Death Prologue

1300's England- Time of the Black Plague

I was starving. My blackened fingers gripped the barn door where I peaked at the men carrying bodies, but even the stench of burning flesh and sickness didn't register with me.
When I awakened from my fever-induced ravings, I knew that I was sick. Even if my failing limbs and pale pallor hadn't alerted me, the muscle cramps and seizures would have.
Unconsciously, I rubbed the large swelling growth on my neck as I watched more bodies being dumped into burn piles and unmarked graves. It ached, but the light massage did nothing to ease my growing sense of discomfort and pain.
A light breeze blew through the air, but instead of carrying away the now familiar smells of death it only caused them to become stronger.
I left the square of my home town. I had known everyone there, partly due to my profession and partly due to my mother, who forced me to make as many contacts as I could in the hopes that I could move up in the world. She hadn't understood that with the kind of work we did, there was no moving up for us.
I hated them all. The streets were nothing but dirt, the homes nothing but wood and twigs and mud holding everything together. We were poor, and after visiting the Kingdom when I was a small child I had wanted nothing to do with it. I learned later being poor was the least I needed to worry about.
Now, I didn't care about the bodies. I didn't care about the hundreds of people that lay dying in their homes, only to be added to the piles. I didn't care that my own parents and sister were gone, or that I was all alone. My only focus was myself, and I knew I needed food or I wouldn't last much longer, with or without The Black Death.
I'd been wandering for days now. Raiding homes that had been abandoned, or housed the dead. There was nothing left. No more people to farm the crops, to take care of the animals that provided our dairy and meat. Everything was dying along with the town.
I stumbled down a dirt road at the edge of town surrounded by fields and dilapidated buildings, not really sure where I was going. I gazed out at the rows of newly turned dirt amongst the tall grass, wooden crosses pushed haphazardly into the ground above the mass graves of those who had already fallen. This side of the town had already been purged.
I could feel the blood crusted on my face and arms, cracking and peeling, just like my fingers and toes. Fresh blood ran down my legs where I had fallen, and dizzily I thought to myself I was sure I had seen a man in the fields next to me, watching with bright blue eyes and a hint of a smile. He had been healthy. I took a second look, pausing in my clumsy stumbling, but either he was a figment of my fever, or he was gone.
I continued bumbling down the road, but sat promptly when I felt a piercing in one of my feet. I pulled my tattered and dirty skirts around my waist, resting my leg in an uncomfortable angle to better see it. My breathing came out in harsh little gasps, studying my pale and broken skin.
Discovering the cause of the problem, I realized one of my toes had fallen off. It lay next to me, black and bloody where some of the skin still barely living had ripped along with it. I had an out of body experience then, seeing my toe there on the ground, like I was trapped in some sort of nightmare I couldn't escape from. Tears streamed down my face, and I looked around with rheumy eyes for help that I knew wouldn't come.
My eyes landed on something small and red and round not a few feet from me, half hidden in the stalks of the field. My heart began to beat a little bit faster, and stupidly I began to hope.
I crawled, pulling myself by my black, crackling fingers until I was close enough to reach out and grab the object. An apple. A sweet, red and ripe apple.
My stomach gurgled and lurched, readying itself for the bite I would take. I closed my eyes, pressing my nose to its smooth and healthy surface, breathing in deeply and relishing in the scent and feel of it. This would likely be the last food I ever ate.
My teeth sank in to the juicy flesh, and I slurped the wetness from it before finally crushing it in my mouth. My eyelids fluttered closed, and my raw throat groaned appreciatively. When I opened my eyes again, icy blue ones stared back at me.
*****
"Run." My mother's voice cracked, hoarse and dying. Her fingers, dripping with blood, reached for me, and I wondered at the irony of it.
I took a step closer, and instead of taking my hand she looked at me through red, bleary eyes, waving her arm frantically.
"Alexandra, RUN."
My neck hurt. Not the normal ache from the growth, but the other side, where smooth, normal skin still resided.
Something was holding me down, and hot liquid ran down the back of my head. I heard a slurping sound, and felt the hot press of a tongue against my neck.
Forcing my eyes open, I looked around. I still lay in the dirt road where I had been. The sun still lit the sky. I looked to my right at the decaying buildings, and noticed my rotted toe still not far from me.
I couldn't seem to catch a breath, my heart was racing so fast. My lungs rattled as I took deep breaths. My lips were dry, and I tasted blood and flaking skin as I ran my tongue along them.
I knew there was something on top of me. A man, or an animal, stinking of rot and something sweet. It was eating me. He was eating me, starting with my neck and my blood. Tears ran down my face and wet my hair, flowing freely into my ears and dropping to the dusty ground beneath me. I was weak. My arms wouldn't move, no matter how much I urged them to. I thought I would die from the plague, but this seemed much worse.
My eyelids began to feel heavy, and for a long moment I let them rest. My arms and legs began spasming then, and I knew another seizure was about to take me. I didn't think I would make it through.
I forced my eyes open yet again, taking one last straining look at the world around me. Birds sang in the trees at the edge of the fields, and another light breeze drifted down the road, carrying dust and clean air with it. Somehow the peacefulness of the world around me felt at odds with what was happening to me. The sound of the bird's song mingling with the fluid-filled gasps that left specks of blood and spittle along my lips and chin. The emptiness that I felt all the way in my chest, the tingling of my fingertips.
Movement in the field to my left caught my attention, and I looked, hoping that it was someone, anyone, come to help me. I blinked, clearing the water from my eyes, straining to turn my head enough, but what I saw almost stopped my heart.
Standing in the field, a cloaked creature stood still. In one hand it held a scythe, glinting brightly in the sunlight. Instead of skin, it had only bones, rotting flesh falling off and dying in heaps. Its head, mostly covered by the pointed hood of its cloak, was only a skull, its mouth wide in a terrifying 'oh'.
My breathing became more ragged, and when it lifted one bony and rotting finger to point at me, as if it were saying 'You, I'm coming for you,' I was suddenly filled with the energy and strength I thought had fled my body days earlier.
Keeping my eyes on Death, I felt along the dirt for something, anything, that would aid me in my escape. Finally, my fingers closed around what felt to be a rock, and I swung with all my might, hitting my attacker in the back of his head in quick, multiple strikes, but his teeth did not unclench from my flesh. I ripped myself from him.
Everything in my sight wavered for a few, precious seconds. I could feel something hot running down my neck, and my body became chilled to the bone, the sun seeming much too bright. Finally, my world came back into focus.
I didn't think, I pushed myself up and I ran, just as my mother had warned me to do so years before. I ran until I was sure all of my toes would fall off, clutching at my skirts to keep from tripping. I ran until my breath went from ragged to barely existent. I ran until the day turned to dusk, and I was long gone from my town.
Finding a crop of trees, I limped into the sparse forest, collapsing against the base of a trunk. I couldn't breathe, and my limbs refused to move any longer, my previous burst of energy spent.
I let my eyes drift closed, blocking out the sight of my blood covered chest and rotting feet and hands, feeling a peaceful breeze caress my sweating face. I was cold, and I was alone, but that had been how I lived my entire life. For hours I lay there, until night turned into day, and day turned into night, and slowly but surely, my heart slowed to a complete stop.