To Kill a Cactus - Namaste part 2

Namaste part 1: HERE

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"Hey, Paithoon, time to wake up, I found something amazing!" Bruno shouted and his voice echoed all around our laboratory.

I could hear the sound of his footsteps nearing my nest, but I just couldn't open my eyes. I tried to mumble something as a response, but all that came out of my mouth was warm air.

"Look!" he shouted again, now right at my ear. I slowly lifted the lid of one of my eyes and attempted to focus on whatever he was holding in his hands. It seemed like a piece of paper with some grey specks on it.

"Great job," I answered and closed my eyes, ready to fall asleep again.

"No, no...look, here, it's a photograph," he said shaking me up again.

I sighed and lifted myself to a seated position. I had to blink quite a few times before the lines on the photograph began to make sense. I took the photo from Bruno and examined it closer. It was black and white, there was a little girl on it, holding a teddy bear nearly as big as her, she appeared to be in an amusement park of some sort, but there was no one there apart from her and she smiled a very odd smile that made me feel a bit uneasy.

"What is it?" I asked turning the photo around, but there was nothing written on the back either.

"I don't know, I found it inbetween one of the diaries and I thought it looked cool. It must be old as well, look at the edges and it's not colorised or anything. It's pretty cool isn't it?" he answered, his speech was quick and extremely excited,

I nodded and gave the photo back to him.

"It's odd, was there anything else in the diary that could be linked to the photo?" I inquired further.

"Nothing, in particular, there was a lot of nonsense and things that just straight out sounded like an alien language, but nothing about the girl or the photo. So do you think it's anything of importance?" Bruno asked in return.

"I really don't know, but I think it'd be wise to keep it around just in case. Anyhow, since I am up already, we should probably get back to work. How is the third evaporation process going?" I yawned while rolling myself out of my cocoon.

"Oh, it's going really well, I feel like the consistency is finally as it was described in the third diary, however, it's very active, the boiling temperature is nearly at room temperature and it also smells like hell, so improvements are probably necessary." Bruno nodded while eating a cream cheese bagel.

I could hear my stomach making some angry noises, clearly upset about me skipping dinner the night before.

"Yeah, I'll get myself ready and go and check it out. You don't happen to have any more of those bagels?" I asked with a hopeful smile.

"Sorry, this is the last one," he said while taking the last bite, "but I could ask someone to get some more, I sort of ate all six."

"It's ok, I'll find something on my own," I shrugged, passed Bruno and headed towards the showers. 

It was so odd to have water, as much of it as I could possibly need, always accessible to me. The water issues had been present for all of my conscious past and it almost seemed like a dream, stepping into the flow of airy whipped cold water. I felt more awake already. Although we had water, it was usually cold. I was used to it though. My morning routine was a quick cold shower, brushing my teeth, usually eating my two bagels for breakfast, which apparently Bruno had already demolished on this particular morning, he did have the tendency to do that, so I had a few emergency granola bars hidden just in case. Everything had moulded into a natural pattern, I almost managed to forget everything I had gone through just half a year ago. Yet, every now and then the image of Christopher laying there on the ground would appear in my mind, his eyes completely blank and hopeless, I wanted to reach out to him, it was so difficult to comprehend that he was gone.

I finished my granola bar and stepped back into the lab, to grab my lab coat and get to work. Bruno was already testing the first batch of "cure" that we had attempted to create, it had many flaws, but some potential, so Bruno was trying to get as much data on it as possible before we headed for the next attempt.

We were simultaneously working on recreating the original cacti-zombi potion so we could run some tests on that as well, but we had also some complications to get it to be quite right. So the first six months had been a bit of a struggle, but we still had hope. Well, Bruno had a lot of hope, I had never met anyone quite as motivated as him. I wish I had as much belief in myself as he had in everything and everyone, including me.

"This is doing great, as far as I can tell, the first cure, which by the way I've named Bruntoon, is safe on all artificial tissues and organs that we have to use for testing, however, it has a very potent smell that lingers after injections and the tissues affected stink, to say the least, might be an issue," Bruno explained.

"Can we determine what is causing the smell?" I asked, having to step away from the fume cupboard that he was working under.

"Working on it," he nodded and also stepped away.

"Okay, we might have to work on the name as well, Bruntoon sounds like a cartoon title." I smiled.

"Oh, I have a few more ideas, just wait," he answered.

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To Be Continued

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