4338.208 · July 27, 2018 AD
Lessons in What to Bury
The doctor says Joel shouldn't be alive. The broken finger says he hurt someone while they were trying to save him. The parade of visitors says this camp runs on tension and unspoken grievances. And the voice—the cold voice that claimed him in the void—says something else entirely.
Glenda's examination is thorough, clinical, and deeply unsettling. The broken finger makes sense now—Joel did it to himself, gripping a rescuer's arm with impossible desperate strength. The throat will heal. The bruises will fade.
But the verdict underneath all of it is harder to hear: He really shouldn't be alive.
Joel lies on the mattress and watches the camp's fractures parade through the tent. Paul, collecting his belongings with the efficiency of someone avoiding eye contact. Kain, checking in and catching the edge of Jamie's temper. Jamie himself, snapping at everyone, his anger flaring in ways that make Joel wonder what else his mother never told him.
Then comes the question. Simple. Direct. Impossible.
Do you remember what happened to you?
The memories are there—the knife, the blood, the void, the voice that claimed him as property. Joel could tell her everything.
But something cold stirs in his mind. Something that doesn't ask permission.
Tell her nothing.
Joel lies. The words come out smooth, convincing. And in the silence that follows, Clivilius reminds him of the terms of his resurrection.
You are mine. I won't let you forget that.
