Young Writers Society

Eira moved to the doctor's side and held up her left hand. The veins around that hand and her right eye illuminated as unearthly power ran through them. The light from the bracelets felt odd as she pulled on it, wrong, but she gathered it anyway. Mixed together, the light appeared white. Good. It was easier to see with white light.

She held the light gathered at her fingertips near the doctor so he could better see the wounds and the contents of his bag. Eira herself didn't look too closely at either of those things. Because I have to focus on the light.

She could do this in her sleep. The sight of blood just twisted her insides into knots.

So maybe Mel was a little insecure that she couldn't down a bottle in five seconds like Aumrauth could. While he and Raptor bickered about nonsense, Mel took another big swig, this time like a champ. No one seemed to notice though. Poo.

Suddenly the man—what was his name? oh right, he hadn't introduced himself yet... I'll call keep calling him Red—opened the chest and got stabbed with some flying pointy things. Mel didn't see what it was exactly, but she did see blood start oozing from his shirt before Dr. Archer came in and started playing operation with him.

Mel had been in the infirmary one too many times in her life and had watched Ellie and other "doctors" do their healing thingamijig. Maybe Mel could help!

She walked up to Dr. Archer, waving the bottle of wine in front of her. "Do you need an antiseptic? Maybe the alcohol in the wine can help." She actually had no idea how much alcohol exactly was in the wine, or what antiseptic actually was, but she felt pretty smug that she remembered these things from school.

Although she was focused on the ugly wound on Red's chest, Mel did notice that the room seemed... a tad brighter? But she paid no notice to it, and in fact thought she had something to do with it; she had been told that sometimes her brightness was contagious.

Elias looked up. "Yes, thank you. Thank you both." He tore off a strip of gauze and took the wine, tipping it gently onto the cloth and dabbing the material on the young man's chest. "Though I'm not sure this will do much good. I've never seen poison anything like this."

Nikolai had gone extremely pale as he watched the scene unfold, his heart beating way too fast again. A few minutes. Just a few minutes since he’d pulled himself up from the ground, and someone was already dying?

You don’t know he’s going to die, he told himself, but the hope was weak. Don’t jump to conclusions.

The girl named Mel was suggesting the alcohol could be used as an antiseptic, while Eira was... Actually, he couldn’t guess what she was doing. It was strange how things seemed a little brighter now, more visible. The wine was no antidote, and Dr. Archer didn’t seem familiar with this poison, but he held on that hope. Nikolai held his breath, his thoughts wild as he wondered if there was anything he could do to help out.

Eira glanced at the wound and quickly looked away with a wince.

"Would...would it help to draw out the infected blood?" she asked, her voice wavering. I cannot do that. I cannot do that, I cannot do that...

Elias blinked. "There's no syringe. My bag is mostly empty."

Mel peered down at the wound and she couldn't help but express a disgusted look. The icky gashes were pulsating and seemed a little green, perhaps because of the poison. The purpley red wine made it look worse, but hopefully it actually helped him.

Mel nodded towards the pink-and-yellow-haired woman—ooh, super cool hair!—and then looked over at the three remaining chests nearby. "Maybe there's something in the other chests we can use. I mean, I know that chest was dangerous, but the other one was just wine. We can be more careful when opening the other chests."

Eira shook her head. "Don't open any other chests," she said quickly, "I...I can do it. No needles required." She huffed a nervous chuckle at her own joke as she flexed her right hand. The veins went dark, spreading like crevices across her skin. Cracks in a porcelain doll around her hand and eye.

Her hand hovered over the wounds. Blood moved faster than anyone ever seemed to think it did. She held it still around the entrances to the wounds, keeping it inside. Shifting a bit closer to him, she tilted her hand and felt a little deeper. The infected blood was hot, burning. Her hand ached. Pulling the hand away from him slowly, being ever so careful to let some blood still circulate, and trying not to rupture an artery, she drew out the poisoned blood.

Droplets gathered in the air above his skin, coming slowly together into a shifting ball before her hand.

The light in her other hand dimmed as her divided focus slipped away from it.

Finally, there was no more burning. The poisoned blood dropped to the ground, splashing on her boots, her knees, the doctor, and the poor fool who opened the box.

Elias flinched back a bit as the blood splashed his freshly pressed trousers, and he sighed. They were already covered in dust from the cave, but he had rather liked this pair.
More importantly, that girl had just pulled blood out of this man with her hand.
"How did you do that?" he inquired hesitantly, removing his glasses to polish them. He'd never seen anything like it in all his years.

Nikolai took a large step back in alarm when he saw the blood drawn out. His green eyes were wide and scared— clearly, he’d never seen anything like this. He slowly got closer to them, more anxious than ever, an uncertain look on his face as he joined them.

Eira's head pounded, black dots floating in her vision like flecks of blackened blood, still swimming through the air. The light died. Her skin returned to normal.

She steadied her breathing.

The doctor's question floated through her head. Grey smoke in a purple haze, hardly registering.

"I..."

The world went dark.

She slumped over.

Oh, this was a right mess, wasn't it.

Aumrauth was starting to feel a little buzzed as everyone started rushing around the fallen boy with bad luck. It was starting to help with the pain, but his mind still felt like a foggy, screaming white noise. What he would give for clarity.

He sighed as he watched the woman use some magic to draw the poisoned blood out, flexing his fingers and wishing for access to the river. To feel cut off like this was agonizing. It was like someone stepping on his throat, cutting off his airway, as their heel dug into his neck.

But complaining was for mortals.

He dropped the empty bottle on the ground and sauntered over to the doctor party and looked down at the man lying on the floor. The blood splatter. And the nervous fellow hovering by, looking like they might pass out if someone did as much as breathe in their direction.

If they lost him, they could use him as an offering to the heartless god. Or they could use him, but he wasn't going to suggest that. He knew he'd come back, but dying still hurt like hell.

He walked up just in time to see the blood and light mage slumping over on the ground.

She must've been pretty weak. But then again, all mages started somewhere. Maybe she just needed guidance.

He poked her shoulder lightly with his foot.

"Are you dead too?"

When the darts hit the man - who had never given his name - the little red orbs behind Raptor's helmet widened in horror. He knew he should have been saying that he told them all that something like this would happen. That he was right.

But all that he could get was a sick feeling where his stomach was supposed to be. He stood helpless on the side as Dr. Elias tried to take care of the injured man, and could only watch silently as Eira drew the poisoned blood out and collapsed to the floor. That wasn't the kind of magic he knew of. That was the kind of magic that the gods and their children had - or, at least, that was what May would have said.

May was a distant memory right now. His mind flickered back to another memory that felt like it was from an eternity ago. He had been in one of the big summoning halls. The teachers were showing their students how to summon higher-level demons. The teachers were always careful, but their assistants - barely older than Raptor at the time - never were the same.

A summoning had gone wrong. The pentacle hadn't been drawn correctly, and the demon had lashed out at its summoner. There had been so much blood back then. They had rushed the assistant off to the infirmary afterwards, but Raptor had never seen the assistant again.

Out of worry and out of habit, Raptor's hand went up to cover the eye that Mist had stabbed with an arrow tip not that long ago.

"Oh, for--" Elias checked Eira's pulse. Finding it weaker than average but otherwise fine, he propped her feet up with his medical bag. "Wake her up," he said to Raptor, then looked back to Ainsley. "How do you feel?"

Ainsley’s heartbeat began to settle as one of the girls finished doing...whatever it was she just did to him. He wasn’t really concerned about what she did, though, just that he felt better, albeit still weak.

He looked up at the doctor. “I think,” he did a mental inventory of his body. Was everything there? Nothing turning blue? Or purple, rather “I think I’m okay.”