Chapter 3

"Ziv I think there is something you need to tell me. I can see it in your eyes that something is wrong and I think it is a little bit more than just something bad."

"I… I"

"I am sure, you don't want to talk about it. Especially not right now. But I have seen that look in your eye before. In the military I saw it when there were people in front of me. They were on the verge of death. A look without hope."

"I don't know alright! The world or the future or whatever I came from… the planet was uninhabitable. The world was destroyed. The air had a virus in it. After a couple days of coughing, your body will think it is fine for about a week. After that it will eat the muscles in your body. It is painful, but it won't be long before the heart gives out. Dad died from it and I took off my helmet to open the portal. I didn't plan on living after that day. It has been five days since then so in possibly two days I am going to suffer more pain then the pain I feel in my ribs. A one through ten scale won't be enough for that kind of pain."

He started crying. He had filled the room with his hate and fear of death. The sadness in his heart won over as he continued to cry.

Kear stayed where she was not out of fear of the virus, just giving him some space to let him cry. As she noticed he started speaking with his head down, she knelt down on the floor of the bathroom to look at his mouth.

"You won't get sick. This will die with me." He looked at her. "I will die If I'm infected. You don't have to worry about me, because as soon as I get back I will dig myself a hole and jump in."

After hearing that and seeing the smile and hollowed eyes she ran over to hug him. He needed someone in his life. From the sound of it, Kear and Veno put together that his parents had died and since he was alone, he chose the same path.

"I'm sorry. I am so sorry."

"Ziv you don't have to be sorry at all. Look at me." Kear forced him to focus on her face, her words. "Life changed for you in a drastic way. You are here, that is proof. Sure you 'might' be infected with this virus, but you don't know. There is no point in worrying about what you don't know, just enjoy what there is now. Even if that is true, Veno and I will stay by your side."

"That's right Ziv. Kear and I will be here for you. This world is different from the one you were in. I helped Kear, I think I can help you too. Plus Kear went through the same. Sure your situations are different, but we will be here for you. No matter how you long you need us for."

---

"While you both were in there, we decided to have a feast style set of food. So we got all the vegan dishes and we can share them all. If you don't eat anything, we will be taking it to the orphanage later and some extra for the kids there." Juniqu turned towards Veno. "We already called and let Rin know she won't have to cook dinner for the kids there."

As Veno sat down, "That sounds great Ziv you can eat anything you want!" He patted Ziv's shoulder to comfort him. His eyes were a little red, but the smile on his face was brighter than the sun.

The other guys were cheering, while Veno and Juniqu kissed each other. A few minutes of talking, the food arrived and everyone started to dig in. Ziv was hungry and it was time for him to eat. There were new things he had never eaten before. The taste was crispy and fresh. The apple juice was amazing! He never had a 'real' apple, but if all apples tasted like this, he could eat a hundred, no a thousand.

Since there weren't many people there, Yyella took her break early for the day to sit and eat with them. She started getting in the conversations with everyone. She sat next to Juniqu.

"So Ziv where are you from?"

With a big smile on his face, after finally accepting it with people who can understand him he tells her the truth.

"I'm from the future."

Everyone stops around the table and it becomes really quiet.

"From the future I see. A young kid like you has wonderful dreams right?"

"But…"

Plavlin leans over towards Ziv.

"She ain't in the know. She is just the crazy one. Plus she doesn't even watch Sparkling Gate so she is clearly a heretic."

"Will you stop it already? I will watch it when I'm not busy."

"Sis you said the same thing for the past hundred excuses."

"Shut it Wren."

Juniqu puts her hand on Yyella's shoulder to comfort her.

"I know your pain girl."

Kear speaks up.

"You know if Granno and Yyella start dating maybe it is time we tell her."

"Tell me what? No, wait… I won't ever date him!"

"Honey don't lie to yourself."

"Veno stopped acting like an old lady."

The others tense up as she says 'old'.

"Yyella, who are you calling old? You ain't getting any younger girl. If you don't eat your food, I will eat it for you. Because if you don't want to make me mad, you just feed me food right Ziv?"

She sends him a wink.

"Uh… yes ma'am?"

Even though Ziv said it was full of uncertainty, the whole table burst into laughter except for Yyella and Ziv.

"I don't get you people."

She said that with a smile though. Perhaps she thought of it as a joke like the others or it was just the way she was looking at Granno.

---

As the food was getting lower, their stomachs were getting filled. All except Veno and Kear's.

"It really is true!"

The others looked at Ziv. They didn't see what he saw.

"All female leads never get full, never get fat. Bottomless pits. An abyss that has no end. Well that was the way my mother described it, but still to see it in person. Kear maybe there was a story written about you!"

"Well I am pretty popular and special after all. It isn't impossible, both you and me are two peas in a pod."

"I don't get it at all."

Yyella was confused as the others were laughing up the whole place.

"Yyella we will tell you after work today. It's something we will all tell you in private."

"Whatever."

Ziv looks over towards Granno.

"Rin told me you were learning about engineering. If you need any help, you can always talk to me about it."

Ziv believed that this is really the past, so he would know more than someone that wasn't from the future.

"There are a few questions I do have, we can talk about it later then."

That really brought a smile to his face. He could help someone with his knowledge.

Suddenly he winced in pain. The pain shot up through a ten in an instant. He didn't cry out, but he grit his teeth quite hard at the sudden pain. He closed his eyes as the only thing he could focus on was the pain. The only thing in his world was the pain from his side. Perhaps it was all the laughing and crying catching up to him, but he couldn't think about it at this time. It hurt and it hurt a lot.

He felt a hand on his shoulder, it was warm and comforting. The pain drowned out all his senses and he barely registered the hand. He opened his eyes for a moment to look at the hand on his side, there was blood, a lot of blood. It was dark brown on his hand.

---

"Kear what do we do?"

"Juniqu follow me I need your hands, the rest stay here and bring the food to the orphanage."

"Yes ma'am."

"Shouldn't we call an ambulance."

"One of you inform our precious Yyella what is going on so she doesn't freak out."

'Thankfully everyone else here left a couple minutes ago and the cooks are still in the back.'

'Yea that is good, we need to get to the drug store for more bandages. Lead the way Veno.'

'Of course.'

Juniqu follows behind Veno, Kear and the now unconscious Ziv.

'Brown blood wouldn't be coming out of his side that high by his ribs. That would be for something like feces and blood mixing. Perhaps it is this so-called infection?'

'All he said was that it damaged the muscles. Could it already be affecting his intestines?'

'Could be.'

They arrived at the drugstore.

"Juniqu find me more gauze and pads to cover his side with and anything that can disinfect."

"What are you people doing?"

"Dude, help this young lady find the things I need. Don't call an ambulance or anything ok?"

"Is… that blood?"

"Hurry it up people, time is short."

---

Kear lied Ziv on the ground as simply as she could. She propped his head up after taking off his shirt. Next she opened the bandaging. It was disgusting with the color, the smell on the other hand wasn't as bad. That led her to the theory that it was the infection. Of course that was until she saw the edges of the cut.

"What the f…"

"Juniqu my dear, make sure that guy doesn't call anyone and close down this shop we are taking it over. This is a little over my head, so for now call over the other guys. It is worse than I thought. Thank you for the supplies."

"I will call them right away Kear."

'What is that Kear?'

'Look at the way the light reflects off of it. It is like it is fracturing. They are slowly floating along the edges of the cut. If this was here before Rin would have noticed it. It ain't something you can miss after all.'

For now Kear starts to disinfect and clean the wound.

'Thankfully he ain't awake for this.'

'Whatever he is feeling is nothing compared to a knife. How can you give him a painkiller for something like that.

The others burst into the shop. Juniqu speaks up.

"Make sure that guy doesn't call anyone or get away and make sure the place looks closed. We cannot have anyone seeing what is going on."

Granno looks over and sees the fractures of light around the edges of the skin.

"What is that?"

"Focus on your jobs children. I need one of you to take over so I can go through his techpad."

"I'll take over, hurry up Kear."

"You got it girl."

Kear opens the techpad. Thankfully it was similar to what she used in the past. While not all that similar to a computer, it required a little finesse to get it to work. At least for the others.

Looking through every file referencing fractures. Nothing of value shows up. She looks up portals. She finds a couple files, one that had been used as recently as a couple days. She assumed that it was what the kid had used to get here or whatever. Opening it she skimmed through it as fast as she could. It referenced, black holes, quantum entanglement, and some time travel type stuff.

"Granno I need you over here to take a look at this. I need you to make sense of it."

Granno runs and slides over on the carpeted floor. It hurt. He starts reading through the documents on the techpad. His eyes turn faster and faster as Kear shows him how to navigate the pages.

"Look up quantum foam."

Kear searches it up and reads it over with Granno.

"Is it really that easy?"

"Kear we don't have the equipment to make it 'easy'."

"Do you not see everything around you, trust me and follow my directions. We can do this."

Kear guided everyone to the supplies she needed and started working with Granno on it. The dude in the back was freaking out that some kid was going to die while he was on the job. Juniqu was cleaning his wound. Wren watched the nervous guy, while Plavlin watched the door letting anyone that happened to know that the place was closed as they were planning to fumigate the place tonight.

Kear started a mini fire to cook everything in the bowl. Once the liquid was thin enough, she added a pinch of a powder, and she poured it into a makeshift aerosolized can, she gave it a few shakes and tested it on her palm. It started to foam thankfully and then let Juniqu know to move out of the way and spray it on the cut. She kept it clean, but it was getting worse.

The foam on the cut started to harden, but it never hindered Ziv's breathing nor the movement of his chest. His breathing started to slow down quickly as the pain for Ziv was starting to subside. For the gang, that was only a guess.

"Now can I ask your name?"

"Lernen."

"Alright Lernen. Now we are going to pay you for everything we used and a little extra for your nerves and you don't ever talk about this to anyone. Otherwise my dear Lernen, I won't be a happy girl."

"Uh… sure yes whatever."

---

"…doesn't exist right now, but we could when he could legally take care of him."

"I'm alright with that, but we should at least ask him first."

"I know, but I just wanted to make sure that sounded alright with you."

Ziv opened his eyes once the room quieted down. The sound was bouncing off the walls, telling him it was an enclosed space. His parents were probably talking about him again behind his back.

"Mom, dad… I can hear you, you know. Why are you guys in my room?"

Since he didn't hear a response, he started to question everything around him. His side stung, but it wasn't the pain he felt earlier.

'That's right earlier, I was not at home, but a restaurant. What happened there?'

"Ziv can you hear me?"

He looked to his right, still laying on the bed. Veno and Juniqu were standing there in the room.

"Veno?"

"Yes. Now Ziv do you know where you are?"

"The orphanage?"

"That's right! You are doing great, now can you tell me what the last thing you remember is?"

"We were eating and laughing, but… I can't remember anything after that."

"Trust me that is for the better. You need to know what we know, but I want you to know that everything is looking good right now."

Ziv nodded.

"So you were in a lot of pain and passed out from it. The cut on your side started growing and leaking gross blood. It was brown."

"Are you sure something that usually occurs in the intestinal tract, sometimes it can leak into the urinary tract along with blood, but I have never read anything like that coming out from up here."

"You are very smart indeed Ziv. We thought the same, either way that wasn't the main problem. The portal you stepped through. It did something to you. Essentially it was decaying your tissue at an abnormal rate. The way we understood, these fractures were accelerating the age of your cells. The cells were dying as fast as you could make them. Although maybe faster than that. Granno, Kear and I found something on your techpad. Quantum Foam. It stabilized your cells in time, from what we could gather, honestly way over my head, allowing your cells to die at a normal rate thankfully."

"I think I read something like that before I turned on the machine to open the portal. The fracturing as you said is super rare though."

"Well, you are lucky we had Kear here with knowledge of how to use a techpad."

"I can't be that hard?"

"It is, it really is. Anyway Granno was a great help looking over the files. All the time Kear and him were looking it over," he gently grabs Juniqu's hand, "Juniqu where was keeping you from getting infected, by cleaning your wound. Wren and Plavlin helped keep the area safe so we could help you out."

"I'm sorry about putting you through that."

"Ziv, we, the others included, want you to know that it wasn't your fault at all. We helped you because we wanted to."

"Actually I found it really fun. I enjoyed helping someone like that."

Juniqu sat down on the bed next Ziv, fixing his hair. Juniqu really did enjoy helping him. That situation made her stressed, but she had a clear mind through the whole thing. She kept him safe. That gave her a great sense of satisfaction.

"Now Ziv we have a question for you right now."

"W…what?"

He was a little confused and actually he was really tired. Sure he understood the situation, but he wasn't fully able to comprehend it all.

"Have you ever had ice cream?"

"Don't people eat ice cream in cones? It is cold and sweet?"

"That's it!"

"I actually always wanted to try it, but isn't it late?"

"Perhaps, but doctor Kear had prescribed ice cream and since she is older than us we need to listen to her."

"Juniqu, I love you, but you are playing with fire. I'm the one who will suffer the consequences of your actions."

"You said she was asleep."

"I don't really know all the time. She knows things and is quick to catch on. Honestly I hate that she was in the military and good at it sometimes."

"Veno, be a dear and grab us some ice cream please."

"Of course my queen!"