Parasite║LGBT+║ONC SHORTLIST 2024

5: Shiro

22:34, Firstsol 12th M5, 2226

Falling asleep in the arms of hypothermia never to wake again doesn't sound too bad compared to how I usually envisage my death: being pulsed by a warden for eating my patients.

Still, I can't help clinging onto life, onto hope. Hope that the storm will clear before our heat supply dies. Hope that I can befriend my ore thief and he'll confess what error in his meatware is protecting him from my parasitism. Hope that we can visit Megumi Kida together, and use his meatware as a guide to fix mine. For the first time ever I don't quash my silly reveries of being cured. I grasp them with both hands and run. Hope galvanises me.

Unfortunately for me, I'm not a strategist capable of executing a hopeful plan. I'm a parasite trying to befriend a criminal. How exactly does a murderous doctor ingratiate xemself with an ore thief whose head is implanted with moribund meatware?

I lean against the mattress and peep up at my thief. "Can I try some shade?"

He stares at me like I've just asked him to throw me headfirst into the blizzard. Then he laughs, tipping his shade pen towards my mouth.

He steadies the pen as I push my lips tight against the mouthpiece and suck. I hiccup, sending a puff of shade fumes billowing into his face. It feels good. Not exactly good, but more that a distinctive lack of feeling bad hits me. Each drag of shade into my lungs brings with it the absence of feeling anything at all. Why haven't I been sucking shade all my life?

My thief asks in a shade-drawl, "What's your name?"

"Heems. What's your name?"

"Shiro."

I doubt that Shiro is his real name, just like he must doubt that Heems is mine.

He bids me suck another lungful of shade, then he returns the pen to his lips for a long drag, watching me closely all the while. "You... afraid of dying, Heems?"

I shrug my shoulders. "Death is better than Eris."

He chuckles at that. Perhaps it's the shade, but I like Shiro's laughter. I haven't heard anyone laugh outside of Earth comedies, or the fake laughter of my metaverse ladies when I compliment them. Eris isn't a place for jollity.

His chuckle simmers to a satisfied hum. I wasn't joking, though. I'm not attempting levity in the face of death. A parasite living on the brink of starvation yet incapable of killing myself, I'm somehow at peace with the notion of dying at the hands of Eris's cold, like so many Edgers have done before me.

The shade pulls at my eyelids, but I force myself to stay awake. I melt against the 'porter's insulated wall and slide a steadying elbow onto the mattress, not quite close enough to touch Shiro. I gaze into red eyes. "Are you afraid of dying?"

Shiro gazes back, then screws his eyes shut like he doesn't want me to see the whirlwind of despair in them. "I'm fucking terrified."

"I'm sorry."

His shade pen dangling from his lips, he tucks his hands under his armpits as if a sudden chill has coursed through him. "I just... wish that I could say goodbye to my sister."

His admission surprises me. I hadn't expected a thief's final thoughts to be so tender, but it makes perfect sense to me. I'm a criminal and my waking hours are plagued by thoughts of my family too.

I ease the shade pen from his lips and suck deeply on it. Eyes closed, I murmur, "It's nice to die with company, Shiro."

On the edge of sleep, my skin tingles. A cold fingertip slides along my wrist, slowly hooking under the faded red thread of my rakhi - my sibling bracelet.