The village was still. So still that it felt unnatural, as though the very air had given up. The plague—Malice Bloom—had come like a storm, tearing through everything in its path. Now, all that remained was a deathly silence, broken only by the occasional howl of the wind. It was cold —the kind that told everyone it was going to be one nasty winter to live out. The sun was setting and no one would have been surprised if the skies began raining ice on them.

Houses once full of life now stood desolate, empty shells. The windows were cracked or boarded up, and the streets were eerily quiet. No laughter, no footsteps, no calls to one another. Only the howling wind and the distant scurrying of rats. The plague had taken everything—the people, their hope, their souls. Inside the houses, it was even worse. The survivors—those who hadn’t succumbed to the sickness—lay in their homes, weak, barely alive. They huddled in corners, too scared to venture out, too sick to care.

Everything around them sounded like the wailing of ghosts. The children were silent and the adults___they sat or stood around staring at nothingness with hollow expressions on their faces. The women wept bitterly for their loved ones and men clutched their swords closer to them. Their eyes darted from side to side looking for movement in fear of what might be waiting. They couldn't hear anything anymore. But they knew something was coming. The villagers could smell it on the wind. A terrible stench that clung to them, a lingering smell. Something... something horrible. And this time, it wouldn't stop. It had already come this far. There was no escape.

They could hear every small sound: the creak of wood, the wind rattling the doors, the soft shuffle of movement from the next house. But no one spoke. No one made a sound. The silence pressed down on them, suffocating, unrelenting.

And yet, it wasn’t just the silence that made the village so unsettling. It was the bodies. The dead bodies. The plague had swept through so fast, so mercilessly, that the dead had been left where they fell. Their bodies lay everywhere, piled up in the streets, in the alleys, in front of houses, like discarded trash. Their faces were frozen in expressions of fear and pain, their bodies stiff and pale, slowly being consumed by the flies and street dogs. The blood that once flowed had dried on their faces and hands, turning a deep, dark red—proof that they’d been dead for days, maybe even longer.

Some were still twitching, trying in vain to move, as if still living but not moving for good. The few that didn’t appear dead simply laid there, their limbs splayed at impossible angles, limbs that had been ripped apart. Their mouths hung open slackly in disbelief, as if frozen mid scream. The only sound they made when they died were ragged gasps for air, each gasp accompanied by a spasm of the muscles in their chests, then a violent jerk of the arm. They’d tried to fight it, to get up, to run, but the disease had reached into them and devoured every last bit of strength.

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The villagers knew it was only a matter of time before they, too, would join the dead. The plague was relentless, and it had already claimed most of them. The survivors had nothing left. No strength. No hope. No future.

And yet, in this silence, something stirred.

A door creaked open.

At first, it was almost imperceptible—just a small, quiet noise that could easily be dismissed. But in a village as silent as this, with nothing but the wind and the whispers of the sick, that small sound was enough to make everyone stop. Everyone turned their heads, their tired, fearful eyes fixed on the source of the sound.

One more to go.

The thought passed through their minds as if it were spoken aloud, though no one dared to say it. Another one was about to fall. One more body to add to the pile. A body that didn’t fit into place here. An oddity. An anomaly. Someone they weren’t sure they wanted to lose. But someone they couldn’t let go.

The door opened wider, the sound of it louder now. A figure appeared in the doorway, silhouetted against the dim light from within. For a moment, everything froze. The wind stopped howling. The dogs stopped barking. The silence seemed to grow, thick and heavy.

The figure in the doorway didn’t move. They just stood there, staring out into the empty village. The others, from their hiding places behind walls and windows, watched in fearful anticipation. No one moved. No one breathed. The moment felt endless, a stillness that seemed to stretch beyond time.

The door creaked again, a slight gust of wind pushing it fully open. It was as if the house itself was inviting them to come out. But the figure didn’t move. The person who had just appeared moved with a limp, as if his body didn’t quite know how to obey his commands. He paused for a second, looking back at the door he’d just exited from. Then he walked towards it. His gait was slow and halting, as if he were injured and was walking on a crutch. He took two steps before leaning over and placing both hands on the wall, sliding down until his butt touched the ground. He looked exhausted—his face was pale and drawn and his hair messy, falling across his forehead. His clothes were filthy, torn and stained. It was hard to imagine him ever having any color to his skin. He sat there unmoving, his gaze fixed on nothing as he shivered. Even after a whole night outside, his clothes and skin smelled musty and slightly wet. But the smell didn’t bother him. In fact, he almost seemed content to sit there and shiver.

He stayed there, not moving. Until he finally spoke. “Where is it? Where is it I need it?”

No one answered. They simply stared back at him. No one stepped forward. No one said a word. The villagers were terrified. Was it a sign? Had someone survived? Or had another fallen to the plague?

Suddenly, a whisper broke the silence, soft but sharp, like the crack of a twig underfoot. "One more to go..."

It was as though the village itself had spoken.

The figure finally stood up and stepped forward, his face hidden in shadow. There was no sound, no movement beyond that. But the fear that gripped the survivors was palpable. They knew what this meant. Another soul lost. Another body to add to the ever-growing heap in the streets.

The last door had opened. One more to go.

And with that, the village fell silent once again.