Bart entered the hospital which was filled with a thick smell of rot and death. There are several tables with makeshift wheels. Former white cloth hangs off the tables, now soaked in red. Shuffling of feet can be heard from every direction, muffled yells and sobbing, moaning and silent prayers too. In Bewit, although this was a hospital, due to the conditions this place was more like a secondary stop before a morgue.
He believed himself lucky that up until this point he had nearly always avoided a visit. He hated it, the place was a reminder that there was really no hope. Most, if not all would go through these halls and find themselves clinging on to the last vestige of life because of damage done to them by mercenaries, or disease uncurable by their own.
Bart thought of the fact there was no panic, and he surmised that if the Shade were to want to cause harm it would have. He felt sorry for doubting the thing, but it was quite an odd sight. There was no time to build companionship on their journey, and it never communicated with the group. Still, he would find him and accompany him regardless.
Bart found an attendant of the hospital, a smaller bat creature than him though quite nimble. He was quite surprised to learn that the Shade had acted quite respectfully, standing outside the opening until one of the attendants came to him and allowed him inside.
A further surprise was that the Shade had seemed to already know where it had wanted to head on its own. When inside it had gone off after giving a courteous bow to the attendant.
With his direction in mind, Bart went down the corridor the Shade had gone. Bart wondered what could have drawn the Shade in, and what he’d find.
He noticed to the left of the corridor another one of his kin sat, leaned against the wall and a head in hand. He thought again of the worst, but then he realized what area of the ward they were in. It was sickbay, and the bat in front of him had a slight volley of tears leaving his eyes.
“Doctor, what’s wrong?” Bart approached quickly, glancing to the door he sat beside.
The doctor shook in startle for a moment, before looking at Bart with a quite pronounced frown. “Oh, Bart, I heard you got kidnapped but you look fine. I was afraid when I heard the news, you’re one of the best of us young one. I never wish to lose anyone, but a loss like yours would be felt for the remainder of our clan’s existence”
The words were touching to Bart, but he felt an emptiness once he understood the meaning. The clan would end, that’s what the doctor believed in his heart.
Shaking his head, the doctor reorients himself. “As for your question… It’s Baat. The sickness that had gotten hold of him… It’ll take his life within the hour.”
Bart’s mouth hung open for a moment. Baat? It didn’t make any sense. “But, isn't he getting better? I thought you all agreed the sickness receded and he could make a recovery.”
The doctor slams his hand against the wall, a loud bang echoing out. “We did! But there’s never been anything like this before. Zero chance of contagion, but it has all the same symptoms as disease. It recedes, it ebs, but it stays in him. We’ve never seen anything like it. And when it comes back… it’s malicious. It’s like it’s attacking him specifically where he’s weakest, it targets the strain and breaks him down piece by piece.” The Doctor rambles quicker, the words weighing less and less on his chest as he gets them out. “Even the part of the wing we had to remove, once it was off on its own it still began to rot from the inside out. We couldn’t see anything wrong! Whatever it is, it is beyond our understanding. And even if we could understand it, the time has nearly passed. No doctor, nor scholar could identify and come up with a solution in the next hour.”
Bart looks down at the doctor, wanting to console him, to say it's not his fault, but he couldn’t. The pain the doctor felt was far too great and personal for him to have the audacity to share.
Although Baat and he were not close, he now felt the need to say his final goodbyes. “May I go in and say farewell, if there’s no risk for contagion?” Bart asked softly.
The doctor nodded, waving his hand and wiping away the tears on his eyes. “Of course. But, just don’t be afraid of the big guy when you get in there. I don’t know where he came from, but he was kind, and those eyes of his didn’t hide a single thought. He’s odd but-” Bart cut the man off as he pieced together what he meant. His hand pushed the door inwards, and the room revealed itself to him.
The room was simple, one bed, two night stands on each side, and a window that let in a generous amount of light. In the bed lay an emaciated Baat, breathing in and out with a heavy wheeze. The fur on his body is thin and patchy, and the black of his eyes are cloudy and unfocused.
To the left of the bed, the Shade stands looking down onto Baat. It stands tall over the bed and with its antlers it even came close to touching the ceiling of the place. The light of the window filtered in, capturing the Shade’s frame as it looked down at Baat. Its posture was unrefined, and Bart could have sworn the white eyes were much less bright than they were the day before.
Batt’s voice was sickly, but prideful. Although what ravaged his body surely did aim to destroy every part of him, he was durable and he resisted whatever plagued his body. “You’re such an odd thing.” His eyes focused on the Shade. “I can’t tell, if I’d ever heard such an odd sight.”
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“But thank you, you’re awfully kind, far I can tell.” Baat’s hand was being gripped, gently by the hand of the shade. “You looked so mad at first, and now it feels like there’s no fight in you at all. I don’t get it.” This was accompanied by a laugh from the very soul. “What’d you see, mister?”
The Shade could not say what he saw, and he could not convey what he saw. But it remembered every moment leading up to their encounter.
The Shade had come to the hospital because it had sensed something that set it amiss. It was malice of some kind, projecting itself out in a fragrant and mocking way. It had followed the trail, bound by its curiosity, but also a sense of duty. It believed that since neither Prose nor Epim noticed the potential threat, it naturally fell to the task.
After being let in by the attendant, the Shade followed the source to the room. When it entered, it noticed an aura of death, a black energy clinging to Baat, who was on the bed. The Shade was capable of understanding, it was a foreign agent, something that didn’t belong. It was sickening, how it clung and dug its essence in. It was revolting, the way it wrapped around him. It was awful, the way the Shade could do nothing about it.
Why wouldn’t it be awful? The Shade had understood from the moment it was saved, needless malice was unnecessary. And not one single entity in the town showed a sign of hostility, or rejection of it. Enmity with enmity, gratitude with gratitude. The Shade felt this in its soul, and before it, lied someone who even in their final moments radiated gratitude more than anything else, not hate.
Baat did not despise the sickness, though he did very much fear the result it would bring. It was a strike of misfortune. But it demonstrated to him the care of his companions. The beauty of the steps he had taken, the acceptance of the unknowns. And more so than ever before, he appreciated the movement around him, the continued momentum of life, even if it wasn’t his own. He only wished he would be able to repay all the care.
He feared quite a bit that in the last moments of his sickness, the opposite would occur. It was nothing he could tell the doctors, for they looked for observable phenomena, but the plague that struck him worked by no such consistency. That’s why he felt so comforted by the Shade’s hand, as it gripped his.
The Shade felt warmth, dignity, it felt the fleetingness of life, and the very act of rebellion from Baat’s flesh as it fought against the clinging rot. It felt the fragility of life, and it felt the trust of it.
Perhaps this feeble act of companionship was what gave Baat his own trust enough to ask the Shade the question it did, still unaware of Bart in the room. Perhaps not even mattering if he did take notice.
“Now I know you can’t speak, or tell me how you feel… but I’ve got a request, and I think you’ll say yes to it, because you’re very kind.” Baat looks into the Shade’s eyes, an intense apprehension filling his voice and covering his face.
“I’m afraid that something tragic will occur, if my heart stops because of my sickness. So, although we have just met, may I ask you an extremely awful favor?”
Bart could not stay silent at this, understanding immediately the intention of Baat’s words. “Baat! No! You can’t force that kind of thing on a stranger, one of us must,”
Baat turns, his mouth gaping open and his eyes trying to focus on Bart. The Shade of course had been aware of Bart in the room since he entered. “Bart, is that you? Oh!” Tears fall out of his eyes in joy. “I”d heard word of your fate but you’re ok! See, the world isn’t too cruel after all!” The joy in his words is apparent. But, shortly after speaking he takes in what Bart said, and grimaces.
“Oh Bart, it can’t be one of you can’t you see? If it was by your hand, I’m sure it’d just travel from me to you. It’s smart. It knows how to prolong its own life.” Baat looks at the Shade. “But not to him. His body is strong, his mind unshakeable. There is no flesh to rot on him, and unlike you or I I’m sure he sees perfectly what it is that pains me.”
“But Baat that’s-” Bart is interrupted, the Shade had kneeled to the ground, still holding Baat’s hand on its own. It brings its head forward, pressing the back of Baat’s hand into his head, just between the antlers. It holds the position for minutes, and although there is no dialogue to convey the purpose, the meaning is clear. The Shade is honoring Baat’s life.
Bart was captured by the sight, of the intimacy of it, of the simplicity of it. The Shade could not speak or convey a single thing, yet it still demonstrated clearly its respect and reverence for the man in front of it.
“I’m sorry, Bart. But… it must be this way, and I know how awful it is, to ask such a gentle thing of it. But please, leave us” Baat’s voice pleaded, he conveyed his meaning from the very soul.
Bart wanted to speak in rebuttal, believing that he should protect the Shade from such a thing, But his eyes and its had met, and although it was just a white glow, the empathy that arose from their mutual contact came across clearly.
“Very well. Baat, you will not be forgotten.” Bart could say no more, and he stepped and shut the door next to the room. The doctor was still leaning against the wall, and Bart joined him, the pain being palpable. His ears perked, waiting.
Baat had received a silent affirmation from the Shade, and could only respond with simple thanks. He’d never thought he’d have the chance, nor the courage to be willing to ask such a thing. But he did.
The Shade’s arm wrapped around his neck, gently caressing it though the grip was quite noticeable.
Baat thought of his life again, of his youth, of his age, of the future. He thought of all kinds of things. He thought that even were he to live for a thousand years more, he would never be able to see each dream of his accomplished.
The sickening sound of flesh tearing in an instant accompanied his final thoughts of tranquility. Blood dripped from the Shade’s fingers, and it looked down at the body. The black miasma that had clung to Baat’s body began to writhe and twist, and lunge out of his body in rapid strikes. But it got nowhere, it was unable to pierce or even connect itself to the Shade. It died out with no dignity, not even understanding the purpose of its own life.
Looking down at its bloodsoaked hands, the Shade remembers Baat, never one to forget.