CATACLYSM

Chapter 6: REANIMATE

Chapter six: REANIMATE

Mylo found Cassandra on one of the upper floors, gazing out of an open window into the early morning air.

They stopped short at the doorway. Cassandra’s back was to them, her hair loose from its usual braid in a cascade of dark, tight curls, down to her hips. Their eyes lingered on the gentle curve of her lower spine. It had taken Mylo a day to convince the feral hydra to vacate the area. They’d spent that time alone in the depths, and found themselves thinking often of Cassandra Cassidy, and the various curves of her human body.

Mylo did their best to put those thoughts away as they approached. “Roma said I would find you here.”

Cas glanced over her shoulder. “She said I was free to explore this level.”

“Well we do not expect you to jump out of a window again any time soon.” Mylo stood next to her.

The early sunlight caught Cas’s cheeks and nose as she smiled. “That’s bold of you, to think I won’t try something stupid twice.” She pointed up. “Roma said I couldn’t go to the top floor. What’s there?”

Roma, with her big mouth. “My apartments,” Mylo said cooly, “I have the whole floor. You can come visit sometime, if you like.” Mylo added quickly, “I have lots of collections of artifacts you might find interesting.”

“I’m sure.” Cas chuckled. Why did that make heat creep up Mylo’s neck? “I think I saw you yesterday from here.” Cas gestured to the smooth river below. “In the right light you can spot the hydras underwater, if they’re close enough to the surface. Did you go by this road?”

No. “Yes, several times.” They said, “I keep my hydra, Nora, in a den just down the block that way. Over by the old train station.”

“I’ve never seen a real train,” Cas said, leaning against the windowsill. Her fractured arm had been mended, Mylo noted, but she used her other hand to hold on as she leaned out to look. “Where is it?”

“You can see some of the elevated tracks just over those buildings.” Mylo stepped in closer, just to point more accurately, but when Cas turned her head their faces were remarkably near. Mylo could see the pores in Cas’s warm skin. “It sort of looks like a bridge,” they said, pointing, and Cas turned away. They could smell her hair. They nearly lost themselves in the sweetness. In all the vastness of my lifetime, how is it I have never smelled such a thing? They just kept talking, hoping Cas could not detect the strange sensation in their chest. “Over there on that hill, that was a school,” Mylo said, pointing. “Actually a lot of the school buildings are still intact, since it is on higher ground. It was built back in the 1700s.” They added dumbly, “It is one of my favorite places. Maybe I can show you one day.”

“It survived the Barren Times?”

“Yes,” they said, grateful that Cas did not comment on their sudden awkwardness, “there was some big statue of a knight in armor outside the school. It is half-sunken now.” Mylo pointed another way. “Down there, there is a courthouse. Most of that is under water, but when I first woke, I found many afflicted in there.”

Cas pivoted so her round hip pressed against the sill and she faced Mylo. “You know a lot about the area.”

“Well I should, I did live here,” Mylo said, then added in a low voice, “And there is this huge mural on the lower floors with a map of the area.”

That got a chuckle out of Cas. “What was it like here?” She asked, “Before?”

Mylo stared out onto the water. “Back then this was St. Peter’s Hospital. It was old - like a lot of this country by the time of the Cataclysm. Because it is so far north-east and so close to the coast, it survived the atomic weapons of the Barren Times. This hospital became a refuge. They housed hundreds, maybe thousands of patients then. The city was called New Brunswick.”

Cas nodded. “Did you read that on a wall downstairs, too?”

“Yes I did.”

Cas laughed again. “If this was New Brunswick, where’s Old Brunswick?”

“That was not included on the mural.” The two laughed together. Mylo couldn’t take their eyes off Cas when she laughed. “I would show you the mural, truly, but it is well underwater, and I fear you would drown.”

“That’s alright, I’ll take your word for it.” Cas flicked her dark eyes up at Mylo. Halos would suit her. “I suppose I should thank you for getting me out of the water the other day.”

“You are not the first human I have pulled from the undertow. But you are the first that frightened me.”

“You mean because of the wyrm?”

Because it was you. “I would have never expected a hydra to get so close.” They paused. The two stood in silence for a moment. Mylo leaned against the sill and kept their eyes down when they asked, “Exactly how much did you see?”

“Mostly I saw its mouth. And I saw you touch it.” Cas reached over, taking one of Mylo’s hands, inspecting it like it would reveal some great secret. “You pushed it away.”

They didn’t know how to explain. “The hydras are - I mean, I have experience with them.” They added, mostly to themselves, “It was only me and them for quite some time.”

“And your eyes,” Cas touched Mylo’s face as she asked, “what was going on with your eyes?”

Mylo swallowed. They’d spent so long in the depths, in the cold, the warmth from her hands on their cheek felt like bliss. They lost their words for a moment, knowing only the heat in the tips of her fingers.

And only coldness when she withdrew. “So I don’t get an answer to that question, then?”

“I - I am sorry, I am tired. I was up all night.” Mylo braced themselves. They had come here with a message, not to drown in her eyes. “Cassandra, I need to tell you something.”

She straightened up. “What is it? Is it my dad? Is he ok?”

“Yes, your father is fine. It is not about Castiel.” They swallowed. “It is about Vektor.”

Cas’s face hardened. “I had assumed you… you know.”

Mylo blinked. “We do not generally eat human flesh,” they said, “that is quite the assumption, given we are sentient.”

“It’s not an unfair assumption.”

“It is.” Mylo sighed. “But regardless - Vektor was not consumed.”

A pause. “But he is dead.”

Mylo glanced away.

“He is dead.”

“He was dead,” Mylo said, “until last night.”

Cas’s nostrils flared. “You afflicted him?”

Perhaps the truth? “No.” Perhaps not. “But he is sentient. And he wants to see you.”

* * *

In the inner labyrinth of the hospital, in a dark, damp room, Vektor sat with his back to the door. He wore his shrink suit, tattered from the attack that killed him. He was hunched and still as Cas approached.

She shuddered at the sight of his face. It was Vektor, and yet there seemed an overlay of uncanniness that frightened her. Drops of dew scattered his cheeks like constellations. His skin glowed, that same luminous sheen as the others, as if the cells drank the clarity of the water in the air. His dark hair fell naturally, as it always had, but with a deceptively healthy shine. It took a moment, but then Vektor saw her.

“Captain,” he whispered, weak and small, “Captain Cassidy.” He reached out and took her forearm in his hands. He was warm and clammy. “You have been preserved.”

Cas thought that was an odd thing to say, but she was distracted by the tell-tale silvering of his eyes. A newly afflicted, as she knew well, often had completely silver eyes and limited sight; thus was the condition of her former necrope. She steeled herself not to shiver at his touch.

“I’m here,” Cas said, forcing herself to place her other hand on his, “I’m fine.”

“And the ship? The Tempest?”

“It’s fine,” she lied, “they - they got away.”

Vektor frowned. “They left us.”

“They had to,” Cas said, “but nevermind them - how do you feel?”

“I am a little lost,” Vektor said, staring both at her and past her.

“You’re in a hospital on Earth-”

“No,” he interrupted, “I know where I am. And I know what happened. I remember.” He grasped her harder. “You tried to save me, Captain. You tried.”

Cas felt water in her eyes. “I did.”

“It is alright,” Vektor said, his silver eyes widening, “I am still not sure how - how to be this way,” he touched his own face and looked confused, “but I feel good. I…” He gazed off to the side and stopped talking. “What is that?”

“What’s what?” There was no other sound in the room.

Vektor blinked. Looking back to her, he said, “Sorry, what?”

Just then, Mylo stepped into the doorway. “Vektor, have you eaten?”

“Yes,” he said, nodding to a nearby pile of trash. “Thank you,” and then he mumbled something in a language Cas did not understand.

She wrinkled her brow and studied the pile. It was disgusting - mostly fish bones peeled of their flesh, a few spiny fins sticking out at odd angles, and one larger skull. At first she thought it was some fish skull. But the longer she looked, she realized it could only be human.

Cas wretched onto the floor.

Mylo came up behind her. “Come.” They whispered something to Vektor and led Cas out of the room.

“You fed him human flesh!” Outside Cas leaned against the wall to gather herself, panting and wiping her mouth.

“It was an old corpse,” Mylo snapped, “and do not act like that was the problem.”

“How could that not be a problem?”

Mylo turned on Cas and came right up to her face. Cas could see dark flecks in those silver halos as their face contorted. “Are we so disgusting to you? Is that it?” Their nostrils flared in anger. “Is there no way for you to see us as people? Looking at him disgusts you so greatly that you vomit at his feet?”

“Looking at my dead friend sitting up and talking to me after you reanimated him, yeah, that does disgust me, Mylo.”

“He is alive because of the wyrm.”

“He is not alive - he is undead!” Cas realized she was shouting. She breathed heavily. “He’ll never be alive again.”

Mylo pulled back. “Now he is immortal.” They shrugged. “He will never be dead again.” They turned to leave, then stopped. They looked back over their shoulder at Cas. “Do not see him without me present.” They swept away.

Cas stood outside the room for a long time. The closed door muffled Vektor’s sobs.

* * *

Cas couldn’t stand to hear him cry. I have to get him out of here. He can be cured. He has to be cured. She glanced down the hallway. Mylo had left. No one was with her.

She turned her heel and headed to the docks.

Over the days of her captivity, Cas Cassidy had taken mental note of the layout of the hospital, including when and where she regularly saw afflicted. She knew her way to the boats unescorted. And she knew enough at least to get near the parking garage where she’d been captured. Once there, she could navigate back to where the Tempest had been stationed, and she could summon the ship for help. She just needed to get a boat now, maybe a rowing one so it didn’t make noise, and she could get out and get the ship and they could come back and -

“Woah!” An afflicted said, as Cas turned a corner and bumped right into him.

“I’m sorry,” Cas said, trying to push past him. She was almost to the boats.

“Cassandra,” he said. Cas stopped in her tracks, partially because she’d now been discovered, but also because only Mylo called her Cassandra. “Where are you going?”

She turned to him. “Oh, Julien?” She recognized him from the archives. They hadn’t ever spoken, since he’d been mostly catatonic that day. “I’m just looking for my father.” She tried again to leave.

“Well you are in luck - I am going to him now. He is in the labs.” He gestured. “I can take you there.”

Cas stopped again. Well shit. “Thank you,” she said, falling in behind Julien. Tonight, she thought. Tonight I can get away.

The labs were a series of rooms connected to the workshop, complete with all manner of scientific equipment the sentients had gathered over the years. Cas had spent the prior day there, first getting her arm treated, then with her father at his work. Castiel had explained his personal research project, though more vaguely than Cas appreciated. Castiel aimed to uncover why some afflicted wake “wordful” while others wake “peaceful,” and by extension, why a rare few of the latter later gain sentience. Most of his research, it seemed, involved him studying wyrms under magnification.

Cas found him bent over a microscope in a dark corner, shaded from the late-morning sun. “Look at this,” her father said, beckoning her over. He put an image of the wyrm under magnification on a nearby screen. The thin infant wyrm squirmed wildly within a glob of blood. “It’s reacting with more vigor to this blood type than to the others.”

“So what does that mean?” Cas tried to sound enthused as she took a seat next to him.

Castiel noticed her demeanor. “I’m not sure. But part of my hypothesis is that we sentient afflicted must all have something in common. Perhaps it is something simple, like our blood type.”

She sighed. “Interesting.”

Castiel looked her over. “Mylo told you, then? About Vektor?”

“You knew?”

“I only learned this morning. But they wanted to tell you themselves.”

Cas scoffed. “They try to act like a friend, but at every turn they betray me.”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Castiel said, “Mylo is the one who saved you from the hydra.”

“I only needed to be saved because they let us call the Tempest.”

“Well before that, they saved you from the horde in the garage.”

“I’m half convinced they brought the horde themselves.”

Castiel sighed. “If you’re determined to find fault, then fault is all you will find.” He said, “But I think you’re being too critical.” He removed the first slide from the machine and began to prepare another one.

“Oh yes, I am being unfair to my literal captor.”

Castiel sighed again. “Mylo is just a person who has made the best of a bad situation. They didn’t choose to be afflicted. And when they woke up, they had no one. Mylo was the only sentient until our colony woke.” Castiel used a dropper to separate a wyrm specimen and place it on a clean slide. “Mylo has not harmed you. Twice at least they have rescued you from peril. And remember, they reunited you with me.” He put a hand on her shoulder. “For me, that’s all that matters.”

Cas brooded. “I suppose.”

“Maybe you should take the time to get to know them better.” He added, “They seem to have taken an interest in you.”

Cas averted her eyes, but her curiosity got the better of her. “Have they said something about me?”

“Not explicitly. Just my own observations.” He said, “I am sorry about your friend. He will seem uncanny for a while. But before you know it, he’ll be like the rest of us.”

Cas swallowed. “Mylo fed him some human flesh. I thought you said you don’t do that.”

“Ah,” Castiel said, “it would have been a deceased afflicted that they fed Vektor, if that makes you feel any better. There are many more types of afflicted out here that you’re used to in the west. There are some that are violently aggressive - fast, organized, vicious. They even attack other afflicted to eat them.” Castiel added what appeared to be blood to the slide, watching it seep as he covered it. “To protect ourselves, we kill them when they inevitably swim into the area.”

Swim into the area. Cas remembered the multitude of eyes at the bottom of the river. The zombies out west wandered through the water, and of course did not drown, but she’d never seen one swim. “But the flesh must be rotten.”

“No, actually - the wyrm restores the flesh, heals wounds, and seems to never age.” Castiel touched his own face. “I’ve never felt more physically well than I do with the wyrm. I would guess it’s because the wyrm needs the host to be healthy, so that it can survive. A symbiotic relationship in many ways.”

Cas shivered at the idea of a wyrm curled around her brainstem. “Can you feel it?”

Her father paused. She could tell he picked his words carefully. “Yes. I don’t notice it much anymore. At first, my head just felt very heavy.” He laughed, “I mean, there is a whole wyrm in there now, after all!”

Cas tried to sound unconcerned when she asked, “Did you eat flesh when you woke?”

“I don’t believe so,” he said, “our colony became afflicted in the winter. We were, honestly, beginning to starve. Winters are hard here for humans.” He said, “When I woke, we didn’t have any food available. But afflicted can’t starve to death, so we all survived.” He added, “Though the initial waking days and weeks are blurry, to be fair.”

Gazing at the silver halos in his dark eyes, a sudden sadness crashed into Cas like an ocean wave. She remembered her father on Daedalus - reading her stories with big, colorful pictures, and sitting her on his lap at the computer to show her how it worked. One of her earliest memories, foggy with the passage of time, was Castiel explaining how a cluster of cells could grow into a baby. He’d shown her video of it, touching the screen to rotate the images. Cas had been fascinated with the touch-screen. “All humans are precious,” Castiel had said. She remembered his voice as if it echoed through a grotto. “And all afflicted deserve to be human again.”

Cas blinked away the water from her eyes. “If you come back with me, you could be alive again.”

Castiel smiled. “Well, I am already alive. Or don’t you think so?” He tried to sound jovial.

But Cas was stern. “I don’t think so.”

He hesitated. “Well, dear, corpses do not talk.”

“I’m not so sure.” Cas lowered her voice and leaned in. “You could be cured.”

He whispered back, nodding. “I could.”

A pause. “Do you not want to be?”

“Of course I do.” He looked over the desk, eyes darting around the microscopes. “I mean, of course - of course I want to be cured. But my greater concern is you.”

“Then help me get a boat. Tonight. I just need someone to let me out of my room, past the guards, and I can go the rest of the way.”

“Absolutely,” Castiel said, “I can come get you after the colony is sleeping.”

“I’ll get to the Tempest and come back for you.”

“No,” Castiel held Cas’s arm, and said, “first take the Tempest back to Daedalus. You’ve seen the hydras. One ship is not enough for the rescue.” He squeezed her arm. “You tell Tier what you’ve seen here, and back at the station they will give you more ships for the mission.” He smiled weakly. “There’s no rush.”

Cas nodded in agreement. Normally she would have argued with her father, but she thought it better to let it go. He couldn’t really control what she did - if the Tempest was intact and Tier agreed, she could always come back for him before going to Daedalus - and anyway she wasn’t being honest about her escape plan. No reason to make him worry any more.

A little while later, Roma joined them in the lab, and the three spent the afternoon experimenting on wyrms. Cas reviewed the research passively. She tried to focus, but she found her eyes scanning the words and peeling off the page into her own imaginations. Some of them were of her imminent escape, others of her triumphant return to Daedalus station.

But most were of Mylo.

***

Illustrations by John V. Salvino, johnvsalvino.com

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