A Little Bruise,

the pain will be replaced with love soon

  Four years later,  Carmyne, Apollo and the kids now live in a beach house in Condor. They live a pretty normal life despite having two moms, but the kids feel that Carmyne is the father more than Apollo. Apollo and Carmyne tell them stories of their adventures, they visit Seymour at the cemetery in the city, go boating , Apollo teaches Zane how to play the drums and Kalani the piano, while Carmyne picks up the guitar. They keep in touch with Kenjin, Lorelei and Lamar but haven’t seen them in years. Lamar sends pictures of his daughter, Lorelei sends postcards from her temporary research lab in Gongora’s jungle, while Kenjin just sends letters.

  One day, Zane and Kalani are outside enjoying the weather, the sea and the sand. Carmyne is inside writing a letter she intends on sending to Kenjin, Lorelei and Lamar. Carmyne wants them all to be together one last time; she doesn't know how much time Apollo has left.

Apollo is resting but not asleep. Recently, he removed his breasts after he found out he had breast cancer and is recovering, but not so well. He gets sinus infections easily, coughs up blood frequently, urinates often, shakes uncontrollably at times and has little energy or appetite for food or sex. He tries to be strong for the kids though, smiling and hanging out with them when he can. Carmyne thinks the surgery gave him an infection and the side effects of crystal withdrawal are showing. Carmyne wonders why she is not experiencing any effects though, both had stopped injecting themselves with venom years ago. Apollo fears that Zane and Kalani will become orphans, but she knows that if anything happened to them, Lamar, Kenjin and Lorelei would take care of them.

  Lamar is the first one to arrive at her house with his wife and child. He tells her that he and his wife offer counseling services to anyone in need of someone to talk to. They love the clients who are suffering from identify crisis or love and lost or a coping amputee or dealing with abuse because he has the stories of those passed to retell. None are good situations, but its nice not to feel alone in your experiences and that there are people who want to help them recover.

   Lorelei returns with a cure; an antibiotic of  green tea, antivenom, tea tree oil, cytokines and a specific neurotransmitter to regulate neural and hormonal functions while ridding the body of the venom, fungus and the parasite. She hasn’t tested it on true addicts and doesn’t know if it will cure those who have been using for a long time; it works best on newly infected ones. She also opened an orphanage and takes in street kids, labor kids, cult kids and all kids without parents and even those who need to escape the abuse from their parents.

  Kenjin is the last to arrive. He’s been busy cleaning up the streets of the city; trying to rebuild communities that the syndicates have ruined. He created programs to inspire the youth to make technological, artistic and scientific advances; the space exploration program has drawn a huge crowd as well as the science exploration program since many of the youth are fascinated with drug synthesis and diseases and the arts and music school. Keeps them in school and off the streets.

  Apollo is happy they are all together again and they take a picture to add to his wall of “Love”. Lorelei want to see if her cure is actually a cure and Apollo allows her to. Lorelei gives Apollo the antibiotic and they wait to see if he will recover.  He falls into a deep sleep and doesn’t wake up. Carmyne, Kenjin, Lorelei and Lamar bury him next to Seymour. Grieving, Carmyne injects herself with the antibiotic to prove to Lorelei that she found a cure. 

  They wait a couple months to see how she’s doing. After a screening, Lorelei was finally able to identify the parasite in the brain and removed it with a surgeon help. It’s a tiny organism  to responds to its host true emotions and rewires their brain to intensify it. It thrives off fungi allowing it to grow and gain more mobility and without it the parasite rewires the brain wrong and causes eventual death. Venom regulated its focus on specific glands and neural pathways. It was the green tea and tea tree oil that caused the parasite to be traced.

  Doing an autopsy on Apollo, she concludes that  Apollo ‘s action of removing his breasts went against the parasite’s programming and it went crazy and attacked his lungs and genitals. Doing an autopsy on Seymour, Lorelei learns that his parasite attacked his muscle tissue after he stopped injecting himself with venom and renounced his drive for power; power over the syndicate. Carmyne parasite didn’t go crazy because her desire is still there; her desire to please others as shown in her action of proving the antibiotic works, taking care of her children and Apollo. Carmyne suggests that they do something Seymour and Apollo would have loved to do.

Sequence: "A Little Bruise"- Akiko

  The eight of them go to the boardwalk festival that summer and enjoy the day. At night, Carmyne sits in the sand and in the wind she hears Apollo’s drums. In the stars she sees Seymour’s eyes. She walks to the water and sees Kenjin smiling at her. The children, Lamar, his wife and child and Lorelei join them and together they wait for the sun to rise. Being patient, they realize what they must do; their life missions become clearer and clearer every day.