Meron drove up shortly after just in time to see Zin being loaded into the ambulance. On the rush to the hospital, Zin remembered her own name but not what she looked like. Her own face was a stranger as it stared back at her reflection in the machines. She looked like she'd run out of time. Her eyes were sunken and her limbs too exhausted to move much. She'd felt it in her body, psyche and spirit. Whatever used her for private transport wreaked havoc before it left her body. She was incomplete like a Sudoku puzzle.

Her bones were different, forever changed. The doctrine of wisdom they had written on them was partly erased. She looked at the monitor. Her blood pressure steadily dropped only going up one degree at one point as if teetering between life and death, taunting her with both simultaneously. She was still lucid and aware talking nonstop as if it were the last time, albeit her voice tired as her body weakened.

Meron called the only other person Zin would want to see. "It's urgent. Zin's in hospital. Where are you? I'll come and get you," he hung up his phone and went back into Zin's hospital room. He took her by the hand. "I'll come back straightaway."

"Please hurry back, Meron," Zin said weakly.

He drove like a mad hatter on fire despite where he had to go was only minutes away.

The noise machine Kevyn lent to her played, set on the timer to repeat consecutively without pause. Pricilla could put it at the top of her list of sounds other than music to calm her. It didn't put her to sleep but it stopped her mind from being so wired. This was the first time she left it on at daylight.

"Are you leaving?" Meron asked noticing her open duffel partially packed.

"No, I thought a hike through Death of Adonis-14 would do me good until you phoned me about Zin. I've lost interest now," Pricilla said mentioning Camp Hypnos's fourteen-thousand-foot mountain carved in the image of Adonis dying in the arms of Aphrodite with anemone flowers growing wild. She heard the shuffling of his clothing as he stepped forward. He wore a short- sleeved striped polo shirt, Bermuda shorts with boat shoes.

"You can't enter," Mikcari's voice broke the ambience of the sounds of the ocean and the whales.

"It's me, Mikcari. Lower your shield," Meron commanded.

"It's against Camp Hypnos's security rules and regulations."

"I know. I wrote them."

"I'm not programmed to violate them not even for you, my creator."

"Right," Meron murmured, clenching his teeth.

Pricilla folded her lips to muffle her snickering.

"I'm glad you find this so amusing."

"One of your own creations disobeying your orders by following your orders, it's a bit weird, hilarious and ironic at the same time," Pricilla said laughing out loud, holding her stomach from hearty laughter.

"Good to know I can still make you laugh," Meron said with his eyes gleaming.

Pricilla choked and swallowed her laughter curtly in mid-chuckle. She broke the silence with a sigh, turning off the noise machine.

"Would you like a candle? I've gotten quite good at making them in arts and crafts therapy. I made several with and without wicks."

"Why candles without wicks?" he asked raising a curious brow.

"To train myself not to set them aflame."

"And the ones with wicks?"

"In case I fail."

"A wee bit of reverse psychology."

"Something like that," she said turning sideways with a shrug of one shoulder. She turned towards him and moved forward. The shield disappeared. He moved out of the doorway and she stepped out of the room, closed the door and locked it behind her.

As they drove to the hospital, Meron filled her in on what happened to Zin and what she'd told him before he left her bedside.

"The three of us have known each other since we were little children. Your parents practically adopted Zin when her Mum and Dad went missing after their canoe was overtaken by strong winds."

"I remember how devastated she was when she got the news. She cried all night in my arms," Meron said pulling up in the hospital parking lot.

"She didn't want either of us to leave her side. It was so heartbreaking," Pricilla said glancing at Meron as he parked the car.

When they got to Zin's hospital room, Pricilla stopped behind Meron as he opened the door.

Zin's body lay so lifeless and still. Her eyes were closed. Her face wasn't relaxed but strained from restlessness. Her long hair was loose and matted. Pricilla swallowed hard. "I can't go in there," she whispered.

Meron looked over his shoulder at her and took her by the hand and led her in. "Don't be disheartened. Come on." He leaned forward towards Zin still holding onto Pricilla's hand. "Zin? It's Meron."

Zin slowly opened her eyes. "Look who's here?"

"Pricki?"

"Yes, it's me, Zin," Pricilla said letting go of Meron's hand. "You're the only other person besides my siblings I let call me that," she said putting her hand atop of Zin's. "Have you had any other visitors aside from Meron and me?"

"No. The pair of you are it."

"Where are the rest of the Marmalade-Giqware Mi'Puel?" Pricilla asked looking over her shoulder towards the door as if looking for a reunion to begin at that moment.

"They called a Decrease Sixty-Six shortly after you left the tribal sorority house."

"A Decrease Sixty-Six? We swore we'd never disband, never use that escape clause. We agreed on the graves of those that came before us it was a Coward's Plot and we'd never be foolish enough to surrender to such a thing."

"After a while, when you didn't come back, Pricki, the tribal sorority sisters lost faith in what we the Marmalade-Giqware Mi'Puel stand for."

"I wasn't leaving any of you."

"You moved out of the sorority house and into your own flat, Pricki. What did you expect us to think?"

"I didn't do that because I wanted to abandon the Marmalade-Giqware Mi'Puel. I wasn't well. I did that to protect all of you. I got caught in Gexel. I never thought it'd happen. It's rare, practically unheard of, said to be impossible in certain aspects, a myth. But it did."

"Gexel? Really? We would've stood behind you during your struggle with it," Pricilla said raising a furrowed brow.

"Gexel? What is it?" Meron interjected.

"Gexel is when a bone sage-mage reaches the midst of magical gexels, a diminutive word for galaxies. Magic has galaxies not levels. Since we're all human in the tribal sorority, we're not supposed to be able to experience them. No one can supernatural or otherwise," Pricilla informed him.

"But you have," Meron said looking intently at Pricilla."

"Yes, not without consequence. It can't be forced. It happened through writing the Bone Doctrine for which we in the sorority are compelled to write on the bones of every human child once they're born. To protect them from being used by supernatural beings or forces engaging in evil practices of bone magic."

"You should've confided in us your troubles, Pricki. We were your tribal sorority sisters. That sisterhood you should've trusted but you didn't."

"I did... but you don't understand why I stayed silent."

"I know you said to protect us. But we risk our lives all the time. It's our duty. You shut us out."

"I take the blame for our sisterhood being broken. But if I had stayed I could've put you all in great peril I was a danger to the lot of you."

"You know that saying 'Knowledge is power'? In my case it became literal. You have no idea."

"I love you, Pricki. You and I will always be sisters beyond time," Zin reached out her hand to her.

"I'm sorry, Zin for being away for so long. I missed you," she said hugging her instead of taking her hand.

"I missed you, too, my sister." Zin swallowed hard and her voice came out like a struggling whisper.  "I was drowned almost to death by sleep. Isn't that a bit weird? But it's true." Her mouth slacked open.  

Her head lay heavily on Pricilla's shoulder and her arms dropped to her sides. "Zin? Are you all right?" she said studying Zin's face, holding her still body in her arms. The machines beeped like crazy and the nurses and doctor flooded into the room. "Zin?" Pricilla called out again.

"What's happening to her?" Meron asked with widened eyes.

Tears streamed down, Pricilla's face. Zin's eyes were closed, her face relaxed as if at peace. "Open your eyes, please."

"Miss, you both have to leave," the doctor said putting his hand on her arm, glancing over his shoulder at Meron.

Pricilla looked with desperation and longing for Zin's eyes to open. Nothing. She pressed her cheek against Zin's. She cried harder as the inscriptions of her bones whispered to Pricilla. They were in broken English and flowed poorly even in tone, syntax, pace and philosophy. She knew right away they'd been tampered with. The doctor tugged harder on her arm. Meron called Pricilla's name in the background. Through skin-to-skin contact, in the form of a sun-kiss Pricilla transmitted the written words of knowledge on Zin's bones throughout her body. "I avenge your Bone Doctrine in the names of the Marmalade-Giqware Mi'Puel," she muttered to Zin as her body glowed subtly.

Pricilla and Meron left the room and stood in the corridor. Shortly after, the doctor and nurses filed out of her hospital room. "She's fallen into a coma," the doctor told them. Meron put his arm around Pricilla as she turned towards him and buried her head in his chest. "This isn't over," she said with a distant look in her eyes.