HEO 119

“Taking that contraceptive was a great preventive measure. You were smart.”

Wolf spoke quietly.

“But it could have been some random concoction made by a suspicious old woman in a run-down shack. Your life is at stake here. Trust me and do as I say.”

“Fuck.”

Silver pulled his hand away from Wolf’s. Water splashed up and hot spray hit Wolf in the face.

“Poison me, then give me the antidote? You fucked me full of your cum, and now you’re talking about an abortion? Why didn’t you tell me sooner!”

“That’s because…”

Excuses lined up on the tip of Wolf’s tongue. I didn’t know. I truly had no idea. I never even dreamed there would be such a dangerous price ​visit our site​to pay. I was too sexually naive to even consider the possibility of pregnancy…

But Wolf quickly shoved all those excuses back down his throat. He didn’t want to hide behind his own ignorance at a moment when Silver was effectively facing a death sentence. Excuses were like a house built of rotten woodseemingly fine on the outside, but bound to come crashing down eventually.

“It’s entirely my fault. Spit in my face. Break my nose. If you want to punch me, I’ll take every blow. But you can’t avoid that abortion medicine.”

“No, no. It’ll be fine. The contraceptive I took… he said it was guaranteed to work.”

Silver shook his head and wrapped his arms around himself. His breathing grew ragged. Silver’s shadow, cast upon the water’s surface, wavered and shattered amidst the ripples.

“I hope the old woman really was skilled with her mortar and pestle too. But we can’t just rely on luck. Trust me on this one, Silver. Just one dose is all it takes.”

Wolf took Silver’s hands again, this time with both of his own. He firmly grabbed Silver’s trembling wrists and pulled them toward his chest. Silver looked up at Wolf with pale blue eyes. Wolf met that gaze. He could see his own face reflected in Silver’s pupils, as if he were trapped within a prison.

“When dawn breaks, let’s go up the mountain together.”

A moment passed that felt interminably long. ​visit our site​There was no sound, not the wind, nor the waves. It was as if every sound in the world had been sucked into the darkness and extinguished.

Silver nodded. It was a movement so slight that one might miss it without looking closely. Moisture glistened at the corners of his eyes.

“Don’t be afraid.”

The words left Wolf’s mouth before he realized it. They weren’t in the long prepared script.

“I’ll be with you until the very end. I promise.”

Again, acting on instinct, Wolf pulled Silver into his arms. Silver’s warm skin pressed against his chest.

Unexpectedly, Silver didn’t push him away. Instead, he wrapped his arms around Wolf’s back and buried his face in Wolf’s shoulder. As they became intertwined like a riverside willow amidst the white steam, realization suddenly dawned upon Wolf.

Was it because of the heat?

Silver’s attitude toward him was more affectionate than before. He even leaned against him.

To Wolf, Silver didn’t seem like the type to suddenly change his attitude just because they had been intimate. This was a symptom of phase alignment. The traits of mutants previously suppressed by heat suppressants were manifesting through this change in Silver’s demeanor. In short, it was a physical reaction. No different from Wolf’s own.

It was simply a matter of a key sliding into a lock; gears meshing as the spring unwound. Had the partner been anyone other than Wolf, Silver would likely have leaned on them just the same.

Therefore, this sensation must also be a physical reaction. A feeling that, had his partner been another Spruce, he wouldn’t have spent the night wide awake guarding the slope, nor dreamed of a future together.

You shouldn’t trust feelings or moods. They’re fleeting, like the tide.

Wolf closed his eyes. Once he took the heat suppressants, this feeling would vanish without a trace. Everything would return to normal.

Both he and Silver would become indifferent to one another again.

White steam dissipated into the darkness. The wind was biting cold.

***

visitor.from(stars)

The winter sky dragged heavy, dark clouds low. A ship’s bell tolled, marking three in the afternoon.

The sea arched its dark blue spine and lifted the ship up before throwing it down. With every wave that hit the hull, spray drenched the deck railing. Amidst a pile of cargo near the bow, a cat had its snout buried in something. Passengers loitered in small groups across the deck. Crewmen worked in pairs. They adjusted anchor lines and hoisted the sails.

At the stern, four men leaned against the gunwale while gazing out at the sea and talking loudly. They all looked indistinguishable from beggars.

“It’s the liver that’s the source. It draws nutrients, refines them into blood, and sends them out through the veins. The heart merely receives what the liver produces.”

“No one denies the liver’s primacy, Fiorello. It’s your claim that blood pools and is consumed at the extremities that I find odd. Where does it go? Do the toes eat it?”

“It’s absorbed into the flesh, Matteo. It transforms into tissue.”

“Then how do you explain fever? If blood were consumed at the extremities, a feverish [visit our site]person’s hands and feet would turn cold. But it’s the opposite.”

“Because fever stimulates the liver to overproduce blood. It floods the pathways.”

“You speak as if you’ve seen the pathways yourself, Fiorello. I’ve dissected seventeen corpses. Pathways? There aren’t any. There are blood vessels, but they don’t flow like a river…”

“How many times must I tell you, Fiorello! The liver does not pulsate!”

“No, you’re all missing the fundamental question! The Virencia plague…!”

Their voices grew increasingly loud. No one listened to the others; each simply spouted his own argument. Just as their voices became an unintelligible mess, a long shadow fell over them.

“The l-liver d-does not p-produce blood.”

A calm voice interrupted the argument. The men turned in unison.

A man stood with the gray daylight at his back. His blond hair fluttered in the wind. ​unauthorized copy​He wore a thick leather coat, its wool lining spilling out around the collar. He held a young girl in his arms; she was fast asleep, her face buried against his chest. The blond man looked at the four men.

“B-Blood i-is… m-made by the heart.”

The blond man tilted his head as he spoke.

“It… p-p-pushes it out. In… in… in a circle. It… it flows out through one type of vessel and returns through another. Ce-ce-ceaselessly. The same blood isn’t… c-c-c-consumed. It… it comes back.”

The four men looked at one another. The blond man gave an embarrassed smile.

“I-I have a b-bad stutter, you see? When I get excited…”

“No, we understood you.”

One of the men steps forward and waved his hand.

“You’ve made a remarkable claim. It’s something I’ve never heard before.”

“It’s not a claim. It’s what actually happens.”

“How do you know that? Did you study anatomy?”

An enigmatic smile played on the blond man’s lips.

“I’m still studying. There is no end to learning.”

“I agree with that sentiment entirely. But if the blood circulates, what drives that motion? What is the mechanism behind the heart’s action?”

“Muscle.”

There was no hesitation in the blond man’s reply.

“The heart is a muscle. It contract and then relaxes. With every squeeze, blood is pushed forward. Valves within the Read on vessels prevent backflow. And then…”

As the explanation unfolded, the expressions on the men’s faces slowly changed. They looked as though they had just witnessed a window suddenly appear in a wall that was previously solid.

When the blond man finished speaking, one of the others gave an awkward smile.

“I see… That is a… bold hypothesis. Ah, is that child… your daughter?”

“Yes. My youngest daughter.”

“You brought a young child all the way to Stoll? What about the mother?”

“Originally, I intended to leave for Stoll alone. To walk away from fifteen years of marriage…”

The blond man paused briefly.

“No, let me be honest. I abandoned my wife and children. No matter how hard I tried, I simply couldn’t ​visit our site​suppress my academic curiosity.”

He looked down at the child cradled in his arms.

“I had left the house by carriage without my wife’s knowledge, only to hear snoring coming from the trunk. When I opened the lid, there she was, fast asleep. So, as you can see…”