Harvest Time

24 - Angels

After what seemed like an age, I became conscious of sensation once more. At first, my entire body tingled. Then, as I became more aware, I found it stung painfully. Was I on fire? Was this some sort of afterlife? Some sort of hell?

If I'd had the energy, I would have opened my eyes. Instead, I just lay there, neither daring nor having the strength to move.

Then I heard a noise close by and felt something damp being applied to my forehead. It took away a little of the heat. I forced my eyes open a crack, closing them quickly at the pain.

I gasped.

"Are you awake?" came a voice I'd never heard before. It sounded female.

"Yes," I whispered through lips that felt as sore as my eyes.

"Keep still," the voice continued. "Your skin is extremely fragile."

"Am I dead? Are you an angel?"

"No," the voice said, with a chuckle, "I have been called many things, but never an angel. I am a nurse."

"Nurse?"

"Yes, my name is Tantria and I, along with others, have been tending to you since you were brought here. I will soon be applying an all-over body salve once more. It will sting and you definitely won't be calling me an angel then. However, it is essential in order for your skin to fully heal. Once I have completed this and covered you back up again, then I will inform Emla that you have awoken."

"Emla?" I croaked. "Am I back on Nervanna?"

"Yes. You are in Newhold."

I tried to cry with relief, but it was too painful.

"Oh, Toquin," Emla cried, gently resting her hand upon my own. She had been forbidden to touch me elsewhere. "I thought I'd lost you."

It was several hours later and Nurse Tantria had applied two coatings of her healing salve over my entire body. It had taken Tantria and three other nurses to turn me over for it to be applied to my back. I had cried like a baby at the pain, though I was too exhausted to have been embarrassed about Tantria's gloved hands and her attention to the minutest nooks and crannies of my body. But, after I had been turned the right way up, it was obvious that, whatever it contained, the salve was doing its job. The tingling and burning sensations were diminishing.

For the first time, I was able to view my surroundings properly without too much pain. The room wasn't large but it was lit by light from a mirror tube that was reflected on two of the walls. On one side, a doorway with no visible door showed that the room was off a corridor along which people – nurses and, I presume, doctors – would occasionally pass. Often, one or two would stop to peer in at me.

Just before Emla arrived, I managed to examine my body. My skin was red, blistered in places, peeling in others. A sheet, held away from my body by a frame, covered enough of me to make me decent. Not that I would have cared if it hadn't.

"Emla," I whispered through my cracked lips as she sat on a chair beside my bed. "Is this not a dream?"

"It's no dream, Toquin. Yes, you are really here. We brought you back."

"How long ago was that?" I managed to gasp out.

"About a week, Nervanna time."

Given my current state of health, or lack of it, I couldn't help wondering what I might have looked like a week ago. One of the nurses had explained that I had lost several layers of skin in places, though she didn't elaborate upon exactly which places these had been.