"Shingo! Hurry! Prepare the AMS!" Xiaolang shouted as he brought Laurel inside the lifepod.
"Huh? What happened?" Shingo, who was preparing food with Anna, turned.
"Hurry! To the lifepod!" Xiaolang said.
"On it!" Shingo nodded when he saw that something was wrong with Laurel.
"Erm… Mistral?" Lazarus took the medical scanner flashlight and turned it on, but Mistral remained silent.
"Mistral is silent because Auscella is nearby. Hold on, let me turn him on," Shingo said, operating Mistral through his smartbox.
[Greetings.]
"Mistral! Hurry! Activate the AMS! A monster poisoned Laurel!" Lazarus yelled at Mistral. The urgency in her voice spread to everyone inside the lifepod.
[Connecting. AMS activated. Please shine the medical scanner across Laurel's body from top to bottom.]
The light from the medical scanner shone over Laurel. Beads of sweat poured from Lazarus's forehead as she looked at Laurel's motionless body.
"Hngg…" Laurel groaned.
[Scans indicate an unknown enzyme that has caused the host to become paralyzed.]
"Can it be cured?"
[No evidence of cellular necrosis. The neuromuscular junctions are structurally undamaged, and the unidentified protein neurotoxin appears to be reversibly bound to receptor sites. The AMS indicates that the concentration of the xenotoxin is decreasing. I suggest a wait-and-see approach.]
"Will she be okay?"
[Laurel's vitals are stable. However, neuromuscular transmission is suppressed. Laurel's metabolic activity has been reduced by ten percent. She will remain paralyzed. Judging by how the concentration of the xenotoxin is decreasing, she should regain motor function within 30 to 40 hours.]
"Phew. I'm glad…"
"... No. What about food and drink?" Xiaolang said.
"She will suffer, but humans can go without drinking for two days, right?" Shingo said.
[Dehydration will begin after approximately 20 hours without water. However, it will only become life-threatening after 48 hours. I will notify you when Laurel has regained enough motor function to drink.]
"Hng…" Laurel groaned.
"Laurel…" Anna said.
"That's what Mistral said. There is nothing more we can do for her. Let's just let her rest for the day. By morning, she might recover enough to drink." Shingo said.
"Au…" Auscella held on to Laurel's arm.
"That's good." Xiaolang sighed. The tension in the room had eased. Not gone, just eased. Once again, Lazarus and the others were reminded that they were in an alien world, not a zoo. Everything was dangerous here.
"If it had been a venomous snake, Laurel would have died there," Xiaolang sat, tension finally leaving his body. He recalled they had needed about five hours to get back, even though they had run as fast as they could.
"Hah…" Xiaolang sighed.
"It's late. Do you want to eat? We have cooked some water for you," Anna said. She couldn't do anything, but seeing how tired the group was, she offered to relieve them even a little.
"... Is she going to be fine?" Lexus asked.
"Mistral said she will be alright," Shingo said.
The night was unusually silent. Without Laurel to lead the meeting, they simply ate and cleaned up. They fell into a routine. Anna washed the dishes and checked on Laurel. Lazarus sewed leaf dresses as a change of pace after they had taken a bath. Xiaolang and Bob made tools, Shingo taught Auscella language, while Lexus messed around with each of their projects.
By the time they were done with their nightly work and were about to sleep before dawn arrived, Laurel had regained her speech.
"Ugh… That was horrible." Laurel coughed. Her body shook. Her sound hoarse. "Sorry. Can I have a drink?"
"You were lucky that cat wasn't more venomous. Otherwise, you would have died," Xiaolang sighed.
"Yeah. I don't know why I stopped there when it came for me," Laurel sighed, recalling how her body had frozen when the gigantic cat stared at her. "I am thirsty. Can I have a drink?"
"Here. We also prepared food for you, Laurel."
"No. I don't think I can eat right now. My mouth is still numb," Laurel said. Some of her speech was slurred.
"Do you think you can sleep?" Lazarus asked.
"I can't move anyway. There is nothing I can do but try to sleep. I didn't do anything for more than twenty hours, yet I am strangely tired," Laurel sighed.
"You just escaped death. It's natural," Xiaolang said.
"What are you going to do tomorrow?" she asked.
"I want to expand our search area. We need more food," Xiaolang said.
"We haven't fully scouted the mountains…" Laurel sighed. "What about the savanna?"
"There is nothing in the plains." Xiaolang sent a picture from his smartbox to hers. The plains were visible from the mountains thanks to the high-resolution camera, allowing them to see most of the area. The plains were a vast savanna, with very sparse trees and grasslands.
"There are silver onions there for food, but no more ruins," Xiaolang said.
"The mountains too, huh?" Laurel sighed.
"... We can't go there, Laurel. Those cloud reapers would defend that territory with their lives, and there might be several of those spider cats inside the caves. If we met more than one of those spider cats, we wouldn't survive," Xiaolang said. "Those cats were very dangerous. They are fast and can kidnap you when you aren't looking. You might not know, but that cat followed us all the way to the edge of the mountain. It only retreated once we were out of the mountains."
Lazarus nodded. "They are persistent predators. They kidnap their prey and bring it to their lair. If they manage to capture us, we will have to chase them into their lair. Laurel was almost eaten by its kittens."
Laurel got goosebumps when she recalled the memory of those skittering cats approaching her. Their clacking teeth and loud paws echoed in her mind. The fact that she had been conscious, alive, and aware, yet paralyzed, added another layer of terror.
"Sorry, Xiaolang. I should have listened. The mountain is indeed dangerous. Thank you, Xiaolang, Lazarus, Bob, for saving me," Laurel said.
Among all debts, a life-saving debt is the greatest one can accrue. Laurel wondered how she could ever repay them. All she had ever done as their leader was scold them and arrange meetings. She felt grateful, yet she also felt indebted. Guilty. It was her insistence that had gotten them into dangerous places. If she had never asked Xiaolang to venture into the mountains, they wouldn't have gotten into this mess.
She was naïve, becoming reckless once she knew there was civilization here. Next time, it might not go this smoothly. She might die. Or worse, Xiaolang, Lazarus, and Bob might also die. Without them, this little group would have no chance of survival. There would be no one to make tools, sew dresses, or make fire. And most importantly, no one to defend them against monsters.
"It's fine. Let's sleep. We need to focus on our food supply tomorrow. Once Auscella can speak with us, we might be able to decipher what's inside the building," Shingo said.
"Yes."
"Au!! Island! Sea! Tree! Lifepod!" Auscella chirped.
Laurel smiled weakly. Her eyes were drowsy, and soon, she fell into a deep slumber.
The next morning, Xiaolang, Lazarus, and Bob searched for food in the forest while Lexus and Shingo went to the spire.
"Hm… there wasn't much food left. We even traveled to the far east," Xiaolang muttered. They had traveled all the way to the eastern shore, where the jungle and the plains met, and they had only found three more enclaves where crystal watermelons sprouted from the trees. They didn't pick them all, fearing the fruit would spoil.
Most fruits would spoil within mere days, and crystal watermelons had shown signs of spoilage after two days, or ninety-six hours.
"Those carnivorous rhinos seemed to stay in the plains. I wonder why," Lazarus muttered.
"They are omnivorous, Lazarus." Xiaolang sighed at her naming sense. After they had been chased around by them, the name had simply stuck.
"Once we exhaust the crystal watermelons, we will have to start digging around the plains for metallic onions," Bob said.
"Yeah." Xiaolang nodded.
"I wonder if we can farm those metallic onions somewhere near the lake," Bob muttered.
"Hm… That's a good idea. If we can do that, it would provide a stable food source. I will get closer and bring back another sample," Xiaolang said.
Xiaolang crept out of the forest toward the plains. No matter how he did it, his black hair stood out like a sore thumb on the open grassland. All Xiaolang could do was pray that those rhinos didn't spot him.
Lazarus waited with bated breath, her eyes tracking every rhino as Xiaolang sneaked toward a tree in the savanna. Xiaolang sprinted to the tree, hiding behind it. He then scanned the ground, trying to find the familiar root that Shingo had found during his previous excursion.
If they could farm on safe land, he wouldn't need to visit this place anymore.
Xiaolang scanned the ground. His heartbeat quickened with every second he stood on the savanna. His hands dug into the grass. From above, the grass looked similar. But once he found the familiar-looking small tuber, he unsheathed his knife and dug into the hard soil, extracting the metallic onion.
The silver onion was smaller than the one Shingo had found. But this would do. If they could cultivate it, the children wouldn't have to risk their lives coming here.
Xiaolang sprinted back toward the woods. The rhino glanced at the black shadow, hesitating. The black shadow had entered its territory, but it had left. The rhino decided that it would be too much trouble to chase the black figure that had run toward the woods.
"Phew. That was nerve-racking. But here. I got the plant," Xiaolang sighed. The trees here were much smaller than the great tree near the lake. The rhino could potentially chase them here while breaking the trees like sticks.
"Let's go back. We shall experiment with it." Lazarus nodded.
As the sun was about to set, they found Laurel sitting outside the lifepod, helping Anna and Lexus with water duty.
"Laurel! You have recovered!"
"I still feel numb, and my joints ache, but yes. I can move now. The AMS and Mistral told me that exercise would speed up my recovery."
"Laurel! Healed!" Auscella hugged her.
"Yes. Thank you, Auscella, for bringing me food and water." Laurel hugged her back. Despite all of them being children, they were protective of one another.
"Did you find out anything while we were away?" Xiaolang asked. Shingo nodded.
"Yes! Auscella has parsed a picture of what she saw inside the laboratory's computer for me," Shingo nodded.
I am completely useless. I can't do anything. But if I don't do anything, I will die. More than that, if my friends die because of me, I will blame myself forever. At the very least, I must try. I must try to do something useful for my friends. ~Anna