(Warning, this is a sexy story. It is also a story with sex. In many ways, it is a story about sex. But, many chapters, such as this one, are mostly SFW.)

  CHAPTER FIVEMaking a Choice

  “I think he's waking!” a young, clear voice said.

  “He won't wake up,” said a scratched, tired voice. “They don't when they look like that.”

  “But he said something just now, he was mumbling in his sleep.”

  “They do that. But he won't wake up.”

  Silence. Darkness.

  ***

  “He was talking again, real words this time!” The young voice was hopeful.

  The older voice. “Kel. You're young, and you have been here but a short time, but you have seen death. Much death. He will die. We are here to make that as comfortable as death can be. That is all. He will not wake. They do not.”

  “But he should have been dead yesterday, you said as much!”

  “Kel, he will die. We save those we can, but many we cannot.”

  “But--”

  “Be at peace, as he soon will be.”

  ***

  “Again, Mother, he spoke again, and I really understood him! He was speaking of strange things: something of a pool, and a green woman, and---”

  The old voice was harsh now. “Kel, he is dying. He will be dead tomorrow, and nothing in our knowledge can change that. You hope for what cannot be, because he is young, because he is pretty. But he will die. You know that. You must know that.”

  “Last night you said he would be dead by morning.”

  “I was wrong. I was wrong about his time here. But I am not wrong about his Fate. You would know this for any other patient, were he old, or were he ugly.”

  “Mother I-”

  “I will watch him now Kel, until the end. Take your care elsewhere.”

  “Mother-”

  “Go, Kel.” A pause. The old voice softened. “I love you. We all see hope where there is none from time to time. As you age you will learn to see it less often. Go, Kel. They need water in the Healing Room. There is only pain here. For this young man and for you.”

  ***

  Another voice now. A tiny bell, ringing, ringing. A flute, dancing from note to note, pyfully. Mockingly.

  “Wake up, Dummy.”

  Atyr didn't wake up, but the swirls of dark and color and pain and dream settled, and his mind focused on the tinkling, chiming words.

  “You don't really have a choice now. You made so many choices, and every one was dumb. So now we're here.”

  The darkness pulsed bck around him, but the ringing voice cut through.

  “You're dying, dummy. And you can do that, or you can come with me. What'll it be?”

  It was too much effort to keep listening to the words, and he drifted back into the comfort of pain and oblivion. The voice brought him back up again.

  “Come on. Falling asleep on me is one thing. Falling dead on me is another. I need an answer.”

  Back down into darkness, but a thought happened to him then, the first in a while. Death was an answer, wasn't it? It was so easy, so close. He settled back, sinking into bckness. Again the voice dragged him ruthlessly up, sharper now, its bell-like tones brazen and insistent.

  “Answer me, answer me now. Will you come with me?”

  Sweet, comfortable darkness fought against the pain and confusion of the light within him.

  “Come with me!”

  Back into the darkness.

  “Please come with me!”

  Sinking down into comfort now. The voice was faint.

  “Don't go yet.”

  The light was nearly out. He drifted down. He chose peace. He chose stillness. He chose Death. It was close now.

  “Atyr.” Her voice came now strong, and filled with weirding, but his name as he heard it wasn't 'Atyr', it was some other thing, something realer, deeper, something truer. Light and pain flickered back.

  “Atyr, come with me. Let's go on an adventure.”

  Night took him, and he slept.

  Thanks so much for reading! The next chapter should be out in a couple days.