The Non-Human Society

Chapter One Hundred and Thirty Four - Vim - Sixteen Days

     Leaning against the wall, I listened to the chatter of the three women.

"She's trying her hardest Glanny," Lamp said softly.

"It's not fair, Lamp! She's dead!" Glanny sobbed.

"I know she is, Glanny. We all do," Lamp said, a little firmer this time. Though she was trying to be strong, I could hear her own emotions in her voice. I knew if I turned and leaned around the door frame I'd see that Lamp was just as distraught as Glanny.

Renn was sitting with the two crying women, and I didn't need to look to know she was crying too. I could hear her sniffs and sobs. Crying over a woman she hadn't even known. The woman had arrived here weak. Dying. They had probably not exchanged more than a few words before she passed in her sleep.

Yet...

That was why I was so fascinated with her, wasn't it?

I squeezed my elbow, and had to squeeze harder when I didn't feel anything. I relished the feeling of my elbow joint straining as I dug my fingers into it.

What are you doing Vim? What are you thinking?

You're not allowed to think thoughts like that.

"What will they do with the body?" Glanny asked.

"Brandy said they'll properly bury her. They have a graveyard outside of the city that they use. She said we can go watch them bury her if we want," Lamp told her.

Glanny sobbed.

I wasn't sure of the relationship between Glanny and the one who had died in the middle of the night... but out of all of them, she was the most distraught. Half the hallway was crying and sobbing, yet it was her who was being nearly frantic.

The sound of a charcoal pencil filled my ears as Renn wrote something. A few moments later I heard Lamp muttering as she read it.

"She wants us to check on everyone else. To make sure no one else gets sick," Lamp said softly.

"More could die?" Glanny heaved her words.

"No, Glanny. She just wants us to keep an eye on everyone to make sure they don't. Everyone else is able to get up and walk around, remember?" Lamp tried to reason with the girl.

Glanny took a deep breath, and then someone handed her something to blow her nose with. As she did I glanced down the hallway. Only half the rooms had lights on, little candlelight from only a few of them. The hallway ended and turned right at the end, where the rest of their rooms were... and I knew any moment someone would come out. It was late. Very late. In only a couple hours the sun would start rising. Most of them were awake already, woken by the commotion of Lamp finding the dead woman.

That commotion was what had brought me here. And then sent me to get Renn and Brandy.

To be honest me knocking on Renn's door in the middle of the night had been... a mistake. I had avoided her all day yesterday after she had hit me... Then I go and knock on her door in the middle of the night? She had jumped out of bed and opened the door so happily and excitedly, that telling her the news had not just broken her own heart but nearly my own.

Watching that pure joy filled face, on a woman who was wearing nothing but a nightgown... full of expectations and excitement die was... It had melted and turned into a gut wrenching pain filled expression that had nearly been enough to make even me crumble.

I squeezed my elbow tighter, and there was now pain. Real pain. Yet I still held my grip.

I wasn't supposed to feel for her that deeply. I wasn't supposed to let her emotions affect me to such a degree.