Andalon watched on in silence, slowly but steadily shaking her head from side to side, transfixed in horror. She staggered back and tripped, falling onto the floor. She reached toward the Plotskies with a trembling arm.

“They’re going to die, Mr. Genneth. The darkness is going to take them. It takes who they are!”

“Genneth!” Cassius said.

At the same time, another voice shouted from down the hall: “Out of the way!”

Mrs. Plotsky shrieked in terror—a horrid sound, like a dying animal. I flinched and stepped back, and then, from out of sight, a mass of black slime as large as my arm cut through the space between myself and Babra. It landed on the vinyl with a sickening splat, spraying gobs of green-dusted death further down the hall.

If I hadn’t stepped back, I would have been drenched.

I turned to see three strangers approaching from the other side of the hall. Two were NFP-20 patients, obviously Type One. The closer of the two was almost right on top of me. Her coughing fit pulled her back in agonizing recoil, otherwise she would have hunched forward and toppled right onto me. The third newcomer was a red-haired nurse. She stared out from her PPE visor with terror-whitened eyes. The nurse’s ID badge identified her as Isabel.

These two new patients—one male, one female—were the worst Type One cases I’d seen so far. Only Frank Isafobe’s corpse had looked worse. Dark fungal hyphae infiltrated their flesh, like a suit of cobwebs wrapped beneath their skin. In between the filaments, their skin was the color of wet concrete. Nearly everywhere else, it was almost translucent, showing blotches of darkness amassing beneath, except for slivers of deep, anoxic blue at their extremities where necrosis had yet to rasp away their flesh.

Their fungal auras were brilliant in my wyrmsight.

The two patients staggered forward. They leaned against the walls, desperately patting their arms and hands on the surface they almost certainly couldn’t see. Coughing fits struck them like lobbed stones. With every heave, they shuddered, spewing gobs of black and green on the walls and the floor.

All across their bodies, rot had clawed open fetid gullies. The wounds wept black ichor. Ulcers masticated at the edges, burrowing deep. Dark, mottled growths pried their way out from the wounds, their tips swelling into eolian forms. Dripping stains painted their robes. Fungal filaments had shot through the patients’ eyes and filled them with Night. The hyphae poked out through their eyeballs, wet and glistening.

The fungus really was turning people into demons. It was just like in scripture: Hell shaped your soul, carving off all the evil that tainted it, until only the tiny, incorruptible core of Light at its center remained. The rest—your sins—were shaped into the body of the demon you were to become, where the essence of your being would be trapped for all eternity.

Only here, it was contagious.

Andalon nodded.

The fungus was building an army of the infected!

But if the infected are the demons, why make demons out of the ghosts?

Nurse Isabel tackled the male patient, grabbing him by the legs. He crumpled beneath her slender weight. I heard bones break.

“Get the fuck back to your room!” Isabel yelled, “Sir.”

The female patient had escaped Isabel’s grasp by dashing ahead, and her body was paying the price for it. She threw up infected sputum in lurid, flintlock pistol fire. Green mist trailed from her orifices like smoke.

Isabel flipped the flailing figure onto his back. “Go back to—”

—She finally looked into his eyes.

Isabel scrambled back, her face blanching.

The female patient staggered sideways across the hall, drunk on death.

Recoiling, Mrs. Plotsky pressed up against the wall, cowering before the infected woman with the thick fungal filaments criss-crossing her eyes.

“Stay back!” I yelled, helplessly

From further along the wall, Mr. Plotsky had stopped and turned around, joining us in horror. Jed Plotsky raised his fingers to his face. The tears trickling down his cheeks were like wonders to his fingers—things not to be believed.

“Do the shimmery-wimmery, Mr. Genneth!” Andalon said.

But… they’ll see! They’ll know!

On the floor, the tackled man moaned, trembling as he looked this way and that. “I—I need to get out of here! My…” rising to his knees, he shuddered. “The woman, she—she told me about the boy.” He sobbed, his tears red, black, and green. He gurgled and gulped. “The boy… the boy… I—who are you… why… why am I—”

—He rasped and wretched, and toppled onto the floor.

Everyone screamed.

The dying man writhed. His body spurted thick, viscous fluid, as if his insides had melted. Ooze seeped from his wounds, slowing as it congealed, and as the man’s body gradually wound down.

Front and center, the blind woman convulsed, gasping for breath. And then she fell. She fell backward, hitting the vinyl floor with a crunch and a wet, muffled splurt of more greenish-black gunk. She did not move after that. She gave one last haggard breath, and then went silent. The man joined her a moment later, departing this life with a wordless, broken cry.

For a second, no one did anything. We were too stunned. Cassius broke the silence.

“She’s dead,” he said, flatly.

I couldn’t believe it either. Andalon stared in silence, numb and wide-eyed.

Babs was the next to break. She sobbed anew. Against the wall, she sank to her feet, curling into the fetal position, pressing her tear-soaked face into her arms and folded knees.

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Isabel rose to her feet, legs trembling. Her PPE was slicked in fresh colors. She ambled about in a daze, like a lost painter. In a second, she spotted a nearby console on the wall and walked over to it, putting in the order for a clean-up crew.

And then, from behind me, I heard the gentlest voice.

“Babra… why are you crying?”

I turned to see Mr. Plotsky staring at his wife for a split second before rushing to embrace his wife.

Babs wrapped her arms around Jed’s neck. She grasped the back of his hospital gown between her fingers and held on tight.

“I’ve already lost Ileene,” she said. “I couldn’t bear the thought of losing you.”

Slowly, I approached the devastated couple.

“Mr. and Mrs. Plotsky,” I said. My voice cracked.

The two of them turned their eyes to me.

“There’s something we need to tell you,” I said, “about Ileene.”

And what else could I do but weep?

— — —

Cassius and I escorted Jed and Babra Plotsky back to their shared room, which was more difficult than it would seem, at first, because Andalon was freaking out the entire time. The sight of the fungus-twisted bodies petrified her; it petrified me, too. Isabel went off to clean herself, and I hoped she’d be okay, but Andalon screamed at me that, no, she wasn’t going to be okay.

“Nothing’s gonna be okay!” she’d said, and she was absolutely right.

Of the two Plotskies, Jed was the most in need of help. More than once on the walk back, he stopped and stared at me or his surroundings, blinking in confusion. Fortunately, the Plotskies’ room wasn’t far. I helped Jed get back into his bed, while Cassius helped Babs into hers. Mrs. Plotsky coughed as she settled into her bed. The coughs jostled the string of tawdry lakelite trinkets that dangled around her neck.

Human ingenuity would never cease to amaze me. Lakelite was a brittle, synthetic plastic originally used in electronics, but then we collectively decided it would be put to better use as a fashionable decorative material.

If only my (former?) species’ cleverness was enough to get us through this mess.

“Cassius,” I said, turning to face him, “I’m… I’m gonna need to take a minute or two to just—if you don’t mind, I—”

“—Dr. Howle,” the surgeon said, “I’ll watch the patients. You go scream at the sky for a minute. If ever there was a place and time to lose your shit, now would be it.” He raised an eyebrow. “Just try to be quick about it, y’hear?” Lowering his head, he snorted, “‘cause I need to fucking scream my head off too, but somebody’s got to watch Mr. and Mrs. Plotsky while I do it.”

I nodded in thanks.

I first got myself a cup of water from the tap, and then stepped out into the hall to take off my visor and mask and drink from it. I put the PPE back on, went into the room, informed Dr. Arbond’s question I was just getting more water, got said water, went back out, took the PPE off, drank the new cup down in one big gulp, and then put the PPE back on all over again.

I was shell-shocked and numb.

I held my hands together and squeezed tightly, to the point that my arms trembled.

I flashed back to Jerrick, that poor man I’d tried to help before Jonan and I tried and failed to save Frank Isafobe’s life. Jerrick had been losing his memories, too. And now Jed, and one—and, in all likelihood, both of—the freshly dead patients we’d encountered in the hallway.

I’d have thought that a disease that erased a person’s memories would already be terrifying enough. But this?

This wasn’t just a disease. This was evil. This was…

Holy Angel… I…

A lump welled up in my throat. It felt like I was drowning.

I had to shove thoughts of the untold destruction wrought by hundreds or thousands of transformees because the broken ghosts within them had hijacked their powers. But that was just the tip of the iceberg. This fudging fungus was going to drag people to hell one victim at a time, just like with Frank, or those poor patients who’d died in the hallway.

Andalon phased through the hallway wall. She covered her mouth with her hand, as if to bottle up her sobs.

I was such a worry wart, so sad and pitiful that the sight of a little, blue-haired girl crying was enough to raise my sympathy to the point where I forgot about my existential terror and saw only the frightened child in front of me. I raised my hands in a consoling gesture.

It’s alright, Andalon; you’re safe here. The darkness isn’t here. You’re safe.

But I couldn’t help but feel like a big fat liar.

If only my woes were as simple as needing to surface and breathe. I would have gone outside the building to take a breather, but Night had fallen and, well… things were a mess.

Everything was falling apart.

The plague. The transformees. Magic powers. Stolen memories. Hallucinations. The vengeful dead.

And now, an army of darkness.

What the heck was I supposed to do about it?

“Andalon,” I whispered aloud, “you want me to help you save people, but… what can I honestly do? This…” I shook my head, “this isn’t a disease… it’s a curse. It’s something evil and unholy. I know I said I would listen, and I am—I really am—but… I don’t know what to do. I don’t even know what you want me to do, and I don’t think you do, either.”

Was reality itself having a mental breakdown? Or was it just me?

“Mr. Genneth, I…” She started crying all over again. “I…”

Angel… I hated watching her struggle like that. I didn’t want others to be in pain, least of children. But that’s exactly what she looked like: a child in pain.

“I don’t remember!” she said. She raked her fingers on her scalp. “I don’t.” It was like she was trying to tear the memories out into the open. “I’m… I—”

Her previous words flashed through my thoughts.

You need to eat. Eat lots of stuff. Lots and lots! Grow big and strong!

“—Andalon, every time you’ve remembered something, it…” I exhaled, “it happened after I eat.” I gulped. “I’ve seen it with my own eyes. I’ve seen it happen to me, and to other transformees. Our changes progress when we eat.” I looked her in the eyes. “So, if you’re remembering things because my changes have progressed, then, the more I eat, the more you’ll remember. That’s just basic logic.”

Three cheers for the transitive property.

I didn’t know why Andalon remembered things when my transformation progressed, but, given the circumstances, it kind of made sense.

I shook my head. “I can’t know for certain if I’m right, not without doing an experiment, but…” I looked her in the eyes, thinking of my son, of what I’d do for him.

Of what I’d do for any of my family. Of what I wished I could have done.

“I think it’s a risk I’m going to have to accept,” I said.

Andalon stammered. “W-What?”

I took a deep breath.

Angel, give me strength.

My lips trembled. “Andalon, I think I’m going to have to take one for the team.” I nodded shakily, trying not to cry. “I’ll… I’ll eat more, and then I’ll lose more of myself to this wyrm transformation, and then, maybe you’ll remember more. If this Genneth can’t help you, maybe Wyrm Genneth can. If you can remember what needs to be done, you can help me help you stop the fungus before it’s too late.” My voice broke. “Before there’s no one left to save.”

Pel. Jules. Rayph.

Andalon stepped back.

“But, Mr. Genneth, you said…”

I nodded. “I know what I said.”

“I’m not gonna lie, I don’t like this. I’m scared. I really, really don’t want to stop being me and start being a wyrm, but… I can’t stand being helpless like this. I can’t bear it.” I wept. “If this is the one thing I can do to make a difference… I think it’s only right that I do it. It’s my duty” I smiled, brokenhearted and terrified. “After all… I am a doctor.”

Fudge.

If this was supposed to be my big heroic moment, I wasn’t doing a very good job at it. I didn’t want to give up my humanity. I was terrified of it. I didn’t even know if I’d still be me when I came out on the other side. As far as I knew, willingly speeding my transformation along was tantamount to suicide.

But I had no other options.

“No, Mr. Genneth,” Andalon shook her head, “you can’t… don’t say that! Don’t leave me alone. Andalon does not want to be alone. Not again. Please. Please—”

I shook my head. “—P-Please, Andalon…” I cleared my throat, “I can’t talk about this any more. Not right now.” I breathed in deeply. “I need to do this, first,” I added, motioning to the door, “and then… then…” I turned away. “I don’t know,” I added, below my breath.

I shook my head again as I turned away and walked back into the room.

“You alright?” Cassius asked me.

Gritting my teeth, I blinked and shook my head.

“No,” I answered, bleakly.