Chapter 2: EVE

 

    “You are up”, a finely dressed, handsome young man standing a few distance away from my bed said as he walked up to me. Placing his palm gently on my forehead, he checked my temperature.

    I stared at him, trying to figure out who he was. I hadn’t seen him among the healers hovering around earlier. If I had, I would have definitely recognized him. His striking looks were impossible to miss.

    Sitting up, I looked around and immediately noticed I was in a different room from the one they had taken me to earlier. They must have moved me in my sleep.

    “How long was I asleep? I asked.

This was my first time alone with a man other than my slave driver, and it felt very weird.

    “You were asleep for two days,” he replied calmly. He sounded very friendly. My instincts told me he was a good man. It had never led me astray before, and it wasn’t about to start now. It calmed me a little.   

    “Where am I?” I asked. I massaged my forehead in an attempt to calm the slight headache I felt forming.

      This wasn’t the question I wanted to ask. I was more interested with what I heard in the harvesting ground. I definitely heard someone say I wasn’t a parasite before I was taken out of there, but I was too scared to ask that, just in case I heard wrongly. I wasn’t about to be accused of denying my assigned sect. That was a crime punishable by death. The last thing I needed right now was someone sending me back to the harvesting ground, enraged over something I said or did. Waiting patiently for an answer, I hoped he cleared my confusion.

     “The relaxant given to you is only effective on parasites. It would be ineffective on any other sect. You were very responsive after drinking it throwing everyone into confusion.” He replied with a light chuckle.

    “What sect do I then belong to?” I asked eagerly. The excitement I felt hearing him confirm my thoughts was beyond this world. Maybe that was what the rib poker was trying to figure out. There was no need to ask why we were given relaxants, the answer was quite obvious. They didn’t want to hear our screams of agony while they had their wicked way with us. They would rather we were quiet and ductile. It would make everything easier.

    “The Healers have agreed to take you in as an apprentice.” He replied, folding his hands.

    That wasn’t exactly the answer to my question. Why did they need to agree to take me in? 

    “You will learn all you need to know about healing.” He continued, worsening my confusion. Why couldn’t he just give me direct answers?

    My mind went down the usual route of formulating conspiracy theories; what is going on? Am I a healer, am I not a healer?

    He touched my shoulders gently and spoke so calmly, all my anxiety seemed to fade away, along with all my pressing questions. Suddenly, I wanted to do whatever he asked me to do with no objections and was ready to believe whatever he said. I felt so light-headed.

    Just because I want to do something doesn’t mean I should, I told myself. Besides, this wasn’t the time to be absent-minded.

I pulled myself out of the light headedness and faced him squarely.

    “Why are you avoiding my questions? Why would the Healers need to accept me? I must belong somewhere. What sect do I belong to? Why won’t you tell me?”

    He looked surprised by my sudden outburst of questions, but quickly regained his composure.

    “I see! Mind-numbing isn’t very effective on you as well,” he chuckled. “You have a powerful mind young lady, that’s good. You will need it around here. Now, to answer your question, the only certainty we have is that you are not a parasite. We have not been able to determine your sect”.

    “How is that possible? The headache I was fighting came back in full force. Clutching the bed covers more tightly, I hid my panic.

   What was he trying to imply? How were they not able to determine my sect? Was that even possible?

    He must have seen the confusion in my eyes and blessed me with a direct answer this time.

    “You have the traits of two sects in your source; Healers and Royals. The Healers have agreed to take you in as their own.”

    I could sense he hadn’t been entirely truthful. There was more to the story than he was letting on. The Healers couldn’t have agreed to take me, they were more likely forced to do it. In a world where we are grouped by our gifts, how could someone like me even exist? I went from having no gifts to having two unique gifts. The royals must have rejected me. I don’t see them accepting a weirdo?

    I couldn’t help but laugh at the irony of the situation. Am I just supposed to believe I have both healing and royal traits in me? If this was true, how had I ended up in the Parasite hall to begin with?

    He didn’t look impressed with my sudden outburst of laughter. So, I pulled myself together.

    “I know nothing about healing.’’

    “You will learn. We all do.’’ He replied gently.

    “Aren’t healers born with the gift, why would they need to learn?”

Now that I was thinking about it, I realized that I didn’t know anything about any sect. Even if I was assigned to a different sect, I would be just as screwed.

“We are born with the gift, not the knowledge of how to use it. Everything else is learnt in school”.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

  I shrank back into the sheets stricken with fear by the implication of what he just said.

    Did I have to go to school? What would that even be like? I would have to coexist with my school mates, how would they treat me?

    “There is no need to fret’’

  He was doing that weird thing again, trying to make me calm.

    “That didn’t work the first time, what makes you think it would work now?” I murmured, still stricken with fear.

    He sighed, “what would you like to be called?’  

    “Evelyn bolt” I replied. I earned that name. There was no way I was changing it now.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   

    A guard walked into the room and whispered something in his ears. His face lit up immediately in excitement. They must have delivered good news. 

    “He would take you home”. He said, pointing toward a guard stationed outside the door. Then turned to leave.

    Home? What was he talking about? Who was he?

    “Wait! Please” I called out to him desperately
“I just need some answers. Please.”

    “Asking questions could get you in trouble child, just follow the guard home,” he chided.

    “Can I at least know who you are?” I asked. I needed something to help ease my confusion a little.   

     “My name is Alexander Wales. You can call me Archie. Everyone calls me that. I’m the 10^th healer, and you would be my first apprentice.”

    He looked at me with an expression that said “I dare you to ask me more questions”.

    I never considered myself stupid, so I kept my mouth shut. It didn’t seem like I was in any kind of danger, and home meant his home. I could live with that.

    He continued on his way out of the room. On reaching the door, he placed his hand on the doorknob and turned back to me with a smile on his face.

    “How old are you?”     

    “I’m 21.” I replied, “I would rather you call me Eve as opposed to young lady or child.” I was neither of those.

    He gave a satisfied nod and exited the room.

* * *

    It’s been 3 years since my life turned upside down. For the longest time, I was tagged as a parasite, slaved away in a Royals farm for eleven years, and then discovered that I might be some sort of hybrid between two species, basically, a weirdo. The Royals wanted nothing to do with me, so they handed me over to me the Healers. I guess you could say welcome to the crazy mess that was me.

    Unfortunately for me, things got worse, much worse. After a horrible year at the healing academy, I couldn’t save an ant, even if I wanted to. My failure as a healer was ground-breaking news in Urania, leading to the summoning of the Healing council. It was then decided that a re-evaluation of my sect, or what it was supposed to be, would be carried out.

Each sect council comprises of 12 members and the general council comprises of 40 members.

    This re-evaluation was done by the 1^st Healer herself, who then declared that I was indeed a Healer, just a horrible one. This news had pleased the Royal so much because my reading had a singular result this time. It would have been bothersome to explain to the general council why someone with royal traits was sent to the Healing academy. The result of my reading 3 years ago had been very confidential because of its abnormality. It was never reported to the general council. I was then sent back to the Healing academy to continue my training even though I had made no progress.

    I took a personal decision to put in more effort this time. It was the least I could do for myself and Archie, especially for Archie. He was under a lot of pressure and scrutiny from onlookers. They all questioned why he agreed to take me in. All I seemed to do was bring shame to his title as 10^th healer.

    Things calmed down after I made progress and showed signs of improvement in healing. I guess everyone remembered their problems and got tired of dealing with mine.

    Archie then made matters worse when he began insisting that the result of the reading done on me three years ago was accurate. He said he had also arrived at the same result when he checked me personally at the time. He maintained his stance on his opinion even when he was summoned to the healing council.     

    Insisting that my reading three years ago had been right meant he was insinuating that the 1^st healer was wrong in her current reading of my source. It had been a complete mess at the time, but thankfully things were much better now. Archie was fined for the uproar he had stirred in the council. And the incident was never reported to the general council. I guess the huge fine Archie had been mandated to pay shut him up completely to things patterning to the topic.

    It took me three years to learn what my colleagues learnt in a year. They all graduated two years ahead of me, leaving me in school with a set of juniors who then graduated before me. 

    The only good thing about this weird experience was that I found Archie, but to be more accurate, he found me. I was suspicious of his intentions towards me initially, but through these past years, I learnt to trust him. His constant support and encouragement these couple of years did the trick for me. I could rely on him, and that was enough for me.

    For the first time, I was exposed to the politics of Urania, and let’s just say the power struggle was messy. I knew nothing about it while serving as a parasite. In a way, you could say we were exempted from it, but right now, being at the centre of it all, it was all too glaring.

    There were 12 royal families all competing for the title of 1^st. The present 1^st royal family have had the title for the last millennium, leaving the other eleven feeling marginalised. All the other families in the different sects did everything they could to appease the 1^st Royal family, increasing the jealousy the other royal families had for the 1^st. To get any position of power, the 1^st royal family must have approved it. Their authority was supreme.

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    There are 25 different Healing families, of which Archie was the head of the 10th, granting him the title of 10^th healer, 32 different Electric families, 13 different Leaders families all fighting for the same political space.

    The Leaders were the dominant members of the general council, while prominent members of the independent individual sect council could be elected to join. The council in each individual sect was usually headed by the first four families in its sect. Although they were independent of each other, the ruling of the general council overruled whatever decision was made in the sect council, making any sect that wasn’t a member of the general council powerless as they had no representative to speak up for them when decisions were being made. 

    It was the survival of the fittest around here, scheming and deceit was the order of the day. I thought my life was hard as a parasite, but these people didn’t have it easy either. The pressure to outperform your peers was very real. It could consume you if you weren’t careful. It’s no wonder they depend on the pill like their next breath. All this madness would naturally speed up the decaying process. Most times, I try to act like the pressure hasn’t been getting to me, but in all honesty, it has, mainly because whatever I do or don’t do, reflected on Archie.

* * *

    Archie has been summoned to council daily for the entire week, to defend his reasons for assigning me a patient after graduating from the healing academy. I graduated a few months ago and still haven’t been able to claim a patient for myself. The natural process was to have the clients approach you and formally ask for your expertise. You could also be assigned a patient by the head of the family you belonged to, or the head of the 1^st healing family. But it had been two months since I graduated and no one had asked for my expertise. While my colleagues were getting their request cards filled up, mine remained empty. Archie then took it upon himself to transfer one of his patients to me. It was the 5^th prince of the 8^th royal family, Prince Luke the third. He had been sick for the past 8 years and had shown no signs of improvement. As an apprentice of Archie, it was within his rights to hand over one of his patients to me, but considering my history, his parents felt I wasn’t qualified to treat their son and accused Archie of trying to kill him.

    Being at the centre of the drama, which was becoming a norm at this point, I couldn’t fault any of them. Archie was only trying to secure my career as a healer. If I proved I could handle the patient, there wouldn’t be any problem taking up more patients in the future. I just needed to start from somewhere. With that being said, I also couldn’t blame Princess Vivian for wanting to protect her precious son from me. I didn’t even have confidence in my skills as a healer. What right did I have to treat a patient?

    Curing the prince of his infirmities was out of the question. After all, Archie hadn’t been able to do it for the past two years. Even the previous healers who were assigned to him couldn’t. I could only hope to keep him alive, at least until he was assigned to someone else.  

    Sitting by my drawing desk, I picked up my paint brush to continue the piece I had been working on. Painting had become a therapeutic experience for me ever since I stopped physically ageing last year. 23 wasn’t a bad year to stop ageing. I get to look youthful for eternity, but it was still too young. The average age was 30-35 for males and females, irrespective of whatever sect they belonged to. This law didn’t apply to parasites though, they aged naturally. If they lived long enough to be a century old, they looked a century old. Only the ones assigned to wealthy families who took care of them lived this long.

    I just had to stop ageing 10 years earlier, drawing more attention to myself, like I hadn’t done enough of that already.

    Maybe the abrupt stop of my ageing process was caused by the hormonal imbalance I went through 2 years ago. I cried, laughed, and flared up at the tiniest bit of provocation or excitement. Most times, I couldn’t even explain the reason for my outburst, it led to chronic depression.

    At the time, Archie refused to put me on any medication. He insisted that I would stabilize slowly with time. He was right. I got more stable in the subsequent months.

    This was one reason why my time at the healing academy was so horrible. Coupled with the fact that I wasn’t making any progress with mastering the use of my gifts, I was sickly, depressed and way too sensitive. I got so depressed sometimes I refused to go to the academy for my lessons. Archie had been left to do the damage control every single time. He filed for all the prolonged leaves I took and settled all the victims of my emotional outburst, financially or otherwise. Everything that needed to be done to keep me out of trouble and out of the news was done.

    Staring at what was supposed to be the painting of a beautiful scenery, I sighed deeply. I couldn’t figure out what it had turned out to be. All I saw were dark, angry lines all over the board. These unpleasant memories are ruining my artwork.

    Suddenly, the door to my room crept open slowly and Archie walked in. He looked exhausted, which was nothing new. He always seemed exhausted, like the entire world rested on his shoulders. He walked over to my bed and quietly laid down beside me.

    “Do you want to talk about what’s bothering you?” I asked.

He sighed. He had been staring at the ceiling without saying a word. “Well”

    Another deep sigh was the response I got from him.

    “What did the council say? Would they be letting me treat Prince Luke?” I inquired further.

    “Yes. You can go see him tomorrow.” He replied.

    An uncomfortable silence followed his response. I would expect him to be happy considering he won his case in council, but he still looked so depressed. What else could be bothering him?

    “Thanks, Archie, I don’t know what I would do without you”. I said, to lighten his mood. I sincerely appreciated him and would eternally be grateful to him for what he had done for me. He bothered himself so much over my career that I just wished he would stop. I didn’t even care for it as much as he did.     

    Having a royal client wasn’t necessarily a goal of mine. I just wanted a client, and anyone would have been fine. He could have handed me any other client of his. Why did he have to insist on it being a Royal? He wouldn’t have to go through so much trouble if my client was less prestigious.

    “Two of my patients died today.” He finally admits.

    So this was why he looked so sad. It’s no wonder he’s so depressed. His patients mean a lot to him.

   “I’m really sorry”. I reached over to him and held his hands in an attempt to console him. He smiled weakly and closed his eyes. We lay silently listening to the sound of the birds until our eyes was heavy with sleep.

    Rolling over, he bade me goodnight and retired to his chambers. Tucking myself in, I welcomed a much-deserved sleep.

* * *

   Today was the first time I would meet my first client as a healer, and absolutely nothing would dampen my excitement. Archie had already briefed me on the prince’s condition and his medications so far, but I needed to examine him myself and come up with my own medications.

   I walked into the Healing bank humming joyfully, greeting everyone along the way to the reception. Every healer was ordered by law to open an account at the healing bank. It could be opened as a family account or as an individual account. The account opened would contain all information on the prescriptions and drug formulas used for all official patients, as well as a detailed report on the recovery process of each patient and samples of all drugs used on them.

    The stares I received as I walked through the bank was nothing new. Each time I showed up in public, I always felt the stares from onlookers. I couldn’t blame anyone for being curious about me. I was curious about me too. But the visible show of disgust on their faces at the sight of me was completely unnecessary. At first, I thought I saw it wrongly, but I have had 3 years to be certain it was disgust on their faces. I guess it was, once a parasite, always a parasite to these people.                                                                       

    “Morning Eve.” The receptionist greeted, beaming at me.

    “Hey Miranda,” I replied with a smile. She was an apprentice and heir to a more prestigious family than mine. We met in the academy and for some reason, my source resonated with hers, probably because she was always nice to me. She is one of my best friends.

    “Congrats on your first royal patient, honey,” she said, giving me a side hug.

    “Thanks.” I replied, “Can you show me Archie’s vault?”

    My eyes kept wandering around on our way to the vault. It was where all his information was stored. He refused to register an online account, saying someone could hack the information stored in it. He opted for a more secure option in his opinion.    

    Miranda led me to a different section of the bank aligned with vaults all along the wall. Some vaults looked bigger than others. I guess it depended on what the family it belongs to paid for.

    We approached a junction. “This way,” she said, and turned left. I followed her down the hall until we arrived at a door that had 10^th healer written boldly on it. They were a few other doors around it with inscriptions on them as well, but I wasn’t close enough to see what was written.

    “Thanks” I smiled warmly at her as she walked away to attend to another healer that had just walked by.

    Opening the door with the pin Archie had given me, I walked into a full-fledged library, if you could even call it that. It looked like a mini version of the vault arrangement I had just walked by. The room was partitioned with several walls all aligned with vaults. There was a wooden ladder on each row to climb up to the ones farther up.

    What the hell! How could he possibly remember the pins to all of this?

I searched for the vault with Prince Luke pasted on it and opened it with the second pin he had given me. Taking what I needed from there, I closed the vault and left.

    “Miranda, are the owners of the vaults the only ones with the pin?” I asked when I walked back to the reception desk, because if that was the case, it looked pretty safe to me.

    “No. Any problem?”

    “Not really, just curious.”

    “The general council has the pins as well. All the information in here is theirs to begin with.” She informed me.

    We exchanged short pleasantries then I bade her fare well and went on my way.

* * *

    The Royal residential area was so far away from the rest of the population. I drove for a good 3 hours and I still hadn’t arrived. Why did they have to live so far away I grumbled to myself?

   Finally, I arrived at their security check point. After a long and very intrusive search by the guards, I was permitted to enter. When I say the search was intrusive, I mean it was intrusive. Those guards searched down to my dentals, just to ensure I wasn’t carrying anything harmful.

   Driving in, a beautiful scenery filled with perfectly trimmed beautiful flowers greeted my vision. Mansions with low fences were aligned along the streets. They had the largest windows I had ever seen. The style of architecture was completely different from the one I was familiar with. I have never seen houses so beautiful. I could see what looked like a children park not too far away from the street I was driving through. This kids would never understand how privileged they are. Scented trees were arranged perfectly along the walkway at an evenly spaced distance from each other. The shrubs were placed strategically to enhance the beauty of the scenery. It all screamed perfection. This looked nothing like my neighbourhood and I lived in the best neighbourhood in the capital.

     I drove to the address given to me by the guards when I told them who I had come to see and parked in front of the house. Another set of guards came to verify my identification and another check was carried out on me before they lead me to the entrance of the mansion which was luxuriously decorated with carved golden sculptures. On entering the mansion, there were golden ornaments everywhere. From the grand staircases to the luxury carpets and the bronze railings, everything was magnificent. It was classic and very beautiful. The butler led me to the private reception where I waited for a while before I was ushered into the prince’s chambers. The maid leading me stopped not too far away from the door. Unsure of what to do, I stopped as well.

    I could only recognise his mum and his sister because I had seen them before. Every other face present was new to me. I put on my best smile and greeted respectfully as Archie had shown me. As a healer, I greeted a royal with a bow. I got no response from them but went ahead to deliver compliments.

    “You have a beautiful home,” I said. They gave me no response, just continued staring at me. The atmosphere in the room wasn’t hostile, it felt more like a group of people worried about their loved one.

    “Can I see him?” I asked and waited patiently for the reply. His mum gestured for the maid to bring me in and I was led to the bed where the prince lay.

    He looked so pale and thin. I would mistake him for a parasite if I didn’t know better.

    Quickly, I read his source, comparing it to everything I saw from Archie’s files and treatment procedures, and documented my own conclusions.

    “Can you help him”, Princess Vivian finally spoke after observing me for some time.

    I didn’t want to give her any false hope, so I answered truthfully, “I will do my best.” I glanced at the other two males by her side. The resemblance to Lady Vivian was very glaring. They must be her sons as well.

    Turning over to the prince's personal caretakers, who were also present in the room, I give them instructions on what to do and asked them not to administer any more drugs until I brought new drugs tomorrow.

    Everything went well. I didn’t feel unwelcomed or disrespected in any way. They asked me to join them for dinner, but I respectfully declined. I wasn’t ready to eat at a royal table just yet. I guess when you are told you are less for so long; you begin to believe it.

    I wanted to do well. For the first time in my life, I wanted to do something good for the Royals, not because of them. It was because of Archie. All I needed to do was to keep the prince alive, and I was going to do it by all means necessary.

    It was dark when I arrived home. Archie was already asleep. I put together a quick dinner for myself, and then retired for the night. I had a lot of work to do tomorrow.               

 

 

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