"She's going to die," Selia whispers to Abby. "Isn't she?"
"Your mother is very strong, Selia. She can still pull through," the doctor tries to convince her best friend's seven-year-old, but her words aren't as confident as they would be if she believed them. "Why don't you go talk to her? She needs to hear your voice."
The little girl with braided pigtails stares up unsure at the woman and Abby nods encouragingly, pushing her towards the door. Hesitantly, Selia wanders into the pristine area full of beds with curtains to separate them. Marcus is sitting beside the bed where his wife lays and the machine she's connected to by several wires is next to him. Selia is entranced for a moment by the lines spiking on the screen and the slow beeps that accompany it, but when she realizes how fast her heart pounds in comparison, she knows it's too slow to mean any good.
Her gaze shifts to her dad who looks beyond tired and scared, a sight she's never seen. He's always so well put together, but now his hair is all wayward, his eyes hollow with dark circles beneath them, and there's rims of red around them to show he was crying earlier. The image of her father so upset forms a lump in her throat which she struggles to swallow as she finally stops on the other side of the bed.
Laney Kane, Sergeant and Head Guard of Alpha Station, the person Selia is certain is responsible for all the stars in space, is now as fragile as glass facing a hammer. She's thin and small, drowning in the hospital sheets, pale as the moon and cold like ice. Her green eyes are glossy, sunken into her head, and purple colors the bags under them like bruises from a fight. The same hair that matches Selia's is long gone, leaving only a bald head to reflect the lights dully. And if that's not enough to taint the mother's image, she's connected to so many tubes and wires, it makes her seem less human and more machine.
Yet, despite all of this, Laney's blue-tinted lips curl up in a gentle smile when she sees her young daughter.
"Selly," she murmurs. Her voice, one that has been giving orders to others every day for years, is so weak, it shivers through the air and terrifies the child. "My sweet girl."
"Mom," Selia whispers as if she's unsure that it's truly her. Tears fill her eyes and quickly trickle down her cheeks.
"Oh, don't cry," her mother pleads. "Don't be sad."
"When are you going to get better?" The question is so simple, so expectant. Why would such a young child believe there wasn't a way to heal from an illness? Why would a child accept such a horrible fate for her mother?
"Come closer, baby," Laney requests and Selia moves towards her head so she won't have to strain to meet the little girl's gaze. "Sometimes we don't get better until we've passed."
"What do you mean?" Little Sel demands, her voice a weakened cry.
"I'm very sick and the doctors have done everything they can –"
"No," Selia interrupts. "No, Abby said you can still get better. She said you were strong!"
"The truth can be painful," Laney explains. "But it's still the truth and I won't get better until I return to the Earth."
"No!" Selia argues stubbornly, looking to her dad for support, but he gazes back sadly. "You have to get better! You have to get better here and now!"
"Selia, listen to me," she pleads. "I love you so, so much. Everything is going to be okay."
"No, it won't! Not if you don't stay!"
"Don't be afraid, Selly. Be strong, for me."
"Mommy, please," Selia begs as the tears drip from her chin and stain her shirt.
"Close your eyes," Laney urges, reaching for her daughter's hand.
"W-why?"
"I want you to say the Traveler's Blessing with me."
Selia hesitates, glancing at her father again, but does as her mother requested. Wet lashes brush over her skin as tears continue to leak from the corners of her eyes and they begin the blessing her Nana had taught her together. Laney's voice fades, however, growing weaker with every word until only Selia finishes. And the moment she wishes they'll meet again, the long tone of a heart not beating fills the room.
…
Fluorescent light shines over Selia as her eyes begin to open, squinting in the brightness. Her head weighs heavy on the thin pillow and her arm feels like it's being restrained. As she manages to open her eyes completely, she realizes where she is and nearly groans in disappointment. Med Bay is quite possibly her least favorite place on the entire Ark and waking up in a hospital bed with a tube sticking out of her arm is a living nightmare.
Shifting her head to the side to glare at the needle poking into her vein, she catches sight of her father scrubbing his face harshly with his hands.
"Dad," she croaks with a dry throat.
"Selly," the Head of the Guard, who looks like he's seen better days, breathes in relief. He gently brushes the wisps of copper hair from her face. The cold exterior he carried before now completely left behind. "You scared me half to death."
"What happened?" Selia mumbles, comforted by her father's presence, but confused by how she ended up here.
"You fainted," he tells her.
"Fainted?"
"Selia," Abby greets with a warm smile as she pushes through the curtain. "I'm glad you're awake. You gave us a scare."
Confusion clouds her tired mind, but she slowly regains memory of what happened right before everything went black. Despite Abby being saved by Chancellor Jaha, a wave of anger falls over her because Marcus was responsible for the whole ordeal. However, she feels weak like a small child and her father's warm hand covering her cold one is too comforting for her to continue being mad and pull away.
"Do you know why this happened to her?" Kane demands.
"Well," Abby begins her explanation without even sparing a glance in his direction. "Evan says you haven't been eating much lately so until we get the results of the blood test, I'm going to guess that low-blood sugar and stress caused you to pass out."
"Why haven't you been eating, Sel?" He questions in a far nicer voice.
"I have been eating," she lies. "I'm sure Evan was just exaggerating."
"You're in a hospital bed. He clearly was not exaggerating."
"Well," Selia sighs as she struggles to sit up straight. "I'll just go to Mess and eat now."
"Hey, don't touch that," Marcus scolds as his daughter reaches for the I.V.
"Selia, you can't take that out yet," Abby adds. "You need the fluids so just relax."
The young guard huffs in frustration while her father rolls his eyes. Abby says she'll come back to check on her in a bit, leaving the Kane family alone.
"Are you going to tell me why you haven't been eating?" Marcus asks. His voice is more suspicious now, but the concern still shines in his eyes.
"I have been eating, just not enough apparently," Selia tries to assure, knowing exactly what thought is going through his mind before he says it.
"The last time you stopped eating, it was because of Bell –"
"Dad, I swear," she cuts him off before he can finish the name. "It wasn't intentional. I wasn't even sad until today."
"Right," he sighs. "Selia, I know I seem like the bad guy, but everything I do is for you and our people. I know arresting Abby and sending those kids to the Ground was harsh, but we're running out of time so extreme measures must be taken."
"But Dad," she murmurs, "what happens when things are okay again and we have to live with those extreme measures?"
"As long as you're okay in the end, then it's worth it, Selly."
…
Commander Shumway comes in, insisting that it's urgent, so Selia tells her father to go back to work. With a kiss on the forehead, she's left alone with nothing but the I.V. drip for company. She dozes for a bit as she's unable to fight the fatigue until Abby returns with the results of her blood tests.
The doctor sits on the edge of Selia's hospital bed with an expression the young guard doesn't understand. She sits up so they can talk, but a nervous feeling settles in the pit of her stomach.
"Is everything okay, Abby?"
"Selia," the mother figure sighs as she gazes sadly at the young woman. "I'm afraid low blood sugar isn't the problem."
"So, what is?" Sel presses.
"I don't how to say this…You're – you're sick, sweetheart."
"Sick?" She repeats, swallowing the lump forming in her throat.
"You were so young when it started, you probably never saw the signs, so you wouldn't recognize it now," Abby explains. "Loss of appetite and fatigue seem like they could be anything, but it's beginning symptoms."
"What – what are you saying?" Selia demands.
"It's cancer, Selia. I'm so sorry."
That word is one the young guard hates more than any curse in existence. She stills remembers the first time she heard it when she was five and not understanding the severity of it. Then, she thought cancer equated to a cold or the flu. Why would a child know anything about diseases or illnesses that surpassed a runny nose and a scratchy throat? Why would that same child believe something so incurable could exist and arrive to take her mother away?
That single word became the focus of the Kane family's lives for the next two years and when those six letters finally stole Laney, the word became forbidden.
Yet, Abby uses it like it isn't a knife slicing everyone open to bleed them dry.
Unable to respond or accept what the doctor has told her, Selia falls into a thick state of denial. She swings her legs over the edge of the bed and tears the tape holding the I.V. to her skin. The needle is yanked from the vein, ripping the skin, and releasing a thin stream of blood. Pain bites her, but Selia doesn't pay it any attention as she grabs her shoes from the corner.
"Selia, you can't leave!" Abby says quickly, but the auburn-haired girl ignores her completely. "Sel, honey, we need to talk about this, about treatment!"
The youngest Kane picks up her pace, her socks sliding over the floor as she runs out of Med Bay and past the long line of people who actually want to talk to the doctor. She doesn't stop until she makes it home and, only when she's breathless and locked in her bathroom, does let the word sink through her skin.
Cancer.
It's not true, she tries to tell herself.
Selia glares at her reflection in the mirror, but the image only confirms what Abby told her. She remembers the way her mom looked at the end of her life and now she can't believe it never occurred to her before now. Like Laney, her skin is paler than a ghost, the dark circles swell beneath her eyes, and her bones stick out, sharp enough to pierce paper. And the vomiting, the bloody noses, the endless exhaustion, all of that haunted her mother for two years before she finally died.
Died.
Laney Kane died. She fought and she fought, but it all amounted to nothing because the young mother still died in a hospital bed. Her body betrayed her and so did all the medicine that promised it wouldn't.
Now, Selia has to suffer the same?
Abruptly, she leaves the bathroom so she can't see herself anymore and pauses at the window gazing down at Earth.
Sel lived a good life on the Ark. She had the job she wanted, a father who loved her, memories of a wonderful mother, and friends who meant to the world to her. She was content to live the only life possible. She would work, get married someday, have the single child permitted, and hold onto the idea that her great, great grandchild would be one of the first to set their feet on the Ground. It was the best life anyone up there could live and that never really bothered Selia.
But then her father told her that the Ark was dying.
Now, there are children on the Ground with no idea what's going on while desperate measures are being taken up here, not to save everyone, but to save the human race.
And Selia Kane has cancer.
The young guard turns away from the planet below and goes digging through a drawer by her bed. She finds the small tablet and powers it on to play the last video she has of her mother. In seconds, Marcus' voice comes through the speaker which is followed by the childlike giggle of seven-year-old Selia and, finally, by Laney's soft laughter.
"Would you put that thing away?"
Laney's smile is tired, but still brighter than most. All her hair is gone and she wears nothing to cover it while they're inside the home. She lays on the couch, waving her husband away while Selia holds a large textbook beside her.
"Keep reading, Selly."
The child keeps reading her ocean book aloud while Laney 'oohs' and 'ahs' over all the facts her daughter finds so fascinating. All Marcus does is record his wife and daughter talking happily as if she isn't deathly ill and everything is right in the Kane family's life. The video is all laughter and smiles until the coughing starts.
Selia watches as the tablet falls from her father's hands, blocking the recording of what happens next, but she remembers all too well. Her mother started coughing midsentence and couldn't stop as the blood dribbled from her mouth. She and her father rushed to help, but there was nothing they could do. Laney coughed so hard that she blacked out and Marcus had to carry her to Med Bay where she spent the rest of her short life.
This is the last moment her mother was ever in their home.
Tears fill her eyes as she tosses the device aside. She sinks to the floor, wrapping her arms around her legs, feeling how thin she's truly become. A sob shudders through her chest as reality finally hits her. There is only one way this ends and she's terrified of it.
…
Bang! Bang! Bang!
"Selia, open up! We need to talk!"
Selia is shaken from her light sleep by Abby shouting through the door. She climbs to her feet, wobbling as fast as she can to silence the doctor. When the door swings open, the copper-haired girl peers through swollen eyes while the older woman invites herself into the Kane residence.
"Honey, why did you run off like that?" Abby demands. "We need to get you back to Med Bay."
"I'm not spending any more time there," Selia mutters as she scrubs her eyes.
"We need to start your treatment, Selia. The sooner the better. I know you don't like it there, but it –"
"There's not going to be any treatment," she cuts the doctor off in soft voice.
"What?"
"I don't want the treatment, Abby."
"Selia," Abby gazes at the girl with wide, concerned eyes. "Without the treatment, you will –"
"Die," she finishes. "Without the treatment, I'll die. With the treatment, I'll die."
"You don't know that. We found this a lot sooner than we did with your mother. Jackson and I have already made a treatment plan. Selia, you have a good chance," the doctor promises.
"Abby, let's say the treatment will work. We don't have enough time. The Ark is dying and extreme measures are being taken. I mean, we sent a hundred children to Earth. We don't have the time to devote to my treatment and there's no point in wasting the resources."
"No, it's not a waste of resources and we will make time!"
"I watched my mom die from this. You watched her die from this," Selia reminds the doctor sadly. "It was horrible and the treatment just made it last longer. I don't want to go through that. I don't want to be dying for years. Without the treatment, I only have a few months, if that long."
"Selia, I will not let you do this. You will have the treatment and you will get better."
"It's not your choice, Abby."
"I promised Laney I would take care of you," her mother figure says as tears fill her eyes.
"So, take care of me. Don't make me suffer longer than I have to."
Abby shakes her head as the tears trickle down her cheeks, but nothing she says sways the young woman. Selia is refusing treatment, she's accepting the death she believes is unavoidable, and there is nothing anyone can do to change that.
…
Selia, once again, lays sprawled out on the bathroom floor, having just dry heaved over the toilet for what felt like forever. She's content to just stay there and sleep, far too tired to drag herself the short distance to bed, but the rest of the world has a different idea. Someone else decides to pound on her door with an insistence that the poor girl can't ignore.
She barely has enough energy to crawl to her feet, but she fights the exhaustion long enough to rinse her mouth and find out who waits impatiently on the other side of the door. When Selia finally opens it, she can't help but glare at her friend.
"Reyes, what the hell?" The older girl sighs. Raven's annoyed expression turns to one of confusion as she looks Selia over.
"Why do you look like shit?" she questions as she pushes past the guard to enter the Kane residence.
"Hi, Raven. Please, come in and make yourself at home," Selia grumbles.
"Did you know?" The young mechanic demands, getting right to the point.
"Know what?"
"About the prisoners, the hundred?"
"H-how do you know?" Selia's eyes go wide while anger flashes over Raven's.
"You did know!" Raven growls. "How could you not tell me?"
The young guard flounders in confusion as she tries to figure out how Raven found out about this. Of course, Selia felt guilty when she learned the plan and wanted to tell her friend, but she couldn't. She just planned to keep an eye on Finn, her boyfriend, until everyone knew.
"Finn is down there!" Raven yells.
"I wasn't allowed to tell anyone," Selia defends herself quickly.
"Nobody had to know that you told me," she snaps.
"Raven, there was nothing that could be done to stop it and I know you. You would have gotten yourself into trouble trying." Selia returns, receiving a scowl in return. "How did you even find out? What did you do?"
"I was trying to get answers."
Selia groans in worry and irritation. "What the hell did you do?"
"I went to GoSci, I saw the screens and the bracelets," Raven clarifies.
"You saw the bracelets? How?" The young guard questions nervously.
"Dr. Griffin showed them to me."
"Oh, God! Raven, you got caught!"
"She let me go," the mechanic shrugs.
"So help me," Selia sighs. "You are going to get yourself floated! I didn't save your annoying ass so you could die not even a year later!"
"I needed answers!"
"Well, you got them. Now, stay out of trouble. If my dad had caught you, you wouldn't have been so lucky," she tells her. "People have been floated for a lot less."
"You should have –" Raven's words cut off as her brows furrow. "Your nose is bleeding."
Selia's hand flies up to touch the fresh trail and sighs in exhaustion.
"Look, anything else I learn, I will tell you. Just promise that you won't do anything else to risk getting in trouble," she requests, wiping the blood away.
"Yeah, okay," Raven agrees in a strange tone, still staring with a furrowed expression at her older friend. "Sel…are you alright?"
"Yeah," Selia lies as best as she's able. "Of course."
She forces a smile, doing her best to hide the toll her illness has already taken, but Raven sees through it. Selia feels guilty as she ignores the concern etched over her friend's face and shows her to the door, but the truth is even less comforting than her lies.
And she's not entirely sure she can handle saying the truth aloud yet.
I'll just post the next two chapters in an hour or so.
So, I don't want to say a specific cancer because I need to be able to manipulate it to go with the plot, but for now it's going to just strongly resemble leukemia.
Enjoy!
- V :)