Chapter Eight: Hope and Fear
Here's the next chapter :) Thanks for reading!
Chapter Eight: Hope and Fear
‘The afternoon knows what the morning never suspected.’
-Swedish Proverb
WARNINGS FOR THIS CHAPTER: Violence, blood and language. (not to excess, though, it's still rated 'PG-13') There is, as always, excessive angst, however :)
NOTE: As with the previous chapters, the characers of Mike and Saydie, (and some of Peter) were written by friends of mine from the RPG board. And translations for the 'Ancient Language' used in this chapter can be found at the end of the post.
The forest was so thick the pouring rain had been reduced to a light shower. The floor was bedded with dead leaves and mud, making running through it treacherous at best. Chaim couldn’t even see two feet in front of him. The weak light from the darkened sky barely managed to filter through the deep cover of leaves above him, giving him precious little to work with, but he didn’t care. Nothing mattered anymore, nothing but Saydie.
Several times he slipped and fell in the mud, or tripped over a tree root, but he picked himself up and kept going, not even noticing any wounds he received. That would come later, for now it could wait. How could he be concerned for himself when she... He shook his head; he didn’t even know if he was running in the right direction. Behind him, he could hear Peter chasing after him, calling for him to stop, calling for Saydie to come back. Neither call was heeded.
After running for hours, or what felt like hours to both him and Peter, he stopped. Just to the left, he’d heard a sound that wasn’t Peter shouting or his own labored breathing, and it was close.
“Afrilfelset!”
It was Saydie.
He didn’t understand what she’d said, but he did understand the fear and pain in her voice. “Saydie!” he called out, running in the direction he’d heard her from. “Saydie!”
“Konka bo seno!” he heard her cry out. He was getting close. He soon ran into a clearing, but had to fight to remain standing when his knees buckled beneath him, a wave of nausea hitting him like a brick wall. Saydie was there, kneeling in the leaves and mud, covered with her own blood. She’d taken a rock and re-opened the slashes on her wrists and both her hands were now red and glistening in the dim light. She looked up at him helplessly and he ran to her, ripping the rock from her hands and throwing it back into the forest.
“No,” he moaned, taking her arm and inspecting the damage, “no, not for me...” She looked up at him and whimpered.
“Kidoun givo mana seno,” she begged him, “mina blood too danko!”
Chaim hugged her to him desperately, not caring that her blood was staining his clothes. He held her arm in his hands, keeping her from hurting herself more, trying to calm her but not knowing how. “No more,” he whispered to her softly, “no more.” On impulse he kissed her forehead, noticing that she was growing cold as she lost blood. He prayed Peter would come soon, but at the same time wanted them to be left alone - he feared what she might do if he came. She cried on his shoulder, clinging to him desperately, yet at the same time trying to push him away.
“Go away,” she cried, tightening her grip on him, “just leave me alone; I ruined everything!” He felt her start to slacken in his arms and worry took root in his heart. He lifted her face to his and saw how pale she’d gotten. He felt so helpless, and was weak himself, having never seen so much blood before. He hugged her to him again, cradling her against him just as Peter emerged from the forest, reeling slightly himself at the sight before him.
“Chaim,” he said, struggling to sound calm, “we need to get her to the infirmary. Now.” Chaim nodded and tried to lift her up, but Saydie suddenly stood on her own and pushed him away from her. She swayed slightly on her shaky legs, looking fearfully between the two of them.
“No,” she wailed, “no, no, no! I won’t go, they’ll fix it!” She clutched her wounded arm to her protectively, as if they would try to fix it right there. “I need it to happen!” She made a valiant effort to stay standing, even though she had to lean up against a tree to do it. She started to fall and Chaim caught her, Peter rushing over to pick her up from his arms.
“It’s okay, Chaim,” he said when the boy wouldn’t let her go, “I’m taking her to get help.” Saydie caught and held Chaim’s eyes, pleading with him to make Peter stop what he was doing, but he couldn’t. They were still locked in that stare when her body finally gave up and she passed out. Peter knew she had only lost consciousness, but Chaim was absolutely convinced she was dead; there was so much blood, how could she not be?
“No,” he cried weakly, collapsing to his knees on the ground even as Peter ran off with Saydie in his arms. He screamed her name and cried, begging whoever may be listening to bring her back, to not let her be dead. He even considered hunting for the rock he’d thrown away so he could follow her into death, at least then he wouldn’t have to live with what he’d done, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He didn’t understand. Everything was wrong, it was only a kiss...
“What did you do?” Mike’s enraged voice cut through his despair. He’d watched everything from the outskirts of the forest, but when Peter ran past holding a bloodied Saydie in his arms, came looking for Chaim. He’d known about Saydie cutting, known all about her troubled past. His mind thus jumped to the obvious, however incorrect, conclusion and deduced that Chaim must have done something to re-awaken her past pain.
He looked down at Chaim now, sobbing at his feet, but when didn’t stand, didn’t even look up at him, he pulled him up and slammed him hard against the nearest tree. “What the fuck did you do to her?!?” Mike screamed at him, banging him against the tree again. Chaim was too weak to fight back, he was in such a dark and terrible place that he couldn’t care less if Mike killed him right here. Certainly, part of him reasoned, it would be better if he did.
“You don’t touch her,” Mike warned, his fury making the words harsh. “You don’t even look at her! Saydie is like a sister to me, and nobody messes with my family!” Chaim felt his stomach lurch as he was thrown back to the ground and out of the corner of his eye, saw Mike turn to leave. Pure blinding rage made Chaim stand, despite his nausea, despite already being battered and bruised from chasing Saydie. No one was going to talk to him like that, especially about her. Mike had no right to say anything!
Mike was a few feet away when Chaim charged at him, knocking him to the ground. As he had with Auggie, he used his size to pin the other guy down, but surprise was only a momentary advantage. Mike screamed and rolled Chaim off of him, knocking him back into a tree and stunning him. Chaim tasted blood, but struggled to stand, warily watching Mike do the same. White spots danced across his vision but he lunged at Mike anyway. It was over - Saydie was dead and it was his fault. He realized then that he wasn’t really fighting to hurt Mike, but that he wanted Mike to kill him. It was a twisted sort of assisted suicide. He realized too late that Mike wasn’t interested in killing him and fell back to the ground with a final punch to the stomach, watching Mike run back towards campus.
He curled up on the muddy ground, holding his stomach in pain and crying. Even death had been denied him, he thought bitterly. He deserved it after what he’d done. He didn’t know how long he managed to stay conscious, but just as his vision began to black out he heard more rustling in the trees behind him. He thought hopefully that Mike had reconsidered and returned to finish him off, but he never got to see who it was, passing out before they got to him.
His whole world was light and sound and pain. He didn’t know how he got there, but he woke up in the infirmary, the powerful overhead lights making his eyes ache. He tried to sit up but felt hands push him back down. He groaned as a stabbing pain shot through his left arm, surmising that he’d broken it during the fight.
“Chaim?” he heard an unfamiliar voice ask. He groaned again and tried to open his eyes, but the light was too bright. After a moment it dimmed, and he opened them again, seeing one of the campus doctors looking down at him. He stared at him for a minute, then tried to sit up again, a thought occurring to him. If he was in the infirmary, Saydie must also be there.
“Saydie…” he called, but was again pushed back down, making his shoulder hurt more.
“She’s not here, Chaim,” he heard Peter’s voice behind him. He came into view and leant over to speak with him. “She’s been taken to the Hospital in town.” It took a moment for what he’d said to register, and then he gasped.
“She’s okay?” he asked quickly. Peter nodded hesitantly.
“She should be alright,” he soothed, “It’s good you found her when you did. She could have done a lot more damage to herself and they might not have been able to help her.” Chaim sighed and let his head fall back onto the pillow. She was alive. She was okay. Peter left him in silence for a while and the doctor began treating the cuts and bruises they’d found on him. He thought they didn’t know about his shoulder and looked up at the doctor.
“My shoulder hurts,” he complained. The doctor looked at him for a second, and then gently prodded the bruised shoulder with warm hands.
“It wouldn’t if you hadn’t gotten into a fight,” he told him, accidentally touching a tender spot and making Chaim hiss in pain. “Sorry. It’s dislocated, I’ll have to set it.” Chaim closed his eyes, trying not to pay much attention to the pain as his shoulder was set. The ‘pop’ sounded more like a ‘crack’ to him, but once the initial spike of pain was over, it felt better. He didn’t even make a sound and was proud of himself. After all his wounds had been seen to, Peter pulled up a chair beside his bed.
“They’re keeping you here overnight, but there’s nothing serious,” he told him, “you can go in the morning.” Chaim nodded, testing out his ‘new’ arm. “Chaim, who did this to you?” he asked, “I saw someone, but I was running too fast; I didn’t get a good look at him.” Chaim thought for a minute. He didn’t really want to tell Peter what happened. He didn’t blame Mike - if he were in his position he might have done the same, but he also didn’t want to lie to Peter. That was the one virtue he’d kept for himself - he refused to lie.
“It was Mike,” he said slowly, “but I don’t blame him, I had it coming.” Peter leaned forward.
“Had what coming? How?” He was confused - he thought Mike had beaten him out of anger, but if Chaim had done something, perhaps to Saydie, for him to somehow deserve it…
Chaim was crying again.
“I…” he looked away from Peter, as if the sight of the other man hurt. “It was only a kiss,” he moaned. “It was just a kiss, but she killed herself because of me…”
“Chaim, she’s not dead,” Peter said firmly, “she’s going to be okay.” He sighed, looking out the window at the darkened sky and trying to make some of the day. It was past dinner time, and by now most of the students had noticed that three of their number were missing. “Why did you kiss her?” he asked. He hadn’t intended to, but it just slipped out.
Any inappropriate contact between students, whether it be a kiss or a fight, was strictly against the school rules. Punishments would have to be seen to later, however. He first wanted to get all the facts. There was a long painful silence, and he could see that Chaim was wrestling with his emotions, trying to put them together into something explainable.
“Saydie was the only one who ever understood me,” he whispered. “The only one…who saw me.” He looked over at Peter, his eyes suddenly clear. “No one’s ever really seen me before.”
Chaim spent the night in the Infirmary, and the grounds were searched for Mike. He was found at the docks early the next morning, sleeping in the boathouse. He too was brought to the Infirmary to warm up, but when he saw Chaim asleep on another bed, tried to run.
“It’s okay,” Peter said, grabbing tight hold of him. Mike stopped struggling and looked over at the boy. “For some reason that he won’t tell us,” Peter went on, “he doesn’t blame you.” Mike looked up at him with confusion, allowing the staff to wrap him in blankets. He sat on his own bed, but didn’t sleep, just spent the morning looking across the room, watching Chaim.
The hospital staff had never had such a difficult patient.
Saydie woke in the ambulance on the way to the hospital, and immediately ripped the IV tubing and bandages from her arms. The paramedics were on her in an instant, strapping her down to the gurney and re-attaching the tubes that had been working to replace the blood she’d lost.
“No!” she cried, “it has to happen, you have to stop!” one of the paramedics holding her down looked up at the driver.
“How long?”
“We’re almost there,” the driver answered. After no more than a minute, the cab doors opened onto the ER and she was being taken in. Saydie continued to fight, but paused when she heard a familiar voice.
“No wait, I have to go with her…” It was Sophie. After the ambulance had picked Saydie up at the school, she’d followed in her car. She ran down the hall to catch up with them, resting a hand on Saydie’s when she made it. “How’s she doing?” she asked the doctor that had met them at the door. He checked her heart rate and then wrapped the stethoscope around his neck, looking up at Sophie.
“She should be okay once we replace the blood she lost and clean the wounds on her wrists,” he said. No one had gotten to replace the bandages she’d torn off in the ambulance, as anyone who’d tried ended up with nail marks on the side of their face.
“Please,” Saydie clamped a hand on Sophie’s arm, “please, I need to see Chaim,” she begged her.
“Saydie, calm down,” she soothed, “you need to be calm so they can help you.” She made a mental note about Chaim to follow up on later as they turned into the room they’d set aside for her. Saydie was lifted onto the other bed and again strapped down. She struggled weakly in her bonds, but soon gave up, focusing instead on Sophie
“You have to let me see him,” she begged, either not noticing or simply ignoring the doctor cleaning and dressing her wounded arm. “I have to tell him I’m sorry…it wasn’t his fault!” Sophie listened and frowned slightly, wondering what she was talking about. She didn’t know the details of what had happened, but it was very clear that, although her wounds were self-inflicted, something had to have happened to make her cut again.
Saydie’s movements began to slow; the doctor had given her a sedative. Her hand reached out to weakly grab Sophie’s wrist as she began slipping away. She held the other woman’s eyes with hers, silently pleading with her. When she finally stilled and her hand slipped from Sophie’s, the doctor looked up at her.
“Who is ‘Chaim’?” he asked, puzzled.
“Another student,” Sophie replied distantly. She was still trying to sort everything out in her own head.
“Sounds to me like he’s a trigger,” the doctor offered, finishing up his work and hooking Saydie up to a monitor. Sophie considered what he’d said, but then shook her head.
“I know it looks that way,” she said, more to herself than to the doctor, “but I don’t think that’s true.”
Translations:
Afrilfelset - Destruction
Konka bo seno - Kill me
Kidoun givo mana seno - Someone help me
Mina blood too danko - My blood is too much
Chapter Eight: Hope and Fear
‘The afternoon knows what the morning never suspected.’
-Swedish Proverb
WARNINGS FOR THIS CHAPTER: Violence, blood and language. (not to excess, though, it's still rated 'PG-13') There is, as always, excessive angst, however :)
NOTE: As with the previous chapters, the characers of Mike and Saydie, (and some of Peter) were written by friends of mine from the RPG board. And translations for the 'Ancient Language' used in this chapter can be found at the end of the post.
The forest was so thick the pouring rain had been reduced to a light shower. The floor was bedded with dead leaves and mud, making running through it treacherous at best. Chaim couldn’t even see two feet in front of him. The weak light from the darkened sky barely managed to filter through the deep cover of leaves above him, giving him precious little to work with, but he didn’t care. Nothing mattered anymore, nothing but Saydie.
Several times he slipped and fell in the mud, or tripped over a tree root, but he picked himself up and kept going, not even noticing any wounds he received. That would come later, for now it could wait. How could he be concerned for himself when she... He shook his head; he didn’t even know if he was running in the right direction. Behind him, he could hear Peter chasing after him, calling for him to stop, calling for Saydie to come back. Neither call was heeded.
After running for hours, or what felt like hours to both him and Peter, he stopped. Just to the left, he’d heard a sound that wasn’t Peter shouting or his own labored breathing, and it was close.
“Afrilfelset!”
It was Saydie.
He didn’t understand what she’d said, but he did understand the fear and pain in her voice. “Saydie!” he called out, running in the direction he’d heard her from. “Saydie!”
“Konka bo seno!” he heard her cry out. He was getting close. He soon ran into a clearing, but had to fight to remain standing when his knees buckled beneath him, a wave of nausea hitting him like a brick wall. Saydie was there, kneeling in the leaves and mud, covered with her own blood. She’d taken a rock and re-opened the slashes on her wrists and both her hands were now red and glistening in the dim light. She looked up at him helplessly and he ran to her, ripping the rock from her hands and throwing it back into the forest.
“No,” he moaned, taking her arm and inspecting the damage, “no, not for me...” She looked up at him and whimpered.
“Kidoun givo mana seno,” she begged him, “mina blood too danko!”
Chaim hugged her to him desperately, not caring that her blood was staining his clothes. He held her arm in his hands, keeping her from hurting herself more, trying to calm her but not knowing how. “No more,” he whispered to her softly, “no more.” On impulse he kissed her forehead, noticing that she was growing cold as she lost blood. He prayed Peter would come soon, but at the same time wanted them to be left alone - he feared what she might do if he came. She cried on his shoulder, clinging to him desperately, yet at the same time trying to push him away.
“Go away,” she cried, tightening her grip on him, “just leave me alone; I ruined everything!” He felt her start to slacken in his arms and worry took root in his heart. He lifted her face to his and saw how pale she’d gotten. He felt so helpless, and was weak himself, having never seen so much blood before. He hugged her to him again, cradling her against him just as Peter emerged from the forest, reeling slightly himself at the sight before him.
“Chaim,” he said, struggling to sound calm, “we need to get her to the infirmary. Now.” Chaim nodded and tried to lift her up, but Saydie suddenly stood on her own and pushed him away from her. She swayed slightly on her shaky legs, looking fearfully between the two of them.
“No,” she wailed, “no, no, no! I won’t go, they’ll fix it!” She clutched her wounded arm to her protectively, as if they would try to fix it right there. “I need it to happen!” She made a valiant effort to stay standing, even though she had to lean up against a tree to do it. She started to fall and Chaim caught her, Peter rushing over to pick her up from his arms.
“It’s okay, Chaim,” he said when the boy wouldn’t let her go, “I’m taking her to get help.” Saydie caught and held Chaim’s eyes, pleading with him to make Peter stop what he was doing, but he couldn’t. They were still locked in that stare when her body finally gave up and she passed out. Peter knew she had only lost consciousness, but Chaim was absolutely convinced she was dead; there was so much blood, how could she not be?
“No,” he cried weakly, collapsing to his knees on the ground even as Peter ran off with Saydie in his arms. He screamed her name and cried, begging whoever may be listening to bring her back, to not let her be dead. He even considered hunting for the rock he’d thrown away so he could follow her into death, at least then he wouldn’t have to live with what he’d done, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He didn’t understand. Everything was wrong, it was only a kiss...
“What did you do?” Mike’s enraged voice cut through his despair. He’d watched everything from the outskirts of the forest, but when Peter ran past holding a bloodied Saydie in his arms, came looking for Chaim. He’d known about Saydie cutting, known all about her troubled past. His mind thus jumped to the obvious, however incorrect, conclusion and deduced that Chaim must have done something to re-awaken her past pain.
He looked down at Chaim now, sobbing at his feet, but when didn’t stand, didn’t even look up at him, he pulled him up and slammed him hard against the nearest tree. “What the fuck did you do to her?!?” Mike screamed at him, banging him against the tree again. Chaim was too weak to fight back, he was in such a dark and terrible place that he couldn’t care less if Mike killed him right here. Certainly, part of him reasoned, it would be better if he did.
“You don’t touch her,” Mike warned, his fury making the words harsh. “You don’t even look at her! Saydie is like a sister to me, and nobody messes with my family!” Chaim felt his stomach lurch as he was thrown back to the ground and out of the corner of his eye, saw Mike turn to leave. Pure blinding rage made Chaim stand, despite his nausea, despite already being battered and bruised from chasing Saydie. No one was going to talk to him like that, especially about her. Mike had no right to say anything!
Mike was a few feet away when Chaim charged at him, knocking him to the ground. As he had with Auggie, he used his size to pin the other guy down, but surprise was only a momentary advantage. Mike screamed and rolled Chaim off of him, knocking him back into a tree and stunning him. Chaim tasted blood, but struggled to stand, warily watching Mike do the same. White spots danced across his vision but he lunged at Mike anyway. It was over - Saydie was dead and it was his fault. He realized then that he wasn’t really fighting to hurt Mike, but that he wanted Mike to kill him. It was a twisted sort of assisted suicide. He realized too late that Mike wasn’t interested in killing him and fell back to the ground with a final punch to the stomach, watching Mike run back towards campus.
He curled up on the muddy ground, holding his stomach in pain and crying. Even death had been denied him, he thought bitterly. He deserved it after what he’d done. He didn’t know how long he managed to stay conscious, but just as his vision began to black out he heard more rustling in the trees behind him. He thought hopefully that Mike had reconsidered and returned to finish him off, but he never got to see who it was, passing out before they got to him.
His whole world was light and sound and pain. He didn’t know how he got there, but he woke up in the infirmary, the powerful overhead lights making his eyes ache. He tried to sit up but felt hands push him back down. He groaned as a stabbing pain shot through his left arm, surmising that he’d broken it during the fight.
“Chaim?” he heard an unfamiliar voice ask. He groaned again and tried to open his eyes, but the light was too bright. After a moment it dimmed, and he opened them again, seeing one of the campus doctors looking down at him. He stared at him for a minute, then tried to sit up again, a thought occurring to him. If he was in the infirmary, Saydie must also be there.
“Saydie…” he called, but was again pushed back down, making his shoulder hurt more.
“She’s not here, Chaim,” he heard Peter’s voice behind him. He came into view and leant over to speak with him. “She’s been taken to the Hospital in town.” It took a moment for what he’d said to register, and then he gasped.
“She’s okay?” he asked quickly. Peter nodded hesitantly.
“She should be alright,” he soothed, “It’s good you found her when you did. She could have done a lot more damage to herself and they might not have been able to help her.” Chaim sighed and let his head fall back onto the pillow. She was alive. She was okay. Peter left him in silence for a while and the doctor began treating the cuts and bruises they’d found on him. He thought they didn’t know about his shoulder and looked up at the doctor.
“My shoulder hurts,” he complained. The doctor looked at him for a second, and then gently prodded the bruised shoulder with warm hands.
“It wouldn’t if you hadn’t gotten into a fight,” he told him, accidentally touching a tender spot and making Chaim hiss in pain. “Sorry. It’s dislocated, I’ll have to set it.” Chaim closed his eyes, trying not to pay much attention to the pain as his shoulder was set. The ‘pop’ sounded more like a ‘crack’ to him, but once the initial spike of pain was over, it felt better. He didn’t even make a sound and was proud of himself. After all his wounds had been seen to, Peter pulled up a chair beside his bed.
“They’re keeping you here overnight, but there’s nothing serious,” he told him, “you can go in the morning.” Chaim nodded, testing out his ‘new’ arm. “Chaim, who did this to you?” he asked, “I saw someone, but I was running too fast; I didn’t get a good look at him.” Chaim thought for a minute. He didn’t really want to tell Peter what happened. He didn’t blame Mike - if he were in his position he might have done the same, but he also didn’t want to lie to Peter. That was the one virtue he’d kept for himself - he refused to lie.
“It was Mike,” he said slowly, “but I don’t blame him, I had it coming.” Peter leaned forward.
“Had what coming? How?” He was confused - he thought Mike had beaten him out of anger, but if Chaim had done something, perhaps to Saydie, for him to somehow deserve it…
Chaim was crying again.
“I…” he looked away from Peter, as if the sight of the other man hurt. “It was only a kiss,” he moaned. “It was just a kiss, but she killed herself because of me…”
“Chaim, she’s not dead,” Peter said firmly, “she’s going to be okay.” He sighed, looking out the window at the darkened sky and trying to make some of the day. It was past dinner time, and by now most of the students had noticed that three of their number were missing. “Why did you kiss her?” he asked. He hadn’t intended to, but it just slipped out.
Any inappropriate contact between students, whether it be a kiss or a fight, was strictly against the school rules. Punishments would have to be seen to later, however. He first wanted to get all the facts. There was a long painful silence, and he could see that Chaim was wrestling with his emotions, trying to put them together into something explainable.
“Saydie was the only one who ever understood me,” he whispered. “The only one…who saw me.” He looked over at Peter, his eyes suddenly clear. “No one’s ever really seen me before.”
Chaim spent the night in the Infirmary, and the grounds were searched for Mike. He was found at the docks early the next morning, sleeping in the boathouse. He too was brought to the Infirmary to warm up, but when he saw Chaim asleep on another bed, tried to run.
“It’s okay,” Peter said, grabbing tight hold of him. Mike stopped struggling and looked over at the boy. “For some reason that he won’t tell us,” Peter went on, “he doesn’t blame you.” Mike looked up at him with confusion, allowing the staff to wrap him in blankets. He sat on his own bed, but didn’t sleep, just spent the morning looking across the room, watching Chaim.
The hospital staff had never had such a difficult patient.
Saydie woke in the ambulance on the way to the hospital, and immediately ripped the IV tubing and bandages from her arms. The paramedics were on her in an instant, strapping her down to the gurney and re-attaching the tubes that had been working to replace the blood she’d lost.
“No!” she cried, “it has to happen, you have to stop!” one of the paramedics holding her down looked up at the driver.
“How long?”
“We’re almost there,” the driver answered. After no more than a minute, the cab doors opened onto the ER and she was being taken in. Saydie continued to fight, but paused when she heard a familiar voice.
“No wait, I have to go with her…” It was Sophie. After the ambulance had picked Saydie up at the school, she’d followed in her car. She ran down the hall to catch up with them, resting a hand on Saydie’s when she made it. “How’s she doing?” she asked the doctor that had met them at the door. He checked her heart rate and then wrapped the stethoscope around his neck, looking up at Sophie.
“She should be okay once we replace the blood she lost and clean the wounds on her wrists,” he said. No one had gotten to replace the bandages she’d torn off in the ambulance, as anyone who’d tried ended up with nail marks on the side of their face.
“Please,” Saydie clamped a hand on Sophie’s arm, “please, I need to see Chaim,” she begged her.
“Saydie, calm down,” she soothed, “you need to be calm so they can help you.” She made a mental note about Chaim to follow up on later as they turned into the room they’d set aside for her. Saydie was lifted onto the other bed and again strapped down. She struggled weakly in her bonds, but soon gave up, focusing instead on Sophie
“You have to let me see him,” she begged, either not noticing or simply ignoring the doctor cleaning and dressing her wounded arm. “I have to tell him I’m sorry…it wasn’t his fault!” Sophie listened and frowned slightly, wondering what she was talking about. She didn’t know the details of what had happened, but it was very clear that, although her wounds were self-inflicted, something had to have happened to make her cut again.
Saydie’s movements began to slow; the doctor had given her a sedative. Her hand reached out to weakly grab Sophie’s wrist as she began slipping away. She held the other woman’s eyes with hers, silently pleading with her. When she finally stilled and her hand slipped from Sophie’s, the doctor looked up at her.
“Who is ‘Chaim’?” he asked, puzzled.
“Another student,” Sophie replied distantly. She was still trying to sort everything out in her own head.
“Sounds to me like he’s a trigger,” the doctor offered, finishing up his work and hooking Saydie up to a monitor. Sophie considered what he’d said, but then shook her head.
“I know it looks that way,” she said, more to herself than to the doctor, “but I don’t think that’s true.”
Translations:
Afrilfelset - Destruction
Konka bo seno - Kill me
Kidoun givo mana seno - Someone help me
Mina blood too danko - My blood is too much