Parasite

‘Merrin,’ Zane half-sung, waving a hand in front of Merrin’s face. ‘You still here?’
Merrin heard the words, but it was all so muffled, everything was muffled. Zane’s very body looked blurred as he moved, nothing but a mess of white and blue. It felt like he was underwater, lying in the depths of the ocean as the waves crashed overhead.
There was another voice, somewhere. A mess of auburn hair and the soft glow of green eyes that looked between Merrin and Zane. Or, not between them. Looking at Merrin closely, so closely. At his eyes, his chest, his head, his arms. Warm fingers pressed into his skin, but it was quickly lost to the sensation of something burning inside of him that wasn’t pain.
It didn’t hurt, none of it hurt.
But he was still drowning, his chest tight as he couldn’t figure out how to get the oxygen into his lungs, yet his ribcage rose and fell just the same.
‘He’s still upright, that’s a good thing, isn’t it?’ Zane asked, but he wasn’t directing it at Merrin.
‘It would be better if we could get him to respond,’ the other said, and Merrin knew that voice.
A dockworker? A merchant? Maybe just a patron of the Drunken Mercenary? So familar, but so far away.
‘Hear that, Merry?’ Zane asked, a cold hand nestled against Merrin’s cheek, thumb smoothing under his eye. ‘Do you hear me? I know you can, just still not here yet.’
Merrin wasn’t sure where ‘here’ was. Did Zane mean home? Was he sleeping and this just a dream?
He had a lot of those, but he could never see Zane then, just feel him; feel where he was in the room as he moved about. The bookcase, tidying up books and trinkets. His desk, keeping things far more organised than Merrin did. His window, likely looking out to sea like they both had a tendency to when they had nothing else to do. But most of all he was sat on Merrin’s bed.
Some days he’d simply perch on the edge, brush Merrin’s hair out of his face and make sure his body was still warm, alive. Others he’d sit at the end, back leaning against the wardrobe, his leg against Merrin’s. The soft turn of a page and scribble of pen on paper meant he was researching something or other; sometimes he would read a passage or two as if it meant something.
Magic and curse came up a lot, but Zane never thought that right. Whatever was wrong with him couldn’t be solved by a spell or everyday remedy that Madam Rosevin could conjure up.
Fewer days, when all else was quiet but the patter of rain against the window, Zane would be beside him. He’d slot in against Merrin’s side and rest his head on Merrin’s chest, ear as close to his heart as possible. A disjointed melody would almost make everything feel just perfect, if it wasn’t for the aches back then.
They didn’t feel like anything now. There was no aches or bruises, no sharp pains that laced his battered body. From the outside, and most likely the inside, he was back to normal again; healed.
Merrin couldn’t even remember what had happened, what had resulted in so much pain. He remembered the Manor, and Matthias holding up that crown. It would be worth a pretty penny if they could find someone willing to buy it. It would mean a trip to the Beneath, maybe even the railway all the way to the mainland. A fun little excursion that got them away from the island, from Ashenport, for a couple weeks. He was going to ask Zane to join, there were plenty of things they could get on the mainland that they would never be able to get to Ashenport otherwise.
And then he went into that room. Dark shapes shifted in the corners, the bookshelves felt more than full, overflowing with a whole manner of things from books, to shining crystals, to strange puzzle boxes made from bronzed metal. Display cases full of magic artefacts, the glass lined with thick iron to prevent anything or anyone getting in or out. Then there was that strange thing in the middle of the room. Glass and shadow. Shadow and glass. Shifting between an endless state of liquid and metal and something in between.
What happened next?
‘Merry,’ Zane sang again. ‘Look at me.’
Merrin did, or at least he thought he did. His head didn’t move, but his eyes shifted to find Zane, the blur of white against his otherwise dark room. He could just about make out Zane’s face, the blue of his eyes so incredibly bright, there was a smile on Zane’s face, soft and warm.
It made him feel warm, or maybe that was the burn of his arm spreading to his chest.
‘We should remove the bandage on his arm, let it breathe for a bit,’ the other man said. ‘I’ll go grab him some tea.’
‘Thank you,’ Zane said, and he started to unravel the bandages around Merrin’s right arm, peeling off layer by layer. ‘There’s nothing about what this purple is. It has to be magic of some sort, I just don’t know what.’
Zane continued to talk as he worked, disappearing off to Merrin’s desk to drop the bandages into a basket for cleaning. He shuffled about, picking up things from the desk and holding them up for Merrin to sort of look at. Maybe he was hoping something would snap it out of it, make it all clear again. That would be nice.
‘I don’t believe that this is going to work how he wants it to,’ someone said from behind him. Or it could have been behind, it could have been just out of view. An echo of sound coming from somewhere that Merrin couldn’t see.
That voice wasn’t from the other man, though. It was deeper, a different accent. Not mainland, not from the Beneath. It sounded older, tainted by a time long forgotten.
‘Merrin, Merrin, Merrin,’ the voice said, testing the way his name sounded on it tongue. ‘Oh, you can hear me. I can see that glimmer in your eye, your body is trying so desperately to adjust to this. By all means you should be dead, and yet…’
Merrin felt the scratch of cold metal over his arm, a pulse of purple light radiating from the veins of his arm. His breath hitched in his chest, a gasp passing his lips that had Zane in front of him within a second. He fussed over every inch of Merrin’s body, checking and checking and checking, the way he did when something fell out of his control. But when he couldn’t find anything wrong, he slipped his hand in Merrin’s, squeezing tight enough that Merrin felt his bones move out of place.
‘You should look at him,’ the voice said as something gripped Merrin’s face, twisted his head until he was looking down at Zane. ‘See? That’s so much better, isn’t it?’
But Zane wasn’t looking at him, he was looking at the other man who had just walked in, a cup of tea steaming away in one hand, and a plate of something piled high in the other.
I don’t know you. Merrin thought, the words would never reach his mouth. He’d tried that only a few days ago, but his mouth wouldn’t open and all he did was take in a raspy breath.
‘You don’t,’ the voice said, and Merrin swore he could see a shift of black and purple in the corner of his eye. ‘But you will. It’s not like you have a choice, you did this. Now, you have to live with it. With me.’
Live…with you?
‘Don’t think about it too hard, you’ve still got a long way to go before you could even consider doing anything about it. For now, you need to rest. Have your tea, and are those shortbread biscuits? Delightful.’ The metal against his skin scratched down his spine, and Merrin could feel the chill against his back. ‘But then you will sleep once again. A few days…maybe a week. And when the moons align, I will be back, not that I can leave your dismal mind even if I wanted to.’
Merrin drank and ate whatever was pressed to his lips, but as the voice spoke on, he felt the weariness grow. He could feel his eyes starting to close, and two pairs of hands laying him back down on the bed. Zane fussed over his hair and wrapped him up in a fur blanket, the warmth only pulling him further under.
Just as his eyes closed, he saw it. Saw them. Piercing purple eyes and a glint of gold, but he couldn’t keep his eyes open long enough to see anything more.
‘Sleep well, Merrin Meredith,’ the voice said, and Merrin let the dark close in on him.