Scourge: Chapter 1

Her screams.  Those agonizing pleas for help that brought tears to my eyes as I watched her suffer were a sound that erased all else from my mind.  Memories, thoughts, wants and needs- vaporized as my lovely Caroline cried out- clawing her bone-exposed fingertips beside her, leaving streaks of calcium like sticks of chalk along the concrete floor.  Every breath of hers was spent on sobs, choked back and suffocated by the screams of agony that she could no longer control.  All I wanted to do was to tell her that it would all be okay.  That everything was going to be all right and that we would be able to move on from this moment and live our lives as we had before.  I couldn’t bring myself to lie to her, and thus I remained paralyzed & speechless.  The glisten of fear in my eyes showed the truth that I knew all too well, and she, too, understood the depths of death she was slipping in to.  From begging for help, to the relentless, high-pitched cries as pain tore through her body.  One minute she was sane, pleading for it all to stop, and the next, she was gone.  Given in to the inability to control herself any longer- mindlessly clawing, her arms reaching out, skeletal fingertips kneading at the air in every direction.  All I could do was watch as I held her, allow her to intermittently cling to my arm as her crackling screams rang clear in my ears.  Helpless, breathless and utterly unable to offer my aid as the disease took my wife and unborn child from me.  It wasn’t long from that point that her body had fallen limp in my arms all together, those piercing eyes staring up in to my own, still afraid.  Still so full of torment.  The woman who once gave me reason to continue, now left me alone and with no desire to live. 



And so.. I run.



The rain stings against my skin as I bolt out of the building and on to the street.  Inner turmoil over my inability to have done anything for Caroline eating at me, and driving me forth.  The torrential downpour muting the sounds of the night around me as it flooded the field of asphalt, feeding streams of inky black that crawl through the up-heaved, overturned remnants of the streets.  Without a rhythm to my stride,  I attempt to get as far from where I once called home.  As far from the screams that still echo silently in my mind. 



No longer did anything have any meaning to it- any worth.  My reflection giving chase to me from below upon the wavering surface of the damp concrete poisoning my mind.  Regretfully I chance a glance in to the oily surface of the rising waters as I pass by.  The physically deformed features staring back at me with a ghoulish glare shaking me of my concentration and with it my balance, but it was the viewing of my own appearance that I regret more than the loss of traction.  A solid collision with the ground- knees scraping along the grungy rubble of the blacktop before I come to rest beneath the skeletal branches of the overgrown vegetation that riddle the streets.  I never hesitated to recollect myself.  Immediately getting to my feet in a scramble, groaning as my spine audibly forces itself to straighten and then I leaped in to movement once again.  My feet skidding across the debris of the city floor while I attempt a split decision turn that takes me North between two high rise buildings.  Pain was a vague sense that I overlooked- it is only there to tell me that I am still alive. Flesh, bone- it is all the same against the garbage underfoot.  The nerve endings left exposed to the elements have been nearly numb for months now and no longer does the lack of tissue slow me down.  I cannot help but wonder.. how is it that my body can so readily accept such changes, and yet still I cannot get over my own appearance.  I can barely remember my own face- the face that people see when they encounter me now being that of the nearly Obscene.



I made up my mind in that moment that things would change.  I would change.  No matter how drastic the measures, I would not stay this way.  I wouldn't let myself rot away, give way to a life of the Obscene, unable to speak and only communicating through a means of body language.  There was a legend that this could all be reversed.  The very skin that I had shed thus far may or may not return to me, but it would cease its decay. I would cease to age.



My feet carried me to a pub, the door illuminated by the flickering sconces on either side of the entrance.  With a loud squeal from the hinges I entered with a stumble, out of breath and barely able to keep upright.  Raising one bloody hand, I pushed fingertips back through what hair remained on top of my head, smoothing it to rid of that disheveled look in attempt to not stand out in the crowd.  I swear I could feel every-ones eyes on me, but if so, then my own eyes must have lied to me, for not a single patron of that building looked up nor gave any acknowledgment to my presence whatsoever. 



The room was well lit, a few candles burning away on each table, surrounded by many faces that were more mangled than my own.  A long counter was nestled along the wall to my right, two men behind it tending the bar.  Considering the mess that was some of these peoples flesh, their clothing was rather tidy and well kept.  Besides the patrons themselves, nothing about this place was unkempt.  It was loud, booming with both voices and bursts of laughter but it was clean, and well taken care of.  For a room full of misshapen victims of this plague, the mood was rather uplifting and warm.  I felt out of place, but tried my best not to act it.



Ducking in to the shadows I maneuvered myself clumsily between the wall and the tables to make my way to the back of the building.  I had only ever been here once, and that was in desperate search for alcohol the first night Caroline had started bleeding.  We thought the baby was coming, and unprepared due to how early on it was in the pregnancy, I made a mad dash in to the nearest occupied building, ranting and raving like a lunatic, and begging for a single cup of their strongest in hopes to use it as a painkiller for my dear wife.  They offered me, at no charge, a partial mug of ale that had been left on someones table but it had been better than nothing so I did not complain.



Now I was alone in the back room, my hands braced on either side of one of the porcelain sinks, and I stared at myself in the cracked mirror.  Many of my reflections stared back at me, as unblinking, and serious as I was.  I didn't just stare at the reflective glass, I stared at myself.  I met my own eyes, ignoring the patchiness of my own face, the gnarled, uplifted curl of flesh on one side that was once my mouth.  I never so much as glanced at the elongated teeth or the pitted skin along my throat.  I simply met my own eyes, and as if in agreement with the stranger who stared back at me, gave one sharp, sudden nod. 



Bowing my head, I emitted a stuttered sigh and closed my eyes a moment.  Things needed to be done.  Things needed to change.  I wanted my life back, no matter the cost.  Heavy lids lifted, and I was looking down at the sink, my near skeletal fingers clutching at it as if it were my last hope.  What flesh remained looked webbed, and stretched tight over the bulge of my knuckles.  Waxy in appearance, I could see the deep red tissue that was once concealed now peeking out intermittently as if through a pattern of craters in my skin.



Raising one hand, I watched as I slowly made a fist, only to stretch my fingers out moments later, watching the glistening, moist muscle slide with ease under the remaining tissue.  How could she have loved me, when I looked like this?  How could people live on like this, and not seek a cure?  It was as if they never thought it possible.  As if they accepted fate and who they had become, or who they were from birth.  I just couldn't imagine ever being able to see past the physical deformities. Maybe that made me shallow and weak minded, or maybe it simply meant that I saw the disease for what it really was: a curse.



I do not recall when it was that I first realized I was infected.  I hope now, after cradling my beloved wife in my arms just moments ago, that I haven't been diseased for long.  I gave her my word. My promise.  That first night we spent together alone in one anothers embrace I told her that I was Pure.  We wanted a child, and knowing that neither of us were diseased helped to make the decision for us.  We would bring a Pure child in to a Pure family, just as both of us had been born and raised. 



I remember the perfection that was her body, and the strength that was my own.  We held one another, and gave ourselves to each other.  It was as if, as I now clutched that porcelain sink, I could feel the smoothness of her breast in my palm.  That soft curve of her hip along my own, and the brush of her lips against mine.  She managed to keep quiet through it all by taking a mound of my flesh over my shoulder in to her mouth and biting down.  Oh god I could almost feel it again now, and it made my back bow and a small sound escape my throat that for once in months was more pleasure than it was pain.



The swell of her stomach with the life we created overjoyed us on a daily basis.  Every rise of that great star over the inflamed horizon gave us hope, and renewed our sense of wonder.  Would we be holding a baby girl, or a baby boy in our arms by Fall?  We couldn't get over the joy it brought us, until just a few months ago when we were struck with a realization that something had gone horribly wrong.



At first we suspected the cramping she felt was natural.  Just the little babe growing, making room to stretch out and stay comfortable in the womb.  Perhaps it was the bleeding.. or the hair loss, but soon we came to know that we had been infected.  The both of us. 



The disease worked me over quickly.  My extremities were the first to shed skin, followed by my mouth and chest.  Oddly enough only one side of my face seemed to fray and peel.  Caroline on the other hand may have seemed lucky for very little looked physically wrong with her besides her hands, but internally she was damaged.  She bled so much that she could no longer walk, and it hurt too badly for her to consume any food or water that I brought to her.  She would have given anything for the baby to be safe, but we could only assume the worst.  It still grew, it still moved within her, stretching out a leg to press a tender little foot beside her navel.  Between bone rattling sobs, and acidic tears we would manage to smile and caress the smooth curve of her stomach lovingly as if long ago we hadn't given up hope.  As if we could still be a family.



Now, the mother of my unborn child having passed, I was too shaken to think to check for the babes survival.  I left quickly, swiftly and gave only one look back.  Bathed in the twinkling candle light, I saw no movement in the shadows that enveloped her corpse, and as I had ran, I couldn't talk myself in to stopping, let alone turning back.  Call me a coward, for surely I am nothing but, for when I managed to tear my gaze off of that doorway, I created a barrier in my mind.  I would never go back to that place.  I wouldn't.  I could never love another.  I couldn't.



Her screams likely drew the attention of many.  We may have all tried to be a friendly community, help one another out, smile at your neighbor in passing, and share supplies during hard times.  But those screams, those cries of agony and the sudden deafening silence were all too telling of someones fate.  Soon they would come.  In great numbers they would descend to strip my wife, and our house, of everything worth taking.  We were scavengers by nature, we could try to deny it but it was true.  When we saw an opportunity, we had to take it, and death was just another opening to gain ones wealth for yourself.  Clothing, pottery and remnants of food would all be gone by morning.  Oddly enough, there was an unspoken understanding to only take what you needed and what you could readily use.  You never took more than you could carry, always left things for others to look through.  If a shirt was too small, you left it.  If you found one morsel of food, you left the rest to be divided amongst the others who would come. 



We were not greedy, we couldn't afford to be.  If you were thought to be hoarding, or collecting more than you needed, you wouldn't survive long.  You may not die quickly, or even be dead by the time you were stripped of your belongings, but it would all be gone, and your death would be one to be celebrated, not mourned.  We never considered it murder, or even morally wrong, if we all agreed that it needed to be done for the better of our community.



My arms began to tremble, and so did the floorboards underfoot.  Releasing the porcelain, I straightened my stance and gave myself another hard look in the shuddering mirror.  A few pieces of it fell in to the sink as the quake shook the building and as my fist smashed in to what remained intact, the rest fell as well.  In a rain of glittering debris it burst outward, spilling over myself and the room, fragments skittering across the floor. My chest rose and fell, my breath ragged and quick.  I couldn't help but be outraged by my own appearance, and seeing myself this way was more painful than the shards of glass that were now embedded in the back of my hand.



Turning away from the empty frame that could no longer haunt me with an image of myself, I stalked through the small room, the ground no longer shaking around me.  It had been a small tremor, must not have hit that close to the city but that didn't mean that the next one wouldn't hit closer to home.  Glass crunching underfoot, I slammed my shoulder in to the door and it swung open to fill my ears with the noise of the room beyond.  It drowned out my thoughts, helped me to think past the glass that worried deeper in to my feet with every step I took.  You would think that seeing these people, as gnarled and gruesome as they were, would make me feel better about myself.  It didn't.  It only made me fear the reality of it all.  It would only get worse.  Unless I could stop it.