The Burn

In the morning, my alarm goes off, startling the girl awake. I’m quick to shut off the noise.

“No worries,” I whisper to the girl. “I just have to go do something.”

It’s 05:30. I won’t be reporting for duty until 08:00. But Rose rises early to doll herself up for work and leaves by 05:45 to make the 06:00 tram up to the Goldwood Ring. I have to catch her before she leaves. Dressed in nothing more than an old pair of shorts and a moth-eaten shirt, I carefully creek open my bedroom door and tiptoe up the spiral staircase to the princess chamber. Rose’s soft humming diffuses through the closed door. I gently knock. The tune abruptly ceases. Rose swings the door open and stares at me.

“May I come in?” I ask timidly.

“Why?” she asks annoyedly.

“I want to apologize to you,” I say. “And… I need to speak to you about something…”

“I won’t accept your apology,” she says tersely. “And we can talk right here in the hallway.”

“Rose, please,” I say. “I know I have no right to ask this of you, but please, it’s important.”

“What could be so important that you can’t just spit it out- oh I get it, is it about that little girlfriend of yours? She make an appearance from the dead last night?”

I can feel my face flushing, which only helps with the act I have to nail.

“Shh,” I say. “Please, can we talk about this in the privacy of your room?”

“Let me guess, Father doesn’t know about her and-”

I press my palm over her mouth.

“We either continue this conversation in your room, or I’m done,” I say. I know her curiosity will get the better of her. Rose throws my hand to my side.

“Fine,” she says. “But don’t touch anything.” She turns and walks into her chamber. I follow, closing the door behind me.

Rose’s room is technically in the attic of the manor. She’s painted the wooden walls light pink and decorated them with posters and clippings from Warton University, where she was granted permission to enroll into the nursing program before I ruined the family name. Graduating from Warton University would have been Rose’s golden ticket to the second inner ring- the Eagle Ring- or even if she was lucky, a bid at going to the inner-most Found Father’s Ring- the most elite district in all of the Republic. It’s understandable why she hates me. Rose takes a seat on her bed at the opposite end of the long room. She instructs me to sit on a fluffy rug in the center of the room. I do as she commands.

“So, let me guess,” Rose says. “Your little girlfriend is still alive somehow, and you’ve come to beg on your knees for me to steal medication for her. I’ll have you know, her wounds are already probably infected, and it won’t be long before she gets sepsis, so you might as well say your goodbyes and get over her. Besides, there’s absolutely nothing you could bribe me with to risk my own head for-”

“Not even surrendering my right to the family crest?” I interrupt. Rose stops mid-sentence and stares at me.

“What?” she says.

“I know, you’re going to say I’m dumb and in love,” I say. “But this girl-”

Quick, think of a name to make it sound more realistic…

“-Ella, she…”

And now pull a line from those cheesy romance movies Mother used to watch…

“I’ve never felt this way about anyone, and… I don’t want her to die.”

I pull my knees up to my face, pretending that I’m hiding teary eyes.

“I want to marry her Rose, so Yes, I’m willing to give you my inheritance to the family crest for your help saving her life!”

The family crest is essentially the political treasure chest of a family- the more prominent your family crest, the further up in the Party you can advance. Traditionally, only males inherit the rights to the family crest- women must marry into a prominent family if they want to receive any benefits from the crest system. However, under certain circumstances, crest rights can be transferred to women. I’m not certain, but I’m pretty sure given my reputation, Father would gladly allow me to transfer my rights to the family crest to Rose. Although such a move would essentially exile me from the family, I’ve decided to bet on regaining the Party’s favor when I turn over the Cherry Blossom. It’s one hell of a bet- but seriously, what other choice do I have? Keep living as a screwup in the Outer Ring?

After a few minutes, I wipe my fake tears and look at my sister’s blank stare. Finally, she speaks.

“Follow me.”

I follow her down to the kitchen and watch as she lights the stovetop and sets a frying pan over the flame.

“Hold out your arm,” she instructs me. I do as she asks. She offers me the kitchen towel.

“Bite down on this.” I pull my arm close to my chest.

“What are you going to-”

“To get burn medications, I have to have a patient who has a burn equivalent to what I saw on your girlfriend,” Rose says. “This will also show me how committed you are to our deal.”

I get it.

I nod and extend my right arm out to my sister, wadding up the kitchen towel and shoving it into my mouth. Rose grabs the handle on the frying pan. She asks if I’m ready. I nod.

There’s no going back now.

Rose places the bottom of the frying pan square on my forearm.

The pan only touches my skin for a second. But that’s just long enough to cause a giant red blister to instantly fill with fluid. At first, I don’t feel the pain. Suddenly, it hits like a bullet, and the next thing I know, I’m screaming into the towel wadded in my mouth. A servant girl must have heard our commotion and rushes into the kitchen. Her eyes widen at the sight of my arm.

“You idiot,” Rose says, placing the frying pan on a pad on the counter and killing the stovetop flame. “Watch where you’re going, will you?”

She looks at my arm.

“Great,” she says. “Third degree burn.” Through my tears, I catch her wink at me. “Now I’ll have to take you to work with me.”

Rose shews the servant back to her sleeping closet, instructing her not to tell the master of the house about this. She grabs a wad of ice from the freezer and wraps it in a towel, then hands me the cold press and pushes me out the door. I try to ask if I can run back to my room to change (or really, to tell the girl to hide in case the servants come in to clean), but Rose shushes me, locks the front door, and drags me down the front steps. We run to the tram stop. People stop and stare at me, barely clothed, holding an iced towel to my arm and another towel between my teeth. At least Rose is in her work scrubs, so it looks like she’s escorting me to the hospital. As we wait for the tram to come, the pain grows more intense. I start tearing up again, and a few times, I think I might faint.

Finally, the car arrives. The doors slide open, and Rose pushes me into the closest seat. It’s a short ride to the fourth Ring exchange platform where our identifications are scanned and we’re granted permission to enter. The fourth Ring is the agriculture ring, so as we pass through, our view out the window is mostly corn fields and grazing cows. Soon we reach the exchange platform for the third inner Ring. Again, our identities are scanned, and this time, Rose has to vouch for me. As we get off the tram, a warm breeze tickles my cheeks and for a nanosecond, all the pain in my arm is gone. The sun casts shadows from the Ring’s skyscrapers onto my face, painting it in rays of light and darkness. It’s been three years since I’ve tasted real air, smelled the perfume of proper civilization, seen the glorious gray skyscrapers that reach up to the clouds where the most elite of the Party live.

Oh how I’ve missed the Goldwood district!

Rose grabs my burnt arm, and the pain brings me back to reality. I curse her as we run down the marble streets towards the hospital. Once we reach it, Rose whisks me up three flights of stairs and into a patient room. She removes the melted ice towel and examines my burn.

“I fried you more than I meant to,” she says.

“That’s a lie,” I reply. She snarls at me as she jabs a needle into my arm and injects pain medication. To my surprise, when the plunger is halfway down, Rose places a clip on the stem to prevent more medicine from being injected and removes the needle from my arm. She caps the pointed end and places the syringe in a plastic bag.

“I can only request enough to medication to justify your treatment,” she says. “And since you want the meds for your girlfriend, you’re going to have to heal the old fashion way.”

She smiles at me. I can tell she’s enjoying seeing me in pain.

Rose returns to the medication dispenser and requests various pain pastes and antibiotic creams. After applying a small amount of each to my arm, she caps the vials and dumps them into the plastic bag. After retrieving a few more vials from the dispenser, she hands the bag to me.

“These are your take-home prescriptions,” Rose explains.

“Will this be enough?” I ask, holding up the plastic bag.

“Probably not,” Rose says. “You’ll want to let your wound get infected, then in a few days, I can bring you back and request more meds.”

Great.

So there’s an actual chance I might die too.

“Now hurry along,” Rose says, shoving me out the door of the patient room. “Take two lefts, one right, then down the stairs and check out at the lobby. Have a lovely day, Brother!”

Before I can say a peep, she turns and sprints down the hall in the opposite direction.