My Dear Savior

Episode 20

Red. My fault. So much red. Red snow. Red berries. Red blood. Red… eyes. So many red eyes watching me, taunting me, laughing at me. “Traitor…”

I jerked awake at the sound of his voice in my ear and let out a small gasp. I roughly pushed tendrils of my hair that had escaped my bun back from my face, feeling cold sweat as my fingers brushed my temples. I sighed heavily as the monotonous beeping of the machines brought me fully back into the present. It had just been another nightmare. He wasn’t really here- he hadn’t been here for going on 10 years now.   

I focused my hazy eyes on the still form before me. Taking Moreta’s cold, bandaged hand in mine, I wished that just once I could sleep and wake up without the ever-present blanket of shame wrapped around me. If I could just sleep soundly for one night, then maybe I could clear my head and figure out how to get my people out of this mess I had made.

My gaze glanced over the monitor above her dark head, checking her vitals. Of course, they were failing. “Oh Mom, your poisons were always perfect. Nothing could ever escape them.” I smiled sadly up toward the ceiling as I had a habit of doing since she had died. I was just glad she hadn’t lived to see the results of my naive treason. She had never lived past that fateful, snowy night, all those years ago.

I sighed in frustration as I pushed down the past and replayed the incident that led to this for the hundredth time. Moreta had been my best assistant! She was meticulous and careful in everything she did, especially in handling the poison. She had been working on a new antidote I had formulated and was applying it to cells we had treated with the poison only an hour before. I been out of the room supervising a new delivery of the poison our warriors had gotten their hands on after the latest battle, so it was a while before I found her unconscious on the floor by the microscope she had been using. Somehow, she had tipped over the dish of cells and gotten the poison onto her skin even though she was wearing a lab coat and gloves.

She was so slight and willowy that if we had been using an undiluted version on the cells her heart would have stopped immediately. Maybe that would have been more humane than this shell she was reduced to. The clinical, removed scientist part of my mind wished she had already pipetted out the antidote onto the cells. If it had successfully neutralized the poison, she wouldn’t be here now.

I sighed again in frustration as I wiped my hand over my face, remembering her cheeky smile and tinkling laughter. By the gods, I was so tired. I felt so very old as I watched her breathing get more and more shallow over the hours. It wouldn’t be long now. How many hands had I held? How many loved ones had I turned into victims? Would this ever end?

My mind wandered to two little feet, but I brutally shoved the memory down as the door behind my chair opened.

“How is she doing?”

“You know she won’t make it much longer now.”

Strong hands rested on my tired shoulders, and I shrugged them off. It felt to me as if I had the weight of my nation on my shoulders- I didn’t need the added weight of his hands there as well.