Revelation

[CW: gore, violence]

You travel silently at first. But after the first couple hours of quietude, the emptiness longs to be broken. You’re not sure who speaks first, but once you begin talking – always in low, hushed tones – the hours turning to days seem to slip a little easier.

“…In a way, it’s not so different from what I planned. Admittedly I thought I had a good few decades before I’d be taking on a student, but Coerna still has so much to learn…” A pause. “My mother – if she were still around – would be retiring soon. I tried it, for a little while – shoemaking, that’s what she did. She always complained about who she would pass it on to, kept saying young people nowadays didn’t appreciate a good shoe.” A hint of a smile. “I guess she thought having children would make that part easier. Finding someone to care. I always thought–” She breaks off with a familiar expression on her face. One you have worn less often than you would like. Difficult to reminisce without remembrance. “Obviously, those days are long gone. Chris and I… we talked about…” She falls silent. You can’t help a sprig of envy, even in your sympathy.

After a few days, you start to see tree stumps, smoothed by the years, though not so much that you can’t make out the pairs of initials etched in. “I was always too scared to ever leave a mark myself. My friends all did – the ‘cool’ ones, anyway. I suppose… in a way, it felt like the opposite of what being a medic is all about. Helping people, not scarring them.”

At first glance, the city is as you remember. It tastes bitter, seeing those spiring buildings, victors of a war which cost you so dearly. But the truth is revealed in the details. Cracking walls, vines slowly tearing the place apart. Brick by brick. It will fall.

You wonder, now, if anyone remembers how the war started. Not just the facts and figures; anyone can rattle off a list of dates. But the feeling in the air, the glances to neighbours over the morning paper, the crackle in the broadcaster’s voice.

Invisible figures dance at the window. Silent echoes of buskers in the streets. Nothing but ghosts for neighbours.

Naomi seems resolute – if apprehensive – about her direction. Her words have ebbed to a halt now, but you still hear her through the nervous glances and quick gestures.

You follow her, past sleek offices, glass in shards across decade-old financial reports; past subways fitted with rusting air raid sirens; past greying temples of rotting tomes which earn a nod of respect as she passes. You see glimpses of familiarity – a couple shrines to Bausana – but there is a distinct metallic tinge when compared to your Jotamese nostalgia. You remember, now, why you didn’t stay long on your first visit.

The laboratory, when you eventually reach it, is non-descript. Its only distinguishing feature is the intensity of Naomi’s gaze upon it. She stares down at a copper plaque – oxidated beyond recognition – and murmurs, barely audibly, ‘The Gustav Institute of Evidentiality and Natural Sciences’.

She leads you round to a side door, already pulling out a key. Unneeded, as the contact with the lock swings it open.

Upon entry, you are almost forced back by the smell. Once, on your travels in Jotama, you tried to take shelter in a bombed-out chemist’s. Here, you find it again, that stench of acid and sulphur and sickly sweetness.

You sputter something about keeping watch and back out to the doorway, gasping in the fresh air. Staring out, you trace the road, winding between high-rise buildings before it escapes into the choking wilderness. It thins to a thread, then vanishes. But if you squint through the haze… just there, a blot which could be the Bastion. Or maybe that one? No, wait, that clearing looks familiar…

A sharp tap on your shoulder startles you, as you turn to see Naomi holding some sort of canister labelled ‘SEBALD’ and a handful of papers. “This should offer some defence.” Only the barest of tremors in her voice. “It’s a gas which was meant to hijack the disease, send it into overdrive. The host… well, in theory, it’ll incapacitate them. Once we find somewhere less… overwhelming, to stay, I can have a better look at these documents.” She smiles, as though the hardest part is done already. You split the papers and go.

She talks now, quickly but quietly, as you walk. “We got lucky that there’s anything left of the research, it really is a huge boon. A weapon for now, but with some time – and I’ll go back for some of the equipment – well, I wouldn’t go as far as likely, but it’s certainly plausible – Maybe we can– At least for the early stages– cure it. Put a stop to– well, you know.” The name does not pass her lips, but you feel Lottie in her words.

She slows as the temple comes back into view. You spot another shrine, laden with desiccated flowers and cups of green water.

The soft resonance of its set of wind chimes rings through the air. It stirs something within you, an ache that you almost recognise. Naomi hears it too, turning to face it. She makes an expression somewhere halfway between frowning and smiling. Two lives blur, and for a moment, you see that look on her face. It holds for a flicker longer this time, a breath which catches as Naomi returns your stare curiously.

Somehow, it was easier when you could dismiss her as a sympathetic fool. Given all that has passed since, it seems less like it’s for naïvete’s sake and more of a brave compassion which reminds you, though you could not say how, of a long-forgotten desire. And here, when all others have subsided into cowardice or self-preservation, you find her, doing what others have scurried away from. It could all be for nothing but you know that she would not shirk this either. It should mean little, when remembering nothing save a name, but the signals spark brighter here. As though her voice is ringing in those chimes.

“I once–” Naomi starts, a phantom smile playing across her lips. A crash interrupts her, a dissonant jangling of notes as a body lurches through the shrine. Red eyes stare at you over a scrap of cloth, and you twist as another raider appears on your left. One more, behind you.

Naomi acts quickly, pulling a pin from the canister and aiming straight into the face of the closest infected. It gags and stumbles back and she spins to go for the next but within a moment it has recovered. It leaps at her and its weight carries her to the ground. The second raider staggers in, tearing her scrubs like tissue paper, reddening in a sudden sunset. The blue of her gloves scrabble in protest but are overwhelmed in spatters of scarlet. She screams. By the time your limbs are hotwired into action, there isn’t enough of her face left in the horde to pick out friend from foe.

The eyes turn to you, blood dripping, tongues snarling. You raise your gun but you hear footsteps behind you and duck as the third raider barges past you, colliding with the pack. You sprint, stumbling over the kerb and running and running–

A gunshot echoes in the street.

The raiders scatter. One glances back to you – the one who scrambled past your dodging – and its gaze holds yours for a fraction. Then they are gone, leaving nothing but some shredded papers and bleeding tarmac.

Looking the other way, you see Shansa, over the barrel of a rifle. Behind her is a caravan which can only be Martya’s, led by a haggard mule. “Come on!”

The journey back to the Bastion is not especially faster than the outward leg, the mule (whose name is Jocelyn) labouring under the weight. Shansa insists you keep guard with her on the roof. You’re not sure why she trusts you with that, given what she just saw.

It wouldn’t have been safe to stay alone. There was nothing you could do. Naomi was already dead. You look down to your hands, expecting at least a speck of blood, but find only dirt and dust. Who will remember the name on the plaque now? Already, it slips to the tip of your tongue.

There is an almost hostile silence in the camps at night, as Martya and Strangeness share guarded glances. Shansa insists that you sleep outside the caravan, though Martya remains inside. The evening is empty without the flowing words to fill the gaps between collecting wood and deciding watches.

The events of the day replay, burning double in your mind.

They… fracture, the raiders’ rags juxtaposing with the lapis blue of Din Talin uniform. Bearing down towards you, your battered gun feeling more inadequate with each step.

Umber soil compacts under your boots. Their guns are raised, their bandanas in patriotic lapis lazuli giving face to the faceless. It shifts again to the ash grey of tatters stained vermillion. Someone – a civilian – no, the third raider – someone runs past, colliding with the enemy in a mess of limbs.

You run to the caravan. You look back as Shansa pulls you up. The eyes of the third raider meet yours.

They glint in the sun, in colours you can’t quite place initially. But it reminds you…

Then it flits away. Leaving nothing but a memory.

The documentation Naomi left in your hands.

KNOWN CONTAGION TRAITS & BEHAVIOURS

stage 1 “internal”

• nausea (lack of appetite, dis-orientation)
• loss of focus (eyes, attention)
• bloodshot eyes
• hair loss
• insomnia
• no significant muscular changes or changes to dermaplane

stage 2 “external/severe”

• worsening of all stage 1 symptoms (complete hair loss)
• distrust of known persons
• failure to recognise known persons
• loss of verbal coherency (gurgling, hissing)
• grips people tightly by the arm/leg and won't let go
• rotting teeth, tooth loss
• significant change to surface dermaplane – sores or scabs on skin, skin might bubble with blisters in some parts, skin might scrape easily and then not heal over, gradually full-skin coverage

misc.

• normally move slowly to conserve energy
• hunt in sudden jerky movements without regard for personal safety.
• will pursue by running. will lunge for arms legs and throats. eat flesh and tissue but not specifically blood (some may spit blood out). eat bone marrow but cannot chew bone. eat brain tissue if they can get past the skull.
• symptoms unfailingly occur in “stage” order. muscular changes or changes to dermaplane never occur before total or near-total loss of verbal coherency.

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