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Up to the meeting with my friends and the conversation with Rey, I'd been getting on fine by ignoring any mentions of the night flu. However, the day after I had talked to them, two people died of the night flu in Mexico. Suddenly, the flu was the main topic in every American news report, and it created big headlines in all the newspapers.
Some of the headers made me shake my head. ‘Human Sickness or Supernatural Curse,’ was one of the titles which I read to Alex. “After the mysterious death of two adults in Ensenada, the question of the nature of the night flu gets more prominent. Neither of them had been abroad lately, nor was there a trace of the virus anywhere in their apartment. Despite that, their short but intense sickness had exactly the same development as the other night flu cases. The victims both complained about having trouble breathing. Soon, a fever burned them from the inside, leaving a red hue on their dead skin.” I questioningly looked at Alex.
“That does sound a bit odd. I’ve heard of people turning yellow, green, or white, but to die with a red face when your organs fail? I’d have to check up on that. Read on, please,” Alex said.
“The doctors at Ensenada general hospital are clueless as to how the victims could have caught the virus. Therefore, the Mexican people are finding their own answer. "Dr. Palmer" has been the most googled term after "night flu." Already, the man’s claims, that the night flu is a curse by witches and magicians, is appealing to the masses. Consequently, a mob of scared citizens brutally slaughtered a Mexican family living a quiet life outside Maneadero. As a reason, the attackers described the family’s seclusion and preference for only eating the food they grew around their house. Is this a start of a second era of witch hunts?” The article ended there, and I could only stare at the last words in bewilderment.
“Uh oh, people killing people because of a flu can’t be good,” I said.
Alex took the newspaper from me with a serious look. “After the first events in Turkey, citizens robbed drugstores to get more medicine,” he said, “while in Eastern Europe, the same thing happened, along with a few deaths during armed street fights. For months, Dr. Palmer had been laughed at but suddenly, more and more people seem to believe his claims. This shift toward attacking people whom they call Alternatives is quite alarming. How can people be so naïve and just solve a problem by saying that it’s a magical curse?”
“Right? They don’t even know that a magical world exists,” I exclaimed. “It’s all a guessing game. The witch hunts had been an embarrassing disaster for humans, so how could they go down that path again?” I searched his eyes to find affirmation that this was completely insane. Surely, they would find a remedy soon and all this talk of evil magic would be forgotten.
To my dismay, Alex didn’t radiate any confidence. “Could it be a curse?” he asked, his eyes oscillating in his head.
“No!” I said decisively. “Nobody would use magic for bad things, and above all, not in a way that cast a poor light on magic.”
“You are right, that wouldn’t make sense,” Alex said pensively. “What other magical creatures are out there, though?” His eyes interlocked with mine.
I lowered my gaze to the ground and slowly shook my head. “I have no idea. They never told me. I wish I had asked. But I had to concentrate on not attacking anybody. I missed my family, and then I had to protect our secret during everyday school life. Therefore, it just never occurred to me that there had to be other creatures than Sirens. But now that you say it, I’d find it rather odd if Sirens were the only supernatural beings.”
“Wow, so find out soon!” Alex urged me with an excited glimmer in his eyes.
“How? Crawl back to Melissa and ask her? No, thank you.”
“You could at least call and ask,” he said, hopeful. “It’s still a rather odd and powerful virus. You can only imagine how crazy people will go here, once the first cases appear in the US.”
“I’ll see what I can find out,” I muttered. “Switzerland still seems to be quiet.” I turned the focus back on the outbreaks. To be sure, I started the laptop and googled the night flu in Switzerland. The top headlines said that the government hadn’t announced any known cases yet, though there had been several deaths in Germany and Italy.
“With people dying of it so close to the border of Switzerland, it’s kind of a miracle that Switzerland has been spared so far,” I said to Alex.
“That’s the thing. Nobody has figured out how the virus is spread. If there was a trace, the medical workers would know how to contain the virus. Everything they are doing at the moment are only precautions.”
Apparently, the US had been affected by the side effect of the night flu—the fear of the Alternatives—worse than I had expected. That’s why I received a phone call from Melissa a couple of days later. So far, I hadn’t been able to bring myself to call her and it gave me a sense of satisfaction that she was the first one to call.
“Nathalie?” I heard her voice.
“Yes. What’s up?” I tried to say indifferently, although I was curious to hear what she had to say.
She took a deep breath. “You need to go to school.” Her voice was strained.
I was slightly taken aback. I had been absent for two weeks and nobody had said anything. “Why the urge now?” I asked. “Has the principal called?” I rolled my eyes. I could move to a completely different country if I wanted, so why should I still go to school here?
“Yes, their office has called several times.” There was a short silence. “Unfortunately, I told them that you had a virus. Apparently, that’s like a crime now, with the night flu,” she said, cringing.
“Why, what did they say?” I asked, a bit shocked that my not going to school seemed to have consequences for Melissa and Luke. My heart would have been pumping wildly out of nervousness while waiting for her answer, but of course, my heart was frozen, and I stayed completely composed.
“Not say, do. People threw hate letters onto our lawn. They didn’t even make the effort to put them into the mailbox,” she said with a shaky voice. “We have been living here for twelve years. Of course, we aren’t close friends with the people in town, but nevertheless, it’s our home.”
I took the phone from my ear and pressed it to my forehead. I hadn’t meant to cause trouble for them. “What did they write?” I said back into the phone.
“That we should take a ship and move away. That we shouldn’t spread our germs in the city. Their tone of voice sounded as if we were the scum of the earth.”
I felt sorry when I heard the sadness in her voice. “I will go to school tomorrow. I hope it will get better then.” I swallowed. I also hoped that I wouldn’t get lynched by the other kids. There was nobody who would have my back.
“Good. You can always stop by at our house as well,” she said.
“I did. I left some of Rey’s flyers.” I avoided making a promise I wouldn’t keep.
“Ah, those were from you?”
“Yes, he needs new buyers. I thought you could hang them up at the hospital.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thanks.” We were both quiet for a few seconds. “I have a question,” I said. “Are there other supernatural beings apart from us?”
I heard Melissa chuckle. “Yes, there is anything you can imagine. But each race keeps rather separate.”
“Why have you never told me?” I exclaimed. “Like what? Magicians, witches, daemons?”
“Yes, probably all of that. I can’t be sure myself either. Magical races don’t communicate with each other. It’s difficult enough for us to keep our existence a secret. It would make it even more dangerous if a bigger amount of supernatural activity was located in one place.”
“So, despite belonging to a secret world, we aren’t even allowed to see everything?” I asked, slightly disappointed.
“Every three years there is the Dance of Scheherazade. All magical creatures are invited to that, but we all go in disguise. That’s the closest you can get to the other races.”
“That sounds amazing! When is the next dance and where is it?” Nothing in the world would stop me from going there if I knew where it was.
“The last one took place shortly before you were created in the jungle of Malaysia. They are always at other locations and we receive a puddle beforehand. In two years, you have the next chance.”
“This dance is authorized by the Orbiters?” I could hardly imagine that they’d send out invitations for it.
“Yes, it is,” she confirmed.
“And you never had contact with any other race?” This time I didn’t want to leave with only half the truth.
“No. I respect our keeping a distance from each other.”
“Hmm, well, wow,” I stammered. “I hope I will meet more magical beings anyway. I’m sure some of them are also curious.”
Good luck finding them with all the secrecy. Now it’s even more important that we are careful,” she said with her overprotective-mother-voice.
I sighed into the phone. “So, I’ll go to school tomorrow.” I became aware of the awkwardness of speaking to Melissa on the phone. I could have been at their house in ten minutes but if I thought about facing her directly, I felt hurt and anger rise in me again.
“Good,” she sighed. “Was nice talking to you.” She also realized that our talk had come to an end.
“Say hi to Luke,” I managed to say and hung up. A spasm went through my body. Oh boy, how exhausting it was to feel sorry for someone I wanted to hate. And now I had to go back to school and would basically be entering the lion’s den.