"The mountain, right? You love the mountain, don't you?"
"Ye-yes… But why now? What are we leaving for?"
"Because this isn't a place you should live in. This isn't how life is supposed to be… All this 'hospital' is nothing but a lie. They are just analyzing every inch of your body to get as much information as they can about Rives."
Rives… That was my father's name, wasn't it? They called Dad Rives, but Mom always called him Lan. I didn't understand why Liz sounded so panicked. Even her speech was unclear, her breath replacing parts of her words. She swallowed her saliva noisily and breathed in and out. If my body had been held against her just like it had been a few seconds prior, I'm sure I would have been able to feel her chest moving along with the tune of her mouth.
"Let's go, ####. Let's leave this hellscape and live together… as family."
"Us two? Just us two?"
"Yes, ####… just the two of us, no one else. They don't treat you like a human here. This isn't how you're supposed to be living. I can't let you live here when I'm not present anymore."
"I don't know anywhere else… Liz. This is my home. This is where I've always lived… I'm scared to go outside."
"I know, ####… I will teach you everything. Just like I've always done, but this time you will be living like a normal human being should, not as Rives's shadow."
"But… I… What about Mom? And big brother Evan? And Mr. Jack? And Sophie? An-"
"They're lying to you! All of them! You're a test subject to them, nothing more! Evan was there when you woke up, wasn't he?! He only pretends to work; they are all pretending! Everyone and everything in this facility, disguised as a hospital, is just to study you!"
She raised her voice while tightening her grip on my shoulders… I couldn't understand Liz. Why is it now that she's telling me all this? Why does she want to leave now? How am I supposed to believe that all this time I spent with them was a lie?
"Liz… You're lying…"
It was the first time I'd ever called Liz a liar. I knew what those words meant, but I didn't say them to denounce her; I said them so she could still tell me it was a joke—just a bad joke she and Mr. Evan were plotting—but her expression stayed stiff, and her eyes sank lower, avoiding my gaze, but her hands refused to let go of my body.
"I've also faulted you… I'm not without sin either," I heard her mutter. I knew that she wasn't speaking to me, but to herself. "Come, ####. We can't stay a second longer."
Liz took the blanket wrapping me and replaced it with her jacket, far too big for me, but also very warm. The inside felt soft and silky. It smoothed against the thin fabric of my gown and took part of my body heat. I could feel my body temperature spiking as Liz turned around and pulled me onto her back. Instinctively, I wrapped my arms around her to prevent falling down, but as soon as I did, Liz stopped moving, almost like she froze in place. Now that I think of it, it was the first time I'd ever held Liz like that. We've almost never had any physical contact apart from when she fed me or wiped me with a towel.
"You really…"
She didn't finish her phrase, but instead continued moving forward without ever stopping. It bounced a lot, and Liz herself shook quite a bit. Sometimes she pressed herself swiftly against a wall; other times she sprinted as fast as she could. I felt it all, all these different feelings: the touch of the aged, crackled bricks; sometimes the cold feel of the floor when she crouched, clashing with the heat of my blood racing through my feet. Were those the feelings Liz described to me? The objects she tried to make me see and understand through my imagination? The bricks, the rocky texture, and their uneven bumps. But we were all leaving it now. Leaving everything behind. Leaving everyone here. Leaving the weak and sick girl I've been. And leaving the #### that was always stuck in the same tiny room that she called her world.
"Are you able to flip the hood on? It's raining outside."
I lifted my head, pressing against her back, and raised one hand off her neck to reach behind me.
"Yeah, just a little lower."
Guided by her voice, I got hold of the hood and pulled it on my head. It was big enough to cover my whole head and part of my face. The wet fur along its rim tickled my nose and dampened it as I shifted on Liz's back.
"Are you… okay? Do you hurt anywhere or feel sick anyhow?"
I shook my head, but the truth is I did. My lower body still felt weird; I couldn't shake it, no matter how much I tried to ignore it. It felt abnormally heavy, more than it normally should, and it also felt warm, warmer than the rest of my body. It felt like a temperature border had formed between my lower and upper halves, but despite that, I didn't dare mention it to Liz. Mr. Evan said it would pass soon, that it wasn't serious, but I had an uneasy feeling it wouldn't. It didn't get any better than it had been when I woke up, and it was the reason why I kept tossing around in my bed. Yet even then… I couldn't tell Liz. My mouth didn't allow me to phrase my pain, because it would only slow Liz down.
"Yes… I am…"
"Cough-cough—that's good. We'll be going outside now."
I nodded, and Liz stood up. Her body was also just as hot as mine; I could feel it through the jacket. A lot had happened to Liz, but she still came for me. I heard the rain even more clearly than before; we were outside now, just like Liz had said. We were outside….
"Do you hear it, ####? That's the river current rushing from the distance! When it rains as hard as it does now, the river's current gets even wilder! I'll bring you to touch it once we're out of here, I promise!"
Her voice lightened and sounded even louder than it once did inside. It was as if the restriction that kept her from speaking out loud suddenly disappeared, freeing her chords to say whatever she wanted. Her words seemed to swirl in the dancing droplets, as if they used each one to reverberate through the air. At the same time, the emotions I've yet to experience, the descriptions I had yet to imagine, flooded my mind. That was the outside world. This was what it felt like to be alive. It was a feeling I could have never recreated inside my world, no matter how much I believed I did. This was the real world, and it was just as beautiful.
"You feel it?! The rain! The wind! The cold! The mud! The life, ####! … This is what you should have had since forever!"
"Yeah! I do! I do, Liz! I do! I really do!"
It felt amazing. I couldn't describe it in any other way than amazing. The little life I saw through that window was nothing compared to having my full body immersed inside it. Inside life. How great it was to finally experience what I'd always envied others for. Tasting it for myself, the passing breeze, the raindrops, the muddy ground, the rigid trunks of trees, the brown leaves, everything. I was grateful to Liz; I was utterly grateful to her for bringing me out here, for letting me experience what it felt like to be alive.
"Liz!"
"####!"
"Faster! Faster!"
The curled-up body I became stretched to full length across Liz's back. I thought she would fall, but she just bent her body lower to allow me to almost stand on her. My knees were now curled around her as I reached higher towards a sky my eyes couldn't see, but I saw it anyway. I recreated it in my mind, in my world, just as perfectly as it was in real life. While I reached higher, Liz ran faster. I heard her heavy breath mingle with her footsteps, almost at the same tempo. They went hand in hand, but her laugh still managed to fray through all the ruckus. Her cheerful, earnest laugh. The coral pink that had yet to display its full brightness lightened away amidst the darkness surrounding it. Only then did I realize just how gloomy the pink was. This was Liz's true colour. This was Liz's vibrant pink. The pink that made up my whole world unconsciously, and now I saw it below its facade, below the gloom it cast over as a mask. The display of a blinding, vivid pink, shining amongst the wet night of Fall.
Over my back, I felt something move, something spread along its whole length. I knew what it was; I knew it all too well. The crest. The wing-like crest was spreading its might over me. Like it was about to swallow me whole and carve itself deeper into my skin. It felt like this crest… those wings… My wings had finally taken flight for the first time; I've truly felt alive. And they've marked themselves as the threshold of my new beginning, of my newly found joy in this earth I've barely known surface of. I've finally found my way afloat, and I wouldn't spare anything to let go of it.
"Say, ####!"
"Yes, Liz?"
"I love you too, ####! And I'll never stop loving you every day, ####!"
That was the night the little #### I once thought had died that fateful day truly became alive.