Command Me To Be Well [Completed]

5 - Pierced with iron nails

An hour later the battle is almost over.

The Wasps are retreating. And my head is about to explode. At least it feels like it.

"Madame, your nose is bleeding," Timur says, gently wiping the blood away with a handkerchief.

He's sitting next to me, still watching the radar, following the same events I follow on my mental map.

Master Auberon is pacing behind my back. Following a line strictly two steps away from me, never coming any closer. I hear his heavy steps and his labored breathing. I don't understand why he's nervous now, at the end of the battle, when everything seems to turn out better than expected. But I don't have the capacity to spare a single thought to his strange timing.

The left wing is still fighting. They still need me.

I'm a bundle of pain by now. An empty sack, filled with agony. A lump of raw meat, molded in acid. A bruised mouth, floating in the air, still uttering orders to the rest of the body.

When I feel close to fainting, I grab Timur's hands. I hold onto them as if I was drowning. His fingers must go numb in a few minutes, yet he doesn't pull them away.

"It's the last one incoming," he informs me, in a very soothing voice, as if I didn't see it. I do. My internal landscape is exactly as crowded as the radar is. And I perfectly know what we should do. Just my brain can't translate it to words. Exhaustion takes over slowly.

"Timur, they need to go away from there," I mumble. "Give them the coordinates."

"What coordinates?" he asks. It's the first time he sounds tense today.

Of course, he doesn't have a way to know what I mean. I shake my head. I'm at the end of my resources. I see everything. Everything I need. And everything I don't, but I don't have the strength to close it out. Memories, for example. I don't need them for the operation. They are an excess burden to my mind.

Then, suddenly, just as if my brain would prepare for a last rush, everything stands together. The squad in danger. Their memories. Where they are from. The few words I speak in their language.

I speak them aloud, along with some gibberish words of warning. It's enough to alert them. They notice that I'm talking about them, and they duck the attack just in time. Then they make quick work of the remaining Wasps.

The battle is over.

I let go of Timur's hands, and I let my forehead hit the table.

I breathe in and out, trying to keep a steady rhythm. It always helps. The dots are slowly disappearing, one after another. The sudden emptiness in my mind fills me with sadness, as always. It's just a moment of overwhelming loneliness, quickly turning into a sense of relief.

I survived it again.

The pain fades slowly. The headache will stay with me for a few hours, even if I sleep. But it's a bearable one. Far from the crippling pressure, which goes with an overcrowded mind.

Timur pats my back. I raise a finger to say thanks for his help. I don't feel strong enough to do anything else at the moment.

I hear a suspicious noise from behind my back. It might be the trick of my tingling ears, but it sounds as if Master Auberon was moaning. A sound I never imagined he was able to emit.

"Do I look that bad?" I ask, still unable to raise my head.

He breathes out slowly, sounding a bit shaky. I take it as a yes.

"No worries." I shrug, putting my hands on the table, pushing myself to a sitting position. "It was still a good mapping. I didn't throw up. I didn't faint. I'm alive."