Khalid was visibly upset when I joined him. As soon as he saw me, he relaxed, sighed and went to sleep. He was in a private room in a special wing that was a high security area for VIPs and high-risk patients that required one on one care. The doors were electronically coded for entry and only personnel programmed to enter could get past the Kevlar reinforced doors. The rest of the place resembled a five star hotel.
I held his hand and told him he should relax; that nothing would happen to him, I promised. He smiled in his sleep.
His mum and dad were with him and I looked inquiringly at them. Their faces made my heart sink. “What?” I nearly screamed.
“His intestines are dying. Infection, trauma, they’re shutting down section by section. The specialists want to go in and remove the dying parts. He’ll wind up with a colostomy bag if it gets bad enough,” his mum explained. In this culture that was nearly as unclean as cutting off your right hand.
“At least he’ll be alive,” I said harshly.
“He’s HIV positive, too.” That was no longer a death sentence I had learned. I looked at the doctor and made a crazy statement out of the blue, out of the cornucopia of experience my brain had lived through. “Give him some of my blood.”
“Why?” the doctor asked and the Queen hushed him, stared at my eyes and nodded.
“Khalil Omar called me the Angel of Life,” I said faintly. “I hope that’s true. It seems death follows in my footsteps.”
They did as I requested and we waited, me in a chair next to Khalid holding his hand. They had taken two pints and wouldn’t let me get up because I was feeling faint. Any more, I would be in danger myself.
He slept through the whole thing, didn’t wake up even when they pulled blood and did more tests.
My blood turned out to be an unremarkable A+ and to no one’s surprise, nothing unique in its quality under a microscope. They took a buccal swab and that made me nervous. No one had my fingerprints or DNA and I wanted to keep it that way.
Khalid woke me from a disturbed sleep. I groaned, as I was stiff from sleeping in the armchair. He looked different, healthier, his skin tanned and glowing with life. He leaned over the bed and poked me. “Hey, you were having a bad dream. Shouting.”
I rubbed my eyes and looked around the room. No one was with us, which puzzled me.
“They went for coffee. What were you dreaming?”
“I don’t know. I don’t remember.” The feeling of impending doom remained when the details faded.
“Someone’s going to die? Me?”
Horrified, I stared at him. He seemed calm, almost complacent. “No. Not you.” Of that, I was suddenly certain.
“Whom? Where?”
Frustrated, I snapped, “I don’t know!” Leaping out of the chair, I paced. “I don’t know. I never know in the beginning.”
“How many times has it happened?” he asked calmly and it settled me.
“Three.”
“You’ve seen three people die?”
“I’ve saved three from dying,” I returned grimly. “I’m the one that dies. In their place.” I told him the whole story even down to my home in Cornwall where my parents existed unaware I was still alive. He was curious why I hadn’t gone home and nodded when I told him how I’d tried.
“My mother said you gave me a transfusion.”
“An irrational idea but a powerful hunch. I always listen to my hunches. This one says I have to go back, Khalid. Somewhere, I’m supposed to be somewhere in England.” I was suddenly certain of that.
“I’ll tell my dad,” he said. I stared at him.
“You’ll be alright?”
He smiled a smile of great sweetness and I loved him for it. “You made sure of that, Aidan. Go home, that’s where I am. I know you’ll have one, too. That’s my certain conviction.”
He made my trip back happen.