Fantasy THE CURSE OF 𝘼𝙇𝙏𝙎𝙏𝘼𝘿𝙏

[mother of sorrows]

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Wulfric,

If you are reading this, then do not bother replying. It will not reach me in time. For the love of anything, collect your things and move north. Things are dire. There have been rumors of disease, of an almost pandemic to the villages and cities close to me. I hear of sheep vomiting up viscera and blood, and villagers burning their corpses in fear of spread. Entire regions are in lockdown. They say healthy people grow rambling and turn to eat the freshly deceased. Mothers ripping their babes apart. Wulfric, I know what has been done. My professors whisper behind closed doors. Magdalena has been gone for weeks and they think we should ignore it. I have seen things, Wulfric, my peers talking about eyes in their brains. They're losing their minds in here, half-way dead already. I beg you, go north; and if you are alive to read this, I will meet you at your house. Please. This will only become worse.

I don't pray anymore. I'm scared that whatever caused this is listening.

● ●​

The sting of damp animal fur is less, here. Either because the beasts lessen here, or because there is no stone walls to contain the stench.

Lev's nose is sore from smelling stale feces and desperation for weeks. Acrid, bitter air bites his sinuses raw, a fresh swampy breeze that peels his skin. Vegetation rots gently in the thick line of trees, their hulky bodies bent from wind and water. What little sunshine that crawls out of the bruising sky sends vapors from the black, clayish ground and obscures what little Lev's panicked vision will alow him.

His legs hurt. Spasms shoot up his muscles when he lurches through the mud, his doctor's bag digging into his hip. The villagers were too scattered to find a ride by them and so Lev had walked here, hour by hour. He's past shivering in the chill breeze, too stiff to even be aware of how frozen he is. The forest is quiet like all life is holding its breath, the silence reeking.

Lev holds no particular fear. He has been scared for so long that he scarcely notices it.

The dread makes his legs lurch towards the house.

A cut of wood. Blackened in the shadow of trees, staring out at him like a mute eye. Windows plastered with lack of light and a garden sitting unattended. No noise. Lev's heart throbs in his head like a bad tooth, loud, unavoidable, like it's already decaying and knows it. Lev does not see Wulfric.

What would his old friend think, seeing him like this? Gaut and unwashed, mad eyed like the cows he has been cutting up to find brain matter in their intestines? He has not eaten. He has not slept. Lev hears nothing and the chronic dread clogs his throat. Collects cold sweat under his collar and armpits. Nothing, not even the metallic twang of blood and he feels tears press in when he knocks on the door.

"Wulfric?"

Lev tries to keep the terrified wobble out of his voice and fails, miserably. He sounds snotty.

"Hello?"