A Study of Touch

The wind howled through the trees surrounding the caldera, carrying with it the scent of damp earth and wildflowers, but Toxcatl hardly noticed. The quarantine station was perched on one of the volcano's ridges, a makeshift collection of sterile tents and equipment, glinting in the harsh sunlight. It was cool, almost damp, and the volcanic basalt beneath him felt as lifeless as the doctors' questions.
The enclosure - an open-air pavilion hwen of rough stone - was carved directly into the volcanic rock. Its cavernous tunnels and jagged walls served as a natural prison; confined by wilderness and the vigilance of his captors. But granted enough space to be as wild as he wanted.
They come later in the day - three of them - dressed in beige field capes, hiking the narrow stone path carved into the rock to ask their questions: "How do you feel?" "Does that hurt?" "What do you dream about?"
One day, a doctor lingered longer than usual. "Are you lonely?" she asked softly, almost kind.
The question triggered feelings were so tangled, that he didn’t know how to express them. Of course. He missed his people. His home. And being understood.
"You should scream," Sal suggested.
He turned his head slightly, looking at a boy half his age, who sat cross-legged on a boulder nearby. Sal's skin shimmered faintly, like the opalescent streaks in obsidian, and his long, spindly fingers toyed with a twig he had picked up - a twig that didn’t exist. He hadn’t aged a day in decades; not since he had lost him. His hair was still a wild mess. Dark eyes still full of mischief. He was exactly as he remembered him: the brother who had once been his entire world.
"What would that accomplish?" the pseudo-dwen replied softly.
"It would make them nervous," Sal said with a mischievous grin. "And isn’t that what they deserve? Let them wonder what’s going on in that mind of yours."
Toxcatl shook his head, thin lips curling faintly into a smile despite himself. "They’d just poke me harder if I did."
"But you’ve got to admit, it’d be funny to see them panic."

---

The caldera was vast, its natural acoustics amplifying the sounds of boiling waters geysering through unseen cracks and crevices. Every day brought new tests: shining fire lights into his eyes, pricked his skin and checking his teeth, hands and crotch.
Sometimes, when he closed his eyes, he could see his karass and their parents. They seemed more real to him than the doctors who moved around him like ghosts.
It was in one of those moments that he revealed Sal to them. They were very fascinated by the idea of Sal.
"Is he here right now?"
"Yes."
They spoke to each other in hushed voices, tossing words like "hallucination" and "residual trauma" back and forth. But Toxcatl saw the excitement in their eyes. Sal was more valuable than anything else about him; so he let them believe whatever they wanted.
At first, they tried to challenge him with their logic. They asked him to describe Sal again and again, looking for inconsistencies. Other times, Toxcatl refused to answer. He let silence do the work, as the doctors stewed in their own frustration.
Days passed. Then weeks. The doctors changed in small ways. They were no longer just fascinated - they were uneasy.
Perhaps it was because Toxcatl never wavered in his certainty. Perhaps it was because Sal knew things he shouldn’t.
But then Sal started speaking in ways Toxcatl didn’t expect. "She’s hiding something," Sal murmured one evening.
Toxcatl frowned. "Who?"
"That one. She watches you differently than the others."
Toxcatl followed his gaze, tracking the doctor, but he saw nothing himself. He dismissed it. All the doctors watched him.