9 - Syianne
After meeting Risa Medrick, I am euphoric. I skip alongside Cello on our way to the Lemming and begin humming my favourite Risa song.

I have an indescribable feeling in my stomach. I still don't know what's going to happen to me, but maybe I feel optimistic. After all, I met Risa Medrick on my very first day. It's a rare thing to see a Jewel on television and even then, it only ever involves the music industry. Risa first appeared when she was eight, already playing her guitar beautifully, already writing her own songs. Her music was the only pleasure I allowed myself without feeling guilty, the only thing that upon leaving home and coming here, I would come closer to rather than leave behind.

It's becoming a beautiful day, the spring air is sweet and Rockdem is turning out to be a very pretty city. The area around the Zephyr has really old buildings, the kind that look foreboding and heavy, made of stone with thick outer walls. Every building is painted in a different colour and decorated with stone carvings of naked ladies, flowers and angels.

Following the little map drawn on the back of the voucher ticket, we turn to a street lined with tall elm trees, flowers blooming in flower-beds on the inner side of the pavement and flower-boxes hanging from every window and balcony.

Now that I'm here and on the brink of starting something new, I feel strangely different. I feel more solid; like I've always been this misshapen blob and I'm finally taking shape to look like something human. And also, I realise that I'm feeling relieved. There, I had said goodbye, I had gone away, and I'm still alive.

I'm more alive than I've ever been.

I've always felt that without other people my existence will become thinner and thinner until I would dissipate and vanish. I've always needed someone to look my way. Now I've left everyone who knows me behind, and I came here. It's a relief that every single pair of eyes that I've met so far didn't reflect the diamond on my forehead. They see me, and I see them. Maybe Fellin and Cello will be my friends. Maybe they already are, I can't tell, I haven't been able to make friends in so long. I look over at Cello –

And he isn't there.

I anxiously look all around me and find him standing a block away, leaning against the cold stone wall of a building. I don't understand what he's doing so I stomp up to him, ready to scold. Then I see his face, and I'm a completely different kind of anxious. He looks sick, his eyes are screwed shut and his skin is as pale as death, he's clutching his stomach and panting like a dog.

The Alprine also looks very worried about this; she's nipping his ear and licking his face. She looks at me, "Wa," she says, or maybe that's the sound that Alprine's make, her voice is oddly musical, as if she's some sort of bird.

"Cello?" I reach out and touch his arm, through his thin t-shirt I could feel how hot his body is. "Cello? What's wrong? Are you sick?"

It's stupid to ask, obviously he's sick. He tries to speak, stumbles forward, throwing down my backpack and throws up into a flower bed. I don't feel grossed out, but rather a surge of pity towards him.

He stays crouched on the ground panting and I dig out a tissue from my pocket and hand it to him. He wipes his streaming eyes, his mouth and nose. I wish I had more tissue. I touch his forehead like a concerned mother, it's damp and burning. "You've got a fever," I tell him. He doesn't answer because his teeth are chattering and he's too busy shaking all over.

I put on my heavy backpack and pick up his little ragged bag too. "Do you want me to go get help? You should go to the hospital."

He shakes his head. "I can walk," he says hoarsely through shivering lips.

"Put on your coat," I order him and he gingerly obeys. He zips up and by the way he's hugging himself I can tell that it doesn't help much. He looks at me and tries to take his bag away. Moving out of his reach, I whisper, "Just carry yourself, I'm fine."

He doesn't argue. I feel weighed down, carrying everything is heavy, but Cello can't walk faster than a slow crawl. We reach an area in the street where a row of cafés spills onto the sidewalk. After we pass these we come upon an establishment with a wooden sign, painted white letters announcing "The Lemming Inn & Dance Bar".

*

The Lemming is no hotel. The moment I enter I realise that its sole purpose is a dance bar that happens to offer a few rooms on the upstairs levels. For the second time that day I stand before a reception booth, only this one is actually a bar as well, with multi-coloured bottles lining the walls on illuminated glass shelves, and a polished mahogany counter.

The counter is covered with overturned barstools. There is no one in sight. I throw down our things and pull a chair off from one of the tables. "Sit down," I tell Cello and I locate a bell on the far edge of the counter. "Hello?" I ring it several times.

No one shows up.

"Hello?" I yell, ringing the bell. "Is anyone there?"

"Syianne," a strange voice behind me whispers my name. I whisk around and it's Cello, still sitting where I put him, crouched forward with his hands clutched over his forehead, they're glowing as red as blood. "Syianne, what's happening to me?"

Then he moves his hands aside and I'm completely mesmerised. His Jewel is glowing, shinning like a flashlight. Deep shadows are cast over his face and all around us. The quality of light is dazzling, like a diamond's sparkle only magnified a million times, the rays of whiteness glitter in a multitude of rainbows. This light is the only thing that's real; next to it everything seems lifeless.. The boy I met this morning, Cello Riles, is barely present. Instead, before me sits a creature more beautiful than any human being can ever be.

Except his face is contorted in pain, he's writhing about in his chair, Cello Riles is there, and he's suffering. Five steps and I'm in front of him, I don't know what to do, I want to scream, I want to take the pain away from him somehow, but of course I can't. I crouch down placing my hands on his shoulders.

He's burning so hot that my hands fly away as if I've just touched a furnace. He covers his Jewel again, his breath is shallow.

"Help! Someone help!" I yell, springing up, why isn't there anybody here? I consider running out to the street, maybe I could find another Jewel who would know what's going on.

"We're closed!" someone says. I spin around and a man – not a Jewel, just an ordinary man – is now standing behind the counter. He takes in my face and I can sense that he is thinking the opposite of what I was thinking: she's not a human being, she's a Jewel. I can almost see the ghastly sparkle of my diamond in his dark eyes.

I'm suddenly boiling with anger and stomp over toward the counter and slap the voucher card down before him. "We need our room right now," I say, fixing him with the darkest stare I could muster and using my most commanding voice.

He smirks at me, he's middle-aged man with quite a belly so it's hard to tell, maybe he's younger. He's wearing a name-tag that says "Kraven". He takes his time, picking up the card and examining it. "What's this about?" he asks, turning it over in his fingers. "Haven't seen one of these in a while."

"It's urgent," I tell him.

He looks up at me. "Check-in's at eleven." I know he's mocking me, I know he's got rooms ready but he's throwing his weight around.

I run back to Cello, grab his arm, and even though my hand is on fire, I drag him off the chair and toward the counter. I let Cello's Jewel shine right into Kraven's face. "We need the room now," I say with my teeth clenched, and this time my words have more of an impact. He frowns and turns to get us a key. I don't know what exactly I'll do once we get to the room; I just have a gut feeling that having Cello here where anyone could see him is dangerous.

He hands me a key-card. "Room 6," he says, all mockery gone. "You handle him; I'll get your luggage."

I had let go of Cello when the burning had become unbearable. Now I pull my sleeves over both my hands – luckily they're too long anyway -- and grab each of his arms from behind. I steer him in the direction of the stairs. The sleeves don't really help though, I cannot touch him for long. I let go and he doubles over, supporting himself against the wall. "Cello, you have to walk," I plead.

He grunts, he can't talk anymore, his fists are clenched and he's breathing heavily through his nose. He starts mounting the stairs, his balance is off. I walk behind him ready to do anything I can if he falls. He rests a few times along the way, but we make it. I unlock the door and he steps in and crashes onto the bed.

Kraven shows up with our bags and places them on the floor. I notice his face is serious, but he doesn't seem disturbed or impressed by what he's seen. "Please, do you know how we can get in touch with....with the others?" I ask him, resentfully, as I haven't quite forgiven him for being so awful a moment ago.

"Why?" he asks.

"What do you mean why?" I gesture toward Cello who is now moaning softly and rocking from side.

Kraven raises his eyebrows. "Looks perfectly normal to me. I think you people call it an Overflow."

"What's an Overflow?"

For some reason he finds my question hilarious, he chortles loudly. "How am I supposed to know? You're the Stone."

"It's my first day; I don't know anything about Overflows. I don't know anything about anything." I'm so angry right now, my whole body is shaking. "What am I supposed to do?"

"Just wait it out like the rest of them do, eh?" He's back to using that condescending tone with me. "You're too young to be doing that other thing they do when they get an Overflow on purpose."

I don't know what he means, and I think I don't want to know, I'll hold on to my innocence as long as I can, thank you very much. My mind flashes briefly on Art and this morning and it seems so far away. A surge of sadness goes through me — is this how it's going to be? This is just the beginning and already he's miles away.

When I say nothing and just stare, Kraven leaves the room. I close the door and lean my back against it, looking at the bed. Cello has turned over and is now lying on his back, the light that's coming from his Jewel is still beautiful, but the shadows dancing along the walls make me uneasy. The way they move, it's almost as if they're alive.

The room is very small, there's just enough space for the large double bed. There's barely any standing space and to get into bed you have to climb in from the foot. On the left of the door there's a sink, and the shower and toilet are inside a small dent in the wall hidden by a narrow sliding door.

I slowly walk toward the bed, my feet noiseless over the thick brown carpeting. The Alprine sits by Cello's head and watches me with her large black bottomless eyes, as if she's expecting me to do something for him. I stand over him and I don't know what to do at first, then I decide that he can't be comfortable lying there with his coat and shoes on. So I yank off his shoes – they come off pretty easily – and then I'm faced with the problem of his coat.

I try telling myself that we're cosmic twins; if I treat him like a brother it might not be so bad. But even though he's helpless, even though he's depending on me, I feel myself blush as I kick off my shoes and crawl onto the bed beside him. If it weren't a bed and just the floor then maybe it'd be less embarrassing, but there's something uncompromising about a closed bedroom with a strange boy.

I try to unzip his coat, but the zipper is so hot I can't touch it, so I slide my sleeve over my hand and open his coat with one swift motion before the heat can penetrate. How could he be this hot and still be alive? And what does an Overflow mean exactly? Is it like the flu for Jewels?

I never had the flu; I never had so much as the common cold. The only time I threw up was once when I ate lasagna that had gone bad – and that was bad enough. Maybe it's a Jewel thing; maybe we get sick in a different way.

Carefully I pull off one sleeve of his coat. Before I lean over to pull off the other, I hesitate and look at his face. His eyes are screwed shut, his head pressed backwards hard against the mattress and his Adam's apple is dancing up and down in his throat. I don't think he even knows I'm there anymore. This makes me more confident; I yank off his other sleeve and pull the coat from underneath him.

I don't know what else I can do. I bundle his coat between my hands, cross my legs and lean my back against the wall, watching over him.