Chapter 6 - Plague

“I couldn’t save them.”

Mrs. Miller and her daughter are dead. Their bodies are pale, and the rot is already growing out of their skin in some places.

“We should cremate them before they come back to life,” Pastor Blackwood says, coughing.

We drag the corpses outside, and we have a funeral. The snow is mostly thawed, so it’s finally possible to collect dry firewood again. We make a big funeral pyre for them.

Everyone is coughing as they watch the flames. They all know it could be them next. If I can’t figure out how to cure them, then Mom will die, Pastor Blackwood will die, and I’ll be all alone.

Also, there are no more squirrels in the trees. We managed to preserve some meat and tubers before the rot invested everything, but we’ll run out soon.

Every day, I practice with my moonlight rune. I can draw it on things, and it makes them glow. The light makes people feel a little bit better, and it can cure infections and poison, but it doesn’t cure them of the rot sickness. I’m certain I’m doing something wrong. There must be a way to use the rune much more effectively, but I don’t know how. I tried just drawing parts of it, like the purification rune, but that just made it weaker. Some sections of my moonlight rune, like the parts that I think have to do with time and fate, don’t seem to do anything at all.

Pastor Blackwood isn’t very helpful. He doesn’t know how to use his rune beyond just drawing it on things either. Though he did mention that more skilled mages can use a single rune to evoke various different effects somehow.

Monsters are coming into the village more and more frequently. One time a spider managed to bite someone, and she almost died. I managed to cure the poison just in time with my magic, but it was close. I was so happy that I was able to save her, but then she died a few days later from the rot anyway.

All the kids younger than me die from the rot one by one. Their bodies are smaller and weaker, so the rot kills them quickly. As the last remaining boy in our village dies, his skin pale, stalks of black fungus growing from his eyes. I sob against his chest, drawing my rune over and over.

“You’ll save me, right Ayla?”

“Yes, I’ll save you.”

But I don’t. Yet another broken promise.

I couldn’t save him. I couldn’t save any of them. I’m useless.

There are only a handful of us left now. It’s just me, Mom, Pastor Blackwood, and three women named Caroline, Dalia, and Sarah. All of them had children who died because I wasn’t powerful enough to save them.

I think, deep down, they have all have accepted that they will die soon too.

There’s a strange detail. Pastor Blackwood is a frail old man, but he seems to be doing alright compared to the others. Mom is by far the least sick out of anyone, and I am still not sick at all.

“The people you spend the most time with are the least sick,” Sarah points out one day. “Maybe you are already doing something to cure it, and you just don’t realize it.”

My eyes go wide, and I see the missing piece. Why couldn’t I realize this sooner?!

I have felt it for a while now. Every time I draw the rune, the picture comes from somewhere deep inside of me. However, something else is also flowing out from that same place, into my body and through my arms and legs and fingers and claws.

The rune isn’t the source of my magic. It’s just a symbol, a representation of the true source.

Deep inside, I am connected to some higher force, and the rune is the gateway. Once the gate is open, I can draw upon that force directly. I have already been doing so, with every breath and every touch.

“I think I may have figured something out. Come here,” I say.

Sarah comes close to me. The rot is already growing out of her skin. She doesn’t have long.

Moonlight.

I draw the rune, not on her, but deep inside myself. The light fills me, and I let it flow down my arm and into Sarah’s body. She gasps, hope in her eyes.

It’s no different. The breakthrough wasn’t enough. The effect is the same as when I drew the rune on her directly. All I’ve achieved is to cut out the part where I wiggle my finger around.

It’s useless.

I break down sobbing.

“I’m sorry Sarah. I’m sorry. I couldn’t save your son, and I don’t think that I’ll be able to save you either. I’m so sorry.”

She hugs me. “It’s okay Ayla. You tried your best. You tried your best.”

“We’ve been through so much. I don’t want to watch you die.” I hug her tightly.

“Ayla.”

“I wish you could live. I wish I could have saved your son, I wish we could all eat bread together again.”

“Ayla look,” Sarah says.

The rot on her skin is gone, evaporated into silvery wisps.

“What?” I say, stunned by what I’m seeing. I thought it was impossible. She’s cured?

Light is coursing through her body, and it is purging every shred of rot within her.

Within the light, I see a pattern, a section of the moonlight rune whose meaning I could never figure out before this moment.

Love.

Now I understand why everyone died. It’s because I didn’t love them enough.

“Aaah! I’m so sorry,” I hug her.

“Why are you crying Ayla? You cured me. You cured me!”

“If only I had realized sooner. It’s all my fault! Everyone died because of me!”

“Sweetie.” It’s Mom. She’s placing her hand on my back. “It’s not your fault.”

“It is!”

“No. It’s not,” she says firmly. “You tried your best. There’s no point fretting over what-ifs. Focus on the future. Tell me, what can you do right now?”

I sniffle, wiping the tears off my face. “I can save everyone.”

“Show me,” Mom says.

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I place my hand on Mom’s chest, and let my love flow into her. A brilliant light fills her body. She’s cured immediately as every spore of rot is instantly vaporized by my magic.

One by one, I cure everyone. All I have to do is focus on my love for them, and the purest moonlight flows out from deep inside the gate, a light that can completely destroy the rot.

Once everyone is feeling better, I focus on the land. I can send my love for the village deep into the ground, and let it out into the air. It’s slow going, but the rot is gradually driven away. After a couple of weeks, the trees and bushes around the village are looking healthy again, and the air no longer smells as much like mold.

There are still no squirrels though, and now we’ve completely run out of food.

Every day, we forage through the rotten forest, looking for tubers that I can cure the rot from. When I think about how precious food is, and focus on my love for everyone it will feed, then I can purge the fungus from the roots.

I make sure to cure everyone regularly, because they get sick every time they leave the village.

The foraging is difficult. Even though it is spring, there are fewer tubers to find every week. There are no new plants growing in the rotting forest. I wish I could spread my love all the way across the whole world and completely get rid of the rot forever, but I’m not powerful enough.

Every time I practice letting moonlight out of the gate inside me, the light comes out a little bit stronger and smoother. Gradually, I am able to draw upon more and more power.

Whoever created the rot curse must be much more powerful than me. Even though I can kill the monsters that roam around our village, I know I am not strong enough.

Mom is still pregnant. Her belly is starting to get bigger.

“The baby didn’t die,” I say while cuddling her one night.

“She’s a tough one, that’s for sure,” Mom says.

“She?”

“I don’t know. Feels like a she.”

“Do you still want her to die?”

Mom hesitates. “No.”

“But you said—”

“It’s not the baby’s fault. She’s your sister, Ayla. Promise me you won’t hate her.”

I look at Mom’s belly. It’s so amazing that a whole person is growing inside it. It’s so impressive that she survived starvation and plague before even being born.

My sister.

“I never hated her, Mom. I’m so happy she’s alive.” I kiss Mom’s belly.

Mom runs her fingers through my hair, she gently scratches my ears. It feels good.

“Me too,” Mom says.

Over the next few weeks we build a farm, using last few remaining tubers that we manage to forage from the forest. I purify the root vegetables of the rot, we cut them into pieces, and then we plant them in a patch of soil were our houses used to be. It will take a couple months, but hopefully each piece will grow into a big tuber, giving us a sustainable source of food.

We just have to survive until the tubers grow.

After a couple weeks, we are all starting to starve again. I check on the tubers every few days, and they are growing slowly. We could take them out and eat them early, but then we won’t have food in the future. We all endure, and our bodies slowly become weaker.

I can’t get weaker. I still have to protect everyone from the monsters. There are more of them than ever in the surrounding forest, walking corpses from the south and spiders from the north.

One day, I kill a pack of three red-eyed ram-horned wolf monsters. It’s so much meat. How can I possibly let the rot eat this instead of my family?

I can’t resist. Just one bite. I bet I can purify the meat like I did the rot.

I cut off a piece of monster flesh with my sword, and let my love for food flow into it. I think of all the times I had a full belly. I think about how I could save everyone, and we could all have a delicious stew.

The piece of meat glows with moonlight, then the light fades. Something happened at least, I’m pretty sure.

I take a bite.

The raw flesh feels good between my teeth. It tastes good, if a bit bloody. I probably should have cooked it first.

Nothing bad seems to be happening to me. I finish the meat and wait a few minutes.

I do not transform into a monster.

It’s edible! This is such great news!

I bring the three wolf monster corpses back to the village. Everyone eyes them apprehensively.

“I think I can purify monster flesh! This way we don’t have to starve while the tubers grow.”

“I’m not sure about this Ayla,” Mom says.

“I already ate some. I’m fine,” I say.

“But maybe you’re different. You’ve already been transformed by magic.”

I frown. That’s a good point.

“I’ll try it,” Dalia says.

“Are you sure about this?” Mom asks.

“Better than nothing. At this point, I’m not sure we’ll survive until the tubers grow.”

I cut off a strip of monster meat, and purify it. Then we roast it over the fire, and I purify it a second time after its cooked, just for good measure.

“Gods, the smell,” Caroline says, eyeing the meat hungrily.

Dalia bites into the meat. She moans in bliss. She tears off chunk after chunk, ravenously devouring the stringy morsel.

She flops onto her back. “Even if this turns me into a monster, it was worth it,” she says.

We all watch her patiently.

“I feel fine, I think,” she says.

“One for me please,” Sarah says.

“Me too,” Mom says.

We have a feast that night. Everyone gets to eat delicious wolf meat, but Pastor Blackwood refuses to eat any. He’s still worried. I’m sure he’ll come around.

I’m so happy. There are plenty of monsters for me to catch. Now we’ll survive for sure!

Then, in the middle of the night, I wake up with a belly ache, but it’s not too bad. I let my moonlight flow throughout my body, thinking about how happy I am to be alive, and then the ache goes away.

All better. I go back to sleep.

Then Dalia screams.

I run to her. Her eyes are turning red. Fur is growing out of her face in patches. She is thrashing around wildly. I hold her down and push my love into her. She bites my arm, but I ignore it and keep trying to purify her. She calms down a little, and the transformation begins to revert a bit, but not completely.

Then Caroline starts screaming. I leave Dalia and go to her, but then Mom screams too.

I can’t heal all of them at once. I choose Mom. As I heal her, Caroline is spasming like crazy, coarse black fur growing out of her skin as her eyes turn red. Then Sarah screams and the same thing starts happening to her. Dalia is still moaning in pain still, squirming on the ground.

I focus on saving Mom. I push my love into her, but I’m not able to completely stop the transformation. Her eyes still turn red.

“I’m sorry Mom. I’m sorry. I should never have fed you a monster.”

She grabs onto my arm. “It’s not your fault.” She smiles. “I did the same to you.”

I sob and hug her, pushing as much love as I can into her. The transformation stops.

Then Caroline rips me off my mother and sinks her fangs into my shoulder. I act on instinct, slashing moonlight imbued claws across her belly to eviscerate her. I push her off me, and then I see Sarah foaming at the mouth as she charges towards Mom.

“No!”

I intercept her, biting down on the back of her neck to crunch through her spine. Her hairy body goes limp beneath me.

“Sarah,” I put my hand on her gnarled, twisted face.

In the end, I couldn’t save her either.

Dalia is screaming again. I go to her, and make her transformation stop again, but I can tell that it changed her insides too much. She’s half human, half monster, but unlike me, her human parts and monster parts don’t fit together.

She dies.

At least I managed to save Mom.

Mom has red eyes now, and a few small wiry patches of fur on her body, but she’s alive.

Pastor Blackwood is fine too of course. I’m so happy he didn’t eat the monster meat.

It’s just the three of us now. Us, and my little sister.

The next day, we cremate the remains of the other three women.

“I can eat the monster meat just fine, but you can’t Mom. I think we need to dig up the tubers in the farm early, otherwise you’re going to starve.”

“No,” Pastor Blackwood says.

“You have an idea?” Mom asks.

Pastor Blackwood stares at the burning bodies. He has that same blank look in his eyes.

“More of a confession,” he says. “Come with me.”

He leads us into the church, and down into the basement. He pushes an empty bookshelf out of the way, revealing a hidden door on the wall. He pulls a rusty iron key out of his pocket and unlocks the door with it. He opens the door, revealing a small alcove.

There are two sacks of wheat, and a box of pemmican.

“What? Did you just find this? Was this here the whole time?” I ask.

“No Ayla. I am just a selfish, sinful pastor.”

My mom punches him in the face. He crumples onto the floor.

“The whole time? You had food the whole time?!”

No, he wouldn’t. Pastor Blackwood would never do this. He would share it with everyone.

Mom straddles him and hits him in the face over and over. “You!” Crunch. “Fucking!” Crunch. “Bastard!” Crunch. “Made!” Crunch. “My children!” Crunch. “Starve!” Her eyes are glowing red.

“Stop hurting him! Mom! Stop hurting him!” I try to pull Mom off of him.

“He deserves to die! How many more people would be alive if he had shared the food?!”

My claws dig into her shoulders and it takes a lot of strength to pull her away.

“He’s all we have left. Even if he didn’t share, I don’t want him to die! Please, Mom.”

She takes deep breaths, staring at the ground, and the red glow in her eyes slowly fades.

“I’ll share it now,” he says.

“Now that it will last until our farm is ready for harvest,” Mom says.

I sit down and purify the pastor’s bloody lip, so it doesn’t get infected.

“At least we all get to eat porridge tonight,” I say.