Parasite Eve Sephirotto Part 7

Asakura could not endure this any longer. She felt sick in her stomach and clambered up the stairs to get away from them. Pushing aside the two, who kept rattling on, she raced up with a sort of desperation.

3.

Mariko was bedridden after the operation, only faintly conscious and still under the watchful eyes of the staff. In her daze, she couldn't even make out how she lay. It felt a lot like putting on gla.s.ses when you didn't need them.

Waking up from anesthesia the day before, Mariko had found herself in a sickroom with fluorescent lighting in the ashen ceiling. She realized she was no longer in the OR, which gave her some relief. A masked nurse came over to her, peered into her face, and called for the doctor.

The nurse's voice resounded in Mariko's ears, making her wince. Forehead throbbed, vision quickly melted. The ceiling faded out of focus, then vanished from sight.

"You can relax, okay? The operation is over," said a man's voice from somewhere, but it only became part of the growing pain in her skull.

She dropped off to sleep for a few hours afterwards. When she opened her eyes again, two nurses were on either side of her. One of them noticed Mariko trying to lift her head.

"Easy does it. You're still recovering, dear. Sleep some more," she said. Surely enough, when Mariko tried moving her head, it ached intensely. She laid her head back on the pillow in defeat. She felt hot and dizzy like she had a terrible cold.

Something was sticking into her groin. When she opened her eyes, she saw a nurse fiddling with a tube. Mariko moved her waist a little and felt that the tube led into her body.

Somewhat embarra.s.sed by this realization, she turned her face aside. She then became aware of another one in the left side of her chest. She knew all about these tubes, as they had been used to remove bodily fluids after her previous transplant. The other nurse took her arm and put something black around it. Mariko's arm began to throb with a strong pulse.

"I'm just taking your blood pressure, okay?" said a tiny voice.

The two nurses continued their examination. Mariko closed her eyes and let them do their work. She felt something strange below her navel on the left side, and thought she might try to touch it, but could not since the nurse was still taking her pulse. She wondered if it was her newly acquired kidney.

The kidney.

Mariko opened her eyes wide.

At last she sobered to the reality of her transplant and a flood of memories washed across her mind: the sudden phone call during the night, the hospital, the tests, the blood transfusion, listening to the doctors and nurses as they explained everything to her...

Mariko gathered all her might to speak, but her voice emerged only as a hoa.r.s.e and barely audible whisper. The nurse stopped and c.o.c.ked her head.

"Person who gave me," Mariko repeated desperately.

"What? Who?"

The two nurses looked at each other, unable to understand her question.

"The person...who gave me...the kidney. What happened. Where...*

"...ah."

One of them nodded and smiled at Mariko.

"No need to worry about that, okay, dear? The operation went very well. Your donor must be very happy about it right now in heaven. In fact, the person who gave you your kidney says you have to get better as soon as possible."

"No," Mariko complained. "Tell me please... Was this person really dead? Did this person really want to give me a kidney?"

The nurses looked upset. They smiled uncomfortably and tried to smooth things over.

"Alright now. Let's just calm down, okay? You're still feverish from the operation, so..."

Mariko shook off the nurse's hands and screamed as loud as she could, but an explosion of dizziness swarmed in her head and she shut her eyes. Her voice fell to a rasp that she herself couldn't hear.

When she opened her eyes again, her father was at her side. A difficult expression was on his face.

"Everything's fine. The operation went well."

She forced a smile. He looked a little uncomfortable in his germ-free attire. She could not see his mouth, but his eyes darted around in discomfort, their focus clearly averted from her. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes.

"You're running a fever of about 100 F, which is fairly normal after transplant surgery.

We've given you some medication to make it go down," said Yoshizumi, who'd entered the room along with her father. This doctor was the last person Mariko wanted to see right now.

She clamped shut her eyelids even tighter.

The nurses took turns throughout the day to stay with Mariko and monitor her condition. They took blood pressure and urine samples every hour and regulated her transfusions. On the verge of sleep at almost every moment, she entrusted her body to them.

Yoshizumi came in to check her data and talk with her. Mariko did not remember it, he said, but after the operation, she was given a radioisotope-tagged drug and a renogram. These checked whether blood was flowing properly in her newly transplanted kidney. He told her gently that there were no indications of ATN or any infections but that the catheters and drainage tubes would have to be left in just a little longer. Mariko closed her eyes again and pretended not to listen.

Her room was single occupancy, not too large. The doorway was concealed by a protruding section of the wall, behind which there seemed to be some kind of basin for washing hands and gargling. Before people came in, there was always the sound of splashing water.

Mariko was fed through a mouth tube. She could not even begin to describe the flavor of the thing, but it was actually tolerable.

"You'll only have to put up with this a little more, then you'll be able to eat tasty stuff again!" a nurse encouraged her. Mariko nodded vaguely. She then recalled an exchange between her and Dr. Yoshizumi from two years ago.

..."So I can eat oranges again?"

Mariko was in such good spirits then she was almost embarra.s.sed with herself. She asked about all the edible things she could think of.

"And apples? And potato chips? I can have as much miso soup as I want? And ice cream? Even chocolate?"...

Mariko felt herself urinating intermittently. Because of the catheter, she did not experience the usual discomfort of a full bladder. Instead, her urethra became warm, the catheter felt different, and she could tell that urine was coming out. When she was aware of it, it was all she could think of. It was an odd sensation. For a year and a half, she had never urinated, undergoing three dialyses per week instead. She had trouble remembering what it was like to go to the bathroom or to have the urge to do so.

She had an intermittent dream in which she was sleeping, indeed, in a hospital bed.

Details were hard to make out in the dark room. The door was closed and she had no clue as to what lay on the other side. A pale light shone from the crack underneath it. At least the hallway lights were on. She had to think for a moment about where she was and why she was there before soon remembering being in recovery from transplant surgery. She felt paralyzed, only able to move her hands. She touched around her abdomen gently. Something was palpitating inside her body. Distinct from her heartbeat, something with a life that wasn't Mariko was pulsing on its own. She felt around more carefully, trying her best to guess what it might be. Whatever it was, it seemed to be struggling to get out of her body.

At that moment she heard a flabby sound. Flap...

She opened her eyes and looked around. Nothing felt out of the ordinary. And just when she was ready to pa.s.s it off as a trick of the ears...: Flap.

It came from beyond the door, like the echo of vinyl slippers shuffling along the corridor. Thinking it was just somebody coming to her room, she exhaled in relief, but an instant later knew that wasn't it. The hairs all over her body stood on end. The pace was too slow for a person walking.

And again. Flap... Her hands on her pulsing lower abdomen, Mariko locked her gaze firmly upon the door. The thing inside her seemed to be beating faster now. Flap. Slowly, the sound was drawing near. A cold shiver swept through her. She could hear nothing else, not the wind, not the cars and motorbikes in the street. Only the footsteps and the beating in her body. The footsteps were now just outside the door.

FLAP.

And that was when she'd wake up.

A worried nurse tried to comfort her and wiped the perspiration from her forehead. But upon waking up, unable to separate dream from reality, Mariko would scream. By midnight her temperature had risen far past 100 F. While she fought the fever, she had the same dream over and over.

On the second day of recovery, she was allowed to sit up just a little. The upper half of the bed was jacked up thirty degrees. Yoshizumi came in with some nurses early that morning to collect more samples. Mariko noted her father's presence as well.

"Everything okay? I heard you had a bad dream last night," Dr. Yoshizumi asked smiling, taking her pulse. That grin, practically pasted onto him, frightened Mariko. He's never forgiven me for it, she thought, and turned away from him.

"Mariko. Talk to me please?"

Yoshizumi would not shut up. He treated her like a child half her age and it made her nauseous. She was still in grade school when she had her first transplant and maybe back then it was okay to treat her like a kid. But she was in middle school now and Yoshizumi didn't seem to notice.

"You still have a bit of a fever, hm?" Unable to get any sort of response from her, Yoshizumi may as well have been talking to himself. "You also have a little blood in your pee. We totaled the protein count yesterday at a whopping 2.7 grams. That's not good, but it won't stay that way. Don't worry, it's quite normal right after a transplant. And I expect your fever will have gone down by tomorrow. What matters is that you're peeing. You know, that pretty much means the operation was a success. No signs of infection, either."

Yoshizumi's voice rang in her ears, and scenes from after her first transplant came back to her. Yoshizumi's expression when he began suspecting that she'd failed to take her meds.

The look in her father's eyes. Mariko closed her eyes and shook her head but was unable to rid those looks from her mind. She couldn't stand it any longer.

She was screaming, "You want this transplant to fail, don't you!"

Yoshizumi drew back in shock. The nurses and Mariko's father stood completely motionless with eyes wide open, unsure of how to react. "What are you saying..

"I know you do!" Mariko screamed, interrupting him. "You think it's my fault it didn't work the last time. You think I'm a bad girl, so you want this transplant to fail too!"

"Mariko, stop! Please..." said her father, visibly upset. But she could not suppress her rage. She was no longer in control of the words spilling from her mouth. Yoshizumi tried to touch her, to which she objected loudly and started weeping. The nurses were equally overwhelmed. One of them took Mariko's hand, trying her best to appease her. Mariko pried it away from her grasp.

At that moment the drainage tube in her side twisted and pain shot through her entire body. She cried out and buried her face in the pillow. She realized what she'd been doing, and her anger subsided.

While she lay quietly, her back and waist began to hurt. At her request the nurse shifted her body, but the pain didn't recede. Her perceptions grew dim from the fever and the searing pain in her back. Simply keeping her eyes open was becoming impossible without discomfort.

Mariko dreamt again that night. She was sleeping in the same dark room and the footsteps returned on cue. Slowly but surely, they were approaching her door. Her eyes were glued to the light leaking from under it.

Why did the sound frighten her so much?

She kept telling herself it was just a nurse making her rounds, but this did not shake the uneasiness that gripped her heart. Someone was coming and it was no nurse or doctor. This was something, she thought, far more scary.

Two things were beating so fast in her body that it was hard for her to breathe: one, her heart racing with fright; the other, something less familiar that was clearly enjoying itself, quivering excitedly in her abdomen every time the sound drew closer. Both seemed to pound in her head and ears, and her entire body was hot. Her chest and her abdomen, running away each with their wild beat, threatened to tear her asunder at any moment.

Flap.

The shadow of a figure entered the glow under the door. Mariko let out a voiceless scream. For a moment the shadow stood motionless outside her door. Then, with a light flap, it turned toward the door. Mariko's heart nearly jumped from her body, and the thing that dwelled in her abdomen squirmed around ecstatically. Her waist rumbled, making the bed creak. Her back was drenched with sweat.

Mariko's eyes were fixed on the door. And she was aghast.

For the k.n.o.b was turning, ever so slightly. Silently, and so slowly you could hardly tell it was moving at all, the k.n.o.b was turning. Whatever was on the other side was trying to get in. THUMP.

Mariko's abdomen leapt up. The bed bounced and her body was in the air for a second.

The kidney, she thought. The new kidney was trying to come out of her. Choked with fear, Mariko still could not take her eyes from the door k.n.o.b. She finally realized who was coming for her. She despaired. Her heart, which had been beating so wildly, fell silent.

The door began to open. Light poured in through the crack.

Mariko screamed, and woke up.

4.

Toshiaki resumed his duties the day after the funeral. As always, he parked his car in the college parking lot at 8:20 and was in his lab by 8:30.

No one else was in yet this morning. He turned on the light and walked over to his desk, now overflowing with a week's worth of leaflets and pamphlets from various companies extolling their new products. He'd usually, at least, skim through the English-language catalogues of cloning vectors and cytokines, but he was hardly in the mood right now and placed them in a rack at the side of his desk. He heard a clanging noise and the door opened. He looked up and turned around.

Asakura put her hand over her mouth as she saw him, her body straightening from surprise.

For a while, neither could speak, and the awkwardness was quite something. Asakura moved her mouth like a dying fish as she searched for words, while her eyes darted nervously about the room.

Toshiaki managed a smile and raised his hand in greeting.

"...morning."

Asakura started, but the tension was now gone.

"Good morning!" she said with a smile and a bow.

The awkwardness faded. Toshiaki apologized for the inconvenience of his absence and thanked Asakura for her help at the funeral.

"Please, think nothing of it," she said.

"How are the data coming along?"

Asakura's face beamed when she heard these words, and she nodded.

In most science departments, undergraduates were a.s.signed to staff members and conducted experiments on their own in their instructors' field, and the School of Pharmaceutical Sciences was no exception. Ten seniors were a.s.signed every year to Toshiaki's Biofunctional Pharmaceuticals course. Aside from the professor, the staff included an a.s.sociate professor, an a.s.sistant professor, and two research a.s.sociates, who were each charged with certain students. Toshiaki had taken two under his wing this year. Having already completed their first term exams, they were now able to devote themselves to lab work. However, they both hoped to enter the graduate program and would be taking a vacation, once August came around, to prepare for their entrance exams at the end of the month.

Asakura had gone through all this and was part of the graduate program now. Toshiaki had mentored her throughout her senior year, and she had continued with the same concentration, with him, for her master's. Now in her second year, she would be graduating soon; in fact, she'd already secured employment at a leading pharmaceutical firm. All she needed to do now was a.s.semble her data for her master's thesis.

"The MOM 19 level has increased, as you expected," explained Asakura as she showed Toshiaki a printout of the previous week's results. During her senior year and her first master's year, there was still something rickety about the experiments she set up, but her intuition and versatility were now those of a real researcher. Her explanations were concise, yet thorough, and Toshiaki understood her perfectly.

"Also, the cells you'd transfected were growing fast, so I had to transpose them. I mean the ones you introduced the retinoid receptors into."

Asakura stated these words without fanfare, but they gave Toshiaki chills.