Christie felt sick. She had been feeling sick for the whole day, and the physical education class at first hour certainly didn’t help, but then there was the Agatecraft class. Christina Valasela was an imaginative person, and the girl liked that it helped her immerse herself far deeper in books. Yet, when her teacher talked about people split in half with those dead eyes of his that betrayed the fact that he had seen it happen personally, she hated that imagination of hers. At that moment, all of her backlogged knowledge of anatomy rushed to her head to concoct the most gruesome image imaginable.

  Viscera, blood, flesh, grey matter, bone marrow, stomach acid, all lay bare on the ground next to an unmoving carcass that used to be a person.

  She almost puked right then in class. And by the looks of it, she wasn’t the only one. The girls were either grossed out or as pale as she was, but the boys were almost enthusiastic about it. As if it were a joke to them. That made her even sicker. Her dearest father had advised her against the monsters that were boys, but only now she was seeing the tip of the great iceberg that was their degeneracy. How could someone be so nonchalant about such brutality, let alone a whole group?

  Christie was thankful that it was the first day of the week and they only had two classes with Agatecraft being the last one, because she doubted that she could have handled another class for the rest of the day, and even then, the rest of the Agatecraft class became eternal for her.

  She spent the rest of the day mopping around. Not only because of that gruesome imagery, but also due to the early sickness that she had. One that just kept getting worse and worse. At one point, she thought of going to the infirmary, but she told herself that it was her jitters and nervousness, that the afflictions were in her head.

  When she woke up the next morning, she knew that wasn’t the case.

  Her stomach and crotch had been burning, so when she removed the blankets to check what was going on, she saw a red splotch underneath her nightgown. She moved the fabric away to check what was going on, but she soon regretted her decision.

  A mighty cry left her lips as she saw the blood.

  Many things went across her head in those minute instants, but beyond all else, it was a potent nausea that assaulted her. That gory imagery from yesterday’s class flashed in Christie’s mind, and a tangible nightmare yoked her. Her body trembled as she thought that she had been bisected like those people René Dago had mentioned when he was talking about the Gate command.

  A powerful urge upward from her throat, and before she was aware of it, Christie was looking at the ground and pouring her insides out.

  “Christie!” The door to her room swung open. “I heard screams. Are you okay?” Her roommate asked with worry, but by then the redhead was clutching onto her mattress for dear life and letting out all the contents of her stomach on the ground in an ever-growing pool of vomit. “I think not…” Agatha added weakly. “Do you feel sick or something?”

  The blonde stepped closer to her whilst minding the puddle of vomit.

  “No…” Christie answered lethargically and pathetically. “I am not!” Tears formed in the corners of her eyes as she collapsed back in the bed as her strength failed her. “I am dying, Agata! Dying!”

  “Right…” The girl responded softly. “So it is a tummy ache or…?”

  “No!” The nouveau riche hit the mattress with a fist, mustering all the strength she had, as she proselytized her anger and pain. “I am dizzy! I am hurting! I am bleeding to death!”

  “Bleeding to death?” Agatha arched a brow. “One second, let me look…” Unapologetically, her roommate closed onto her prone body and lifted part of the skirt of Christie’s nightgown. “Oh, you were just bleeding. You scared me to death; you should have started from there.”

  “How can you be so calm?” Christie said between sobs as tears kept trailing down her cheeks. “I am dying here! I have been bisected!”

  “Bisected?” She squinted in confusion. “What in the depths are you talking about?”

  “The Gate command, Agatha!” The redhead responded in loud indignation as her roommate was incapable of comprehending her with that diminutive like her lone agate brain of hers. “Someone has bisected me!”

  “Right…” The blonde professed even more confusion. Then she stood up from the bed and walked away. “If you have stopped venting out, you should get dressed for class.”

  Before her roommate could get further away, Christie frantically stood her torso up and grabbed the villager girl by the nightgown to stop moving.

  “How can you be so cruel?” Christie said between tears. “I am dying, and you are just going to abandon me? I thought we were friends!”

  “I…” Agatha turned to face her but then softly slapped her face with her palm. “One quick question, this is the first time that this has ever happened to you?”

  “Of course!” The dying girl exclaimed in disbelief. “I do not have people killing me every day!”

  “Of fucking course,” she pinched the bridge of her nose deep in thought. “Just to confirm, this is the first time this has happened.”

  “Yes!”

  “Right…” The blonde sighed and sat down on the bed with her. “Okay, how do I explain this… Christie, you are not dying.”

  “Then how do you explain this?” She pointed at the bloodied section of her nightgown on the crotch area.

  “Maybe I have not made myself clear enough,” Agatha sighed and then forcefully grabbed her by the cheeks, pinching Christie’s face with her whole hand. “You are not dying, got it?”

  “Mmm!” The redhead mumbled affirmatively as the grasp hurt a lot. She took this respite to snort some mucus that was hanging from her nose.

  “Listen to me here, Christie,” her roommate looked her straight in her eyes with those sapphire ones of hers. “What you are experiencing here is something I have experienced too. That I keep experiencing.”

  “Ababababa,” Christie tried to speak, but only incohesive mumbles came out as Agatha’s palm was right in front of her mouth.

  “Sorry,” she said, removing her hand. “You were saying?”

  “What is this then?”

  “This is… Depths! Why am I explaining this to you? Should your mother have not explained it?”

  “She is dead,” the girl responded with monolithic emotions, her presence of mind drowned by the pain.

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  “Oh, sorry,” Agatha softly apologized. “Have you not anyone else to explain it then? Maybe a maid?”

  “I do not know what you are talking about, Agatha.”

  “Right, right. I should explain first,” the blonde exhaled in exhaustion. “What you are experiencing right now is called… menstruation, I think that is the formal word. This happens to women, on a... almost monthly basis. And well, when you menstruate, it bleeds. And it hurts.”

  “Can I stop it?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “When does it stop?”

  “Around a week or so?”

  “A week?” Christie exclaimed. “This for a whole week every month?”

  “Yup,” Agatha responded dryly.

  “I want to kill myself,” the redhead responded even more dryly.

  “Understandable response,” her roommate patted her on the back. “I get that innate wish to end one’s life, but unfortunately, this is how life works.”

  “I hate life.”

  “Yet again, understandable response,” the blonde sighed. “Truth be told, you should have bled for the first time a long time ago. You are the latest late bloomer I know of.”

  “You are saying this can happen earlier?” Christie exclaimed loudly.

  “Yeah,” Agatha shrugged. “I was myself an early bloomer, I bled before I even had my agate. That was a bad day, let me tell you. At least you are an adult now. Try telling this to an eight-year-old girl.”

  “And now will I have to bleed like this for the rest of my life?”

  “I mean, not all your life. At best, about three decades more.”

  “Three decades?” Christie exclaimed even more loudly. “Someone defenestrate me…” She collapsed on the bed as a mighty groan left her lips. “I cannot do this one day more. What do you mean by three decades more?” She whimpered.

  “At best.” Even though the redhead didn’t have any strength remaining in her body, she managed to raise her head and throw the nastiest of gazes at the blonde. “You still need to go to class.”

  “I cannot… I am in pain, Agatha.”

  “And what do you think I am in every month? What do all of our female classmates go through? In a matter of fact, I bet my agate that there is one currently in her cycle beyond you in our class.” Her roommate chuckled. “I had my period this month, the very first day of class. You know, that day that we had to do laps around the academy, and also that day where the day before was a monsoon and I was drenched, and you had me moving suitcases up and down.”

  “Sorry…” Christie’s apology was pathetic and she knew it, but she couldn’t bring herself to do a better job as her colics were killing her.

  “No problem there,” Agatha lazily pushed herself up from the bed. “But this is your first period, and you are already weak of body, so I guess the pain is way worse for you. I will tell Teacher Dago that you are sick today, but I have the feeling that he will not like it, even less if you skip more than one day.”

  “T-teacher Dago and I have a… cordial relationship, he will understand.”

  “I am not so sure about that. But however it might be, let us get you changed first. The blood is going to ruin the lovely silk of your nightgown, and we cannot have that. I will get some goodies to help you. Can you at least do that by yourself?”

  “I… I think I can.”

  “Good.”

  After her roommate left the room, Christie rose up from her bed with many difficulties. Fortunately, her nightgown could be removed by just dropping it, and whilst that would spread the blood, she didn’t have the presence of mind nor the strength to remove it in another way. The thing she struggled the most with was her panties. Oh, they were completely ruined, but thankfully, between them and the nightgown, the mattress was perfectly fine. The blanket had stained a bit with her movements, but nothing major.

  Then, she just stayed there, standing still. Christie didn’t have the strength to sit down again, and she felt like any wrong movement would make her tumble to the ground as her equilibrium was nonexistent.

  “Are you really going to let your cunny free?” The blonde muttered the moment she came back.

  “Agatha!” Christie protested at the crass choice of words.

  “What? I am not the one naked here,” she left a basin full of water on the bed.

  “Half-naked,” the redhead corrected between pouts. “I am still wearing my chemise.”

  “I do not know why you even wear that on top of your nightgown,” her roommate sighed. “Anyhow, I am going to clean you a bit with warm water.”

  “Warm?” She looked at the basin, which was full of cold water, as that was the only water the faucet on their toilette could produce.

  Unceremoniously, Agatha summoned her lone agate on her finger tips and dropped it in the basin. A moment later, the water started boiling.

  “I forgot you could do that with agates,” Christie muttered under her breath.

  “Yes, I guess when you have as many as you it is hard to casually heat up water. Now turn so I can wash you.”

  “I-I can do it myself!”

  “Can you?” Agatha looked at her with a tired gaze.

  “I… cannot…” The nouveau riche admitted defeatedly.

  The villager closed onto her, not before dipping a rag in the hot basin, and she started washing Christie’s body.

  “A-are you not embarrassed?” The redhead asked as she regained a bit of presence of mind and became aware of how outrageous the situation was.

  “This might be embarrassing, but this follows the same logic as taking care of a sick person,” the blonde explained softly without a shade of her characteristic visceral reaction against nakedness. “Sometimes you need to wash sick people, care for them and such, and there is no saving it. You just got to do it. Getting embarrassed in such situations is not any better than taking advantage of said sick people.”

  “I see…” Now I cannot help but feel like a fool. Christie supported her arms against the narrow walls of her bedroom because she felt she was about to collapse at any moment. And Agatha’s soft touches didn’t help. Ouch! Not-so-soft touches. “Why are you using a rag?”

  “Because it is linen,” Agatha responded as a matter of fact. “I am not going to use the good towels – the white ones made out of cotton – when I am washing blood away. Think about the washerwomen who will need to remove those stains later. If they can even get them off.”

  “My crotch is suffering because of it.”

  “Your crotch will continue to suffer regardless, so let us not make the washerwomen suffer too,” her roommate added grumpily.

  “Sorry…”

  “Yeah, you better be,” she took the rug away and dipped it back into the basin. “The problem now is that we do not know the length of your menstruation.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You will bleed between two to seven days. Shorter or longer is really uncommon,” Agatha informed her. “To avoid more of these situations, you will need to use the pads.”

  “Pads?”

  “The wool pads in the bathroom?”

  “Oh, they were for this?” Christie exclaimed.

  “What do you think they were for?”

  “Uhm… facecare?” Then she blushed.

  “You were lucky that the ones here are well-washed; otherwise, you might have been washing yourself with someone’s vagina towel.”

  Christie gagged. “Why did you have to put that image in my head? No. Why did you even have to say it like that?”

  “Because I can,” Agatha shrugged. “So, that. Starting today, until you no longer get them bloodied, you will need to wear those pads inside your undergarments. Then, when you stop bleeding, you can rest for three weeks or so. Beyond that, you need to wear them again.”

  “Why?”

  “Because we do not know the length of your period. There is the length of the bleed, and then the length between bleeds. It can also come sooner or later than predicted, so you also have to account for that.”

  “I want to cry.”

  “Valid sentiment,” Agatha stashed away the rug and pulled out a soft towel to dry her. “I guess you have spare clothing, so I will take these ones away. I have also left you a handful of pads here, as we do not know yet if you are a heavier bleeder or not. As for the rest, you will need to handle it yourself, as I have already got to go. You can dress and find something to eat by yourself, right?”

  “I think I will just sleep for the rest of the day,” Christie collapsed on the bed, bottom first.

  “You do you,” her roommate sighed and picked up the basin full of dirty water.

  “Agatha, wait!” She snapped for her attention. “Thank you for your help, truly. I do not know what I would have done without you.”

  “Any other roommate would have done the same.”

  “I do not think so,” the redhead swayed her head. “I have spoken with you about my former roommate, Shayla, and whilst she was comfortable to be around, she was lukewarm at best. She was not frigid, but she would not have gone to the extent you have. And for that, I can only thank you. So, from the bottom of my heart and plenitude of my agates, thank you.”

  “You are welcome,” Agatha beamed her a smile that shone with the glint of gemstones.

  That gesture warmed Christie’s aching heart, or rather, her aching body. Yet it was only that instant, for the moment her roommate left, her pain intensified yet again.

  “Oooouuuuh…” She groaned with deathly might as she squirmed in her bed from the pain. “This. For a week. Every month. For three decades at least,” Christie muttered between sobs. “Miss Diorite could have warned me of this. Is it because she no longer has to go through this? She is certainly well past the age Agatha has said…” For no reason, the redhead found herself giggling as she clutched blankets to fight off the nausea. “What did she say? The innate wish to end one’s life? Oh, yes. I do feel it.”

  Fortunately, the girl fell asleep before her pain led her to make any wrong choices.

  hiircine!

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