Thinking of his wife, Jara knew she had secrets from him, but he will trust her vision of the path. Timothy and Jara have been running for nearly two hours, sweating, but breathing is steady as they understand the pace for this trek. This comes from running and doing callisthenics, as fitness is a prime edict of Mela for it helps keep people healthy.

He is stunned by the camp. Everyone is running around grabbing bits of food and clothing. A stream of people has started leaving, moving towards the city. This is not what was planned. The children and elderly will stay away from the illness. He turns to Timothy. “Where is my brother’s tent?”

“This way.”

Timothy starts to run again, avoiding the scared people leaving camp. Jara knows it would be better to get the information on what is happening from his brother, Martell.

As they both navigate the camp, Martell was in his leather armour, yelling directions at people gathering supplies. “…no, leave that we don’t have time!”

Jara strides toward Martell. “Brother! What is going on?”

“What are you doing here?” Martell demands; this is unusual for him. He is always so clear-headed. Unlike his brother Jara, Martell is not stocky but tall and muscular. With short, light, ash brown hair and blue eyes. They had different fathers but saw each other as true kin.

“Timothy came to us and asked for me to come back.”

As he mentions Timothy name, a hysterical laugh comes from the boy. “Your Timothy died three days ago on the trail to this city. We just used his body to get you here!”

Like a wet rag doll, Timothy’s body convulses and slumps to the ground. Martell, Jara and everyone in earshot stop and stare. The body blackens and starts to have grown pustules as form and inflate, burst forth, covering the closest people. Jara grabs an oil container and a nearby candle, as he throws it on the boy, and with a flick of his hand throws the candle, a flame shoots towards the boy, and he takes to light.

Martell stands there shaken. He knew the boy from birth. Jara grabs him by the shoulders. “Brother, wake and face the light. The plague is in the camp. We need to quarantine this camp!”

“We can’t do that.” He points to the horizon. Jara squinches and see a tremendous amount of dust being kicked up. “An army is coming. We must flee towards the city!”

“Brother, I told you that we should have hired at least one Charter.”

Jara looks at the dust. “We need to worry about that,” Jara points to the dust. “and that. Everyone who has any fluids on them removes your clothing and throw it on the fire.”

Jara looks sadly at the burning remains of Timothy. He looks over to his brother. “we need to move now.” As he too strips off his clothes, adding to the growing pile on top of the bonfire that was Timothy.