Heading home, Rain had to wait for the ferry to arrive on its circuit. This was the best way of handling the ferry – always ended up being abandoned, with all the ferries bunching up together, so they just sailed around in big wide circles, stopping for a while if they caught up to each other. The system worked, but it was a little bothersome that there was no specific time. Hammer waited with her until his ferry, which went in the opposite direction arrived. By the time she reached home, Rain's headache was terrible again. An iridescent bubble was forming across her vision again, the pain increasing in concert with its size.
In her bedroom, she lay down and pulled the sheets up, watching the hallucination idly. She had been to see the doctor about her headaches, before, but they had never been able to do anything about them. She had found the only thing to do was relax and wait for it to pass. The pain had lost its edge, if not intensity, and she could think a little more. Her thoughts turned to that strange glowing bug that had bothered her when she awoke earlier. Where had it come from? The laboratory was sealed, and she didn't know of any glowing insects that lived in this area. They were usually confined to colder climates or underground in the rare caves on the larger islands. The fire in her head suddenly intensified, coursing through her entire body, the edges of that shaky ring glowing brighter and brighter. A small, white chitinous claw reached around the inside edge of that watery line, faint wisps of light rising from it. It was followed by the rest of a wingless thing, which fell down to the ground, righting itself with a soft scrabble of its four claws. It lacked a mouth, and had a single eye in the centre of its symmetrical top. Rain stepped back in revulsion, the shock of seeing the strange creature driving the thought of the headache from her mind. She felt light-headed, disconnected from reality. She just wanted the creature to go away. To her relief, it scuttled out of the room, compressing itself to fit beneath the door. She felt somewhat better, but the memory of the impossible albino thing tormented her. Should she call Hammer? No, what a ridiculous thought! She was probably just overtired. The headaches and general strangeness pointed to that. There was no way that monster could have been real. Rain resolved to see a doctor in the morning.
After sleeping the remaining few hours of the night, she got up at sunrise, unable to stay in bed any longer. She showered, the warm, salty water scouring her skin, tingling and leaving her as refreshed as could be, give the events of the evening. She splashed the expensive VolTan Fresh Water over herself to rinse the salt off, then dried off and dressed. Loose pants held up with a drawstring and a lightweight shirt designed to protect from the sun, but still allow the flow of air to keep cool. She would be not be going to the laboratory today. A few taps on her Notepad brought up the Snorkel Personnel application, which she tapped a few more times to mark the day as a sick day. Hammer and the others in the laboratory would be notified shortly. Their Notepads would probably each send a randomly selected canned response after some randomly chosen time so it looked like they actually cared. Everyone, Rain included, had their Notepads set up to recognise and ignore these canned responses, which defeated the point to her mind, but it was the way everyone did it and to forget to wish someone well when they were sick was bad luck.
She left her bedroom, and walked towards her kitchen to fetch some blue mangrove tea. The insect was there. She screamed, a short, high pitched yelp, but some sense told her it was not aggressive. It was not shining as strongly now, and she could see it more clearly now. The light had made it appear white, when in fact it was black and its carapace had a metallic lustre. Its toes clicked softly as it rushed to the kitchen, leaving small, short-lived pools of white light where it stepped. It slowed as it neared the tea jar, then abruptly dissolved, leaving a purplish-white blob of light behind, which dissipated over a few seconds.
Shrugging, still feeling surprisingly calm, she continued in to the kitchen and fixed her tea. She turned a knob to increase the temperature of the water, picked a small sack of dried tea flowers – blue mangrove, Hamilton brand – from the tea jar, placed it in a hardened wooden mug, and allowed it to steep. The red tannins of the flowers seeped out into the water; the trees were named after the blue tinge of their bark, which was highlighted in spring by the red blossoms. The flowers absorbed the salt from the water, providing a cheap desalination process, but leaching some mild toxins into the water. Small doses of these had long ago been shown not to decrease lifespan or quality of life and the recommended dose was no more than four cups a day. Rain usually only drank two to three, in the morning, at lunch at with dinner.
She contemplated her experiences with the strange creature. The bizarre method of its appearance had her stumped, though its reappearance in the morning suggested this was more than just a migraine. Confirmed in her mind, she set out to visit a doctor.
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