Boren scrambled to comply with Haemish request for the bucket. If there was any chance to save his new roommate, he would take it.

“Hurry, Boren, it is in the storage room over there!” Haemish pointed to Aarav’s room for the last few days, where he had been training to walk and get a human skeleton before that. “Do you dare go towards the light, idiot!” Haemish yelled at Aarav, still scooping him up as he continued to spread out.

Boren rushed into the room and grabbed the first bucket he found, taking it to Haemish immediately. “Will it hold him?” Boren asked.

“We will have to hope so. This Slime is small but so heavy!” Haemish said as he hoisted as much of Aarav’s body as he could without dropping it. The man didn’t get all of it, and there was a tense moment as the pressure of the lip of the bucket looked like it was going to cut Aarav’s body. Still, luckily he was made of more potent stuff than that, and his membrane remained intact.

“We need to get him to the medical bay. Marasa will likely know what to do and what is wrong with him. Even though she usually works on people, hopefully, she can do something for him.” Haemish said as he continued to scoop up and place all of Aarav in the bucket. “Come on, Boren, let’s go quickly.”

The bucket, which could handle 15kg, was just about strong enough. Haemish bore it as if it were a feather, holding it from the bottom and the top to secure the creature inside. A few minutes later, Haemish was speeding into the medical lab, he had to leave Boren in the dust, but the boy had said he would catch up. It was more important to get Aarav there.

As he entered, he didn’t see Marasa immediately. Still, as soon as the woman at the desk saw him and the bucket with Aarav inside, she rushed them over to a bed. She introduced herself as Marian, but Haemish was too busy fretting over what was going on with Aarav.

Just then, Boren also arrived and was directed to the same bed by Marian. Boren looked inside the bucket, seeing only Slime, no eyes, no ears, none of the traits he had come to associate with Aarav. Was Aarav really even alive anymore? Could he be considered a living person? Boren shuddered, joining his hands as he prayed. Please, Ursa, I won’t ask you for anything else, even my problem I will deal with, but please save my friend’s life. I need him much more than he needs me.

It took several minutes for Marasa to come around as she was dealing with a bleeding patient and couldn’t simply leave them. “What happened here?” She asked, smiling at Haemish as she approached. When she saw his expression, though, she realised the gravity of the situation and turned serious. “What happened?” She asked again with seriousness to her tone this time.

“We have no idea! Honestly, I have never seen anything like it.” Have a look. Haemish pointed to the bucket that looked like it was just full of clear gelatine fluid, and it was thick to the touch and super dense. “This is what is left of Aarav.”

To say that Marasa was shocked by this statement would have been quite an understatement. She seemed unable to speak for a few moments before turning to face the bucket and back to Haemish. Then finally, she said, “I believe you, but it doesn’t look alive! Is he…you know?” She couldn’t bring herself to say the final words, and they seemed to hold finality for her.

“No, well, actually, I should say we don’t think so. We know that Aarav was wobbling about in the lab and then just collapsed. Now that I think about it, Aarav had been getting more unsteady walking around as the day wore on. Boren, did you notice anything?” Haemish turned to the young Prince, and Marasa’s eyes followed him to Boren, smiling kindly at him.

“Anything you might have seen could him us to help Aarav.” She said quickly, noting his agitation and trying her best to calm him. “Even if you think it is insignificant.”

“Umm, well, I’m not sure, but as Haemish said, he was really unsteady on his feet as the day wore on. But the other thing was that he had been eating a lot like normally he eats. Still, this time it was like he was on a mission to consume as much as humanly possible, well not humanly, but you know what I mean.” Boren’s eyes were beseeching, trying to get them to understand the significance of his statement. “And before our eyes, he was growing larger and larger.” Haemish nodded along in agreement and Marasa in encouragement. “As he got bigger, and I mean like four times the size of when he started, we saw that he was getting more and more unstable on his feet. We just thought it was him getting used to his new size. We never thought…. Do you think he is going to be okay, Marasa?” Boren could stop the tear from leaking out of his eye as he finished in a depressed whine.

“Not to worry, Boren, we will do everything we can for Aarav.” Then more quietly to Haemish, she said, “though I have no idea what we can do given the circumstances. We may have no choice but to sit and wait and see what happens. Leave him with me, and I will keep an eye on him.”

Then she raised her voice again to conversational volumes. “Boren, Haemish, thank you for bringing Aarav to me.” She allowed a hint of her feelings to betray her. Hopefully, she had masked it enough. “I will let you know what I find and how I can help him. Go on, off with you, you will be crowding the space of other patients if you wait around here, and there is nothing more you can do.”

“But! I don’t think…” Boren started, but Marasa’s look would brook no-nonsense. He had seen that look so often when she thought he was pushing too hard. “Okay then.” He finished quietly and then slowly walked out, shoulders slumped and periodically looking over his shoulders at the bucket that held his friend.

Haemish was not far behind, simply saying, “We will be in the Alchemical lab waiting for any progress. Please let me know as soon as you see anything, and I will keep him busy and hopefully distracted.” Marasa nodded in sympathy and understanding.

“I will let you know as soon as anything happens, I promise,” Marasa said quietly enough that only Haemish could hear. Then as he walked out of view, she quietly said to herself. “If there is anything to tell.”

*******************************************

An hour later, Marasa moved around the clinic, finishing off for the day and simply keeping an eye on Aarav. She had decided that once she was done cleaning up, she would get Haemish and Boren, and they could just sit together for a while and see if anything changed with Aarav.

All attempts to understand the Slime’s current situation had failed. She had an analysis ability that told her if there were any medical problems with anyone brought in. Still, it only really worked properly on humans, she had tried it on animals, and it was valuable but less so. With the bucket of Slime, it had shown her nothing. Meaning that either nothing was wrong or equally meant it was dead or never alive in the first place. Marian had tried after that, and she had received nothing. Marasa could tell that her second was sceptical that this bucket held a living creature.

It was when she was just looking in again on the bucket. It had been a good twenty minutes since she checked last, probably the longest gap since Haemish brought him in. “Is he getting smaller? Marian! Come here quick!”

Marian came rushing over so fast that she generated wind in her wake, scattering documents over the floor. “What is it, Marasa?” the tone of worry prevalent in her speech.

“Marian, does it look like this is reducing?” Marasa then pointed to the bucket with Aarav’s remains in it. “Is the volume less than it was? I didn’t notice it before, but now I am not so sure if my eyes are simply playing tricks on me.” A part of Marasa was worried she might lose a patient. Even after all these years, it still hurt every time. And yet it was an inevitable part of life. While people aged at different rates, and some lived far longer than others, it was still something everyone contended with. Everyone had to die someday.