“I feel like eru dung.” Her stomach ached from the retching, and her body was still sticky with sweat.
“Yes.” Anoor nodded. “It will continue for some time. Kwame says one joba seed can take up to a week to leave your system but depending on how much you took your body will try and right the balance of the drug’s absence for some time. It’s a dangerous drug, didn’t your parents teach you that?”
Sylah laughed, and it hurt her throat.
“No, I had no idea actually.”
Anoor missed the sarcasm in Sylah’s tone and continued with a quick lecture. “Joba seeds affect the receptors in your brain; once the body becomes used to the drug, it requires more and more to get a sufficient high. But the more you have, the more your body starts to expel the foreign drug through your system. Normally heart failure, but sometimes it’s the seizures that’ll do it. You know, swallowing your tongue.” Anoor grimaced.
“Lucky Ghostings,” Sylah interjected.
Anoor recoiled at the crude joke.
“It’s not funny. It’s a serious addiction, I did an essay on the effect joba seeds have on Dusters and Ghostings. The withdrawal is going to be hard to get through as your brain receptors take a while to recover. You’ve affected the nerve center, quite fundamentally. They’ve become reliant on a drug you’re no longer taking. So you may lose motor skills, suffer from seizures, feel nauseous. The list goes on.”
“Maiden’s tits, better get a joba seed in me quick then.” Sylah ran her hand through her hair. And stopped.
“Where the fuck has my hair gone?” The short stubble, so like her mother’s, spiked her with tiny daggers.
“Well, I suppose it’s fair to say, that it’s somewhere in the rubbish fill a few leagues outside of Nar-Ruta by now.” Anoor was busying herself with folding and refolding a pair of red pantaloons. Sylah turned her dark eyes to her.
“You cut off my hair?”
“Yes, well, you started tearing it out in your sleep, it was all matted with blood and gore. Oh, and the smell…it got me thinking, an Ember servant would be as good a disguise as any. And you’d need a shaven head for that…”
“You cut off my hair?”
“Are you listening?” The lump sighed, actually sighed. “I had to make you a good disguise in order to—”
“You cut off my hair?”
Irritation wrinkled between Anoor’s brows. The utter gall of it.
“Yes. I had to.” She was speaking slowly, drawing out the truth like a blood scour. “You can help me compete in the Aktibar, be my trainer. You can use your assassin skills to train me to fight…”
Sylah reached for her hair. She tried to pull on it, but there was nothing there. She pushed her scalp backward, drawing her eyes out, her forehead taut.
“You want me to teach you?” A whisper.
“I can give you things, anything. Money? Jewelry? Gemstones? Clothes?”
“Monkey’s balls, do you think I want any of this hideous shit? You took away everything from me. Everything I had.” Sylah tried to claw at Anoor’s face, but her hands had begun to quiver. She looked at them in horror as they eventually went slack.
“It’s the joba seeds. Your muscles won’t always obey you until your receptors heal.” Anoor was quiet.
“Aghh,” Sylah screamed. Fat tears fell down her face, pooling across her ears into the bare landscape of her memories.
“I’ll leave you.” Anoor scurried off.
Sylah cried for some time. The sobs were like waves of the Marion Sea crashing against rocks on the shore. Breaking her into rubble. Into sand. Into dust.