It was late into the evening when William found himself walking into the Whiterose District of Berxley a few days after the Order of the First Dawn representatives had left Willowcreak. The streets had long since emptied as anyone with a respectable occupation had likely headed to bed for the night. He couldn’t help but feel worried for his friend as he thought back on the list of names that the cleric had shown him. Although he had stated otherwise, there was a name on the list that he recognized, an old friend he had not seen in approximately two years. Jamie and him had grown up together, played ball in the streets of Berxley and in general been a menace to their parents until they came of age and had to choose what they wanted to do with their lives.

Despite the two of them being vastly different people today Jamie had tried to keep in touch with him, something William had not had time for with his busy schedule. As children they were close enough to be considered brothers, yet as adults their friendship had dwindled somewhat thanks to changing interests and the long distance they had to travel to see each other. It also did not help how William’s wife despised Jamie for his reckless lifestyle, causing additional rifts in their friendship.

He knocked on the door to the Harwood residence and some time later a familiar woman opened the door. “William?” Beth asked in a confused tone before pulling him into a hug. “It’s been forever! What brings you to Berxley?”

“Is Jamie here? I have to speak with him.”

“You haven’t heard?”

“Haven’t heard what?”

“Come inside.” She moved to the side to let him into her and Jamie’s home, quickly closing the door behind her once William had entered. “I’ll make some tea, you take a seat in the living room and I’ll be right with you.”

Doing as he was told he passed through the hallway and into the large living room. In every direction he looked were strange vases and other fragments of the past which Jamie had participated in digging up over the last few years. It wasn’t likely that the explorer’s guild he had worked with would let him keep anything valuable, meaning most of the objects around him were likely replicas, though it didn’t make them any less impressive. The red carpet beneath his feet had strange, intricate patterns full of squares and triangles, as well as a strange text-like pattern which he couldn’t read. Though it all clashed strangely with the green hue of the walls around the room, almost making it seemed as if the room was decorated by a child or someone colourblind.

“Strange isn’t it?” Beth showed up behind him and motioned towards the carpet as she placed two hot cups down on the table in front of William. “Jamie has a tendency to bring home the strangest things.”

“He’s always been a strange man, even when we were kids.”

“I remember, at our wedding you joked that he never had all his horses in his stable and that hopefully I could reign them in.” She let out a light chuckle before releasing a deep sigh.

“Well, if anyone could do it, it would be you.”

“Apparently not, no matter what I tell him his reckless attitude always gets him into the strangest of troubles…”

“That is the way he’s always been, I can’t imagine him doing anything else really. Even if it would be for the best of everyone.”

“I guess so…”

“So what exactly is it that I haven’t heard?” William tried to push the conversation back on track.

“Ah, right… I figured him or the Institute would have reached out to you about this… I’m not supposed to talk about it but you were like a brother to Jaime so I am sure it is fine…” William felt his heart sink as mention of the institute immediately helped him connect the dots, yet he remained quiet and let Beth finish what he began. “As I am sure you know, eight or so years ago he was picked up by this large crew of archeologists. They did a lot of travelling and dug up all kinds of weird things, yet until six or so years ago nothing seemed out of the ordinary… He’d come home for a few days a month and clutter our home with all these strange replicas. Then one day when he came home he was beyond excited for their findings, he said what they found proved there was life on this world thousands of years before the beginning of recorded time. Apparently they had found traces of an ancient civilization on Eredus, and dug in various places to little success. That is until they stumbled upon some kind of mass grave, thousands of preserved skeletal remains buried in hole larger than any mass grave they had seen before. It was a wonder that they had been preserved and everyone had been so shocked over the discovery that they didn’t think much about how the skeletons and objects were even still there despite the amount of time which they soon learnt had evidently passed…”

“There were largely intact journals and other memorabilia containing some form of dead language, things that should have been taken by the earth countless years ago yet they were all still there. As they rummaged around they found traces of a strange back sludge in some of the objects and in most of the skeletons, not much but a smidgen of it, and they believed there to have been more of it which was absorbed by the soil. Either way, they came back from this trip thinking they’d be written about in history books, yet that doesn’t seem to have been the case. As they began trying to translate the texts left behind there was mention of a disease which killed everyone it touched… Jaime told me that some also called it a curse or ‘the wrath of the lady of gifts’, saying that they had angered the one true god. It described the pains they suffered through and how they died a slow and painful death. Parents forced to watch their children die before dying themselves… And during all of this a large portion of those involved in the project began getting sick…”

“Night Pox…” William loudly mumbled as he traced his thoughts.

“Exactly… The institute is trying to keep it under wraps and Jaime was taken by them for some kind of treatment. They came to pick him up three months ago and I haven’t seen or heard from him since.”

“I guess you got more of the story than we did. The reports we got mostly just told us of the symptoms and how there were no known treatments…”

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

“So you’re working with the institute to try and find a cure?” Beth curiously asked, a ray of hope seemingly appearing in her eyes.

“Not exactly… My coworkers and I were looking for a cure on our own as we had a case of Night Pox in… Willowcreak…” His speech slowed as he seemed to remember something. Slowly the colour drained from his face as everything made so much sense to him. Had he indirectly brought Night Pox to Willowcreak through Jamie? Was he indirectly the reason for Molly’s illness?

“Is everything okay? You look a little pale.” Beth asked as guilt began overwhelming him. He had done everything in his power to help Molly, but to know that he was likely part of the cause for her demise was gut wrenching and nauseating. Part of him wanted to vomit all over the strange carpet below him and he could feel his chest tighten as he remembered the pained expressions on not just Molly’s but also Erica’s face.

“I-I just… remembered something unpleasant…” He stammered as he stood up and tried to gather his thoughts.

“Do you think Jamie is going to be okay?”

“I don’t know…” William quickly said as a raging heat welled over him, drops of sweat forming on his forehead. Everything felt wrong as the hairs rose on his arms and for a moment he felt as though the very air around him was strangling him. He stumbled towards the hallway and ripped the door open standing by the open door while breathing heavily.

“Are you sure you are okay? You are free to rest here if you wish.” Beth appeared behind him and placed a consoling hand on his shoulder which only managed to startle him.

“I-I should go...”

“Are you sure?” She called out as William frantically stumbled out of the building, though he couldn’t hear her. Everywhere around him was nothing but a deafening silence which made his skin crawl as though he had ants underneath it. He couldn’t believe his own thoughts, yet it was the only conclusion he could reach. He stumbled forward out into the night with nothing but the weight of his own thoughts, worries and guilt running through his head, yet despite the fresh air around him the intense heat around him only seemed to grow hotter and hotter.

“Do you remember now, William?” A deep voice resonated through his mind. “Do you remember what you did?”

“What?” He tried to speak although he couldn’t hear his own words, as everything but its words was swallowed by the silence. He felt something tug on the sleeve of his robe and as he looked down what he saw filled him with terror. It was Molly, the child which he had unknowingly killed. She looked well, healthy even, with no signs of the blackened blisters on her skin and a bright smile on her face. Sandy blonde hair which flowed like the waves of an ocean and bright blue eyes reminiscent of a clear sky on a sunny day. Her lips moved slowly, though he could not hear what she said, yet she emphasised the movements of her mouth with each syllable she spoke so he could read her lips. “I-T H-U-R-T-S.” She said with the same cheerful smile plaguing her lips.

“Molly?” He asked nervously as the grip on his sleeve tightened.

“I’m scared.” Her voice then broke the silence around him as her eyes began losing their colour, quickly turning into a dull shade of grey. As he tried to back away from her and free himself from her grip her skin began rotting away. Holes formed in her cheek, forehead and neck, hollowing out her skull as maggots began crawling inside her head. “It hurts, make it stop.”

He screamed as he tried to push her away from him, yet her grip on his robe was stronger than anything he could have ever fathomed. “You killed her, William.” The voice then echoed around him. “And you sentenced her mother to death.”

He frantically tried to remove his robes, yet in the panicked state he was in something so simple felt almost impossible. The very clothes he wore wrapped around him as if they were trying to strangle him. He glanced at the girl beside him, who carried the most wicked smile as her eyes sunk into her head, devoured by the maggots which crawled inside her. Then, out of her empty eye sockets the black sludge seeped out. It ran down her cheeks like tar which had been tainted by the darkest of night skies.

He reached for the pocket inside his robes to find the small knife he always carried with him for protection and swiftly cut the sleeve off his robe to free himself from the girl. A loud thud echoed throughout the streets as he fell backwards onto the brick road below him. With renewed freedom of movement he gripped hold of the fabric around him and tore it off himself, leaving it on the ground as he stumbled to his feet.

His throat felt as if it was burning, and he could feel his heart beating in his throat as he ran down the dark streets of Berxley. Every step he took made his body feel heavier and heavier, as if something was draining the strength from his body. Briefly he looked behind and saw no sign of the maggot infested child, yet his moment of relief did not last as he faced forward and saw it. Molly’s decaying corpse stood before him in the middle of the road, the blackened sludge running down her cheeks as if they were tears.

“Was it fun?” She asked as she slowly walked towards him.

“What?”

“Did you enjoy stabbing me with all those needles?”

“No! I-” He stumbled backwards as she interrupted him.

“Did you enjoy taking all of mommy’s money while giving nothing in return?”

“Why would I-?”

“You smiled. Every Time you robbed her you smiled.” She said with a wicked grin as she got uncomfortably close.

“I haven’t robbed anyone!” William yelled as he tried to push her away from him, yet his hands passed straight through her as her entire body fizzled out into a cloud of black dust. His lungs burned as he let out a violent cough. “What do you want from me!?” He yelled into the night, yet no sound left his mouth as the silence engulfed him.

“It is time to face the consequences of your actions.” The deep voice echoed throughout his mind. All around him the ground changed, the brick road beneath his feet took on an ashen black hue before it began to crack, and an ominous light with an orange hue reminiscent of magma seeped through the cracks. While the silence blocked out the sound of wind and rustling leaves he could clearly hear the sound of the ground cracking, as if whatever spoke to him had full control over what he heard.

“I did… everything I could to save her…” He panted as the cough finally settled, the heat around him reaching painful temperatures.

“No, William. You killed her with your own two hands.”

“At that point she was practically already dead! She would have become a labrat for the institute, this way she got to die while she still had a soul!” He yelled into the silence in a frantic way to defend his actions, although part of him believed he had somehow doomed her to die long before that.

“How long are you going to wallow in your denial?” The voice growled at him as the ground beneath him shattered. He lost his footing and fell into the darkness below, though it did not take long before he hit the ground. The silence faded and he could hear his shoulder shatter as he landed, yet he couldn’t scream. Heat burnt his lungs to where he struggled to both breathe and think.

“Don’t worry, you won’t die here… You still have a role to play.” The voice ominously surrounded him before silence once again conquered him.