The cavern walls rise up around me. My entire body is so tight, I feel like a constrictor snake is wrapping around my muscles and squeezing as if its life depends on me becoming its next meal. As the snake twists my stomach, anxiety rises to fill me, a toxin climbing toward my throat.
I betray none of this apprehension to Sean. My hands stay steady as I draw his blood with a syringe. We've been in such close proximity the last six days that if either of us are infected, we're both dead.
Taking out my hematester, I carefully drip the blood from my syringe's needle into the glass tube. Inside the device, several miniscule, mineral-coated nets separate the fluid into its constituent parts. The thick liquid laboriously trickles through the layers, adding a drop to my anxiety with every slow drip. Once I empty the syringe, I cap the hematester and shake it up and down, careful to keep it straight.
A few long minutes later, the device has done its work. "Hold this," I order, handing the tube to Sean. He complies, allowing me to pull out my magnifier. To a layman, the tool probably looks like a trinket someone might put on their keyring. Ten thin, teardrop-shaped crystal lenses clink together on an iron loop. Reclaiming the hematester with one hand, I pull a magnifier lens to the top of the ring and peer through.
Adjust the distance, I instruct myself. Better. Flip the next crystal. Now, adjust the distance. No, not quite. A little closer—too close. Back one millimeter, two, two and a half... Good. Flip the next crystal. Adjust the distance...
"This lighting is terrible," I mutter, pulling more crystals up one by one. Now that I'm staring through all ten, the blood in the tube transforms from a homogenous red liquid to millions of tiny but distinct shapes. Being sure to keep it the same distance away from my magnifier, I raise the tube increment by increment, examining its length. If I change its proximity in any way, I have to start back at the first crystal.
Sean's lantern flares to life behind me. My eyes relax their squint, the light bright enough to allow them to focus.
But they don't. Instead, my gaze turns back to five days ago, staring into a gutter swimming with dirty bandages and overflow sewage. My hands pressed against the street, grit clinging to my skin. My lungs dragged in the filthy air. Contamination was everywhere there. The trash, the ground, the atmosphere. It wouldn't be that hard for it to have transfered to my skin, my nose, my cells. It wouldn't be that hard to have gotten infected, to have infected Sean.
In fact, it would be far too easy.
The soft tinking of Sean's nail on the glass of the lantern pulls me into the present. Focus, Leavi. If one of us caught it, there's nothing to do about it now. Panicking is pointless.
Instead of comforting me, the thought allows the constrictor one final squeeze, spilling toxic anxiety into my veins. My eyes wander back to the crystals, and I force myself to concentrate. Let's get this over with.
Layer One—clean.
Layer Two—the blood cells swirl before my eyes, one perfect circle after another, no foreign proteins bound to them. Clean.
Layers Three and Four—are clean.
Layer Five—
My hand is trembling slightly; I can't get a good picture. Stay still! The first four layers were clean, so the last one is most likely—
My hand stays. "Clean," I sigh. Behind me, I sense Sean relax, the muted tinks ending.
Now for me.
I clean the hematester of Sean's blood, use the flame of his lantern to sanitize the syringe's needle, and draw my own sample. As the blood steadily rises in the syringe, I have the irrational thought that the pulse of my heart is a solemn drum, announcing each step closer to my execution.
I force the thought away. I will stay calm, and I will do this right.
I prepare the hematester and begin flipping lenses.
Layer One—clean
Two—clean
Three—
As I move the tube, my magnifier blurs. Come on, Leavi. You can do better than this. I've run hundreds of tests like this before. Usually, I can whiz through a dozen samples in five minutes flat. My mind is buzzing, though, and my lenses aren't the only thing I'm having a hard time focusing. My breaths come short and shallow. Every piece inside me feels like it's trembling.
Calm down, I scold myself. Be professional. It's one sample like any other. You're just looking for irregularities. This is normal.
Yet it isn't. The results of this test condemn or free two lives, and once we know the verdict, we can't pretend everything is okay. We can't wish for the best. If we're judged guilty, there's no hope of pardon. There's a gallows, a stage, and a long, painful way down.
Another hand draws the tube from my own. Startled, I turn to see Sean holding another magnifier, beginning the process of flipping through the lenses. "What am I looking for?"
Embarrassed anger waters down relief. "I can do that, Sean."
"So can I. What am I looking for?"
I hug my jacket closer to me, disguising hands that have lost their resolve. Words shivering in the air, I respond, "You know the normal structure of a red blood cell?"
"Yes."
"Any abnormalities in that." That would show that the plague had altered the cell, the first step it takes in infecting a person. For some reason, the explanation doesn't come out of my mouth, but Sean doesn't ask for it. He just steadily scans the tube.
After a minute of study, he declares, "You're clean."
"Are you positive? It's easy to miss something, and we can't afford—"
"It's just as important to me as it is to you, Riveirre," he interrupts. "Yes, I'm positive."
The tension drains out of my body. Mentally berating myself for not having been able to pull it together, I nod. "Thanks." I busy myself cleaning my other instruments and packing everything up, ignoring Sean's watchful eyes. He hands me back the hematester, and I clean and stow it too. "We should get going."
He nods, and as we leave, I can't help but take one glance back at the stream's little paradise. I wonder if we'll ever find something like it again.
By the end of that day, we haven't quite made it to the surface, but the barometer shows we're close. The ground has started sloping more precipitously, and if Sean were to turn off his lantern, I fancy I could faintly see the halo of the moon creeping down the tunnel's mouth.
My lips tip a smile to my cloudy-headed daydreams. They used to get me in trouble when I was at my primary. Now, with nothing better to focus on, it's nice to indulge, letting reality and imagination blur together.
Tonight, the air between me and Sean is lighter, empty, like someone filled balloons with all our animosity and set them free to fly away. It's not friendly, but neither is it dangerous. When I catch him staring, I don't let him know. I just gaze contentedly at the shadows on the wall, imagining them to be flitting fairies.
We're healthy. We're going to make it out. The detached realization makes me faintly giddy the way lack of oxygen does. My tiny smile gradually morphs into a full, carefree grin.
I roll out my blanket and glance over at Sean. "What do you think it'll be like where we come out?"
He pauses as he looks at me, eyes momentarily lingering on the curved corners of my mouth. I wonder if he's surprised that I addressed him. "Sunnier than here." Though his words have a sarcastic ring, there's no bite in them.
"Fantastic deduction, doktor," I mock. But the smile is still on my face, and he doesn't seem to take offense.
"Most topside trade posts are just small, halfway points. Other than that, I guess we'll know in a few days."
I nod, tucking myself in. "I suppose we will."
As I turn away, I hear him lay down. The fire crackles between us. A few empty seconds pass.
"Night," I offer belatedly.
"Night, Riveirre."