told me that we had to be up here because if other people knew what we were doing, they wouldn't allow it and they would kill the Professor and use me," I answered pensively, now gazing at the clouds slowly moving away from us. "The Professor said I was 'illegal'. But I do want to see what's down there some day."
"I don't think you're illegal," replied Angelica sweetly as she rubbed the back of my head. Her touch always felt reassuring to me, that everything would be okay. I decided that I should repay her kindness with giving her what she really wanted. "Come on, I'll take you somewhere," I took her hand and led her to the escape room added in the basement floor. She asked, "What is this?"
"Five escape pods that we can take anywhere we want. I can take us to Summer Carnivale Angelica." Her smile had never been wider. Her arms flew around me and she made gleeful sounds. "For a day."
"It's summer right? Today is...June 19! Today is part of the Carnivale! We can go right now?"
"Yeah," I hugged her back until she was too jumpy to hug. "You ready to test it out?"
"Wait, I have to put on a better outfit! Don you are the best, thank you for doing this for me. I'll go get ready."
'''
I helped her out of the pod, her breathing was irregular. We ended up in the bushes and had to wait a while for the area to empty out and once it did I was able to reach Angelica. I wasn't thinking about how much trouble we would get in, just about Angelica's wellbeing. Caring about her made me aloof to everything else. When she began trembling, I held her tightly, listening to her heart pound like drums. She started to scream but cut herself short-she got better at controlling her outbursts. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah, I'm ok," she left my embrace and I helped her out of the bushes while plucking out the twigs and leaves that got stuck in her twists. She looked around her old neighborhood with bug eyes and then smiled at me. "This is your first time being on the ground right?"
"Yeah," we strolled down the sidewalk as I took in all the sights, the musty smell of the fake lawns, and the sounds of my shoes skidding against the pavement. "It feels strange looking up at the clouds, usually I'm always looking down at them. And-there are real trees here." I tried to keep calm but Angelica could see how excited I was. Excited and naïve. Angelica pointed out the buildings called brownstones, telling me that she wanted to live in one of them when she was older and healthier. Dusk gave the urban suburbia a unique look to it-I didn't miss being in the Air Fortress at all or as Angelica would endearingly call it, "The aerial prison cell". I wanted to run around and explore and talk to everyone but I was ten years old and I didn't have time for all that kiddy stuff.
We passed by a vendor selling expensive hats and sausages wedged between bread. Suddenly I remembered Angelica's roots-if people saw them, it would cause panic. They'd know she was sick and think she was contagious. While Angelica was trying to use the street signs to remember her way around, I turned back to the hot dog vendor, who was bombarded with other children buying caps and hot dogs probably for the carnival. He wasn't paying attention so I managed to grab a baseball cap off a hook and slipped away inconspicuously.
"Okay I think it was this way-oh Don, my hair. People'll-" I placed the cap on head and she pulled it down on her twists with a smile. "Thanks."
The Summer Carnivale was one of the most beautiful things I've seen. It seemed as though the entire world came together to play games, squirt guns, throw balls at targets and watch people drop in pools. I made sure to "borrow" some money from the Professor so we could win things; I won Angelica a teddy bear and against my will she forced me to try a funnel cake with her. "It's soooo sweet, don't you think?"
"Yeah." It was powdery and tasted like pure sugar, I ended up enjoying the delectable treat. Angelica impatiently tugged me along after I threw the remains in the trash. Children's laughter and tears filled the air; I felt like a normal person, for the first time I was in the presence of so many people who weren't in lab coats. Everyone treated me like a regular ten year old kid, clapping when I won a game and laughing when I took my first bite of the sugary funnel cake. My favorite ride was the Ferris Wheel, the setting sun felt like it was within our reach and it reminded me of the home that was way up there. "Can we stop by Lewis Hospital before we go back up?" Angelica asked as our carriage rocked back and forth from her excited wiggling. "Please?"
"Sure thing."
Her face lit up as she squeezed the teddy bear. "I'll introduce you to everyone! Maybe Mom will be at home, everyone's really gonna like you as much as I do." Every nice thing Angelica said to me I took to heart, I was still naïve back then. Her words sprouted seeds of hope in my heart, she made me feel like a normal kid and not the superhuman insomniac. "Why're you smiling like that?" she played with her hair while her tangerine sundress fluttered in the wind.
"I just like it here a lot," I said as I looked up at the setting sky, practically grinning. When we got off the Ferris Wheel, we figured it was time to head to the hospital. We froze when we saw the police cars parked outside the exit, flashing blue and red glaring lights. Angelica and I exchanged anxious glances. "Are they here for us?" People were suddenly panicking and gathering towards the Ferris Wheel.
"Not sure," I turned us away from the exit and towards the crowd where we wouldn't stick out as much. Through the chaos, I understood that it wasn't us that were the center of attention. At the Ferris wheel, there was a young boy who got stuck up at the top. The cops were telling us to keep back and couldn't do a thing until the fire department came.
"We were just up there, that's so scary. I feel so bad for him-he must be scared up there without anybody." I didn't want Angelica to be sad, I hated that more than anything, so I did anything that would make her happy. Even while she screamed my name as I let go of her wrist, I shoved through the crowd and hopped over the barricades with lightning speed- I wasn't smart, I was thinking about Angelica's happiness, I didn't care for kid much. I jumped and latched on the first bar and made my way up. The breeze grew stronger as more people screamed and hollered at me to come down.
"Young man, get down from there!" The police shouted into their megaphone but I ignored them. Climbing up was easy for me, hopping from gap to gap deftly until I could barely hear the people down below. Before I would leap, I'd give myself momentum by pushing down, making the Ferris wheel rotate slightly as I latched on the next bar. Finally I made it to the frightened kid, with a ruddy face and tearful eyes as he apprehensively watched me climb into the cart. "You can trust me."
"Are you Spiderman?"
"Yes." He reluctantly stared at my stretched hand with his glassy grey eyes. Whatever Spiderman was, it made me feel strong and capable of doing anything. The blonde kid took my hand and I pulled him into my chest. I got us both out of the swinging cart and he whimpered when the wind became stronger. "We're going down okay? You can trust Spiderman right?"
"Mm-hm," he buried his face in my shirt and held on to it. With one hand, I hopped down a few bars and was feeling confident. The horrified screams became cheers below us, filling me with the power I needed to keep going. When I dropped down to the next bar, I lost my footing. The air felt so good cascading on my back. I wrapped my arms around the silent child and looked toward the transparent moon in the dusk sky. The last thing I thought about was how sad Angelica would feel when I landed and then the wailing and howls from the crowd became louder than anything. That was the second time I died in my lifetime.
J.G.P.