Chapter 33 | PoV: Sanya
Sanya regained consciousness.
Heliux spare me, why am I still alive?
She felt a pillow at the back of her head, a blanket over her body, resting on a plush mattress.
A numbed pain throbbed through her body from her arms, bandages constricted them.
She opened her eyes. She stared up at a cavern ceiling, strings of llumifruits hanging down, blinding, yellow light from the sheer amount of them.
Gray, stone bookshelves flanked her bed.
Sanya pushed herself into a sitting position, muscles groaning, body protesting.
A familiar face watched Sanya. A cute, light-brown face of freckles and green eyes. Two braids of black hair cast down—her usual hair style.
Her expression twitched through so many emotions that it was hard to read. Her face was red though, dark rings consumed the space underneath her eyes. Not a flushed red, but not angry either. The red of crying way too much.
Sanya flinched, feeling a sharp twinge of guilt. She had done that. Mai had cried either for or because of Mai. Or both.
“M-Mai,” Sanya said. She didn't know what else to say. Where did she even go from here?
“You're awake,” Mai sniffed. She didn't sound particularly upset, but not happy either. Despite everything, she had been sitting here, watching Sanya.
Beyond Mai, a woman came into view—the nurse. She had all her hair tied back into a tail. She wore a skirt and a tunic, instead of robes like a handful of the other staff. She wore gloves and an apron, stained with blood.
She gasped and headed out of the infirmary. She muttered something about “informing the headmaster.”
“You're here,” Sanya said. “I . . . I thought you'd want me to die . . . after—”
Mai looked betrayed, now. “You're the only one who wants you to die. So, shut up.”
Ouch.
Mai was supposed to be smiling. Mai was supposed to be happy. She was supposed to make some sort of suggestive remark . . . Sanya knew she had terribly wronged Mai that she sat here like this.
Sanya averted Mai's gaze and looked down.
That was when Sanya saw Mai's right hand. The fingers of which were wrapped in bandages, blood stained their tips. Some of the fingers on Mai's right hand were shorter than they should have been.
“O-oh. I—I'm so sorry,” Sanya's face went wide.
Mai looked away, saying nothing.
Sanya's heart felt wounded.
“Are you going to apologize for hurting yourself, too? Are you going to finally stop?” Mai finally said, snapping.
Sanya couldn't answer that. She still hated herself. She still wanted to die. She was a monster in both magic and gender. Her classmates hated her. Her family had disowned her.
All she had was Mai. She had reached out and brought light into Sanya's darkness. Her moments with her were the warmest moments she had in a while. Mai had been someone worth waking up for.
Sanya had ruined that. She had horribly hurt Mai. For the rest of her life, she would bear those scars. Her fingers shorn short. Not in war, not in some occupational accident, not because she had been run over by a wagon or anything like that.
But because her crazy girlfriend had lashed out at her when she had tried to stop her from hurting herself.
Sanya swallowed, tears welled in her eyes. “Do you hate me?”
Sanya didn't know if she could go back to the shadow. Not anymore.
Mai crossed her arms.
A silence followed.
“You're not going to answer my question?” Mai asked. “That's it. You're pathetic. Go die if you want to.”
Mai pushed herself out of the chair and headed for the infirmary door.
“W-wait,” Sanya reached out an arm.
Mai reached the door. “Consider us broken up. Good luck, get yourself out of the darkness.”
Mai opened the door and left. She slammed it behind her. The thud made Sanya flinch.
Mai . . . Come back . . . I need you.
Tears began to pour down Sanya's eyes. The dark maw in her chest opened up into a gaping pit of endless despair.
It hurt. It hurt so bad.
Her crying became choking sobs.
She put her head into her hands. She saw her arms, wrapped in blood-stained bandages, wounds probably stitched up.
An anger boiled in her blood. The emotions were too much. She hated herself too much.
Sanya took her head out of her hands and began tearing at her bandages like a wild animal to a fresh corpse.
She was going to bleed out and die correctly this time.
The door opened.
The nurse headed back in, she stopped for a moment, in shock, processing. “Oh, you're kidding me.”
Sanya tore at her stitches. Blood began to drip out from her wounds again.
“Stop!” The nurse rushed over and grabbed onto Sanya's wrist. Nur had shadowed the nurse at the doorway. He remained there.
Sanya started to writhe, to fight for her arm and escape this woman's grip. She kicked out with her feet. She tried to use her other arm to pry herself free.
Sanya needed to die.
“Nur!” The nurse shouted. “Help!”
Sanya began to push herself out of bed.
Nur was at her side. He pushed on Sanya's shoulders and forced her back into a resting position.
Sanya kicked at the nurse's left leg.
“Stop!” The nurse cried. “Please.”
Sanya tried sitting back up.
Nur was too strong.
“What would Mai think if she saw you like this?”
Ouch.
That got Sanya to pause. She stopped fighting back.
“It doesn't matter anymore. We're nothing.”
“She still cares about you, I'm sure. She can still be your friend.”
Sanya snorted. It didn't sound like that.
“What . . .” The nurse floundered for words. “What do we even do with her? Ack, I need to re-stitch her.”
Sanya smiled. “What to do with me? Let me die.”
☆ ☆ ☆
Sanya lay in the bed, eyes looking up at the blinding ceiling. The nurse had stitched her wounds again, and wrapped new bandages around her arms.
. . . And her wrists had been tied together for good measure, at her back, so she wouldn't have any ideas about or opportunity for biting the stitches open.
The nurse continued to watch her like a statue. If the nurse needed to go for whatever reason, another staff member was there.
His name was Mutamid, who Sanya hadn't seen before.
On the first day in the academy, some students had asked if he had come with them. Apparently he had arrived today.
He had tried to joke with Sanya and make her smile.
It didn't work.
Sanya was the only one in an infirmary bed. That girl from the night before wasn't there. Either she had already recovered, or she was dead.
Sanya didn't bother to ask, because she feared the worse—that she had killed her.
Someone knocked on the infirmary door. They opened it. Sanya pushed herself into a sitting position.
Nur arrived with Mai and Zahira.
Nur spoke first, clearing his throat. “After some deliberation, we have decided not to expel anyone. Originally, we were going to expel you, and then we thought about expelling your bullies too . . .
“But we have decided to refrain from action for now. You are too vulnerable to risk sending away, and we think your bullies can learn to grow. I understand if this is undesirable.”
“It's undesirable because I'm still alive,” Sanya muttered.
She was, evidently, still upset with the fact that she continued to breathe. Also, yeah, why hadn't they expelled the bullies yet? They had hurt her. Would they really learn? It was kind of hard to turn bigots into allies . . . Unless they bullied her because they were repressing themselves? . . . There was a chance, at least.
Also, Sanya could be expelled for all she cared about. She had nothing left to live for. Free from the academy, she could finally go die somewhere no one would be able to try and save her from.
Which was why they kept her here, probably.
Ugh.
“I’m going to make sure you outlive all of us out of spite,” Mutamid said.
“The infirmary is your new room for the time being,” Nur continued. “Someone will always be here. I will have students visit you from time to time. And I will force you to make friends and connections. Maybe if you do good you can visit the library or gardens.”
Mai stepped forward, she held a stack of books in your hand—the books she had picked out from the library. The lesbian-romance fantasy books.
She did not even look at Sanya. “Here.”
She stretched her arms to give Sanya the books. Um. That was awkward.
“My hands are kind-of tied.”
“Oh . . .”
“I won't be able to read them.”
“Hmm,” Mai thought. She put the books down on one of the bookshelf's shelves. Sanya saw Mai's bandaged hand. “I'll just have to read them to you.”
She still didn't look at Sanya.
Zahira made herself known. “Listen here, reprobate. I'd hate for my roommate to die. So, um, I guess I'll try my best with you. But you have to put in the effort too.”
Sanya didn't acknowledge that. She silently appreciated that Zahira would try to be friends with her.
“This'll be difficult," Zahira muttered.
“You could . . . try a board game!” Mutamid suggested.
“Her hands are tied,” Zahira recalled.
Mutamid blinked. “Just . . . have her . . . call out her actions?”
“For turn four I kill myself,” Sanya said flatly.
“Shut up!” Mai screamed. “For Heliux's sake!”