Well, Nurse Exeter had blown her brains out. From what I heard after arriving on the scene, I would have tried to find Dr. Derric to chastise him for having been so callously indifferent to human life, but no one who’d witnessed the suicide seemed to have any complaints about it.

Everyone was just worn down to the bone.

“Hell” didn’t even begin to describe it.

According to the College of Angelic Doctors, and the words of the Elder Voices, Hell was the dark underbelly of the world, equal parts physical and spiritual. It was as much a state of being as it was a place, a cesspit for the aftermath of the uncreated Chaos from which the world was wrought. Were it not for mankind’s hubris, the darkness would have stayed buried. But our disobedience planted a terrible seed down in that darkness, one which—as legends foretold—would flower, bringing about the Last Days.

In all creation, Hell and Hell alone was the sole place where the Godhead’s presence did not reach. For that alone, faithful Lassediles praised Hell as a miracle. The Angel so loved the world and its people that the Godhead chose to respect the will of those who did not want to exist in Paradise, in eternal communion with the divine. Though the Angel wept for every soul that failed to reach paradise, the Godhead would not violate our free will by forcing us to be where we did not wish to be.

The Lassedites taught that Hell existed for our sake. For all its pleasures, Paradises was said to be an unbearable torment for those unrepentant souls who had not bound themselves to the Light and accepted the Angel as their savior. The presence of pure goodness would burn them in unending agony. In this way, Hell was a kindness. Whether through depravity or temperament, even the most recalcitrant souls would be able to find refuge in Hell, in a place more suited to their inclinations. However, because God was goodness, where the Godhead’s presence did not touch, there could be no goodness, nor light, warmth, or love. Hell was bereft of these things, and it was proper that it be that way. The eternal suffering of the souls in Hell was God’s justice.

Or so I was told.

According to legend, every day, when the Sun sank below the horizon, the Hallowed Beast descended to Hell to prowl its frozen plains. This had to be done, because Hell could not exist without some aspect of divine presence, since nothing could exist apart from God. As the Old Believers taught, the dreams of pagan witches and foreign seers were the reverberations of the Beast’s daily journey, misinterpreted by the ancients as the words of their false gods. Racing through Hell, the holy light would stream off the Beast’s hide, boiling the souls of the damned as it crushed their corpses beneath its feet

But the Beast could stay in Hell in perpetuity, because that would harm the souls that resided there. When dawn came, the Beast would leave Hell’s depths, and go to sleep in sacred places across the world, basking in the Sun’s holy light. Meanwhile, the souls below would slowly reform in Hell’s frigid expanse, freezing again—recrystallizing—waiting to be broken on the Beast’s next return.

And so it would be, for all eternity.

Walking to Ward E, I wondered if Hell was even half as horrid as what I saw in WeElMed’s hallways.

Bodies littered the floor, scattered here and there in clumps, often leaning against a wall. There was no longer a boundary between life and death. Some of the bodies would surprise you by twitching like dying flies, letting you know that their suffering had not yet ended. Infectious black ooze curdled on lips still moist with lipstick. Fathers and husbands were preserved holding their loved ones in moldy embraces.

I wondered: how many of them had still remembered one another as they’d laid dying?

After seeing how Andalon reacted to all the bodies, I asked her to stay in the not-here-place.

I didn’t want to see her cry.

Soldiers had to pry bodies apart where the fungus had begun to grow out and fuse them.

I had to keep my wyrmsight thinned, otherwise I’d have gone blind. The halls were so thick with spirits, it almost looked like the hospital was being swallowed by fog. Voices whispered at the edges of my awareness as the constant stream of spirits uploaded into my mind.

I also kept my distance from the corpses, terrified I’d get peckish.

I spotted Ani and Jonan spending their spare moments helping with body disposal with as much respectful discretion as they could manage, just to give the patients on the floor and the crowded lobbies a chance to be more comfortable as they breathed their last.

Nearly everyone was coughing, even among the staff. It was constant.

We were dropping like flies.

I kept vacillating with my emotions. Should I try to be stoic, or would it be unbecoming of me to let myself become numb to it all?

I didn’t know.

The sad truth was that chaos almost inevitably led to calloused minds. It was hard to believe Lassedicy’s claims that human beings were hand-crafted by the divine—made in the image of the Angel, no less—given how many design flaws we had. Half the time, our minds’ efforts to help us only made things worse. Our brains shoved repeated traumas into the dark corners of our memories. Past a certain point, the mind stopped registering shock and horror. It blinded itself to them, more concerned with protecting our psyche than with giving us the capacity to make emotionally informed decisions in times of crisis. Victims of rape and other sexual abuses were often unable to fight back—unable to cry out, or scream, or run—because their nervous systems had triggered the age-old tonic immobility reflex, hoping that by letting muscle control go AWOL, a prospective predator would think we were dead and no longer worth the trouble.

Suddenly, a shout from Dr. Derric pulled me out of my daze.

“Doc!” He ran past the now-unstaffed reception desk. “Fuck!” he yelled. “Room 12, Nurse Kaylin—”

“—That’s mine!” someone said. “My patient is—”

—Someone screamed.

Jonan and I rushed toward the sound. Two nurses were in a tug of war over a bag of IV fluid. Dosed with the mycophage, no doubt, by the way the fluid shimmered in the light.

Fighting over a false cure. Had we really sunk so low?

“Wait!” I yelled, sticking out my hands. “Stop!”

But it was too late. The bag tore apart, splashing its contents all over the nurses’ gunk-stained scrubs and the patterned vinyl floor underfoot.

A familiar howl ripped through the hallway, ending in a cataclysmic wrenching sound: “GET THE DEFIBRILLATOR!”

It was Nurse Kaylin.

I’d barely turned around when Jonan shoved a ten-pound plastic briefcase into my arms. I had to slow my perception of time for a couple seconds, just to process what the thing was.

Defibrillator. He’d given me the defibrillator.

The thing was beige on top, gray on the bottom, and had the texture of something extruded from a first-generation 3D-printer—all pitted and pockmarked. Its electrodes were attached by way of two helical plastic cables.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

I let time resume its flow. “W-Wires?” I stammered. I swore. “Fudge, this thing is probably older than my mother-in-law.”

“The spores, the green stuff,” Jonan said, “it’s corroded a shit-ton of our equipment.”

“I’m well aware,” I said.

I was about to run off to help Nurse Kaylin when I realized something was missing. “Wait, where’s the conducting gel?”

“Gone,” Jonan said. “Same goes for our reserve stores of antibiotics and antimycotics.”

“HE’S FUCKING CODING!!” Kaylin swore, out of sight, gasping for breath.

“Go!” Jonan urged, pushing me forward. “Go!”

I had to summon a plexal chestpiece to keep me from falling onto my belly.

I lumbered over to the disaster zone as quickly as I could.

“Angel’s breath,” I hissed.

Dr. Mistelann Skorbinkna lay on the bed. He was shirtless, though the lower half of his body was still covered in his work clothes. His skin was an almost greenish gray. Ulcerous crevasses dug into his body. Fungal filaments gathered beneath his skin like hair in a drain trap. The sweat was so thickly slicked on his skin, he seemed to glow beneath the fluorescent lights. The ECG screamed and warbled, flopping irregularly. And his O2 perfusion was…

No, I thought, shaking my head. I didn’t want to think about it.

The readouts on the machines by Mistelann’s bed indicated he was hypovolemic, septic, and Angel-knew what else.

Kaylin flailed as she tried to wrap some kind of blue rubber wet-suit around Mistelann’s body. She had to fling herself onto Dr. Skorbinka’s body to make up for her limited reach.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“Cardiac arrest!” Kaylin yelled, coughing like mad. I saw gobs of black ooze crusted on the inner surface of her translucent F-99 face mask. The thing was positively dripping.

“I—I can’t fucking put on the—then NASG and defibrillate!”

“What’s—”

“NASG! Non-pneumatic!” she gasped. “Anti-shock garment!” Her sentences came out in laconic spurts as she struggled to breathe. “The bear hug of life!”

“Jess, stop!” I yelled. “You’re going to kill yourself!” I turned my head toward the doorway and screamed: “Jonan!”

“Coming!” Jonan yelled.

He stormed in a moment later. His eyes bulged in his sockets as he coughed. “Holy shit!” he said, upon seeing Nurse Kaylin. “Get that woman off her feet now.”

Jess glared daggers at both of us. “Can’t stop. Won’t remember. Gotta keep going. Gotta keep going!”

“Jess!” Jonan and I yelled.

She toppled onto me. A wall of psychokinesis at my back kept me from tumbling with her.

I pushed her onto her feet.

She winced in pain as she coughed. “W-Where’s the fucking gel!?”

“We’re out!” Jonan said.

Nurse Kaylin batted me away with a swat of a hand, steadying herself by grabbing onto Mistelann’s bed. Her gloved fingers dug into the sheets and the mattress.

“Need gel substitute!” she panted. Even through her rebreather, her breaths were ragged and crinkly, like bubble wrap popping.

Gagging—eyes rolling—she ripped off her mask and spewed black ooze over the foot of Mistelann’s bed.

“Shit!” Jonan cursed.

“What can we use?” I asked.

Jess stammered. “I… I…” Her usual tack-like sharpness was nowhere to be seen. Her eyes sagged beneath her rebreather, shot through by fungal filaments.

Did she even have any blood vessels anymore?

Then, as if by magic, my marvelous memory pulled something useful out from the depths of my mind.

Chasing Zebras, one of the better hospital medical dramas filled on the premises. I flashed back to Episode 403, hyperphantasizing its cold open right in front of me, in the middle of a moment of slowed time.

It was an unseasonably hot autumn afternoon, and the brilliant, audaciously misanthropic Dr. Jerald Homestead stood in line at a local electronics store to pay money to the shopkeeper, Jack. Jack was Dr. Homestead’s personal psilocybin supplier, and Jerald was there under the pretense of purchasing a decorative LED bulb. Suddenly, the customer arguing with Jack in front of Dr. Homestead went into cardiac arrest. Homestead grabbed some capacitors off a shelf, ripped them from their biodegradable packaging, and used them as a makeshift defibrillator.

“You’re gonna defibrillate him?” Jack asked.

“No shit,” Homestead replied, lifting the capacitors up to his forehead and wiping them on his skin to pick up the sweat.

“What the hell are you doing?” Jack asked.

“Salt,” Homestead replied, “it conducts electricity!”

Sweat was salty, and Mistelann’s fever-burning body was soaking wet with it.

“We don’t need it!” I said. “Sweat conducts electricity, and he’s covered in it.”

“Fuck, that’s good,” Jonan said.

Jess bent over, groaning in agony. “Do the electrodes!” she yelled, in between coughs.

I set the defibrillator between Mistelann’s legs, above the ooze stain. Grabbing the electrodes by their handles, I smeared their surfaces over the mycologist’s drenched, hairy chest, lubricating them with his sweat.

Jonan ran up to the machine and pulled Jess out of the way.

“Lift them up!” he said. “I’m setting the voltage.”

I did.

“Clear—go!”

Jess fell to her knees. She kept reaching toward Mistelann.

I pressed the electrodes onto Dr. Skorbinkna’s chest. His body spasmed as electric charge coursed through him. His legs clonked against the defibrillator’s plastic, smearing Nurse Kaylin’s ooze

The ECG sputtered.

“Come on, Mistelann!” I begged.

“Again!” Kaylin yelled.

Jonan darted around me to the other side of the bed to secure the remaining velcro straps to bind the rubber NASG to Mistelann’s body.

I pressed the electrodes to Dr. Skorbinkna’s chest once again.

His heart leapt. The ECG showed a steady pulse:

55 bpm.

Weak, but better than nothing.

“We’ve got a pulse!” Jonan yelled.

“What’s the NASG for?” I asked Jess, though Jonan responded.

“Late stage cases bleed internally,” he said. “It’s like their bodies are being broken down from the inside out.”

“You think I don’t know that!?” I said.

“We’re out of wound resin and transfusion blood. The NASG is a stopgap measure. It squeezes you, pushing your blood to the heart, lungs, and brain where it’s most needed.”

Mistelann’s body sputtered. His eyes fluttered open.

“Where… where…” He spoke in a drawl, suggesting possible temporal lobe damage—though that was the least of his problems.

His head lolled on his sweat-matted pillow.

“Dr. Skorbinkna?” I asked.

He turned to me. “Brand?” Hope glistened in his eyes. Pus and black ooze clung to his sideburns.

“I’m Dr. Howle, Mistelann,” I said. “Genneth Howle.”

“Fr… Friend of Brand?” Mistelann’s jaw hung open. He tried to move, but his limbs wouldn’t obey him.

He didn’t remember me.

Flibbertigibbet…

Dr. Skorbinka grabbed my forearm. His grip was skeletal; a breeze could have knocked him away. His hands and fingers quivered, unable to stay still.

His nervous system was coming apart at the seams.

“Where is Brand? Where?” He squeezed my arm pitifully. “I… I…”

“He wants Dr. Nowston?” Jonan said.

I glanced at Dr. Derric, looking back over my shoulder. “Brand is… indisposed right now.”

“Brand!” Mistelann cried. “Brand! Brand!” He wept. Blood mixed with the tears.

“No, no. It’ll… It’ll be alright, Mistelann. We have the mycophage,” I said, desperate. “We—”

—Jess coughed. “Genneth, the myc—”

—Dr. Skobrikna curled his head and chest upward. “Myco…phage?”

Even as Dr. Skorbinka’s neck muscles spasmed and gave out on him, there was no mistaking the flash of recognition in his eyes. He started coughing after that, but it wasn’t like the other coughs. It took a second for me to match the exhausted grimace and the tears in his eyes with what I knew of his sardonic personality before I finally put two and two together.

He was laughing.

His grim mirth tore open the skin on his cheeks. The rips followed the paths of the dark filaments underneath.

“No hope. No chance. There was no chance.” He gurgled. “Doomed… from start.”

He wept. “Meaningless. All meaningless.”

Suddenly, a strange, almost cherubic light crept into his shining eyes. He lifted his gaze to me, his mouth sagging from its ragged tear.

“Friend of Brand,” he said. “Please. Give Brand my kisses. All my kisses.”

I nodded, my vision blurring with tears. “I will, Mistelann.” I gently squeezed his hand. “I promise I will.”

A wisp of a smile graced the dying man’s face. “Keep words bright and warm,” he whispered. But then his smile faded. “It is cold,” he said, drawing his arms around himself, shivering. “So cold.” His body shuddered. “Dark. Dark.” Mistelann’s limbs twitched, his toes curling. “Please, friend… tell him I… wanted, but… ”

Then the breath went out of his chest. Dr. Skorbinkna’s body gave one last, gentle rattle, and then, he fell still.

I shouted over the ECG’s pure tone. “Mistelann!”

I reached for the defibrillator’s paddles, but Jonan stilled my hands, grabbing me by the arm.

“He’s… he’s gone, Doc.” He looked me in the eyes.

A moment later, a quiet groan came from Nurse Kaylin, followed by a slap and a crack

Jonan and I looked down to see Jess on her belly, face down.

Jonan got to his knees and shook her. “Jess! Jess!”

Pushing, he rolled her onto her back.

I gasped. “No…”

Rolling Nurse Kaylin revealed a trail of black ooze on the ground, trickling out from a crack in her skull. Little bits of blood intermingled with the darkness.

Like I said: “Hell” didn’t even begin to describe it.