“What's wrong Jonah? Please, tell me what's happening to you. Why are you in such a terrible pain that's like none you ever felt before? Taethe asked me, barely limiting himself to the asking of two questions when I'm sure he would have asked me more if he hadn't reined himself in at the last moment. “Sorry. Can I do anything to help you?” He added, finally, though what could he do since the help they gave humans had nothing to do with physical health.
“I don't know what's happening to me Taethe, don't ask me again because I'm not going to know anything different then I know now, which is nothing.” I snapped at , as I just wanted to feel the empty of sleep and escape the pain that I was in.
But I knew that such an escape was not about to happen and it was also unlikely that the pain was just going to end because that would be too easy.
Meanwhile, all Taethe could do was watch me lie there and experience an agony unlike any I had ever known before.
Or so I thought as suddenly, he once more slipped inside my hand, not just part of the way. But all of it, a move which sent a surge of something through me.
Something that dispersed the pain like it was nothing, which was something I hadn't thought was even possible.
But was it a good thing that he had just done because there was sure to be unintended consequences to this.
“What did you do to me Taethe?” I asked, as while the absence of the pain was great, what it could mean was not. What was the cost to me?
I've made you post-real, which you can be without the change being permanent for an unknown length of time. And no, I don't know how long a time that you can remain this new way before it does become that which you'd surely not want it to be because it would bring with it the attraction to danger.”
“What? Are you insane Taethe? Why would you do such a thing to me?” I cried out in anger as the thought of being something as ominous as post-real was the last thing anyone would want to be outside of a world where powers were the norm.
“I only did what I thought was good and right and you suffering in a pain that you had never felt before seemed like the right thing to do. And anyone worth the name of good person would thank me.” He hissed at me angrily and I instantly felt like a shitty ungrateful man, which I was surely capable of being, just like anyone else.
“I'm sorry Taethe, I am of course thankful to you for ending the pain and ask you to forgive me for forgetting that being post-real is better than being in a pain that would not allow me to enjoy any kind of life, which is not a thing that I would like at all. So of course how could I be anything but grateful to him for saving me from such a thing as the pain inside had felt like anything but temporary.
He was silent, for a long hard moment as he floated above me, before he finally reacted to my belated gratitude. “Better late than never eh?” He replied, taking anything but the high road in how have accepted my momentary display of reckless folly, which was hardly the best way to react to a quick show of regret for how I'd first reacted to his kind act.
“I'm sorry Taethe, I didn't react right and I realize that and it's not an excuse but the pain that I felt was unexpected and it made me afraid and angry too because it felt like an attack from life that I had become sunk into pain without any escape that I could see. Now it felt to me like he was being unreasonable but saying this was not going to help me as I feared that he would leave if I lashed out at him further. Even if he deserved such a lashing out.
“Yes, you are sorry.” He said, sounding like more of a jerk than I had been when he had not felt the pain that I had felt which should have at least been a mitigating factor in how he reacted to my very short display of ingratitude. Was I supposed to be perfect in all my interactions with him? If that was the case, then we were not going to be hanging out for very long at all.