#blindmalice

Dust dragged a hand over her face, Buck snoring gently against her, arms folded, scarred lids closed and hiding the hollows beneath. His stench permeated the air - more than sweat and piss and vomit but blood, necrotic flesh, sliding off like cooked meat from bone. It began at his feet and clambered up his calves, now blistering on his fingers, leaving them hot and puffy and vividly pink, blackening around the nails.

She couldn’t imagine the pain he was in, yet he never stopped smiling. Even now a small grin formed as he stirred, shifting against her and chuckling. “Y’still here?”

A pause. He didn’t care about the pain - no, he relished it. Could it be considered a mercy to do this, if he would be happy regardless? But it wasn’t for his sake alone. This disease, if allowed, would take the city as a plague. Already other beggars were left curled up in terror and pain, clinging to their limbs as they seemed to fall apart.

Perhaps she could help them - perhaps. But Buck was too far gone.

A nudge from him brought her back to awareness. “I’m still here.” She ghosted her fingertips over his scalp. The taste of her own potion remained bitter on her tongue, protection from what she needed to face. A sigh.

“I’ve got something for you.”

Eager hands grasped upwards until she met them with an apple, plump and rosy, glossy with poison. He ate without another word, greedily devouring it and sucking the juices off his fingers. Crunches continued for a minute or two, severing the core in half until it, too, disappeared, seeds spat away.

The sedative took him first. A mercy he would never accept. When she felt his breathing stop she stood, gently laying him down. Another haggard sigh before she faced him, or what had been him, finally still.