I'd already slid naturally into the role of a clinic helper, and I took even more care of the place than Granny Marta did. I couldn't diagnose illnesses or treat wounds, but at least when it came to cleaning and tidying, I was fairly competent—so much so that even the old, crusted blood lodged in the seams of the operating table, I scraped out bit by bit with a small knife.
It filled the gaps Granny Marta never had time to deal with, and it also made me feel like I had at least a little value in this brutal place. I couldn't do anything about the filth of all Hold Seven outside the clinic, but the inside of the clinic was far cleaner and neater than when I'd first arrived.
I also learned to help Granny Marta process and organize her "ingredients."
Granny Marta's "ingredients" were nothing like the dried herbs I had in my head, or capsules and tablets.
They were piles and piles of fungi, moss, and unknown plant-and-animal things gathered from pipe cracks, the insides of abandoned machines, even sewers—Emperor knows how a biosphere this complex could evolve inside the metal hull of Spirepeak City, a former colossal starship. They gave off all kinds of strange odors—some like stinky socks, some like rotting fruit, and some like industrial solvents.
Whenever she had a moment, Granny Marta would introduce me to those weird "ingredients," like she was training an apprentice.
"This one's called Ironlung Fungus." She picked up a mushroom shaped like a rusted gear, its surface gleaming with a metallic sheen. "It grows near steam-pipe leak points and absorbs a lot of metal vapor. Grind it up and swallow it, and it'll draw out the toxic heavy-metal deposits in the body."
Then she lifted a lump of fluorescent green moss, soft as a sponge.
"This is Radglow Moss. It absorbs radiation. Fresh, it's poisonous, but after three days of fermentation, it can be used to treat radiation sickness."
…I listened in a daze, feeling like I was auditing a survival course titled Wasteland Living 101. Granny Marta had me sort these "ingredients" according to her requirements, then roast them, grind them, or ferment them. I followed along clumsily, but there were simply too many species I'd never heard of and never seen, and I kept mixing things up.
"Oh, you really are all thumbs." Granny Marta shook her head, but there wasn't much blame in her voice. "It's fine. Take it slow. When I learned this back then, I was even clumsier than you."
Whenever I got it wrong, she would patiently demonstrate again, her calloused, scarred hands deftly handling things that looked disgusting and dangerous to me. Watching her hunched back, I felt a surge of gratitude and an admiration I couldn't quite put into words.
In a place so cruel it could drive people to despair, she used methods that looked savage and primitive to save, day after day, those who struggled on the thin line between life and death. She was the only faint glimmer in all this darkness.
Once I got familiar with the surroundings, besides the odds and ends inside the clinic, I would also go out to handle small errands for her.
For example, every morning I'd queue at a nearby "water point" to fetch water.
It was an ugly facility built into a massive bulkhead—several thick pipes feeding into a rust-eaten apparatus—and above it was a broken, incomplete cog-and-skull insignia. The ground and walls around it were damp and muddy, carpeted with moss. People carrying every kind of container crowded the area, and the air stung with a harsh blend of rust, bleaching powder, and unknown chemicals.
Holding Granny Marta's bucket—modified from a discarded pressure canister—I stood in line for over half an hour before I finally drew a bucket of cloudy "clean water," yellow-tinged and murky. It looked filthier than the water in the fishponds back home, but Granny Marta said this was already the cleanest water you could get in Hold Seven.
"Don't complain." She took the bucket and set it in the center of the room, then, from the mess of dangling junk hanging from the ceiling, she deftly yanked down a pouch-wrapped sac containing some kind of luminous living thing and dipped it into the bucket. "A lot of people can only drink it like this. But this old woman has a way to make it cleaner. Let these little fellows eat the filth out of it first. In two hours, you can drink it."
The glowing little worms inside the sac immediately wriggled with excitement, and the water in the bucket visibly cleared a bit—still faintly yellow, but at least no longer quite so opaque.
I drank that "purified" water and did my best not to imagine what, exactly, those worms had "eaten."
As for the pure water in the blue iron drums, Granny Marta saved it for making medicine and for medical use. She didn't let it be used lightly—though sometimes, when she was busy mixing infusion fluids, she would pretend not to notice and let me sneak a sip or two.
Our daily staple was the black brick they called "Civilian Relief Rations"—a compressed block made from synthetic protein, algae powder, and unknown fillers, with a texture like stiff cardboard. It had no real taste. Or rather, the only taste it had was a smell-taste that made you think of moldy newspapers mixed with industrial lubricant.
"One block lasts you a day." Granny Marta broke off a small piece and chewed slowly. Her deeply wrinkled face didn't show any emotion. "Cheap, filling, and it won't spoil. Down here, being able to eat this every day already counts as a blessing."
I didn't really mind. Compared to the grey sludge Lady Inquisitor used to feed me every day, it wasn't much different. It just looked cheaper, and it definitely didn't come with any warranty.
But even so, Granny Marta always tried to find ways to get me something different now and then.
Like the "Armored Broth" I mentioned before—thick soup boiled from those cockroach-like beetles. Disgusting, but it did restore strength.
Sometimes she'd make a stew from fungi and some kind of tuber, then sprinkle in fluorescent green spore powder for seasoning. It tasted sharply spicy in a way I couldn't describe, but at least it was far better than the black bricks. As for the food sold outside—greasy roasted giant rat, or oddly shaped fish—no matter how badly I craved meat, she wouldn't let me eat it.
"Toxins and filth build up in animals," she warned me. A soft-skinned outsider like me, if I wanted to live long, had better refuse the local game.
On the second floor of the clinic, in the storeroom, Granny Marta cleared out a tiny space for me. It was a cubicle made from a discarded cargo crate, barely two square meters. Inside, she'd layered thick insulating blankets and softer cloth she didn't say where she'd gotten, and that became my "bed." It was crude and cramped, but I found it warm, safe, and oddly comforting.
Every night, when I lay on that pile of insulating blankets, listening to the never-ending roar of machinery outside, the scream of steam pipes, and the coughing and crying drifting from afar, I would think: the fact I'm still alive is a miracle.
And that miracle was given to me by Granny Marta.
I began to get used to everything here.
I got used to the sour fog and stench that never fully dispersed. I got used to the sticky ground underfoot. I got used to the grease that never washed off the walls. I got used to the strange residents. I got used to the "ingredients" and "medical instruments" that looked like they'd crawled out of a horror film.
I even started picking up a few little survival tricks for living here.
For example: don't walk too close to the walls. When you plan your route, remember to avoid unstable pipes that might vent steam. If you hear gunfire or explosions, find somewhere to hide immediately—because that means either gang warfare, or enforcers coming through to clear the streets.
Granny Marta watched me adapt day by day, and now and then her face would show a hint of quiet satisfaction.
"You're tougher than I thought," she suddenly told me one day. "Most people who fall from up above either run, or they die. Not many can live like you have, and still be useful."
I gave a bitter smile and shook my head.
"I just… don't have any other choice."
"Being alive is the greatest choice of all." She looked at me with those cloudy eyes, her voice carrying the weight of hard-earned years. "Down here, staying alive is a kind of victory."
(End of Chapter)
[Get +30 Extra Chapters On — P@tr3on "Zaelum"]
[Every 300 Power Stones = 1 Bonus Chapter Drop]
[Thanks for Reading!]