Chapter 31
I Want to Sleep
When the alchemist reached the bedside, he leaned slightly toward Kaep.
The movement was precise, almost mechanical. His shadow covered part of the young man's face as he observed him silently for a few seconds.
He said nothing at first; he just looked at him, with that gaze that seemed to pierce more than see. Kaep held the contact, uncomfortable, not knowing if he should thank him, pretend he was fine, or simply stay still.
Finally, the alchemist spoke.
"You look better now," he said in a calm voice, not losing his analytical tone. "It seems that wound closed better this time."
Kaep blinked, confused by the comment.
"This time"?
The man's tone was that of someone who had already expected that result, as if he had seen the process before.
The way he said it left Kaep with the sensation that the comment wasn't so much an observation… but more like a verification.
Remembering what had happened, Kaep brought his right hand to his head.
The touch returned the sensation of a firm, dry bandage. There was no moisture or sharp pain, only a slight discomfort when pressing.
Right… he had passed out from blood loss.
That explained everything—or at least, part of it.
"You think so?" he replied, arching an eyebrow while carefully feeling the wound.
His voice came out hoarse, somewhat worn, but with an attempt at humor that didn't quite land.
The alchemist watched him without changing expression, as if he had already expected that kind of response. His eyes followed each of Kaep's movements with surgical attention.
"Yes," the alchemist responded with complete calm, "though I'll tell you we had to use stitches to make sure it didn't open again."
"What?" Kaep looked at him with a mix of surprise and alarm, his hand still on his head.
"As you hear," the alchemist continued, so serene he almost sounded indifferent. "Ah, and don't worry, we used disinfected thread in hot water to sew the wound."
Kaep blinked several times.
"Sew…? My head?"
The alchemist nodded, barely.
"It wasn't the plan to let you keep bleeding out."
Kaep fell silent for a few seconds, between incredulous and resigned.
Finally, he let out a forced laugh.
"Well… I guess thanks for the fix."
The other didn't respond, only crossed his arms and examined him again, as if still evaluating whether the "fix" would hold.
"By the way… thread?" Kaep asked, frowning. "Where did you get thread?"
The alchemist looked at him without responding.
He only blinked once.
"…"
Kaep waited.
"…"
Nothing.
"Hey…" he insisted, sitting up a little, with a mix of curiosity, suspicion, and unease.
The alchemist finally exhaled slowly, without changing his tone.
"Relax," he said at last. "Thread is thread, after all."
Kaep watched him in silence, trying to decipher if that was meant to reassure him or worry him more.
The alchemist's calm was so natural it made it impossible to know if he was being completely serious or not.
"Oh…? Do you really want to know?" asked the alchemist, and a barely perceptible hint of amusement slipped into his voice.
Kaep froze.
He opened his mouth, then closed it.
He moved his head a little to one side, then the other, as if weighing the risks behind that question.
His face was a parade of grimaces: doubt, curiosity, fear, resignation.
The alchemist watched it all in silence, with a slight smile that didn't quite manage to be friendly.
Finally, Kaep sighed, let his shoulders slump, and murmured:
"Better not."
He preferred not to keep asking. For some reason, he intuited he wouldn't like the real answer.
The alchemist nodded slowly, satisfied, as if that were the answer he had expected from the start.
"Wise decision." He commented with a calm that did absolutely nothing to reassure him.
Kaep averted his gaze, trying to convince himself he had done right by not insisting.
Though, deep down, his curiosity wanted to know.
"Wise decision!?" Kaep repeated, reacting with a start.
He turned his head sharply until he was face to face with the alchemist. Their eyes met, and for a second the air seemed to stand still.
The alchemist, unperturbed, held his gaze with total serenity… and then raised a hand, making a casual "okay" gesture with his fingers, accompanied by a slight nod.
Not a word. Just that gesture.
Kaep watched him in silence, not knowing if he should feel relieved or insulted.
"…I don't know if that reassures me or worries me more," he murmured finally, letting himself fall back onto the bed.
The alchemist let out a brief snort that, for him, was equivalent to a laugh.
"Both are valid," he said at last, before straightening up and looking toward the window again, as if the matter were already closed.
Kaep followed him with his gaze for a moment, still bewildered.
For some reason, that casual calm annoyed him.
"Alright, getting to the point," said the alchemist, turning his face slightly toward Kaep, "good thing you're awake. That way you can take the shift change."
Kaep blinked, still processing.
"Were you on guard duty?" he asked, sitting up a little.
"Yes." The alchemist responded without embellishment. "After we all tended to you, and the others… and then saw off those who didn't survive, we've been rotating shifts to rest while waiting for Bairon and the others to return."
The tone with which he said "those who didn't survive" was flat, without drama. Not from coldness, but because there was no strength left for solemnity.
Kaep lowered his gaze for a moment, letting those words settle. Around him, the hall felt bigger, emptier.
"So… none of them have returned yet?" he asked, though he already knew the answer.
The alchemist shook his head with a slight movement.
The silence that followed was heavy.
"So they haven't returned?" Kaep repeated, a knot in his voice. The anguish was noticeable even in the way he clenched his fists on the sheets.
"No…" the alchemist responded, crossing his arms. "Not yet… none."
He made a brief pause before adding, with a calm that didn't match the anger filtering into his expression:
"What have returned… and keep doing so, are those fish monsters."
Kaep went still. The mere memory of those beings made him tense immediately. The image of Körper, the roar on the other side of the door,
the fish monster that attacked him in the room where he first met the alchemist, that viscous gray skin, came to his mind suddenly.
By instinct, he looked around for any sign of chaos in the room.
He hadn't noticed it before, but…
A battlefield camp barely holding on.
The candles were still lit, the wounded people were breathing, and no shouts or blows were heard outside.
He exhaled slowly, forcing himself to calm down.
"I suppose… they managed to keep them away," he said finally, more to convince himself than from true confidence.
The alchemist nodded barely.
"For now, yes. But I doubt that will last long."
Kaep swallowed.
For now, he repeated mentally, while taking another look, now noticing the lamentable state of the room with different eyes.
"You noticed?" said the alchemist, in a tone that wasn't a question but a confirmation. "Well, we've been attacked several times… but all have been two-limbed ones, unlike the one that supposedly left the redhead in that state."
Kaep looked at him attentively.
Two limbs?
His mind slotted the idea almost instantly.
Two, huh… like the one that threw that coral spear at me in the alchemist's room, he thought.
The memory was immediate: the silhouette, the wet sound of its footsteps, the stench it gave off, the way it moved.
A shiver ran down his back.
"How many?" he murmured, barely audible.
The alchemist heard him, or perhaps intuited it, because his response was almost automatic:
"More appear each time. And if what you told your uncle is true… then there will be more and more…"
Kaep remained silent. The image of the hull from the outside with those things climbing and forcing their way inside tightened his chest.
The alchemist exhaled and leaned forward, resting his forearms on his thighs.
The movement was heavy, without the usual precision, as if his body was already starting to charge him for so many hours awake.
"Although it also turns out," he said in an almost resigned tone, "that the third-graders have trouble dealing with them."
Kaep raised an eyebrow.
"With the two-limbed ones?"
"Exactly." The alchemist nodded, running a hand through his blue hair, messing it up further. "So I've had to help every time, which has left my sleep cycle in a deplorable state, despite the shift changes."
His voice sounded controlled, but tired. That kind of tiredness that doesn't come just from lack of sleep, but from not being able to trust that closing your eyes is safe.
Kaep watched him in silence.
"I guess that explains why you look about to fall asleep standing up," the young man commented, trying to lighten the mood.
The alchemist let out a slight snort.
"Although I can deal with those things without resorting to my materials…" the alchemist continued, letting his shoulders slump slightly. "So many hours are exhausting me."
For a moment, he fell silent. Then he lifted his gaze.
His eyes, tired but still firm, met Kaep's.
The contact was direct, without pretense.
There wasn't that analytical coldness from before, nor that clinical distance with which he usually spoke. There was something more: weight, wear, an involuntary honesty that wasn't seeking pity.
Kaep held the gaze, surprised.
He hadn't expected to see that kind of tiredness in someone like him.
The silence between them stretched for a few more seconds, until the alchemist blinked and, almost as if realizing what he was doing, averted his gaze again.
He returned to his usual tone, dry and controlled.
"Anyway… it was that, or stay staring at the ceiling counting cracks while the others rest."
Kaep let out a light laugh, more from nerves than humor.
"That's why I wanted to ask you…" said the alchemist, running a hand over his face with a slow gesture again, almost clumsy. "No, more like… ask if you could take my shift. I want to sleep."
Kaep looked at him with some surprise.
It wasn't so much about the request itself, but how he said it.
The alchemist's voice no longer sounded firm or measured, but worn, cracking at times between fatigue and the effort to maintain composure.
For an instant, Kaep mentally compared him to the man he remembered from a few hours ago: the one who gave orders calmly, who controlled every detail and spoke without a hint of doubt.
He found it hard to believe it was the same person.
Now, before him, he only saw someone tired.
And yet, he was asking for permission, not help.
Kaep nodded slowly, with a short gesture.
"Yeah… alright. Go on, sleep a while," he responded, softer than he expected to sound.
The alchemist watched him for a moment, measuring if he was serious. Then he just nodded, as if that were enough.
As Kaep was getting out of bed.
"Why me?" Kaep asked, tilting his head.
The alchemist blinked a couple of times, as if he hadn't expected the question, and straightened up a bit more, sitting on the bed.
His gaze softened slightly, though his expression remained tired.
"Because the girl you were with before mentioned you're a marked one from the academy," he responded naturally, as if talking about an unimportant detail.
Kaep tensed.
The term fell heavily on him, like a dry blow to the chest.
The alchemist continued without stopping:
"So I assume you'll be better at dealing with the monsters than the rest… even being a third-grader."
The silence that followed was thick.
Kaep averted his gaze, uncomfortable.
He didn't like how that sounded, nor the way the alchemist said it, as if being marked were a fact that justified putting him on the front line without hesitation.
"Right… of course," he responded finally, in a low tone.
He didn't deny anything, but he didn't confirm it either.
The gaps in his memory had increased; he didn't even recognize the meaning of being a marked one.
The alchemist, for his part, seemed to grasp more than Kaep said.
"You don't have to explain," he added with a slight wave of his hand. "Just stay alert. If anything approaches, make sure it doesn't reach the others."
Having said that, he turned over while lying down and covered himself with a blanket.
Kaep followed him with his gaze, not knowing whether to feel flattered… or used.
So marked ones are stronger than the rest…? So I'm strong? but I don't remember how I'm supposed to be.