“Clear a bed! Clear a bed!” A tunneling voice screams into the midnight air. Vahkul doesn’t think twice about jumping out of his assigned hammock. He quickly lights a candle, having gotten used to the total lack of electricity, and waves the weathered souls towards himself.

Three people enter the tiny hospital. In between the grips of two hangs a woman. She looks the same as most of the people that have been admitted recently. “Here! Lay her here!” Vahkul orders, already digging into one of the pouches that always seems to be hanging at his waist.

They do as he instructs and take two steps back, attempting to catch their breaths. The woman’s skin is a sickly color, her hair lays plastered to her head by layers of thick sweat. Her eyes have gone milky, a dark gray liquid pooling from her tear ducts, just like all of the others.

She moans as the druid leans over her, attempting to look under her eyelids. As soon as he makes contact with her skin, she snarls, her hands launching forward to claw at him. Having been through this process so many times before, he manages to dodge, but his attempt at examination is thwarted by the onslaught of attacks.

Shaking his head, he shoves the herbs that he had pulled from his pouch into her mouth. He forces her jaws up and down a few times while her spit soaks the medicine, then he holds the woman down as she falls asleep. It’s only when her body loses its previous tension that he turns to the people that had brought her in. “Come, let me take a look at you two.” Vahkul still hasn’t figured out how this sickness is spreading, so anyone that comes into contact with the diseased must be examined.

The drained healer points to his table, which is littered with papers and herbs and bottles containing concoctions that don’t work. “You can take a seat there.” One nods and the other simply follows the orders, his eyes shadowed by what could very well be the loss of a dear friend. The two look almost as tired as Vahkul feels.

Just as he’s lighting another candle, he hears the dejected one speak, “Will she be alright, Archdruid?” Vahkul’s chest aches every time someone calls him that. He didn’t get to study for long among people of his kind, so that is a title that he will likely never reach, yet when he tells the Onesians this, they scoff.

They tell him that he is the most capable healer that they’ve ever met, so whilst he serves them, he will forever be known as Archdruid of Yukos. His heart warms, but in his head, he knows that he will never truly be worthy. Turning to the pair, he gives them his most honest answer. “I can promise you only that I will do everything in my power to find out what is causing this. I will do everything I can to heal them, but…” His eyes drift around the filled room.

All of the hammocks are occupied by the dying. There’s no more room for anyone else, and people that aren’t experiencing these symptoms won’t risk coming to help for fear of contracting the disease. It’s smaze all over.

The future looks bleak for everyone here.

Vahkul clears his throat and places the candle on the desk next to his two patients. Then he performs their examinations. He checks their eyes, ears, feels their heartbeat, and weaves tendrils of whatever kind of power that he possess through the air in their heads. Once he’s finished, he gives them both a pat on the thigh. “Thank you for bringing her in. I will do my best to take care of her.” Nodding, they turn to leave, and he’s again left alone with people that seem more dead than alive.

Vahkul takes a sip of his drink then rubs at his temples. The past few weeks have been stressful, to say the least. The outbreak started out slow. At first is was just the odd person. They’d slink in and tell him that they were feeling rather sluggish. They would have a fever, so Vahkul would prescribe them a blend of herbs to boil into a tea and a few days worth of rest.

Things seemed like they were better, then they’d come in for their second evaluation, and Vahkul would see their state had rapidly deteriorated. The victims would experience a dramatic decrease in weight, a loss of motor functions, and an inability to see. It all happened so quickly, and nothing he did seemed to be enough to help. No blend of herbs or medicines cured their ailments, and not even his magic could penetrate the dark fogs condensing inside of them.

He was stumped, and so was everyone else. Vahkul had issued a warning for the villagers to limit contact to people that were living with them and immediate family since he can’t seem to figure out how the sickness is spreading. It isn’t helping though. People are dropping like flies, and everyone has become scared. Paranoid even.

Unless he figures out a way to start saving people, his words will begin to mean nothing. Villagers might even begin to turn against him.

“You doing alright?” The voice causes his head to pop up. No one here talks.

Shifting, he finds Lilian staring at him. Her brown eyes are kind, yet he finds that there’s something else that’s been nudging its way in these days. She doesn’t look like she’s doing all that well, if he’s being completely honest. “Are you?” The druid stands as she shrugs, leaning her back against the frame of the door.

Her smile is wobbly.

“Come here,” Vahkul urges her. And before he knows it, the woman is wrapped up in his arms, her face pressed against his chest. She sniffles. “Are you getting headaches again? Tell me the truth.” He feels her nod against the folds of his thick gold robe. He isn’t surprised. He’s been treating her for about a month now. She came to him claiming that migraines were wrecking her ability to focus.

He had healed her several times, so it’s clear to him that she’s constantly around something that’s causing them to reappear. “Why wouldn’t she be?” And here comes the walking and talking cause of Lilian's problems. Tanitha pushes through the door, her face covered with her black mask and her head covered with her usual shortened cloak.

How she wears all black in this heat is beyond him.

Lilian’s arms tighten around him as soon as she hears the voice. Vahkul looks down and sees that her eyes are clenched just as tightly as her jaw. He runs a hand down her hair, wondering, not for the first time, what’s going on in her head. He doesn’t ask her though. Instead, he walks her to his desk and sits her down, then he starts mixing her a drink.

“Do you need something Tans?” The woman scoffs, but anyone with eyes can see that something wrong. She’s jittery and twitchy. Her gloved fingers jump around, searching for something to fiddle with, and beneath her cloak, her eyes fly around. Something is off with both of these women.

Had she come for her weekly visit, he might have been able to alleviate some of her tensions already.

The druid hands Lilian her drink, and she thanks him. Meanwhile, Tanitha has begun to walk through the hospital, her eyes glossing over each person she passes. “I want to go out today.” She states, flicking a loose thread handing from a hammock. “I want to go out, yet Lilian refuses to let me.” She lets loose a dark little laugh.

“As if I need permission from her.” Her remark is spoken so softly that one would think she was whispering the words to a love song. With furrowed brows, Vahkul looks to Lilian. Why does it matter if Tanitha leaves for the day? She’ll come back. She won’t leave without him, after all. Lilian refuses to meet his eyes. Instead, the woman pinches the bridge of her nose as she takes a sip of her drink.

Tension melts from her shoulders almost immediately, and she finally releases a sigh. “She can’t leave today, and that is final. The elders have ordered it.” She takes another sip.

Vahkul watches as Tanitha makes her way back to them, the sound of her solid steps filling the silence like a ticking clock. When she reaches the desk, she leans down, both hands pressing firmly against the aging wood. He can no longer see into the dark depths of her cloak, but he can imagine her cold expression. “And what makes today so special?” He was wondering the same.

Why do the elders even care if Tans leaves? She’s been a reluctant member of this community, and the only reason they keep her around is because she does well on guard duty. She needs next to no sleeps and is uncannily alert. Her aversion to orders is the only thing that keeps her from being the perfect soldier, not that they seem to need any of those here.

When Tanitha receives no reply, she snarls. Then she stomps out of the hospital, and Lilian is on her trail before Vahkul can get her to finish her tea.

“Vahkul! Vahkul!” Her shouts penetrate through his thin veil of sleep. The man shoots up, his hand going to the ornate ritual blade that he keeps at his hip, as Lilian and Dafiel come rushing into the hospital. He’s tempted to tell her to shut up, but he then remembers that everyone in the room is medicated. They won’t be waking up for anything less than an earthquake.

“What?! What is it?!” His hand leaves his dagger.

As Lilian approaches and her face comes into the light of a nearby candle, he sees the same symptoms that are displayed across the hospital. Dafiel clutches her arm in his hands as he helps her navigate. Lily’s eyes and nose leak a nasty gray fluid. Her skin has a greasy sheen to it.

Lilian coughs into her hand. She quickly wipes her mouth, but Vahkul can still see the trail of blood. “She’s gone, Vahkul. Tanitha is gone.”

“Forget her, you need to lay down.” For some reason, Vahkul can’t stop his eyes from watering at the sight of her. Lilian is one of the sweetest women in the world. Her heart is pure. She doesn’t deserve the agony that this sickness will bring her.

He shakes his head.

They have no more empty hammocks, so Vahkul motions for her to lay on the cot that he made in the corner. Dafiel lays her down, but she’s still babbling, “We need to find her! We have to find her! I can’t feel her!”

“Hold her down.” He orders as he rummages through his pouches. The druid pulls out something a little stronger than what he usually gives his patients as Dafiel holds his hands over the woman’s shoulders. “You’re just going to sleep for a little while, okay?” She seethes, literally foaming at the mouth. Vahkul almost can’t bare to force the medicine down her throat, but when he sees the once harsh lines of her face relax, his own tension follows.

At this point, the tears have begun to trail down his cheeks. He’s glad that Dafiel doesn’t mention them. He’s been nothing but a pest lately, but it seems that he realizes now isn’t the time to poke and prod at the healer. Vahkul wipes the streams away with a cloth, then he soaks it in a basin of water kept nearby and rest it on Lilian’s forehead. She’ll be out for a while, and he doesn’t want her to overheat.

Dafiel has the courtesy to wait for him to finish attending to Lilian before he begins ordering the druid around. “We actually do need to go out and find Tans. She’s not well in the head, and with Lilian out, I don’t think we’ll have anyway to control her besides with force.” Vahkul is so focused on the woman laying beneath him, that he almost doesn’t catch what the Onesian says.

Something about the way he phrased that doesn’t sit right with the druid. “What do you mean? What do you mean control?”

Dafiel’s brows furrow? “What do you mean? Lilian didn’t tell you?” Vahkul stands and Dafiel follows.

“Didn’t tell me what?” The guard pinches the bridge of his nose and lets out a curse. Then he grabs Vahkul’s arm and begins to pull him out of the healing center. “Let go!” He tugs, but Vahkul isn’t stronger than the man. He’s always been more of a brains kind of guy, despite what his size would lead some to believe.

Dafiel pulls him along, grumbling, until they reach he beginning of the veil. Vahkul digs his heels into the ground, now entirely aware of the fact that absolutely no one is out, not even the normal patrol. He manages to snatch his hand back, but by then, he’s already been tossed to the other side of the veil.

Something ripples over his skin causing him to trip and go tumbling down. He shudders at the coolness.

“Now really isn’t the optimal time for your clumsiness,” Dafiel growls out. Vakhul scoffs again, but he otherwise keeps his complaints to himself. Dafiel’s temper can only take so much, and the druid has learned that it’s wisest to keep his words to himself most of the time. Dafiel helps him stand. “Look, I’m not going to go into too much detail, because I’d assume if Lilian didn’t tell you, you weren’t meant to know. The thing is… Lilian isn’t just an Onesian.”

This is when the druid becomes confused. Lilian looks jut like everyone else in the village. She has all of the traits of a Onesian, from the teeth right down to her clawed feet. “Her mother was a Yulk, which makes her very valuable to our elders. That’s the only reason she was initially welcomed into out tribe. Her own people left her to die, and they saw potential in that tragedy.

“They thought that if they treated her well, gave her a place to lay her head and a job to earn a living, that she would never deny them anything. And that’s exactly the case.”

They walk, skulking quietly through the dark forestry. Vahkul can barely see his hands in front of him, but Dafiel is alert enough for the both of them. “Lilian is damaged in a way that only a few people in their lives are.” That might be the nastiest thing that he’s ever heard Dafiel say, but there is no malice in his voice. “She longs for family so fiercely that she would do absolutely anything for just a taste of what it feels like to be loved.”

Vahkul’s stomach rolls. He thinks he’s beginning to understand what Dafiel is trying to say. Lilian grew attached to him fairly quickly, and he had thought nothing of it at first. She was quick to give him little touches and chaste kisses, but he had pushed it off as her being naive and lonely. Or just nice. But if Dafiel’s tone is an indication of anything, it’s that his initial impression was completely off. “Why are you telling me this?”

He sees the whites of the Onesian’s eyes as he turns to regard him briefly. “I’m saying what I’m saying so that you understand why she did what she did. Lilian loves our elders the way she thinks a child would love a parent. She has a devotion to them that is unmatched by anyone else here. So when they told her that they wanted Tanitha, she immediately stepped up to the plate and declared that she was theirs to use.”

Vahkul stops, his mind now racing. Dafiel grabs his arm again and pulls him along. “Lilian got her persuasive powers from her mother. They’re weak though, so she has to be actively thinking about what she wants the other person to do in order to keep them in control.” Vahkul’s leg begins to shake. The headaches are beginning to make a lot more sense. “I don’t know what constantly being manipulated will do to a person’s mind, but I can assume that it’s not good. Pair that with the fact that she is what she is… That’s why we have to find her.”

Oh god….

Vahkul had blamed Tanitha's temper and constantly changing emotions on her distain for his choices. He had thought her childish to hold a grudge over him, to avoid him. She wouldn't even stay in the hospital without Lily at her side. He had chalked it up to immaturity and possibly some kind of feminine bond.

The man had tossed Tanitha’s feelings and actions aside, thinking that she was just angry that he didn’t leave with her, but this whole time she was being controlled. Knowing her, she was fighting every step of the way. Shame fills him. “Why do your elders want her?” He already has a good idea, but he wants it confirmed.

Dafiel swipes his dagger through the air, cutting through a thin and low hanging branch. “What she did at the Naisil festival lead them to believe that she would also be someone of use. For what, I don’t know. They don't tell us lowly guards anything. I’m sure Lilian has some information though.” Vahkul doubts they’ll be hearing any tangible words from Lilian any time soon.

While stewing over the possibility of not getting the answers he wants, another question pops into his head. “How exactly are was supposed to find Tans anyway? Just wandering through the forest at night isn’t going to do us any good.” It’s also not doing his heart any good. Every shadow makes him jump and every noise makes him shudder.

Dafiel lifts his finger, effectively silencing and stilling the druid. Vahkul watches as the man’s head cocks to the side. He also watches as he pushes through a gathering of bushes. Vahkul debates for only a moment about whether he should follow. Ducking through, his breath stills as he sees her. She’s… She’s ravenous. He watches, eyes wide with disbelief, as what remains of Tanitha tears into someone’s dripping body.

The arms, legs, and chest of what was once a man are mutilated beyond repair. Surprise shoots through Vahkul’s chest as he catches glimpses of shockingly white hair. He doesn’t know how she did it, since she appears to have no weapons on her, but she tore someone apart. She tore a smazer apart.

And now she sits, mouth as red as the inside of a pomegranate, feasting on something that she pulled out of the dead man. Vahkul retreats, tripping over his bare feet. Vomit spills out of his mouth before he can turn to face the ground. The mucousy remains of his morning and afternoon teas spew everywhere. Dafiel curses and immediately gets into a defensive position. “Gods! She heard you. I’m going to have to try to knock her out. She doesn’t look like she’ll be coming willingly.”

The man grunts, then disappears through the wall of foliage, leaving Vahkul chest empty, the feeling of despair almost consuming him.

The sounds that follow can only be described as horrifying. An earsplitting shriek tears through the air, condensing waves of power so thick that it almost suffocates him. He coughs as his ears ring painfully. From where Vahkul lays on the ground, he can see nothing, but the sounds are enough.

Dafiel will not win this fight.

They won’t leave these woods.

There’s so much that he wants to do, so much that he was supposed to do. He realizes now that he never should have abandoned his duties. He deserted and broke his vows to his empress, and this is to be his punishment. He knows his abandoned Gods are laughing at him. “Gah!” Dafiel grunts. A nasty slurping sound follows. “Run! Run!” The sound of the Onesian’s flesh tearing will forever be ingrained in the druid’s mind.

Dafiel lets out one more uncontrollable scream and a thud follows soon after. Vahkul doesn’t have much time, and he knows that Tanitha is so much faster than he is. He’ll never make it. There has to be a… His hands grasp his herb pouch. He begins searching.

The bushes rustle just as he rummages through his things. The tips of his fingers just barely manage to brush against what he’s searching for when Tanitha is upon him. His fingers curl around the plant as his shoulders are forced to dig painfully into the ground. The fingers that wrap around his arms are not Tanitha’s own.

“Tans-” Vahkul chokes out, the shock of seeing her morph before his very eyes stopping whatever it is that he was going to say. Maybe it was a plea. Or it could have been words meant to calm her. It doesn’t matter now, because they’ve been swallowed, and his veins have been flooded with paralyzing fear.

Pure unadulterated fear pulses inside of him. Sure, he had his theories about Tanitha. He had noticed the way that the people of the village pulled away and watched her every move. He had seen the way they flinched when she ate in public. But seeing with his own eyes that Tanitha isn’t as human as he thought her to be is something else entirely. He watches, frozen in place, as shadows fall from her form in crashing waves.

Vahkul cries out as the talons that have replaced her fingers dig deeply into his skin. His body shudders as their poison invades his blood stream. Tanitha hisses and a tongue blacker than the soul of Athula himself flickers between teeth sharper than any dagger he’s ever owned. Vahkul swallows as his body convulses. He doesn’t want to die. He’s only just started living for himself.

A sob rises up as saliva drops from the creature’s mouth onto his neck. “Please.” He looks into its eyes, and soon after, he realizes that it was a mistake. What remains of Tanitha shrivels up and is quickly replaced with something far nastier. Not wanting to toy with its food any longer, its mouth opens and surges towards the druid.

His hand flies forward.

Its mouth slams shut.

A scream louder than the drumming of his heartbeat erupts from him as his hand is torn at the wrist.

Vahkul’s eyes cross as the world falls from focus.

He wants so badly to pass out, but he has to wait. He just has to… He has to wait.

He can’t see anymore, but his ears are alert. A simple moan wanders through the air, and the sound of a heavy collapse trails behind.

The forest goes eerily quiet, and only then does he allow himself to sag to the ground.

Darkness.

Darkness and silence.

No. Darkness, silence, and pain.

That is what Vahkul wakes up to. He isn’t sure how much time has passed since his eyes began to fail him. The stars are nowhere to be seen, but light has refused to claim the day. He groans as the ache in his arm comes back with full force. The only good thing about him being knocked out was that his body spent whatever energy he had gathered healing itself. Looking to where his hand should be, Vahkul sees that the wound has since closed and the beginning of his wrist is being slowly regenerated.

He thanks his God that he was reborn with this ability, for he’d be screwed otherwise. He sits up suddenly. “Dafiel!” The Onesian isn’t as lucky as he is, and only that man’s Gods and Tanitha know what kind of condition he’s been left in. Vahkul spares only a moment looking to the woman's sleeping form before he scrambled to his feet and rushes to the last place he had seen the guardian.

Breaking through the bushes and nearly slipping on his mudddied vomit, he finally sees the man. And… it’s not as bad as he had thought it would be. “Glad…” Daffy takes a harrowing breath. “To see you aren’t…” Another breath. “Dead.” He finishes his laborious greeting, and Vahkul can’t keep his laughter from escaping. Even after almost being devoured by a creature that used to be their friend, the man is still dripping with excess sarcasm.

“Any day now… druid,” He rattles off. From the way he’s wheezing, Vahkul would say that he probably broke a rib and had it puncture a lung. With a few minutes and a bit of energy, he can have Dafiel fixed up enough to walk on his own. Placing a hand on his chest, Vahkul squeezes his eyes closed. Letting what’s left of the tendrils of his magic unfurl and wander his body, the druid concludes that Dafiel has a broken arm, a few broken fingers, a crushed collar bone, broken ribs, a punctured lung, and a few lacerations and burns, probably from being thrown along the grass.

He definitely doesn’t have enough energy to heal everything, or even make a dent in his list of problems, but he does put everything into fixing his friend’s rib and lung. Everything else will have to wait.

When the final tendril of his power sputters away, Dafiel lets out a relieved breath. “You don’t know how much I’m thanking the Gods for you right now. How are you even still alive?”

That’s when Vahkul tells him what happened. He tells him that Tanitha changed into something unbelievable. He tells him that she tried to eat him. He tells him that he still had Rocol in his pouch. He tells him that she took off his hand, but in the process, she ingested enough of the sleeping herb to knock her out for days.

“Shit” Dafiel stands, wavering. “We need to get her back now. The elders have some explaining to do.” For once, Vahkul actually agrees with him. What the elders asked Lilian to do is unforgivable, but... whatever Tanitha is… it needs to be controlled. Or at least contained.

Together, they walk back to her. She lays curled up in a tight ball. For the first time since Naisil, she’s without her mask and cloak. Her hair is unbound and covers the majority of her upper half, and her face and hands have a healthy layer of blood coating them. The woman looks like she’s been through hell and back, but at least she’s human again.