Chapter Text
When the Red Plague first appeared no one thought much of it. The shop got a sudden influx of customers looking for ways to ease symptoms that, at the time, no one knew were signs of the sickness. Other apothecaries and shops around Vesuvia apparently got the same influx of people, although this information spread long after the pandemic had killed hundreds of not thousands. Sore eyes and throats, mild coughs and fatigues of all kinds seemed to be prevailing symptoms. Nothing outright alarming on its own, something that might be easily fixed by a concoction bought from a shop like mine. The upcoming Masquerade held most people's attention, so these symptoms were overlooked by enthusiasm for the party.
Three days. It took three days for the city to realize for certain that something was wrong. Sore eyes became red, sore throats raspy and coughs wrought with spatters of blood. Those afflicted grew thin, weak, and their veins appeared crimson rather than blue. Fingertips gave the illusion of being dipped in fresh blood by days four and five, veins mimicking jagged patterns of drip stains. In a mere five day period people started dying. The deaths started in the tens--the first obvious clue of an epidemic--but rose to dozens as the plague spread exponentially to susceptible and ignorant victims. Doctors from Vesuvia and its affiliated towns were called to find a cure before the whole city fell under. In an effort to stop the spread a small island off the shore of the city was dubbed “The Lazaret'' and was established as the official quarantine facility. The stream of boats going back and forth from the island didn’t seem to slow, and there eventually came news that the island was overcrowded with the sheer amount of victims, and that there wouldn’t be enough room to continue burying the bodies. More testing facilities were created to study the nature of the disease, but no results were shown. Vesuvians seemed to be able to do nothing except wait for the raging pandemic to stop or for it to wipe out everyone it could get to as they watched their loved ones get carted off to the Lazaret to die.
Asra left when the epidemic started, off on another adventure to who-knew-where. They tried to convince me to go with them in order to escape the Red Plague, but I refused. It was only months after they had left that I realized I had made a mistake by staying, but I was glad that they had left and hoped that they wouldn’t come back. I didn’t want them to see their hometown like this, or for them to fall victim to the plague. If the sick hadn’t been brought to the Lazaret, I had no doubt that the streets would have been piled with bodies, running red with blood.
I kept the shop open to some extent, creating elixirs to help reduce the pain of those suffering. Many people came to me in the coming weeks looking for a source of hope, many asking if I could possibly magic away their symptoms. I felt utterly helpless. I am a magician, not a doctor, and for once I realized that magic can’t always give you a solution or an answer. All I could do was smile and apologize.
“I don’t have a cure, I’m sorry. This isn’t something that can be solved with magic. But if you need something for pain or cough...”
I wrote, practiced my magical crafts, and studied texts I had bartered from the Red Market as a distraction to keep me sane. My sleep was disrupted by dreams of the sky outside turning blood red, oozing droplets that discolored the ocean and seeped into the cracks of the cobblestone streets. Anxiety would send me pacing around the shop as I thought of my friends in the city who I couldn’t go out and comfort. I thought of my mother and my grandparents, who I wished I could send a letter to ask them if they were okay and to tell them that I was. They lived far enough north of Vesuvia that they might not have heard of--and hopefully would not feel--the wrath of the Red Plague. As I wondered where Asra might be a crippling ache blossomed in my chest, an urge to apologize for not going with them, for not listening to them. My friends in Vesuvia and I were already in the thick of it with little hope of avoiding becoming corpses in the coming days. Asra would survive, hopefully only returning when the end of the plague came…I pressed down the emotions rising in me, ceasing my nervous pacing. Dwindling on heartache won’t help you, you made your choice. Focus on what you can do.
I sat down and continued working, trying my best to keep thoughts of Asra and my suffering friends out of my head.
***
I wasn’t naive enough to think that I wasn’t at risk of catching the Red Plague, even as I fought so hard against Asra to stay in Vesuvia to help. I had seen those afflicted with it--the young and the old, the weak and the strong--it didn’t matter. Everyone was vulnerable, everyone at risk. Which is why I was rather confused at the amount of shock that overtook me when I looked in the mirror and saw the signs--bloody sclera with reddening fingertips and veins. Every little discomfort I had been ignoring became painfully clear, from the lack of appetite to the scratiness of my throat. Once aware I possessed the symptoms I began coughing sporadically, which the sleeve of my white nightshirt confirmed as yet another sign when it came up stained. I was startled by the blood and felt dread pooling into my abdomen at the thought. I have it. I have it. These are third or fourth day symptoms...I’m dying. In one or two days I’ll be dead. I’ll be…
Some rational part of my mind took control as tears began rolling down my cheeks. I dressed myself in old pants and boots that didn’t quite fit, tucking my nightshirt into the waistband out of habit. There was another pang of pain and denial as I put on my favorite vest, one that had been a gift from my grandmother years and years ago. If I’m going to die, I’ll die in something I cherished. It seemed like such a pointless thing to do but I didn’t think I could walk out the door without it. I attempted to disinfect the sink of the bathroom that I had touched, magically stripping the bed of sheets and putting replacements on. I tore out a page from one of my notebooks to leave a note for Asra, regrets and apologies pouring out onto the page through the ink. It will have to do, I thought as I put down the quill and left.
The sky was not red as I shut the door behind me and replaced the wards, which gave me some sense of relief as I went. I fancied that I could feel eyes watching me from windows as I passed, but that could have just been a sense of shame and paranoia brought on by my dread. The market was eerie in its quiet with abandoned carts and wares left where they had fallen.
In direct contradiction to the marketplace, the docks were full of people. A dozen or so were lined up to one side, red scleras obvious on their downcast eyes. There were a few bird-masked doctors present who ushered the afflicted into boats heading to the Lazaret, forcibly grappling those who wouldn’t go willingly. A young man and woman stood off to one side saying a teary goodbye that they knew would be their last.
“...I love you, you know that, right?”, the man was saying. He stood a bit apart from his sweetheart, who seemed to be crying tears tinted slightly red.
“Of course I do, I’m just…”, with a sudden outburst,”I don’t want to die!”
Despite all dangers, the man hugged her tightly to him, his own crystal-clear tears flowing freely. The masked doctors moved to pull them apart. People around me watched as they struggled and I found tears flowing down my face. I resisted the urge to wipe them off and see if they came out red.
“If you want to stay together that badly,” one of the doctors said,”You can feel free to join her.”
The man’s face went white. One of the doctors ushered us into a boat that had apparently just returned from the island. The sobs of the young woman whose partner had evidently opted out of joining her were the only sounds any of the passengers made. No one would look at each other. Perhaps because it would only be a reminder of the red everyone’s eyes held.
***
It’s a strange feeling to know that you are, inevitably, dying.
After a singular day on the Lazaret I could feel myself getting weaker. My movements grew more sluggish as red trailed up the veins in my arms and dyed my fingertips completely red. Every footstep I took seemed to take chunks out of me, leaving me hollow and exhausted but unwilling to lay down in the soft layers of downy ash that covered the island, despite how welcoming of a bed it seemed.
I drifted aimlessly, watching the doctors try in vain to accommodate those on giving their last breaths before throwing them in large kilns to be burned. Ash rained in regular intervals around the residents of the forlorn place. Some drifted like me, staring at nothing and looking off at Vesuvia on the coast, whispering things that no one else could hear and crying tears that left their cheeks streaked with blood. Others went into a mania, denying their approaching deaths and exhausting themselves to the point of collapsing.
At some point in my drifting I found my way into one of the buildings that housed a kiln. I sat across the small room from it, staring into the bright flames. Some doctors tried to have me removed, but one of the doctors--who was seemingly in charge of the kiln--shooed them away. Their beaked mask didn’t give away any expression as they stared at me momentarily, lenses flashing in the firelight. Eventually, they left me there to stare at the flames alone, disappearing through a doorway covered by a sheet of fabric. As they stepped through I could make out the shapes of people lying on makeshift cots, in line to be incinerated.
Seeing the flickering dance of the kiln’s fire filled me the solace and warmth of days long passed, allowing me to disassociate from my sickly body. Sitting in front of the fireplace in my mother’s house, around the campfire with friends, or in front of the iron stove at the shop, talking to Asra over a cup of tea. All mercifully beautiful and simple times that I never knew I took for granted. I felt a calm wash over me, an acceptance that those flames would be my final fate. That they would burn away my body and the clothes on my back. I would go up in a surge of heat and smoke, coming out of the chimneys as unrecognizable scraps. There would be no more thoughts or responsibilities, everything passing on to some other person. In a way I felt free. Acceptance took a weight off of my heaving chest as I began to stand.
***
It is only with little time left that reality comes crashing down on me. My family, my friends, all of the people who I leave when I’m gone grips me. All because you decided to stay. There is a tightness in my throat and chest, but I have no energy to weep. The doctors eventually found me as I collapsed and brought me inside on a stretcher where they now watch over me. The kiln is in a connecting room, hidden only by the flimsy curtain that is constantly being passed through. All of these people, moving here and there, and for what? It’s what comes next. I wonder what comes next. Drop off into a pit of black unconsciousness forever? No, the kiln comes next. But then what do the doctors do next? Do they go into the kiln? I try to laugh at my own scattered thoughts but my chest can barely rise.
I faintly feel someone take my hand, a sign of compassion and comfort. Their fingers, however, prod at a vein on my wrist. To check my pulse. Tell when I’m dead.
I’m suddenly tired. Exhausted just by thinking coherent sentences. I stop trying to organize the chaos of thoughts in my head and close my eyes, as if trying to fall asleep. I picture someone whose hand I would like in mine. My mother, the doctor who could be helping to make a cure. My grandmother or grandfather, who would be praying for their grandchild to go to paradise after death. Several of my good friend’s faces appear, all who would know that there’s danger in being around me, but would stick around to say goodbye as my story ends. Asra’s face appears among them, and I can only hope that they’ll forgive me for everything I said.
I hope that none of them miss me.
***
Hours later, Asra’s boots touch down on the ashen shore of the Lazaret. They reach out, magically searching for any traces of Ian in an effort to track them. There are none.
Far above them, the chimneys of the Lazaret belch a large cloud of ash, adding more gray to the ground of the island. Their pants and boots become stained with gray as they fall to their knees, tears coming in waves down their face. Almost mechanically, their hands grip the gray ash beneath them and dig reverently for something, anything.
“The last thing...the last thing we said...I said…”, Faust wraps herself tightly around Asra in comfort as they recollect the argument from the Masquerade. Yelling at Ian, trying to get them to see the danger they were putting themself in. Watching as they walked away with their sparkling blue dress trailing behind them, not realizing it would be the last time they would see them alive.
The note left on the counter of the shop was a simple and deliberate farewell.
“I’m sorry I didn’t listen, and I’m sorry I can’t say this to you in person. I’m sick, so I’m leaving for the Lazaret. Please, don’t come and find me, or whatever remains. I should have left Vesuvia with you… Don’t miss me too much, okay?”, signed only with their name. Reading it, Asra had wondered how long it had been since it was written. Days? Weeks? Hours? If only they had come back sooner, then maybe things could have ended differently. Maybe they could have given their apologies and said goodbye.
A defiance fueled by desperation and pain filled Asra. This isn’t how it would end.
“I’ll bring you back, I promise. I will find a way.”