Half asleep and half awake, Hesta vaguely felt something pecking her shoulder, like a withered yellow leaf blown down by the wind in early autumn and lightly hitting her body. She couldn't tell whether this feeling came from a dream or reality. Until the slight pain hit her exposed left hand.
The tip of the paper poked a shallow red dot on the skin. Hesta woke up suddenly and stood up. A pile of paper airplanes fell down on her body. Not far away, Anna was calmly sending out the paper airplanes in her hand. The last paper plane, this time, Hesta tried to catch it and barely managed to catch it.
She gently dropped the plane on the ground, "...How old are you to still play this?"
"You can play this at any age. Origami is not illegal." Anna looked at her with a smile, "Are you watching "Origin"?"
"Yeah." Hesta closed the book in her arms.
"Which chapter have you seen?"
"...Just the beginning."
Anna's eyebrows slightly spread, as if she had already guessed this result. Hestad felt a little contempt from it, and she looked up and looked back at Anna more confidently.
"If there's a book that you know is probably worth reading, but you can't read it every time you hold it in your hands, do you know what that means?"
"...it means I'm in a bad state."
"It means you haven't read this book yet. There are many good books in the world that have been tested by time. How about reading others first?"
"You don't understand," Hestad lowered his eyes and looked at the slightly torn cover of "Origin", "This was given to me by a friend."
"uh-huh?"
"Many...things that should be discussed were not discussed," Hesta no longer looked at Anna. Every word seemed to be spoken to herself. She paused for a long time, and her thoughts seemed to drift away with the words.
"But if you miss it, you miss it. There will be no tomorrow."
There was a soft knock from the wooden door behind her. Hesta turned her head and saw Zero stepping into the room again. She was holding a cold-warm box and an unused yellow medical waste bag in her hands.
"I'm back." Zero placed the cold temperature box on the small table next to Hesta, "Do you need me to inject you?"
"……Thanks."
With Zero's help, Hesta took off her coat and the right side of her shirt. At the same time, a series of shocking new scars were also exposed in front of Anna - these scars crisscrossed Hesta's face along the lines of the skin. With just a glance at the broken arm and chest, Anna could almost see the fresh crack-like wounds.
"Are these injuries from your previous mission?"
"No." Hesta said softly, "I should have done it myself...I can't remember clearly."
"During the onset of illness?"
"Um."
"Are you taking your medicine properly?"
"There are."
"There is now," Anna repeated the answer. "So it seems there wasn't before?"
Hesta didn't answer.
A cotton ball soaked in alcohol was wiped on the outside of Hesta's right arm, bringing a sudden chill. She looked sideways at Zero's hand holding the syringe - even though Zero looked so young, her movements were very skillful.
"When was the last time you had your rabies vaccination?" Zero asked.
Hesta tried to remember, "About... a year and a half ago."
"After that, I need two more injections." Zero whispered.
After completing the injection, Zero pulled out the needle and threw all the disposable tools into the yellow waste bag.
The soreness from the intramuscular injection came later. Hesta moved her arms slightly and began to dress herself with one hand.
"I'm curious," Anna held her chin with one hand, "What does it feel like to be sick? You have difficulty walking for long periods of time and get tired easily... Are these all symptoms of your disease?"
"No, these are all side effects of the medicine. Theoretically, after you stop taking the medicine completely, you can recover after a while."
"Interesting," Anna looked away thoughtfully, as if thinking, "I've heard about your situation, the trigger point that caused the disease..."
"Did Miss Chiba tell you?"
"no."
"It doesn't matter," Hesta whispered, "I often think about what happened last winter...I tried my best, but people just can't predict everything, I know."
Anna was slightly surprised by Hesta's frankness.
"Now that you've tried being forced off the medication, how does it feel?"
"It's very good," Hesta said softly. "It's easier to think about things, my hands don't shake, and I can stay awake for more than fourteen hours a day... In short, everything is good. I just want to die, especially."
"Can't control it?"
While Hesta was thinking about her answer, she slowly tied her buttons. Halfway through, she suddenly found that all the buttons were tilted upward, so she started unbuttoning them again.
"I had some hallucinations at first, feeling like there were bugs gnawing at me, but they didn't last long," she said softly. "Then there were some obsessive thoughts, which were better than phantom pain, but they were also very troublesome. For example, seeing The nurse held the pen in her hand and wanted to hit it with her eyes. When she saw the broken glass shards, she wanted to secretly hide some and eat them...
"The doctors at the base taught me some methods, such as letting these thoughts drift through my mind and not resisting them. It did have some effect at first, but the effect was not long-lasting."
"and after?"
"Later, we tried about ten kinds of medicines, and the doctors found a combination that had the least side effects on me. However, after taking the medicines, I would still become a disabled person... so after a while, I secretly stopped taking the medicines."
"Are those obsessive thoughts coming back?"
"Well, it's stronger than before." Hesta said softly, "The base has taken away all the dangerous items, and they have tried their best, but when a person really wants to die, she will always find that there are people everywhere around her. It's a tool... I know that's not good, so every time this kind of thought comes up, I will use my own method to restrain it."
Ana raised her hand and gestured to her chest and right arm, "So your injuries..."
"Pain makes it easier to wake up."
"really."
Hesta's expression became a little stiff, and she once again thought back to several bad nights. On those nights, what happened was always strikingly similar - when she came back to her senses, she was already standing in a pool of blood, and Turan hugged her tightly, or in other words, restrained her, making her unable to move.
The smell of blood spread, and Turan choked out her name.
Although it all ended when Yanni discovered that Hesta was secretly vomiting medicine, for a long time afterwards, those scenes still occasionally turned into nightmares, causing Hesta to break out in a cold sweat at midnight.
"But you don't have to worry."
Hesta's every word was as slow as the movements of her hands. After fastening the penultimate button on her collar, she smoothed the wrinkles at the corners of her clothes.
"Not anymore."
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