Plague

It turns out that the plague is still out there, turns out we’re not the only ones interested in the disease. I think I should say the diseases in the plural. Apparently, there are three kinds of plague in existence. There is the infamous bubonic plague which infects the lymphatic system, causing a swelling of lymph nodes which leads to the appearance of buboes. Then there are the less visible, far deadlier kinds; pneumonic, and septicemic; infection of the lungs and blood, respectively. I had no idea that there three types of plague honestly.

I've only found that after getting sick with two of the three variants; that’s what I think at least.

I was completely fucked up at one point; to the point of hallucinating a bird-headed alien-thing.

For fuck‘s sake; two of my roommates died from whatever we had. Young healthy men don’t tend to die from the flu. Everything’s been upside down recently. I don’t know what‘s wrong and what‘s right. Some days I genuinely think I‘m stuck in a dream but I then I snap back into reality.

Zain and Adam’s rooms are empty; they are not coming back.

Chris and I didn’t make it to the funerals; we told 'em we weren’t sure we‘re clear yet. That was a lie. We just couldn’t handle the truth. I‘m not sure I still can.

Everything is just so different now.

It all started with the decomposing corpse of a cat Adam found at our doorstep in February. He kind of mentioned it as a side remark during that afternoon; saying he found it when he went out to work and that he tossed it as far away as he could have from the apartment.

Three days later he got down with a stomach bug, or so we thought. It started with stomach aches, nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting. Soon enough he was bedridden, paralyzed with fever. We just thought he was having the flu. It was the season and there was this massive storm raging at the time. It was so bad we’d even lose electricity from time to time.

By the end of that same week, we were all feeling the same supposed flu; my head was constantly pounding and my body felt weak and almost numb. My digestive system went second. I started vomiting like crazy on the second day of my illness. It was so bad I couldn’t put anything in my mouth. The mere idea of swallowing made me throw up.

Chris and Zain were complaining of chest pain and difficulty breathing. I mean, I wasn’t really surprised; they were coughing so badly one would think they’re about to have a lung collapse on them.

On my third day of the illness, all four of us were bedridden, completely incapacitated.

We just stayed in the living room together, and I guess we all got unbearably weak overnight together, probably watching some movie or something. It wasn’t about taking care of each other, I mean, of course, we did care for Adam when he was in this alone. Although we didn’t really devote all of our time to him and everything just happened so fast and all four of us were basically living corpses in the blink of an eye. I mean, we didn’t see the doctor because we all thought we’d be fine and when we knew we wouldn’t be just fine it was already too late.

Then the electricity went out of the window due to the crazy storm outside.

I remember jokingly complaining about being kicked out since it seemed like none of us would be able to make any money anytime soon. We all found it so hilarious we laughed until our entire bodies hurt. Not that much eversion was needed to get there. I kept making jokes and fooling around during my waking hours because I was genuinely scared. I've never felt so hurt and weak before. I've never felt so worn out. Hell, I've never been this sick up to this point.Not to mention how I was losing feeling in my legs from time to time and how my feet were all bruised up from, well, nothing really.

I didn’t tell the other guys about this; I didn’t want them worrying; they were worn out enough.

Six days into my illness, I couldn’t really walk anymore; I just woke up that day not even feeling my legs. The other guys were still asleep, so I tried my best not to scream like a little child. I mean, I couldn’t even feel my fucking legs. I smacked at my thighs a few times but nothing. I felt almost nothing. My legs registered nothing. My fists felt as if I had been beating on a punching bag. I nudged my feet but they wouldn’t move. I had to shift my legs manually off my bed in order to try to stand up. I couldn’t get myself to stand up straight. Once I pulled myself up to my feet; I felt dizzy and my legs felt like they were made of paper so I immediately sat back down.

That’s when the pain from my wrists came knocking at my mind's door.

I feared the worst; the idea that I’ve managed to break my arms flooded my mind. I felt my heart race like crazy for a moment. I slowly lifted my hands up and noticed how my wrists were only red and blue.

It was only bruising.

Only bruising… I thought.

I threw myself back down to my bed and immediately felt nauseous again. It was the worst nausea ever. I felt something making its way up my esophagus, even though I hadn’t eaten properly in a while.

So, I just threw up.

It stung so bad, and my stomach felt as if I had swallowed nails. Everything burned and stabbed inside. I felt like I had a bomb filled with shrapnel in my guts. Obviously, the noise woke everyone up.

I didn’t even pay attention to anything because I was in so much pain.

My whole body was becoming numb with pain.

I felt something run down from my nose and onto my lips.

I remember running my hand across my face and looking at it.

There was blood on my hand.

Blood was running across my lips.

And everything started spinning as if I was on a roller coaster. I felt so light-headed I couldn’t even form words in my head. I felt as if I was floating for a few moments and then I came crashing down, crashing down hard.

My chest seized up as if I was being crushed under a bed of pure concrete.

I coughed.

And coughed.

And coughed.

My throat went up in flames.

I know Chris, who was fairing the best out of all of us, was screaming something; at least I think he was screaming. No clue what he was screaming, though, I kind of blocked everything out involuntarily. I was simply focused on getting that coughing fit out of my system.

My chest was on fire. My throat was on fire, I felt something sticky coming out of my mouth with each passing cough. It was thicker than sputum. I didn’t even think about it at the time.

Everything just kind of went gray on me and I passed out as the screams of my buddy trailed off into nothingness.

I had a million dreams about being operated on by someone… I wouldn’t call that a doctor. I mean, he was cutting me up and stuff but it never hurt or anything. It‘s like I was just floating above my bed and this person, thing, I don’t know… It was drawing my blood in a few of those dreams. I don’t even know. It felt so weird as if I was out of my own body. I wouldn’t call it an out of body experience because I am clearly alive and I know that I was just dreaming.

Well, at least I think I was dreaming…

I woke up covered up in a white sheet. I removed it from my face and the sunlight that came into contact with my skin sending me into a spiral of pain and vertigo. I closed my eyes shut and turned my head away.

I was trying to make sense of what was going on; to my knowledge, there was a storm raging outside a few hours ago and when I woke up it was sunny… I felt lighter than before too and could clearly sense my legs. I was feeling as if a truck ran over me, but still, I felt like I could actually somewhat operate my body.

The sunlight was slowly becoming less and less painful on my form and I forced myself to look around.

Everything seemed the same for the first moment or so, then I noticed two white body bags laying where I remember Zain and Adam being when I passed out.

“What the fuck?” I murmured to myself sitting up as morbid thoughts flooded my mind.

A monotone, sort of robotic voice cracked from behind me, it said something in a weird Russian, I think. I know what Russian sounds like but it wasn’t it. The sound freaked me out. I was wondering all these crazy things. My heartbeat rose so quickly and I felt light-headed again. I was feeling myself slip out of it once again.

The voice spoke once again, in a heavily accented English; “Oh you awake… good!"

I forced myself to turn around as slowly as I could to see this BDSM looking person, thing, with a bird mask on it. It looked like a Plague Doctor

from the movies but with a bunch of belts all around it.

“You had plague… I’m sorry…" the thing spoke again.

“Wha-what?” I managed to blurt out, I was genuinely convinced it was the angel of death for a moment.

“You sick, very,” the creature pointed its finger at me, “I fix,” it continued.

“What… the hell are you talking about?” I said with some more confidence in my words, as my breathing became shallower and my heartbeat fastened making my whole body tense up.

The thing lowered its head and poked at something on one of its wrists.

“Ah there…” he proclaimed with confidence, “Now my translator's working properly! I am here to help you recover from a particularly violent strain of the Yersinia Pestis; otherwise known as the plague."

“I have the plague?” I asked the creature dumbfounded.

“Yes, you had it; both your blood and lungs were infected, but I’ve since cleared it out of you.“ The creature proclaimed once more pointing, this time it pointed at a pulsating fabric-laced thing that was laying on the floor and connected to my arm by a thin tube.

“Ugh…” I rubbed my eyes as my headache began subsiding slowly, “What are you?“

“I am a doctor; I came here to help you get rid of this bane before it kills you and spreads elsewhere. It seemed to me like you don’t have a cure for this condition. My people have suffered greatly from it,” it went on and on. “We’ve been driven to the brink of infection by this bane; it was too late by the time we’ve discovered a cure and now there are not many of us left. Please, trust my intentions. I only want to spare your kind the suffering that I had to endure.“

“Uhh… What?“ I mumbled; I was too weak to comprehend what it was saying to me.

The creature chuckled and ordered me to rest, so I did. I was too confused and tired to argue, I even considered this being part of my fever dreams but then I noticed he was doing something to Chris.

“Hey, what are you doing to him?” I inquired weakly.

“Replacing his bioplasma… Ehh, what’s the word? Blood! Yes, blood, I am replacing his blood. That’s the only way." The creature reassured me.

“Will he be alright?”

“Yes, most certainly.”

“What about the other two, did you cure them?”

The creature paused for a moment.

“What is it?” I insisted.

“Unfortunately, I didn’t make it in time. Once I arrived, they were no longer among the living…“ I could deter the sorrow in his voice, but it didn’t help in the least, I broke down screaming at the creature. Needlessly blaming it for the deaths of two of my best friends. I forced myself out of the bed and clumsily made my way towards the creature that was standing with it‘s back turned to me.

I grabbed this thing which was taller by about a whole head than me and tried to turn it to face me, demanding from it to fix my diseased friends. It kept on insisting that it can’t. I didn’t let up, and an argument ensued.

The thing finally yielded, “fine… there are your friends,” he remarked as he made some sort of movement with his fingers.

A sound of thrashing came out from both of the body bags, I turned around to see the body bags being torn apart from the inside. My heartbeat skyrocketed as I was watching the madness in front of me unfold.

A blacked arm tore through one of the body backs, another followed suit and a blackened bloated face sprung out of the body bag. It was contorted into an agonized scream and the stench, god, that stench… I stood there, frozen in shock until my knees buckled and I fell into a puddle of dried up blood and bile.

The second body sprang forth from its body bag and emitted terrible gurgling sounds.

I felt myself get sick again. I wanted to throw up so badly, but there was nothing to throw up.

“S… S… Stop…“ I begged I couldn't handle the smell and I sure as hell couldn't handle the sight.

I can‘t… I feel like I‘m going to hyperventilate just from thinking about all of this again.

Holy shit.

“You wanted this,” the creature beckoned.

“I thought…” I mumbled.

It retorted, “I told you, I wish I could fix them, but I cannot.“

“Please… Make it stop… Please…“ I burst out into tears.

The abominations that were once my friends collapsed back into their body bags and I crumpled into a ball into a floor and began whaling.

The creature didn’t utter a sound. It just kept on doing whatever it was doing to Chris until it was finished. That came fairly soon after I broke down on the floor. I kept on mourning the loss of my mates even after I ran out of tears to cry. I just rolled around in the organic waste on the floor, talking to myself about how I couldn’t believe what was becoming of my life.

At some point this creature, this plague doctor simply gathered up all of his stuff and left, but before he left, he told me that Chris and I are going to be alright.

I couldn’t help but laugh at his attempt to calm me down, and he just left.

I’ll be honest here, I’m not entirely sure if what I had seen there was real or just some sickness-related hallucination like I’ve mentioned beforehand.

So, it turns out I've been asleep for about two months; once that thing left, I turned on the TV to find out it was April. Another thing I found out after the plague doctor left and took the corpses of my friends with him is that they were decomposing before he arrived. I found the disgusting decomposition marks all over the mattresses they were once lying on.

Once Chris and I got enough strength to leave our resting spots the following day after my encounter with the plague doctor; we headed out to the local police station and explained everything. It turned out that we indeed had traces of the plague bacteria that our bodies were fighting off as if we were administered a powerful cure.

No one has been really able to explain my comatose state and the way I shook it off when I woke up.

Oh, and yeah, I did mention a funeral; well, after three weeks of searching, the police had located the bodies of Zain Ghanam and Adam Cerniski at a forest clearing not far from our town, surrounded by a bunch of dead animals.

They were all radioactive as fuck.