Fantasy Totum revolutum

[Featherstone]

The pronounced shift in the orderly's tone nearly made Noah startle again, what with the tension already woven through every sinew. Was that real? The fact he had to ask that caused his grasp on the strap to tighten, but he chose to ignore it. Just--ignore it. He just needed to hold it together until he was done talking to Gregory Caine, and then getting what information he could to ascertain the likelihood of a breach in the quarantine. If he had it fully his way, without worrying so much about people, he would've had everyone in a mask for the first twenty-four hours until he could say with relative certainty that anyone who had it would've become symptomatic, to avoid transmission on the off chance someone was sick. The fact that even these measures--of staying in the walls, quickly finding and quarantining the sick, of preventing any outside contact--already created some public outcry left him stressed and all but floundering. He wasn't trained in epidemiology. He hadn't even worked properly at a hospital.

"I think that at their basest level, few things are all that complicated," Noah answered, and his even speech was just barely too monotone to be wholly natural. "But then again, it's all rather subjective, isn't it?" He paused, glancing over at the bloodshot corpse. "We can hope, though, and we don't have to rely on faith for that. We have a good chance here. I believe that, truly." He didn't leave that sentence there long enough for the orderly to answer, though the beat of silence was pronounced. "I'm afraid I must go, though, I've got to meet Mr. Gregory Caine. Could you bring his body back for autopsy, given that his wife isn't here to discuss such a decision with?"

Had he not been so on edge, he might've thought to put more effort towards finding the kid. As it stood, it didn't quite occur to him that it might be the kinder thing to do before taking the body away--after all, a child was now doomed to return to nothing, but Noah's mind never went to emotions first. It was a flaw as much as it was a virtue and in times such as these, that showed. It wasn't deliberate callousness or even his being cold: his thoughts were very much with saving people, but lingered more on the objective sense of the goal rather than the human one.

 

[kevintheradioguy]

A soft, echoing chuckle filled the room. Same voice as in a dream. no gender, just clear, high voice; mocking this time instead of the night's aggression. It could've been delusions, of course, but they shouldn't be that dire. he should've been in fever, he should've been not understanding things clearly, seeing things in the corner of his eyes. Like a drunk. But this was a whole new level. "It is impressive how your bloated ego allows you to still shut your eyes not to see the monster. Ambition seems to be your middle name. Or is it blindness? It's hard to tell with you. Come on, doctor, you can do better than that. What would Carter say to such lack of open mindedness?"

 

[Featherstone]

This wasn't making sense. He wasn't sweating, experiencing chills, watching spots swim or the world churn. It all felt so clear and simultaneously had to be in his imagination. Was this another lucid dream? The man took a reflexive step back, scanning the room, although he had no idea what he sought. This couldn't be right. The orderly absolutely couldn't be saying these things--he hadn't once uttered Carter's name, and still, he found his mind scrambling for an answer. He wasn't egotistical with some false sense of security borne of hubris. He'd looked everywhere, or so he thought. Every detail and every shadowed corner. Closed mind, what was he closing his mind to? He came here pursuing the impossible.

No. No, no, no--why was he arguing with himself, his own imagination? He brought his hand to his bowed head and closed his eyes in an attempt to re-orient himself. He wasn't shaking but he wasn't convinced it wouldn't start, not when he could feel the contracting of his chest and the shallowness of his own breath. Breathe. He could do that, keep a level head. It was easier when his enemy was someone else. Now, questioning his own reality, the resolve and confidence he had started to crumble. How could he think himself capable when his mind was starting to crack at the seams? But now wasn't the time for that. No. Breathe.

 

[kevintheradioguy]

The bird cocked its head. This small gesture seemed to suck the air out of the room. Or maybe that was a realisation that somehow this... person knew about his private life, although not a single person around had any idea he even had relationship - let alone with whom. "What, you challenge me, and expect it to be easy? That you can catch me on a first try? I am offended.", it repeated. "And impressed."

The locals believed in all sorts of nonsense. In feeding the earth, in following some sort of mysterious lines, in sacredness of body and sacredness of ground. They believed in monsters and gods. Was it possible they believed in a correct thing? That no religion but this one got it right? Was it possible that one of the monsters manifested here? But it wasn't scientifically possible, was it? "You look like you need a tip.", it almost sounded like an offer.

 

[Featherstone]

He didn't expect anything, fucking anything, to be easy. Being with Carter wasn't easy. War wasn't easy. Putting himself through medical school wasn't easy. Avoiding his childhood and his estranged brother wasn't easy. This didn't mean, however, that he couldn't do it, because he'd managed all of those things--he'd saved lives more than he'd broken them, or so he prayed on the rare nights that he almost wondered if his father had had a point about God.

Anything was possible until it was disproven. That was what Noah had learned and what Carter's life's work revolved around. Carter believed in what most deemed impossible, had been made a laughing stock for it, come back to Noah some evenings frazzled and nearly in tears for the constant battle he had to fight. Noah had come here on a fairy tale of some eight-hundred-year-old man, older than the eldest land animals recorded, to find the answers to questions that most would scoff at as much as they would the question of whether or not monsters were real. But even if monsters were real, this could not be: this strange reading of thought, this bizarre bending of reality, it wasn't like immortality. It wasn't something that had the potential to be tangible or that was observed in mosses and jellyfish.

In the traumas of his years, from the flashbacks of authoritarian discipline to those of carnage, he'd always had faith in his own eyes. That was his sanity, his only faith, the thought that he could trust what he could objectively observe. Now that was gone. A sharp yearning settled in his chest in the moment of distress, a desire for Carter to be there to catch him, but he wasn't, and, not for the first time, Noah was alone.

Noah didn't dare speak to the air. The last thing this place needed was an excuse to dub him insane, so he held his tongue, biting back the encroaching panic. One to four on the inhalation; hold for seven; exhale for eight. Again. Breathe, for fuck's sake, breathe; he couldn't save lives if his mind was trapped in itself, whether that was from--from whatever this was, or panic. It would pass. Everything would pass, from gunshots to skeletal death omens, and still he felt the instinct to run or fight or anything other than stand here and hold the tension down beneath his skin, but that was what he did. Breathed. Tried to breathe. Counted. One, two, three, four. One, two, three--five? Four? No, just start again--

 

[kevintheradioguy]

The air still stood still, and sounds were dull and muted - everything but the voice. It could've disappeared proving Noah right. It could've made sounds duller, and the voice louder to make a point. But it didn't change a thing. It stayed the way it was. Even. Stable. And this was proving the point of it being real more than intensifying, more than submission. It didn't react to Noah's attempt, because it wasn't in his head, it didn't have anything to prove, because he had no control over it... did he? Did he?

"Tsk, tsk, tsk. Stubborn man again. Six years in school, and fail to realise how to learn. This is why you'll die. This is why you'll let everyone die. Your greater nemesis allows you to have a free tip on how to find it, but you're too egoistical to say 'yes'. This is what the town is paying for with their lives: your pride. How were you intending to save them if you refuse accept help? How were you intending to save them?", the last words screeched like a sandstorm, like a... sandstorm that was this sand pest. And as it spoke, it was looking bigger. As if Noah's actions only fed it, made him lose and not gain any weight or position in this. As if his denial made it stronger.

 

[Featherstone]

Stubborn. It kept calling him that, they all did, preaching death--death that he brought on. How the crooked woman had plied him to give death the right answer, and the creature had ripped apart his flesh in response to his defiance. It didn't feel imagined. Nothing did. But that was the trick of the mind, wasn't it? If people didn't believe what they saw then they wouldn't act like it. His eyes were shut but its voice was impossible to stop. It didn't quiet or slow, it didn't get louder or more intense, it just went on and on and on.

His exhalations were tremulous. His tongue tasted like iron violence. His body wrapped around itself in the way a spring did when pressed flat on the ground, a thin string of control between himself and irrational, foolish, irreversible action. When he pulled his hand from his face and dared open his eyes, it was shaking. How were you intending to save them, it asked, as if he knew--as if he knew how to save people, as if he held lives in his hands and was somehow able to nurture them, as if his sins were nothing. As if he had answers and he didn't have answers, he hadn't for Caleb and he hadn't for his men and he didn't for himself. He had nothing but half-formed memories, a bag of equipment, and apparitions.

"I don't know!" The words tore from his lips as if they'd a life of their own, the sole of his boot shaking the floorboards when he stepped forward. There was a bitter, dark vehemence to the tenor in his voice, as if his subconscious was contemplating what it'd be to try wrenching the skull off of its neck, but its overtone was a fervor fissuring with uncertainty and lost faith. His chest heaved with deep, wavering breaths, and he froze there, staring back up at the creature. The moment of snapped self-control was frozen for that instant: Noah, realizing he'd spoken, now closer to the creature than he'd been before and daring to bear upon it with the same angry steadfastness he'd summoned in his dream. He stood in silence. This was an illusion but he was staring at it and speaking to it and it didn't seem like the orderly anymore.

It wasn't real, he thought, and he almost said it, almost dared to tell the illusion that it was just that, but his tongue stopped. It stopped, remembering screams. Remembering the easy, swift pull of a trigger drawn by his own fingers. Remembered, too, that the very reason he'd come here was to contend with the impossible; nothing was definitively nonexistent until it was definitively proved as such. More than all of this was that one word, pride. He was as acutely aware as the image was of his own inability, and even if it was unreal--which it was--that didn't make its points entirely invalid: after all, the mind had curious ways of communicating with itself.

If he lost this battle and went back to this moment, knowing that he'd never given anything a chance, would he ever forgive himself?

Was it crazy to talk to a dream?

He didn't know.

Noah swallowed dryly, staring at its dead amber eyes. A part of him wanted to lunge at it, another to run, a third to close his eyes again. He didn't do any of these things. Instead, he spoke again, although his words were unsteady. "If you have knowledge to offer then I won't decline it but that doesn't mean I believe in your existence."

 

[kevintheradioguy]

'I don't know' - the words sounded almost like magic. The feeling of being played, mocked, and abused by the thing, drew back a little, seemed smaller and less imposing, even if triumphant (how could Noah even tell that under the bone mask?), almost levelling with him. It seemed almost happy for Noah to admit his mistakes. At least one of them. But it wasn't the last mistake it wanted him to admit to.

"You don't have to believe in the sun for it to rise every morning.", it said, and the words sounded awfully familiar. Wasn't this what Carter used to say to overly spiritual people that didn't think that one simple pill could cure them of 'godsent' illness? That a simple surgery would relieve them of dire pain that was surely the work of evil forces? There were just things that existed, and didn't need ones belief. It seemed like the bird shared that sentiment.

"I will give you your tip. Though whether or not you'll be able to act upon it is questionable, as it was you who wasted time rocking yourself to comfort. But before I do, a payment is due.", before Noah could suggest something snappy, it explained, sounding almost as if it interrupted itself. "No, nothing like your spooky tales of souls and sacrifices. It's an honest answer to a simple question, doctor. So listen closely.

You keep blabbering about how the plague kills people, and you, oh mighty knight in shining armour, is here to save them while simultaneously using their still living bodies as steps in the ladder to the top of your tower of glory. But you're wrong. You can't see from your small frame of mind how the world really works. Neither pox, nor cholera, not even sand pest kill people. All they do is reduce the time they have left. Yet the time - the one you so ironically wasted on proving something that you want to defeat unreal - all of this time in your world is yours, and yours only to control. I have no power over it whatsoever - only you do. So, tell me, doctor Tanner. The plague took two thirds of this town, but who is the murderer: a sickness..." Its beak turned to the dead man on the bed. "...that let no second to waste, or you..." It then pointed its tip right into Noah's chest. "...who bothered not to hurry?"

 

[Featherstone]

Death, as Noah had learned in that very first semester of school those years ago, was another facet of entropy; life, its temporary reversal or stilling. Like gravity, he knew--or thought he knew--entropy was a constant force. The only thing that had ever eluded it was able to reverse its entire life, returning to an infantile stage so that it could grow again and again and again, but aside from this and legends, decease was inevitable. Now this dream said that it wasn't a constant external act, but something else entirely, something held in the hands of the living. His fiancé's oh-so-common turn of phrase was jarring to hear in this thing's voice, but then...Who is the murderer?

He had hurried. Every waking moment he'd chased the sand pest, every sleeping one spent trapped in a tormented subconscious plagued by thoughts of the infection and his seemingly inevitable failure. Yet every action he took left another moment that a life could be lost--every decision he made to ask about the quarantine report, to speak to Matches, to walk to this building instead of having run, to sleep instead of act. It was an impossible balancing act of unknowns. It had been as a corporal and now it was as a doctor, when he held life and death in his hands, and now he stood faced with it. The fact that each and every thought stole another moment of ineffable time. Now he was talking to a ghost about his responsibility. Was this some foul, twisted representation of his own hope and guilt, telling him he had power while scattering his every attempt to seize control to the winds?

It wasn't real. It was in his own head. He was starting to lose his grip on his own self. His dream offered help for the price of honesty, honesty to a question that he didn't have an answer for, or perhaps only one that he dreaded. Every life that had been lost was lost because he, the only doctor left, could not save them; Noah, their only hope, had been turned into their enemy. He didn't have a miracle cure. He didn't even have a diagnosis. Was failure any better than his actions on the battlefield?

You don't exist, he wanted to say, to yell, to impose, but all he could hear was Carter's voice saying the creature's own words: "You don't have to believe in the sun for it to rise." Reality was subjective, and Noah knew that, but the fact that he was no longer staring actuality in the face left him silent. It was as if proving that the bird was an illusion would mean its words held no weight, but that was like trying to claim a nightmare couldn't have any possible basis in real life. Even in this state he knew that such a sentiment existed only to fool himself.

His attention turned to the pale corpse on the bed. The one he'd declared dead when he didn't even know its name. The distress was rapidly becoming increasingly visible on his face in the clenching of his jaw and tension of his brow, barely able to bring oxygen into his lungs. His estimated time of death was ten minutes, ten minutes before Noah had arrived. If he'd grabbed his bag and sprinted down the stairs, shoved past Orderly Eight, run to this building, could he have saved him? Or would he only have arrived to watch him become the same empty husk he was now? When had his patients stopped being people and started being lives, statistics, numbers--when had his questioning of the orderly to ensure the population's safety, to do it right then, taken precedence over a father, a father to a child who was now an orphan?

Noah should've been better than this. Always needed to be better than he was, always could be, but he never quite succeeded. He was never fast enough. Never smart enough, swift enough, careful enough. He shouldn't have slept so long, should've had somebody wake him sooner, should've gotten here more quickly and handled things in the early stages of the quarantine to avoid the tension that now was almost as much of a potential threat as the sand pest.

He hadn't. But what if he had? The question he asked himself stalled his spiraling thoughts: what if he hadn't asked Orderly Eight anything, knowing what he had then, and there was infection and he'd thought himself alone in containing it? What if there'd been a crisis and he, in having prioritized his haste, cost the lives of everyone trapped inside this quarantine? Then he would've put this single father's life over that of his child, over Matches, over Gregory Caine and Orderly Eight and everyone else, and it could've meant the destruction of everything he and the corvid-masked orderlies worked for. What if he'd been quicker to come inside and hadn't knocked, and startled Blacky into refusing him entrance, thereby making him force it and add to the bad blood or leave the man to die anyways? The possibilities were infinite. Some were more damaging. Some less. He had no answer. What little he did know was that he'd tried to hurry and, ultimately, he'd failed. Whether or not that made him a murderer, or morally worse than the pestilence...

"I don't know," Noah breathed, but his words lacked force and confidence, replaced by a thin and almost stricken tone, eyes lingering on the corpse even still. In truth, he understood very little, and no matter how high he climbed, it would never be high enough. This town deserved Carter and instead had him and a body he'd been too slow to save. More than one. Countless, even.

 

[kevintheradioguy]

The bird leaned over a little, as if to hear better. It stared with those ambers for eyes for a moment, before straightening up again. "I think it's the latter. But you guessed that, didn't you? Until it's not you personally, it's just statistics, right? Just numbers. Just a faceless mass not worthy thinking about. Until it's not someone you know, you don't care.", this wasn't a question. The figure perched, back straight, like of a soldier as a commanding officer entered, though it didn't radiate servitude - it radiated pride. "You're a self-centred, arrogant, condescending bastard, aren't you, doctor? And that is your tip. You despise people. Their lives, their health, their time mean nothing to you. Want an example? Yesterday you turned the Cathedral into an isolation ward, and stuffed it chock-full of people. Exhausted, terrified people. And locked them there. Like animals. In a place with no food, and little water, and cold walls in the midst of even colder nights. And you have forgotten about them, haven't you?" Noah, indeed, did. He was so tired that evening, he completely wiped that memory from his head, but now, spoken about, it was slowly getting back to him. He did just that, an isolation ward from the last building large enough to hold the masses. How he ordered the militia to lock the doors. Not let anyone in or out but him.

"They have spent a torturous night there, waiting, and waiting, and waiting for you to come over as you promised, and examine them, and reassure them they aren't sick. And yet, you seem to be in no hurry to relieve their suffering. And as you stood there, telling the scared masses about how this treatment of them like cattle they treat with more respect here than you do to them is oh so important for the greater good, right there and then, in those masses, among those hundreds of people, that person you're looking for, stood. That one infected that let me in. But you chose to ignore this person. Later, you decided. But later never came, did it? How many are there now? - I do not know. So, you see, it is you, and your heartlessness who is the real murderer. You are to blame." The last words were said in a much rougher tone, almost like it was minting words like coin.


Seemingly satisfied with this conversation, the creature breathed in a long, heavy breath, and backed away a few, and with this breath the staleness of the air, and the lack of sounds seemed to be sucked in it, until it tripped, and fell down on the floor, like a marionette with its strings cut off. There was chirping outside, and a CLACK-CLACK of the clock. The beaked head rose, and shook. "Oh, for the love of... I'm sorry, doc.", the man's muffled voice was heard. "Haven't slept for a while, I think I'm blacking out." He groaned like an elderly, slowly rolling over inside the layers of his clothes, trying to stand on all fours before trying to drag himself up in a heavy suit.

 

[Featherstone]

The Cathedral. The infected. Was it true, or was this like that nightmare, a mere paranoia leaking into his mind? Self-centered, arrogant, condescending. His mind went back to the dream and the door that he had opened, the one that he expected to have patients, but he'd instead found bodies. Grotesque, decomposing bodies, all piled atop one another. It was this image that hung in his mind when its last words faded, and it was right: he had done this. How could he have done this? Was he so detached that he could leave people trapped like that and then forget about it?

Orderly Eight had said all was safe, but if no one was supposed to go in or out, how could they know? Symptoms would show within hours of exposure, or they seemed to, but truly Noah knew so little. He stared at the body next to him, mind scrambling to contend with this realization, gaze barely moving when he heard the creature fall. A cold dread was wrapping itself around him, serpentine coils constricting over his lungs, but it wasn't fear for the infection--it was fear for what he'd done, and what he was capable of. He heard the voice of the orderly instead of the monster, now. Apologizing. Blacked out? If he'd blacked out, how unreal had that encounter been?

But he didn't have time for that question.

"No apology necessary. I've realized I've forgotten something. Good day, I'm sorry," he said, and then was pushing out the door past the fallen orderly, not taking half a second to explain his apology or sudden haste. The moment he was outside, Noah broke into a run, wrapping his arm around the bag to keep it from hindering his motion as he sprinted back through the grass. Cathedral first, Gregory Caine later. Blacky, later. Everything, everything else, later.

 

[kevintheradioguy]

Darting out, Noah followed the grassy road again, back to where he came from to turn to a more civilised pavement of the large road that led to the Cathedral, and more importantly, to the Judge's house. This time, the herbs and flowers weren't as welcoming. They whipped his face, grabbed his shoes, as if punishing him for forgetting. You started it, they tried to say, now stand here, and look at the consequences.

Tall grass ended rapidly , almost spitting him out on the road. It led forward in a gentle arch before grew into a big square with a grotesque cathedral on it: Gothic by the looks of it, but not quite so. And inspiration from Gothic, more like: tall building, crawling up into the sky, while being held down by large metal buttresses, like weird insect-like legs. The square led forward into a small park, and then to the ravine and into the golden plains of local grasslands no city man dared to enter despite its beauty. But Noah was here not to look at the beauty, but switch his attention elsewhere, and this elsewhere would've left any person terrified.

Another orderly stood, leaning over a wall opposite the Cathedral, seemingly as exhausted as everyone else, slowly looking around, as if searching for something. The doors to the Cathedral were still guarded by local militia, but at the same time - wide open. Lock - torn off them, what little furniture there was inside - scattered around. Few men were bruised, and the picture was clear: people couldn't wait any longer. They revolted. They rammed the door over and over again, until they broke the lock, attacked the guards, and ran away, not able to handle cold, fear, and hunger any longer.

 

[Featherstone]

Noah stopped, boots dragging on the ground, staring at the shattered threshold. No...He'd already failed. It was here, and he'd let it in, hadn't he? He was moving like a sleepwalker when he slowly strode to the broken doors and looked inside. It was so...empty. He'd had a chance to stop it. He'd had his chance and it was here, in ruins, because of what? What had possessed him to do this? How could he have given this order and had it slip his mind?

For a man so determined not to repeat his evils and those of his father before him, he was doing a fine job of it. He gazed hollowly at the scene, as if looking at it longer would change it or suddenly give him sense of it. And he had done this. He, who had come here to...what? He hadn't stepped off that train with the intention of saving lives, he'd done it with the intention of proving something for Carter. For himself.

Slowly, his movements almost trance-like, he turned towards the lone orderly. "How long ago...?" he asked flatly, softly, as if it mattered, because it seemed like it did.

 

[kevintheradioguy]

The orderly jerked, a gloved hand darted up, fixing the mask on his face as he took a better look at the man, and straightened up in slight confusion. "You are... well?", he asked. He sounded very young. Maybe in his early 20s. And then chuckled. "Goodness, and here I was told you were gone. I knew you couldn't have been, but they insisted you aren't around because you... you know." It seemed that he people made their own conclusions for why didn't he come here or wake up earlier, for why he let... this happen. Like if he was a machine that was able to work 24/7. But then. Maybe if Matched didn't hold back the Judge, he'd be up and prevent this too. Was the child to blame for trying give Noah some rest? Did he even realise what it'd come to?

"But speaking of...", he nodded to the Cathedral. "...I don't know. Maybe the guards do. Shouldn't they have been... you know, guarding? I just came here, stopped to take a breather. Heard rumours about the epidemic I wanted to tell the Judge. After they told us you were...", he didn't want to pronounce the word, it seemed. "Well, I actually have to report to orderly-in-chief, but he's burning down papers now, and we got in an argument over this, so I thought he reports to the Judge now, and I can do so as well."

 

[Featherstone]

Gone...He wished that Matches had awoken him, but he couldn't find it in himself to blame the well-meaning boy. Visible exhaustion hung itself on Noah's visage as the orderly went on. There was some issue between the orderlies, rumors, a riot out of the Cathedral, people reporting to the Judge now, yet Orderly Eight had known to find Noah. Couldn't the citizens understand that running about like this could kill them all? It seemed that, at every turn, Noah was doomed to fuck himself over, along with everyone else. There was no real despondence on his face, if in his heart, but the tiredness was obvious in the slight sagging of his usually-rigid posture. He was still panting from the run. God damn him and his foolishness.

He went quiet again for some time, eyes still on the broken locks. Inhaling, exhaling, trying to catch his breath. His mind was largely still, thoughts slowed in an attempt to process the slew of information and guilt-ridden confusion. There wasn't time to stop, though.

"Well...needless to say, I'm still here." If only it'd been sooner. "I'm going to see the Judge. I was planning to evaluate things here first, but..." the man's voice trailed off before he resumed. "What are these rumors all about?"

 

[kevintheradioguy]

"Just be careful not to give the old man a heart attack. If he thinks you're dead, and you suddenly appear on his doorstep..." The Judge couldn't have been thinking that. he came to Noah. Matches told him he was asleep - not dead. Unless the boy did. In which case this meant there's a conspiracy that involves children, and that was absolutely ridiculous.

At the rumours, the man groaned in his mask. "Well, there's a rumour going that people saw this girl, a local quack from near the station, sneak into one of the houses in the Dusk district, and will be accepting visitors this evening." It was hard to tell what he meant by 'dusk district', but chances are they called it the western part of the Bridge one, given the name. "And the rumours say she isn't susceptible to the plague. Not only that, she can even cure it! And I am thinking, if people get sick, where would they go if not towards a miracle worker that promises a cure, right? So we can intercept and quarantine them. And even if not, she's quite a character. Attract s people of obvious types we wouldn't want locked up with us; the nimble and swift like mice, not held back by any barrier..." it was almost as if he spoke to the ones that escaped the Cathedral. "...the ones that would slit your throat in the night. I asked local kids to look around and find out the house in question - the little twats always run around picking trouble, so maybe they can put themselves to a good use."

That wasn't all, however. It seemed like in this place at least this person worked full-time. "Asides for that, down at the edge of the city there's a camp of locals. They say someone died there horribly, and they're holding the burial. With all their... ritualistic dances and such. Right under the city streets. So, if this person died of plague, they are better off on the pyre. Who knows if the sickness can penetrate the ground, or if some animal or even a child digs it out once the cam's gone." Albeit sounding a little too nervous and paranoid the man seemed to care enough.

 

[Featherstone]

Bitter as the news was, at least he had something to work with. Something to do. He'd tell Gregory Caine the information when he got back, and see what he thought about the situation and how to handle it. Medicine couldn't compete with alleged miracles, and he'd no doubt that frustrations and anger would erupt at forced quarantining when people started going to see her, but the orderly had a point: it was likely to flush out the sick. It would be smart to try to isolate people who were in close proximity with the diseased for several hours before releasing them back into the general community, since symptoms showed so quickly, but he wasn't sure how practical that was, either. He was inclined to err on the side of force but the broken doors made him start to question that. Something to think about, anyways. As for the body...That could be concerning, but his greatest concern wasn't peoples' physical contact with a corpse so much as the potential of mosquitoes, fleas, and other sanguivorous vectors transmitting it from individuals being close in contact with an infected body. Unlike the bubonic plague, whatever this pestilence was didn't come with buboes and numerous bodily secretions, which meant it was less of a concern post-mortem than the Black Death's most common form. He still would've taken buboes over this, though.

Noah nodded, mulling the information over. "Thank you, orderly. I appreciate your service. I know that such work is taxing, but it is invaluable." He mustered a smile, and there was a certain authenticity to it, small and exhausted as it was. "I should get going, as there's little time to waste, and I'd rather rumors not get too exaggerated about my absence. Rest well, have a good afternoon," he said, tipping his hat to the orderly before turning and, at a swift pace, starting on his way to Gregory Caine's.

 

[kevintheradioguy]

"Well, what else am I left to do?", shrugged the man in a costume, and Noah had a feeling there was a story there. Did the man lose his family too? "Will you pass it on to the Judge then? So I can just go about my job instead of standing in the line."

It was a fast way to the Judge. He lived just across from the Cathedral, in a large, tower-like building, that looked depressive as all hell, and rightfully so in this day and time, among the plague. Before Noah could even realise there was a small crowd of people, he was already surrounded by it, swallowed with a tide of people, after some woman looking around, locked her eyes on Noah, loudly exclaiming "There he is!". He was all surrounded by mumble and arguments, some demands being thrown his way. People stood around in a tight circle, not getting physical - yet - but looking like they just might. Stray phrases about genocide, and children, and quarantine were heard... was this the crowd Matches and Orderly Eight spoke of? If people were told he was dead, like other orderlies did, it made sense they'd come to the Judge. Who else was an authority here besides them two?

 

[Featherstone]

The perfect start to the day: a dead body, broken quarantine, and a mob. It was sure to wake a man up faster than any amount of coffee would. The thought passed his mind with a wry sort of humor, one that didn't show on his countenance when he approached, but the joke was squashed promptly by the jolt of adrenaline his body received when he found himself surrounded. It wasn't that Noah was somehow incapable of handling crowds, but being hounded from every angle by a hostile didn't do anything for his state of mind, and it left him trying to keep track of every moving variable--a feat that was impossible even for the most well-trained and vigilant of men.

He grabbed his bag under his arm to prevent anyone from easily seizing the strap and prevent his motion--or tearing it from his person--and, rather than engage with any of them, set his shoulder ahead and made to shove through the crowd. He just needed to get to the door and inside the damn house so he could speak to Mr. Caine and figure out how to fix this bloody mess, not try to ease the minds of people that would use his every word against him. He might've tried to de-escalate if he thought himself capable of it, but he assumed, falsely or otherwise, that any attempt to speak with them would only make it worse. Better not to engage and give them ammunition.

 

[kevintheradioguy]

It was almost prophetic how Noah thought about the ammunition. He had enough things to be grabbed by: be it his coat, his belt, or even his shoulder, but people, once more, decided not to be physical, allowing the man to move up the stairs. That is where their lack of physical involvement ended. When his hand reached for the door, and it became clear he wasn't going to address... well, whatever they were trying make him address, violence was inevitable. A rock suddenly landed at the door near him, dust exploding in his face. And if there's anything Noah could be sure right now, it was the crowd's ability to parrot others. Whether he imagined it, or this was true, but he could've sworn he immediately heard a few dozen hands reaching down to the pavement to each pick another one and shower the man.

 

[Featherstone]

Noah didn't waste a moment longer dillydallying outside when the rock smacked the wall next to him. His fingers closed around the handle and he shoved it open, getting his shoulder behind it in his haste, and the man swept inside before he gave himself the chance to find out just how many hunks of geology his body could withstand. He sincerely hoped that Gregory Caine had a back door, because he had a creeping suspicion that, if he tried going out the front, the crowd was going to make a valiant attempt at stoning him--which was not on the Noah's daily agenda.

He slammed the door shut the minute he was inside of it, resisting the urge to fall back against the wood. For fuck's sake...Why were people so hard? Although he kept his own feet, a heavy sigh did escape his lips, as much out of exasperation as relief.

 

[kevintheradioguy]

He stood in a short dark hallway, connecting a few rooms together. Tapping heard from one of the rooms in front of him, like if someone was mixing paint with a knife, piano sounded thought he wall to the right, something bubbled in the room to the left, clocks ticking everywhere in here, and yet, it also sounded very empty. It sounded dead. The building tall, cold, stone on the outside, and dark wood - on the inside. With a small storm of rocks being hurled, the tapping stopped, and only dulled sounds of an unhappy crowd talking sounded behind it. They didn't dare entering.

Near an entrance stood a desk with three bored men sitting at it. It was usually littered with papers - a small group of committee clerks the Judge offered to give Noah at some point. They handled paperwork, though now none of it was seen around, and the men seemed genuinely bored. Noah never managed to learn their names, however: they worked 24 hours a day, and thus, had a few shifts, twelve men rotating in these positions. However bored they were, when their faces snapped up in synchronised movements, they looked... weird. Exhausted. Like human-sized puppet: eyes empty, devoid of light, skin pale and rough. Of all the people, they should've known Noah was declared "dead", but they didn't seem all that surprised to see him, or hear the tapping of rocks upon the door.

"Doctor!", the one in the middle greeted him. "Nice to see you. Mind settling an argument we were having? After all, you're an outsider here, and have a clear head and a fresh look. We've got nothing to do here, and so, we were discussing the nature of plague, and the reasons for an outbreak. You would' of course, agree, that it happened in this specific town in this specific time for a reason, right? Not a random chance or a roll of dice, correct?", he was seemingly going somewhere with it, albeit sounded a bit detached, as if he was drinking a lot. Even if there was no alcohol in his breath, or this entire room.

 

[Featherstone]

The shift in environment from two steps ago to through the door was palpable and admittedly a bit jarring. One moment, a mob was out for blood, and the next, he was being asked to settle some sort of bet, as if no one had ever thought he was gone. He blinked, then answered in a somewhat casual, off-the-cuff fashion, or as much as someone of his austere nature could muster. He dipped his head and removed his hat by way of greeting and shot a small, polite smile the clerk's way. "Well, mister, I would say that there are specific variables that change the odds of an epidemic in any given place or time, and therefore it may be more or less likely in one environment--that is, a space in a particular place and time frame--than another, but I suppose that depends on what you mean by 'reason.' Everything's random to an extent, but all events' likelihoods are changed by the variables at play."

He released his grip on his bag while he spoke, pushing it back to rest on his hip again, then proceeded to brush the dust from his coat before he proceeded any farther. Stones or no stones, he still had his manners to uphold, or whatever he had left of them. "I'm afraid I'm in something of a rush, however. Could you direct me to Mr. Caine?" he asked. He felt a bit guilty cutting off the conversation, but as the dream bird had so astutely pointed out, he didn't have the time to waste, and the clerks weren't inches away from stoning him if he didn't stay and chat.

 

[kevintheradioguy]

The absent-minded man seemed not to even need Noah's answer, as he proceeded to explain, seemingly not entirely realising even what Noah was saying, and that he was urgent. It was like he was in some sort of a trance. "I mean, this town... and this might just sound crazy, but hear me out... this town is like... a big experiment. To see the limits of human potential. Here we have the most modern technologies, and live side-by-side with barbarians that live in a way as if a stone axe wasn't invented yet. Famous poets near those who don't even have a language, just a set of gar-gar and bol-bol. The most talented architects among people that live in the mud. And then there's you.", his head lifted up, but eyes were empty. "A doctor from the capital that fights death itself, and as soon as you arrive the whole town is taken over by a mysterious disease that kills people within a few days.", he sounded like Norah in his dreams, albeit, not really in an accusatory way. He seemed to have a conspiracy theory on his mind. "And now, we have a outbreak, and the lockdown, and the Judge lifts the quarantine, and declares you dead. Isn't it weird? Maybe we're just an experiment run by the last six hundred years or so. An impossible town. You just can't mix oil and water, you can't connect similarly-charged magnet poles. Unless, by force. And a soon as that force falters, it is all shredded to pieces. Isn't this what's happening? So many things got stuffed into the borders of this town, that it fights back. Has an equal counteraction. Nature we conquer fights, the barbarians fight progress, and we are destroyed from within by our leaders to see what happens!"

 

[Featherstone]

The Judge lifted the quarantine and declared him dead. The Judge lifted the quarantine and declared him dead. What was this foolishness?! Was he looking to get them all killed? Matches hadn't said anything about him being thought dead--he was asleep, not a fucking corpse, and to lift the quarantine in the middle of an epidemic that killed within days, when they were the only ones left...Noah only half-heard whatever the clerk's conspiracy was. The Judge should've known goddamn good and well that he was alive and that the plague was still very much a concern until it was definite that nobody in the entirety of the island had symptoms, and even then, there shouldn't be any contact with the outside. What did "lifting the quarantine" mean, exactly, and why the hell would Caine be the one to call him deceased?

"I didn't bring the infection here in any regard, and my intent is only to preserve life," he stated, but didn't take the time to have a conversation about it. People would believe what they wanted. "Where is the Judge?" He repeated the question somewhat more forcefully this time, not wanting to be rude but also on a clock.