Emi lingered near his side. "Where are you trying to go?" she inquired.
"To the toilet," he snapped.
He shuffled in the direction of the closet, which was on the opposite side of the bedroom as the bathroom. She set down the bowl and grasped his hand. "You're going the wrong way."
Her hand was warm and soft like a rose petal. The frustration, anger, and madness in him paused and he grasped it back. "What is this?"
"My hand," she answered, pulling him in the direction of the bathroom. After he used the toilet, and then she used it, she guided him back to the bed, where they sat side by side. Emi spooned the vegetables into her mouth, then brushed Iggy's arm. "Here." She slid the spoon into his hand.
He took a bite and slowly crushed the half boiled potato with his flat teeth. She refilled the spoon and placed it in his hand again, but he gave it back. "My brothers can't cook." He turned his head toward her. "Where did you come from? Why are you here?"
She looked him straight in the center of his right pupil, however she stared right through him. "Soldiers came from outside of the wall…" she said, her eyes filled with big hot tears yet were still staring. "They were murderous. I could hear them from under the floorboards, shooting my family... one by one, until they were all dead." The first tear rolled down her cheek. "My father and mother, and my sister, Sarah." She inhaled through her tight throat. "I was all alone when the grenades… happened. I hid in the hole and the house collapsed over me. When they left, I couldn't get out. So, I waited, but no one came." She dropped her chin and the tears rolled down her cheeks like boulders. "I was going to die." Suddenly, her eyes focused and the tears stopped refilling themselves. She continued with a full hopeful tone, "Baine saved me. Now, I am here." She took in a large inhale, then recomposed herself. "Now that you know, tell me what happened to you."
Iggy turned his chin away and shook his head. "No," he showed his teeth. "I don't trust you."
"But-"
Baine leant forward in his chair, awake, and planted his elbows on the tops of his thighs. He moved with a sleepy stiffness. "Today is going to be a big day," he announced in a groggy voice. "We're having a house meeting, and the two of you are coming, too."
Iggy jostled in his skin at the sound of his voice. "Us?" he pointed out.
"Don't make me repeat myself, kid." The door creaked open and Baine exclaimed from his chair, "finally!" He threw his hands up. "What took you so long?!"
Nansen stood at the door, bathed and dressed in a black suit with his hair tightly combed back behind his ears. One hundred percent stable, he smirked with cockiness. "I needed a break. I told you that."
Baine took one look at Nansen's smug smile and cringed with disgust. "You asshole. You probably even took a nap while I was here waiting for you." Baine, irritatedly hungry, held his upper stomach with a balled fist and trotted across the room to the door, hunching forward as if he were an old man. "I'm starving!" he grumbled. "You should have come earlier!"
Nansen chuckled, and patted the back of his shoulder to anger him even more. Having had enough, Baine stormed right past him into the hallway and proceeded down to the feeding rooms. Nansen smiled wide in greeting to Emi and Iggy, and shut the door behind himself. He leant against it with his back and his fingers wound together behind his sacrum.
"Nansen?" Iggy implored. "Why are we going to the meeting, too?"
Nansen nodded his head to the side. "We're going to talk about a lot of topics, and neither Baine nor I can miss any of it while babysitting you. So, you're coming along." He threw his hand into a loose point. "Go into your closet and change your clothes into something more presentable. You look like a train wreck."
Iggy's eyebrows drew together insulted, but he obeyed still. He fumbled through the room, identifying furniture by the feel of their edges and shapes, yet growing angrier with each new rearranged discovery. As he stood in the center of his closet with the lights on, he found himself still blinder than a ground mole. He couldn't see any of the patterns or the colors of his clothes, because by now, the rest of his vision was gone. The color from his cheeks washed away and he felt a sudden surge of nausea. He hung his head forward and his hair drew a dark veil over his face.
Just as he was about to give in and cry, Emi came into the closet with him. She smelt bad still. "Let me help," she insisted, pulling a jacket off of a hanger and holding it out to him. "This will go well with your pants."
He swung his arm through the air until his fingers found the jacket, then he snagged it right out of her hands, ungratefully. He switched shirts, and knelt onto the floor, pawing across the carpet to find his shoes. Able to handle that part all on his own, he finished dressing and walked out of the closet with his hands out in front.
Emi came out of the closet with her hair wrestled back behind her large ears and the ends of Iggy's borrowed pants dragging on the floor around her ankles. His shirt was even too large for her, which was surprising because he was such a small malnourished man. Even so, she was smaller.
Nansen smiled at the sight, and he laughed. "Nice pants."
Her cheeks saturated pink. "Well, Iggy is a bit taller than me."
Iggy turned his chin over his shoulder and found her outline. Practically aiming his voice anywhere close to her direction, he questioned in a harsh tone, "are you wearing my pants?"
She folded her hands over her ribs and pulled her frown to the side. "Yes… but you have so many pairs. You shouldn't mind…"
He shut his eyes and scrunched his nose to appear vicious. "Are there no boundaries to you?"
Her fists balled up. "What's the big deal? Are you upset about these ones specifically?"
He opened his eyes and winced. His chest felt hot with frustration and he gripped his own hand into a fist, too. "I don't know which ones you took, because I can't see anything!"
Her silhouette came closer, and he lifted his hands defensively, just in case. "Is it really that bad?" she asked.
He narrowed his eyes, fighting to see any detail. Even though she was much closer, he still couldn't see her face. "It's worse than you can imagine." His voice lifted into a scream. "And it's all your fault for sending that woman here! She chewed on my face! She caused this!"