Queen Luana: Another chappy, my lads.

Part X

A cure?

They clasped each other's hands tightly when Zino walked into the visitor's room. He observed their faces, which were filled with sorrow and pain. They were no longer the happy teens they had once been, not too long ago, before everything went all wrong. He sauntered over to the table and sat down. Neither of them spoke, they only exchanged looks. Zino was the first to break the silence.

"So, they did it." It wasn't a question, neither was it an announcement. It was just some brief sentence to break the utter silence creeping amongst them. The two girls nodded and he lowered his head. "I wish I could've been there…"

"Nobody blames you," Jentl whispered softly. She had told herself not to cry before enterring this room, but the tears burned so fiercefully she had to lower her head so they would not see her cry.

"So Gote truelly isn't Gote anymore," Zino muttered and stared down at the wooden table, his eyes empty and blank. Luana didn't speak. She new that as soon she'd say the name 'Siska' she'd burst in the tears. She didn't want that. She had cried enough already.

"Six more weeks huh? Then you're out?" Jentl asked, trying her very best to keep her mind away from Siska. She could not bare the memory of seeing her friend dying, a friend to whom she had been so close. A friend at who she had shouted just a couple of days before she died. Zino nodded weakly.

"It'll feel weird… I almost forgot what my house looks like…" he mumbled.

"Now we're on that, what's going to happen when you get out? You can't go home, can you?" Luana asked, now that the subject Siska had passed away. Zino just shrugged and looked at them.

"I guess they'll send me to an orphinage."

"That's crazy, the nearest orphinage is three towns away!" Jentl said.

"Well, it's very unlikely that I'll find foster parents, looking at what I did," Zino mumbled. He seemed to have lost the ability to speak loud and clear, not that he had ever been able to articulate very perfectly. He stroke through his ruffled black hair with one hand and sighed deeply. "Not all problems will be over once I get out. But you know what…" He leaned over to the two girls and whispered: "I don't regret what I did."

Luana eyed the guard in fear, but he obviously hadn't noticed Zino's words since he was rocking back and forth and whistling. But Jentl gave a determined nod. "I know. I would've done the same thing, Zino." Luana looked at their friends as if it were the first time she saw them. Those were the words of murderers. Zino hadn't just killed them and yes, she agreed that something had to be done about them: but he had slaughtered them! He was completely covered in their blood! She knew why he had done it but he had done it and he had to be in jail.

She didn't join in on the further conversation, which was about normal things like school and all. But when they left she finally spoke to her friend.

"What were you talking about? You know they'll arrest you for saying such things out loud!" Luana hissed but Jentl shook her head with a smile.

"Lu, it's alright, we were just chatting," she smiled. "Don't worry about it."

"I just want to know, Jentl," Luana said sternly. "If Zino would've told you wht he was going to do, how would you react?" Jentl hesitated for a moment, obviously thinking it over.

"I would've let him, but I also would've talked him into doing it differently," she said. "Drug them or something." Luana watched her friend walk on with her jaw hanging low.

"That's complicity, Luana!" she cried. "That's an offence!"

"Hey, I didn't, alright?" Jentl said. "Just leave it."

The next morning Luana was beat. It had been another restless night and she litterally had to drag herself up the stairs leading to the school building. It was Drama today, and she wasn't looking forward to it. The only course they had been taking together.

"Hey, Lu! Wait up!"

She turned around at hearing Jentl's voice and saw her leaping up the stairs. "What are you so happy about?"

"Haven't you heard?" she panted. "It was on the radio and on each channel! Everyone's talking about it! They're working on a cure against IMV!" Luana shrugged. "They have been for years."

"No, they're making progress!" Jentl said, still with a smile from ear to ear. "There was this guy somewhere in Europe who survived! He had IMV and he healed on his own! They're examining him right now. Lu, this might be the end to what we have feared for years. They're finally going to find a cure!"

"Well, it's still not for sure," Luana mumbled. Jentl raised an eyebrow.

"Gee, thanks for ruining the mood, Mrs. Optimistic," she said and walked on. Luana stayed behind and only continued walking as soon as Jentl had enterred the school building. No matter how fast they were going to think of an antidote, it still wouldn't bring Siska back and Jentl seemed to miss it. It almost seemed as if she wasn't sad at all! Indeed, she was not looking forward to Drama.

The following days, they hardly spoke. Jentl was thinking about nothing but Zino getting out and Luana just couldn't get her mind off of Siska. They had been to the funeral together, but after that they hadn't even exchanged looks. It seemed that now it was definite: Gote had fallen apart.

Queen Luana: It's short, but I wanted to post something… Till the next chap.