HAMET'S LAST

“What the hell is going on?”

“Outbreak. Word is that a plague has befallen multiple towns at once. Descriptions are fuzzy. Different by the town. Might be different illnesses, unclear symptoms, or simply different presentations of the same infection.”

“They’re all different? Where are we heading now, anyway?”

“The town of Hamet’s Last. Small population, ‘round 95. Most serious infection we’ve heard thus far, hence the boss is coming with. Predominantly respiratory, with some hepatic symptoms. Progressive lung paralysis, vision damage, some degree of jaundice. No recovered cases, a few fatalities so far. Something like twenty people down.”

The neophyte across from you leans up from the wagon, to peer at Wren, perched upon the carriage at the head of the caravan, and your gaze follows. Her vision is fixed forward, slightly low, in dead silence despite the passenger beside her. She is wearing her mask, unlike everyone else.

“I don’t like this. Never seen her like that,” you say, voice low under the rumbling of the wagon.

The neophyte gives you a worried look, and a shrug.

—

Things have not gone… well.

Your team has set up a small camp a solid ten minute’s walk from the town. It’s a lovely place, really; set into the side of a mountain, just high enough that it sits comfortably above the pines, while low enough that it’s not a hassle to get to. Winding cobble paths attended by electric lamps, to your surprise, binding a loose collection of houses that were clearly all built by different architects at different times.

It’s the kind of place you’d expect to be abuzz with work by the light of the Architect, but it’s not. As the sun rises on another day, as the bell tolls to signal the morning, no one emerges from their homes. For all the warmth and color of the town, there is a hollow silence as your party starts wending through it again.

You see people staring at you from within their homes, expressions a terrible cocktail of hope and fear. There is nowhere for these people to go; this town is in the middle of nowhere, hundreds of miles from the nearest major town. She initially wanted to keep them in their homes and work as hard as she could to keep the town in-tact and get people cured, but… in spite of the hope on their faces, things have fallen by the wayside.

They weren’t terribly accepting of your presence in the first place, but since the first victim croaked his last just three days ago, things have gotten so much worse that they have had no choice but to accept you. All at once, overnight, 17 of the 32 sick individuals died on the second day you were here. No one dares leave their homes, now. They merely watch you, dreading you, hating you, hoping… for you. Hoping that you will not darken their door, but hoping that you will stay until things are dealt with.

Your people bring them food and water. Occasionally, you catch glimpses of her. She’s kind and compassionate with them in a way unique to her patients, although you understand why. They are vulnerable. Scared.

You do your best to be kind. You make small talk, but almost every family is weighed with grief. Some make jokes, try to return the favor, but you can tell there’s strain. No one’s without worry, most of them fear for their lives, and it’s hard to be vulnerable with their new, masked wardens. As you and your team makes the rounds, you tally out the infected, the living and the dead, and administer whatever medicines and healing you can.

As the night starts to wear on, you find Wren in a patient's home. She’s attending to him; a young man with a worker’s physique. He looks like he’s done backbreaking labor every day since it was deemed he was fit, and he can’t be older than his early twenties. Yet… his face is sullen, a disquieting mix of pale and yellowed, his eyes are cloudy and his breathing is a choked death-rattle. He seizes faintly in his bed, as she kneels over him.

“We are fighting for you; we ask that you fight with us.” She mutters quietly, as she holds his arm in place, gently fits a needle into a vein and administers a serum that she hopes will at least quell the tremors. He barely seems to register her voice, merely a shift of his jittering eyes to her, and a weak laugh.

“Ma’am?” you meekly ask. She stands up, wrapping the syringe in cloth and disposing of it.

“Report, Karim?” she curtly replies, gently but firmly leading you out of his bedroom and into the light of his living room. He lives alone, as far as you can tell. What a horrible thing to endure alone.

“I finished my rounds. Three dead since yesterday; two new infections. No recoveries.”

A brief moment passes, and she sucks in a deep, shaky breath through her nose, as if she’s… trying not to cry. You can’t see her eyes through the dark lenses of her mask, nor can she see yours, so it’s hard to tell but for the waver in her voice.

“Nine dead since yesterday. Fifteen new infections. Zero recoveries,” she recites. The collated numbers from each of the officers who made the rounds today. She approaches the window, looking out over the other houses, motionless as they are but for the occasional peeking eye.

“Fifteen new infections?” Incredulous, and horrified, you step up beside her. “But we locked everything down. How are people still getting infected?”

“I don’t know.”

“What are we going to do?”

“Every time they cough, it fills the air. It coats things. They can’t recover. Their lungs are dying. Their livers are dying. Their brains are boiling in their skulls.”

You hear… something, in her voice. You try to say something, but you feel the words catch in your throat in that moment you have. Silently, she exits his home.

—

It’s a wretched night. The worst night of your life.

You and the rest of your Flock trudge into town under the evening glow. It is the sixth day of your presence here.

Thirty two dead. Twenty one new infections. The infected have all been removed from their homes, confined to the town’s inn and the now-empty homes of those who passed who lived alone.

You knock on a woman’s door. She looks out the window at you first, as if deliberating on whether or not to let you in… but soon, the door cracks open, the woman peering outside as if she’s afraid of the mountain air itself.

“What can I do for you?” she asks, her voice low.

“Ma’am, may I come in? I need to speak with you.”

You join her in her home. The usual round of pleasantries passes, your mood leadened by the knowledge you intend to impart. After politely refusing tea and taking a seat at her dining table, she hesitantly sits across from you.

“So, miss Ruth, you know I have been working with your father this last week—”

“Yes, yes! How is he doing?” she asks. There’s a tinge of hope in her voice, but you can tell that hope has been chiseled away as the days passed.

“Not well, miss Ruth. I… wanted to inform you, that, as far as we can tell, there is no recovering from this disease. No one who has been infected has managed to recover, even when they received intense care from the very first sign.”

Her expression drops. She shakily takes a sip of her tea, and glances out the window to the setting sun. “So… he’s not going to recover?” she asks, merely.

“No, ma’am. The damage done in the process of the disease is irreversible, even by our mages. The damage done to the body is too complex to be rooted out by magical means, and the disease responds poorly to medicine and alchemical routes of treatment. We fear that in treating him, we have only… prolonged his suffering.” Those last few words are hard to get out. You have never in your career had to suggest this to a patient’s family. You’re just… not used to being a hospice worker.

“What… what are you suggesting? You want to euthanize him or something?” She starts to stand up, her eyes wide and her jaw clenched. “No, no way. If there’s still a chance that he can recover…”

“I’m sorry, ma’am. We have no choice. The pathogen is airborne, and spreads easily… we can’t keep risking treatment when there is no path to recovery.”

“Get out! Get out of my house! If you kill my father, so help me the Lantern will burn you all! You were supposed to help us! GET OUT!” She starts shouting, and although you try to protest, she just… keeps screaming, until you’re clear of the doorway.

Things aren’t going terribly much better for the others. Your colleagues, wearied or harried as they are by their experiences in delivering the same talk, all start to filter into the streets as you wait for her next order.

—

You stand at the bedside of a man, in his early fifties. He is as close to death’s door as you’ve ever seen. His breaths are little more than gurgles. He does not recognize you as you enter the room, his eyes practically white and his body completely immobile.

You begin to prepare the serum, drawing sickly silver fluid into the barrel of a syringe. You hear footsteps pass the inn room, and you look out to see Wren. You just… you have to talk to her. You set the syringe down for a moment and hurry out into the hall after her.

“Ma’am, ma’am, please…” you touch her shoulder, and she looks over it at you. As ever, you can’t see her face behind that cold mask.

“Is this right? Are we doing the right thing? Please talk to me,” you plead with her.

“It is the only thing we can do, and so it is the right thing. Please… Karim, do as you have been asked. We will speak after all is said and done. We’ve no more time to spare.”

She shrugs your hand off, and you slink back into the room to do the job. You shut the door behind you gingerly, and speak gently to the man.

“Sir… can you still hear me?”

He does not respond. With a sigh, you lift the syringe once again.

—

The fire in the night is horrific and mesmerizing. As your caravan rides away, you can’t help but turn back to it. It burns so clearly on the mountainside, the tavern and a few of the surrounding homes in roaring pyres.

You ride beside Wren, now. An empty silence hangs over the caravan. No one dares speak.

Everyone did their best. You eased their suffering as much as you could. The townspeople refused to leave, but at least you cleaned up the infection as much as was possible.

You turn to Wren, and quietly ask.

“Did we do the right thing?”

“We did all we could have done,” she responds, her voice hoarse even as a whisper.

—

HAMET’S LAST

INFECTION:

VIRAL, AIRBORNE

RESPIRATORY, HEPATIC

EXTREME FEVER, SEIZURES, LUNG PARALYSIS, LIVER DEATH, BLINDNESS

MORTALITY RATE 100%

RESPONSE:

Initial quarantine failed. Heavier quarantine enacted; all infected sequestered. Infected euthanized, areas of high infection traffic burned.

POPULATION: 96

FINAL DEATH TOLL: 96