Landed Wings

chapter 26: HOPELESS



ASHLYNN

Ash’s nine year old feet hit the ground with a dull thud. She didn’t weigh much and the sound barely carried. It was nighttime, and the nurse was gone! She wiggled in happiness and dashed towards the door, skidded to a stop and poked her head out of the hallway. Her black curly hair swung as she looked left and right. A grin lit up the thin brown face and she cautiously stepped outside into the deserted hallway. Ash closed her eyes and threw herself backwards against the wall and shimmied along it, pretending she was a spy. Finally she could contain herself no longer and flew down the hallway, hair swinging and spirit soaring.

“…Subject Faelid, Ashlynn, age seven, height 47 in.,

wingspan 8 ft. 3 in., body weight, 60 lbs…”

Ash stopped when she heard her name and walked cautiously up to the door that had uttered it. She peeked inside and saw many doctors sitting around a table while a projection of her rotated slowly in the air and more information bled slowly into the air.

“Can’t anything be done?”

“No. You know that. It is 100% fatal, there is NO cure.”

“So we give up? Just like that?”

“What other choice do we have? There is no cure and no one has ever survived.”

“But LOOK at her! Just look at her. How could we…?”

“I know.”

“Do you know who she is?”

“It shouldn’t matter.”

Laughter followed that proclamation.

“We all like to pretend that it doesn’t.”

“Let me amend that statement. It doesn’t matter. Disease does not choose based on family.”

There was more talking and Ash heard a long word she had never heard before, “syncolophnis”, but it didn’t mean anything to her. Ash shrugged, bored, she was only nine. She didn’t know what they were saying but she liked the look of her projection rotating slowly above their heads.

Ash sat in Biology, bored. She stared at the human figure on the wall and traced its wings with her eyes. Her pencil tapped on her desk to a tune she heard in her head.

“…Syncolophnis is incurable…”

Ashlynn looked up, startled. That word. That word was familiar somehow. She raised her hand.

“Mrs. Lack. Can you tell me more about Syncolophnis? What is it?”

Mrs. Lack looked at Ash from above the rims of her glasses and smiled a wry little smile. There was something about it that Ash didn’t like.

“Why the sudden interest Miss Faelid? Of all the people to ask a question, you are the least expected.”

Ash said nothing and just looked at her teacher. Mrs. Lack sighed and removed her glasses. Her eyes looked small and tired, and her face looked like it had just lost something essential.

“Syncolophnis is an incurable disease. Its one benefit is that it is easily traceable. There is no guesswork as there is with other viruses. It does not adapt either. There is only a single strain. It is ultimately fatal, and most who contract the disease die at around 21. The oldest person living with it lived four months past their 21st year. It lies dormant for most of those years. At most, it takes a week to kill its host. Usually it only takes a day or two.”

Mrs. Lack paused and Ash waited impatiently for the rest. Why did this mean so much to her? She couldn’t explain it.

“The body starts producing opposing blood cells. What I mean by this is that an O blood type would start making A/B. Obviously, this is not what is supposed to happen. When two different types of blood interact, it doesn’t bode well for the body, which is why correct transfusions are so important during surgery. The body tries to fight back, but eventually the number of “wrong” blood cells becomes too much and the person dies. No cure has been found, and all experiments have failed.”

Ash spoke again.

“You said it was easily traceable. How can doctors know someone has it if it doesn’t affect them until a few days or a week before?”

Mrs. Lack smiled her wry smile again.

“I had no idea you were so interested in incurable diseases Miss Faelid.”

She paused again.

“It’s quite simple, really. On the small of the back, a birthmark shaped like a circle with a dot in the middle appears at around age five. The disease brands its host.”

Later that day Ash closed the door to her room. Her breath was steady and even. She looked in the mirror at her face, her face that she had never thought about the importance of. It’s true then, she thought, about not realizing the importance of something till you’re about to lose it. Ash turned around, her breathing still even. She lifted up her shirt, not slowly, but normally as if nothing was possibly the matter. She extended her wings so that her lower back was visible. She twisted her neck and looked down. It was there, of course it was there. The circle with the dot. It seemed impossible to her that it wouldn’t have been. Ash felt like laughing. She wasn’t sure what the joke was, but she knew it was funny. Funny and heartbreakingly sad. Her shirt dropped and she turned away from the mirror, not sure what she was feeling, but it felt numb, this feeling. 15, she thought, fifteen and I’m over the hill. She smiled, and it was the same smile Mrs. Lack had, ironic, as if life was something you didn’t dare laugh at. Because those who did not laugh died. Ash whipped around and walked back to her mirror. She lifted her shirt, quickly this time, and grabbed her concealer off of her dresser. Slowly, and with neat precision, she erased the time bomb ticking menacingly on her back. When it was

finished, and all she saw was unmarked skin, she sat on her bed and closed her eyes. A single tear leaked out, a little hiccup cut through the air. Then it was over. And she smiled again. She loved this smile, she thought. This anguished, angry, defiant smile. Whatever, Ash thought, I’ve always wanted to know what it felt like to have nothing to lose.

I open my eyes, the memory leaves me shaken. Tears leak and I wipe them angrily away. Death is not the end. I can’t…I won’t believe it. A sob chokes me…I won’t believe it.