(Somewhere inside the Obsidian Pyramid)
That long and dreadful room was cold; you could see your breath in there. That helped the disease grow more slowly, but it was not a cure. Still, it diminished the symptoms a bit. No noise interrupted that silence; neither moan nor cry.
There was a door leading outside, and it opened. A figure stepped inside. With every step, a small ching, a jingle echoed in the room, as if a couple of bells collided softly. The figure was that of a man carrying a metal basket with several glass flasks inside, each flask with one of two labels. The man was upright, walking as if a knight were tending to his duties, with a stern look. He was pale, almost resembling someone who was ill, with black hair and a frail complexion. He walked the room until he came across a curtain and opened it to find a bed with a convalescent man lying on it. The patient had a wet, folded towel covering his eyes. Cold. It helped with preserving them. At the sight, the man's back went from upright to slightly hunched. He breathed in deeply, and on top of a small table, he placed the basket and took out two flasks. He took out a couple of syringes from his long coat and drew from the contents of each flask for each syringe. He felt the patient's arm, looking for the cephalic vein and injected the contents of the first syringe.
"It's so thin..."
The man stood there and pulled a chair next to the bed. The silence was brutal. It was eating him from the inside out. Still, the man, that caretaker, smiled when he imagined what his friend would ask of him. He took his hand inside his coat and pulled out a cord; seven metal cards hung from it; each card was made with a different metal and had different formulas, words and geometric forms carved on them. He inspected each one of them and finally picked one.
"He'll love this one..." He thought with a smile.
It was 6 centimetres wide, 12 centimetres long, and half a centimetre thick. For a card, it was too heavy, but it was perfect for him. He unhooked the card from the cord and held it between his teeth. As soon as he let go of the cord, it retracted into his coat, as if something pulled from it.
The smile vanished. Fuck. What he was about to do...
Finally, four and a half minutes after the first injection, he administered the second one.
"W-what..?" Stuttered the patient as he woke up, but the towel was still covering his eyes. "Who's there? Dude, is that you?" His voice was weak, and his words slow.
"Yes." Said the visitor. "I'm here."
"I... cannot take this off my face, man." Said the patient. He was struggling, but his body would not move. "Could you...?"
"Yes." The visitor removed the towel. "I'm afraid the disease has spread and has cut the majority of the connections between your brain and your muscles. Other than your heart, lungs, eyes and mouth, you cannot move..."
"Not even my fuckin' eyelids, huh?" The patient giggled weakly.
There was yet another moment of silence. It lasted one, maybe two seconds, but it felt eternal. The visitor knew every detail of the patient and the disease; he had spent years studying and researching, but it was all for nought. Looking at his friend like that... it was killing him. He had always taken pride in being good with his words, and now they were choking in his throat.
"I'm sorry, Kly. I... I tried..."
"It's alright, man. I know. You... you did everything you could, right? You... you tried to do your best to save us, right? Even if you only saved yourself, that counts."
The visitor couldn't hold back any longer, and tears started streaming down his face in silence. Eventually, his gasping for air and his sobbing filled the silence.
"How long do I have, man?" Now Kly was tearing up as well. "I'm not that dumb, dude. I know you... You used something on me. You wouldn't make me beg, right?"
"Two. Maybe two and a half minutes. It was a strong dose."
"Got it. Could you...? I... Come on. Take this towel off me." Kly giggled. "I want to see your ugly mug one final time, man. I want to see your lights before I'm gone."
Between sobbing, the visitor obliged. They saw into each other's eyes for a few seconds, precious seconds, for the first time in seven years. They were so close, closer to lovers rather than friends. The visitor pulled up the metal card as he held Kly's hand; the card had constellations and seas and deserts made of stars carved in. The visitor said nothing; his will, thoughts, love and blood were imprinted in that card. Small orbs of light floated off the item, slowly surrounding the couple in a seemingly infinite space of stars. They twinkled and chimed in the air, shining a cold and melancholic light on both of them.
"Where are Luca and Kane, man?" Asked Kly. "They didn't get sick, did they?" But the visitor did not reply. They didn't matter. Right then and there, Kly was the centre of the visitor's universe.
Kly kept on looking at the stars his friend had made for him.
"Fuck. They are so beautiful... and you're so ugly. Heh." He breathed in deeply. "I... I am sorry... I never imagined... I never thought..." Kly's throat was closing up. Not from the disease, or the drug, just... because he knew it was the last farewell. "I never thought that you... that I... that we..."
In the darkness, Kly and the visitor held their hands one last time.
It was his last few words. Everything was going away.
"Make good use of it, okay? I know it... It is a lot to ask. Crap. I guess... we Obsidians have the worst luck. Man, it was not your fault. Don't even think about it." Kly coughed and smiled. "I... I do love you. Always did. I am so sorry I didn't say it more often." The visitor pressed his lips against Kly's.
The stars faded away as Kly breathed his last.
"I... I will do good by you." Said the visitor with a broken voice between sobbing and gasps. It was like an executioner's knot inside his throat. "I... I will make it up to you... I will become the magister who would have saved us all. The magister we could never be."
The visitor looked at the cadaver of his intimate friend for seemingly an eternity and saved deep inside his memory that last smile, and that perfect "I love you" he longed for so much, deep within the most sacred place of his mind. He mourned the death of his friend in the cold loneliness of that dreadful room.
Finally, the man regained his poise and stood up. He tended to the corpse and removed the curtains, and fixed his eyes on the remaining ninety-six beds and their respective patients held in that infinite room.
The Visitor breathed in deeply. His heart would break ninety-sux more times that day.
"This I vow to you all, I will become the magister who could have saved us all."