FOLLOWING TRIGGER WARNINGS:
Blood, Stabbing, Knives, Sickness, Murder
Continue reading at your own risk.
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☆☆☆
The snow blanketed the ground rapidly under the glare of the Moon. If anyone tried to wander the forest at night, it would become impossible. The cold pierced and attacked eyes, and made skin sting. No amount of clothing would make anyone feel warm and content. The wind made it impossible to see without a closed lantern light.
Short story, it was miserable. Many people who tried to get resources like food during this time never came back, they themselves became the food for wolves who scoffed at humans for their puny resistance to the cold. If there’s one thing people are good at, though, it’s being persistent.
The crunching and squishing of the snow floor, inches deep, emanate through the forest of birch trees, their white bark matching the snow around them. Their eyes closely followed the lone traveler as he walked through the endless labyrinth. He coughed. His raspy breath swiftly vanished in the wind. The man covered his reddening face with this hood more. He had left around early fall, thinking he would be back by the time the first snow fell. He had judged wrong, and now he had to pay the price. He took a step forward, out of the forest.
The various vials and glasses he had picked up from his journey clinked and clanked about in his leather backpack, weighing him down. In the glasses were various liquids he had brought from a shady doctor, or maybe a shaman from the city that he heard of from a messenger crow that happened to fly by one day. The world was struck by a plague. And the vials might be the cure. The man might be able to save somebody.
But only if he could save himself first.
“C-Cass…”
The man collapsed, meeting the ground on his knees, shivering.
“Wait… for me…”
His eyes began to close, but he forced them open. Straining, he arched his head to look out. His village, with faint lights in the snowy field, was barely visible.
“I’m… almost there.”
The man reached out, reaching out for anything to grab. The only thing his fingers met was a flimsy branch.
“A… almost… there.”
His ears, numb to the shivering cold, picked up the faint sounds of footsteps, approaching. Soon, he felt a slight warmth overcome him, and he felt himself being raised, hauled onto a stranger’s shoulder like a sack of potatoes. The stranger was saying something, but they fell on deaf, cold ears. They began to move.
…
The man’s heavy eyelids began to rise. They were no longer crusted with frozen tears and ice. He rose slowly, looking around.
He was still in the same clothes, even his coat. His boots were placed in a tidy little corner, where a little puddle of melted snow formed. He was on a bed of straw, covered in a heavy quilt blanket, with an old, wooden nightstand beside the bed, with his lantern, replenished and lit, on it. He put his palm to his face. He had lost consciousness after being lost in the cold for so long. Thankfully, he had gotten close enough to the town that somebody took notice of him.
The door on the opposite side of the room opened with a creaking sound that emanated through the wooden room. In walked a tall figure, larger than him, wearing a coat, carrying a sack of lumber in one hand, ax clutched in the other. “You’re awake, Shanti,” he said deeply, setting the sack of wood down on the floor, the individual pieces inside clanking.
Shanti rubbed his eyes and moved halfway to sit on the edge of the bed. “Kelos?” he asked, staring at him.
With a muscular arm, Kelos threw his ax to a tall log in a corner next to the brick fireplace, lodging itself in with a thwok. “We thought you would be here earlier. It’s the dead of winter; you said you would be back weeks ago.” Kelos remarked. Shanti stood, shaking. He headed towards the pair of chairs that faced the warmth blaze of the fireplace. As his hand touched the armrests, he jumped, remembering something, hitting him like a jolt of thunder.
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“Cass!” Shanti exclaimed, turning to Kelos, who was hanging his coat on the wall next to the bed. “Cassiopeia! How is she?”
Kelos looked at Shanti in surprise. “Cassiopeia is okay if that’s how you want to look at it. I’ll give her the vials for you. Sit and rest, brother.” Shanti ran up to Kelos and held his shirt in anger. “I will not rest until the second I know Cassiopeia will be alright! Where did you put the cure?” he exclaimed.
Kelos forced Shanti’s fists off his shirt and brushed the cloth on his chest. “Fine. I put them in the drawer in that nightstand,” he said. He then walked to the kitchen and opened the cupboards, getting ingredients out for what would be that night’s dinner. Shanti walked to the nightstand, pulling the drawer open. They were in there; three long, thin glass vials, half filled with lime hues of liquids, except for one, that was bright orange instead. Shanti’s face reflected off them as he stared for two seconds, then took them hastily. Inside of the nightstand, besides the pieces of random papers and collectibles of who knows what, was also a metal mask, with extruding filters over where the nose would go, and a strap to hold it in place over a face. Shanti wore it, took a deep breath, then walked and opened the door, marked with a cross using purple pigment of sorts, to a room nobody had gone in since he left.
...
It was dark. The air, itself was poisonous, made so every time Cassiopeia, who lay inside on a straw bed, coughed or sneezed. The only source of light was a window, where only three or four weak rays of moonlight peered in, as the window was logged with bricks and straw to prevent infection to anyone outside.
The room was also silent all of the time, except for the times Cassiopeia ate or suffered deeper in her illness.
“There’s no chance. Nobody’s found a cure; yet. Nor a way to slow it down or weaken it.” Shanti could recall the doctor saying. “She’ll be dead in a month.‘
It had, in fact, almost been a month since Shanti heard those words.
“No problem, I have a cure now. She’ll live.”
Cassiopeia turned in her bed and wheezed. Shanti walked up to her, making sure to not touch her rough, purple-ish skin, which was once smooth and silky.
“Cass… you’ll be alright.” Shanti coaxed, holding up the vials. “You have a cure. You’ll live.” Cassiopeia slowly forced her only working eye open and peered into Shanti’s eyes. “S-Shanti… you’re alive.” she slowly remarked. Shanti closed his eyes, allowing a small stream of tears to flow down his mask, dropping down on the stone brick floor. “Just drink this,” he said. “And you’ll be ok.”
Suddenly, commotion brewed outside the room. Shanti and Cassiopeia could only hear somebody knocking at the door, lightly. “Hold on a moment,” yelled Kelos, his footsteps heading towards the door. It clicked open.
“Where is Shanti?” said a low voice, calm, yet intimidating in tone. Shanti could hear Kelos take a step back.
Shanti set the vials on the ground and peered through a slight crack in the door. Kelos was talking to a man slightly taller than him, wearing a sort of mask with a black stripe and three dots, with slits for the eyes, nose, and mouth. It was an officer from the region. He wore a long coat, concealing anything he had underneath. Why he was looking for him was beyond Shanti.
Kelos opened his mouth. “I… don’t know officer. Anything else I could he-”
He fell silent, gagged, and fell to the ground. For a second, Shanti was confused, but he peered closer. The man had stabbed him, dagger in hand, dripping Kelos’ deep red blood.
Plip.
Shanti gasped and swiftly turned to Cassiopeia, who was trying to get out of her bed. He rushed to her, holding her with some gloves he found lying around. “Cass, don’t make any noise,” Shanti whispered into his ear. He sat still with her. They both heard the dripping of Kelos’ blood from the knife get closer and louder.
Plip. Plip.
Shanti scanned the dark room for anything he could use to attack the officer. The best he could use was a walking cane that was stuffed in a corner. He gripped it firmly, pointing it towards the door, shaking.
Plip. Plip. Plip.
The officer sheathed the knife, and gently touched the cross mark on the wooden door, making a slight scraping sound with the iron gloves he wore.
“Shanti. Surrender Cassiopeia and the vials you brought.” boomed the voice on the other side. Both Shanti and Cassiopeia twitched and inched further from the door.
The officer lightly sighed and scraped his hand off the door, unsheathing the knife again, pointing it to the cross mark. “You and your brother don’t have to end the same way, Shanti,” the man continued. “Just answer my question first, before we do anything else.”
The man paused, and without warning, kicked the door down. The light made Cassiopeia cower more behind Shanti, who raised the walking stick, with a determined, anger-filled face, scowling at the officer, who looked down at him with stone-cold eyes. The officer slowly walked to Shanti and stopped when he was within range of the walking stick.
“When will you become a better father?”