“Maya, did you register that?”

<All distress has been monitored. Had the attack continued or the pain worsened, a medi-cart would have been called.>

“So I guess Mom will know, huh?”

<All medical records are available for her perusal. Did you want me to flag it?>

“No. No need to draw attention to it and worry her if she doesn’t notice it.”

On bad days, his symptoms were tolerable. The treatments left him with a mild muddleheadedness, leaving him in a state little better than a waking stupor. But he could shuffle about on his own and have some level of independence. Unlike the worse days, when the pain was so great, he was drugged into utter uselessness. Or the paralysis would attack a random limb, and he’d be left completely dependent on others. To feed him. To wash him. To wipe his ass.

Being a constant drain on his family and community, despite their reassurances to the contrary, took a toll. As helpful as people were, he suspected many still thought it was all in his head. They had no idea, not really. At night, when he was still, he could almost feel his illness creeping within him, stalking through his vessels. Tormenting the edges of his mind.

Bekele hated being sick. To be fair, early on, before the symptoms became so stuck, he played them up. Something he and Xola had in common, though Bekele’s agenda amounted to getting out of school as often as possible. The Thmei Academy believed that education should produce creatives who were critical thinkers or critical thinkers who could create. They strove to create an environment where even if it casually looked like everyone was sitting around bullshitting, they were actually engaged in deep philosophical discussion. They wanted their students to tap into something deeper, human driven, with spiritual inquiry, their intellect, and emi serving up their curiosity. However, Muungano could say what it wanted about how their entire community was school and class was always in session, but kids knew when they were actually in class. As a student, he was duty bound to complain about whatever structure learning took, even if his educational pursuits were driven by him and his own interests. His only reprieves came about once every two weeks when some vague set of symptoms no one could quite verify or deny beset him: stomachache or fatigue or headache. Negative mediscans as evidence never fared well against a mother hearing “I just don’t feel well” from their child. Once his parents’ frustrations mounted from him missing so much class time and them not being able to help—with the treatments escalating to more invasive tests, diet restrictions, and, worst of all, his bedtime made earlier and thus cutting into his link time—did he ease up on the complaints.

Which was when he really started getting sick.