Endosymbiosis

42. Thirst

We boarded the ship, and then Korrok took it off past Venerna.

We emerged from the black ocean that reached the slope and sailed with the ship beyond that satellite's atmosphere. In addition to Korrok, Lupan and Deinos were also on the ship, the last with a bandage in place of the missing arm. Apparently there was no pain to keep him from celebrating a victory.

Kadi and I sat by a window and he whispered, even though the beings around him had super ears and a super interest in listening to us:

"What you did for everyone in Poison District... I don't think anyone thanked you for that."

I lowered my eyes. I didn't deserve any thanks after taking the life of a being with my own hands.

"I just did my job."

"No need to hide it behind obligation." Kadi insisted, eyes on mine. "You can ask me a question if you like, as a thank you."

I raised an eyebrow, a smile at the corner of my lips.

"Are you assuming that knowing more about you would be the reward I would choose?"

"That's not what you wanted from the start:" Kadi leaned toward me, digging the knife in after meeting the target I was: "Answers?" I would love to have them... "I'm offering myself to you on a platter... Satiate your hunger."

I let the question escape me before I could stop myself:

"What did you lose?" How was the life he had let slip through his fingers and so yearned to regain? And could I help him win something worth staying with?

Kadi's eyes fled from me, wandering across the floor. I had touched a wound he had never been able to heal, stiff as an old cut but with the pain of an ever-new.

"This one hasn't..."

I nodded, feeling the distance grow between us like the universe expanding, making me desperate to have him close again.

"So... Tell me about a cringing moment you've been through."

He broke into a smile and ran his hands through his hair, ruffling the strands he could never control.

"To feel ashamed, I would have to make mistakes... But I'm not that kind of person." Kadi joked.

"Forgive me for underestimating you, but I think that's pretty unlikely."

He pretended I had just made a big discovery.

"On second thought... There was a time when I was embarrassed. But only once." I approached to hear the story. "When I was with the collectors, my ship wasn't big enough to fit a bed, so I slept in a tent on the landfill." Kadi said, a confession of his distant past. "I was once changing my clothes in it when a wind hit the tent and ripped the nails holding it to the ground, making it fly away and leave me naked in front of all the collectors, running desperately while everyone laughed at me..." I hid my face in my hands, stifling my laughter. "Good times... Korrok was there..." I sent a look at that beast, piloting the ship. "He laughed at me the hardest, but at least he helped me get the tent back..."

And then he killed my mother.

• • • ֍ • • •

We flew into the ocean from an unknown planet and landed inside a glass dome nestled deep within the edge of an underwater cliff. Inside, a set of steps led to the surface inside the structure, while others descended into the depths of the abyss, where the ground seemed to have given up on existing... From a huge window I looked down into the void below, where I swore the darkness had a voice, a life, a conscience, calling me to where my screams would be drowned and my fears would come true... I wondered how far the darkness hidden in those depths took; and what it did with those who dared to descend in it...