#khks

There’s a sickness going through Hellsalem’s Lot.

There’s a lot of different creatures there. Werewolves and aliens and mushrooms and monsters and beasts and huma–

There’s never been a sickness that affected all of them. Not all at once.

Of course, no one outside Hellsalem’s Lot is concerned. What happens in the bubble stays in the bubble. Mostly, they’re worried about their tourist activities being upset.

But Libra brought Leo right to the front lines.

“If this is an illness, isn’t that something we should let doctors take care of?” Leo asked on the way, walking deeper and deeper into the Lot’s inner fog, noticing that there were more closed windows and fewer people out and about than usual, but… wasn’t that just how it was, the closer you got to breaks in the fabric of reality?

“Yes,” Klaus said, “If we believed it were a normal illness, we would certainly let others handle it. Unfortunately, we think it may be caused by someone, and it is our job to catch the perpetrator.”

“Oh,” Leo said.

Nodded.

He mostly just went along with things at this point.

He wasn’t even going to ask how his eyes were going to help this time around. They probably thought he could do something. Otherwise, why bother bringing him, when he had nothing else of value to offer?

…He sighed a little, but kept walking along, never having to race to keep up with Klaus’ considerate strides.

“There,” Klaus said, sliding on his knuckles. “One of the infected.”Leo’s head jerked upright, snapping to look to where Klaus indicated. A little dark monster that might’ve otherwise been easily mistaken as a usual resident of Hellsalem’s Lot–except that it had once been a normal resident. Now, it was just… a mindless, violent thing that appeared to spread its illness by attacking others and turning them into something similar.(Leo didn’t want to say the ‘Z’ word, because there was a very nice zombie couple who did their best to subsist on raw animal brains and ran a pawn shop on the corner of Bëtljūs and 3rd, and he didn’t want to stereotype. But he was thinking it and he felt pretty bad about that)Klaus squared up in a defensive position in front of Leo, asking, “Can you tell if it is magic? Biological? Any hints to a creator?”Which. At least explained why they wanted his eyes.“I’ll try,” Leo said, and pulled down his goggles. ………“Leo?” Klaus asked, voice higher. Concerned. “Leo! What is it? What do you see?”…

WHEN YOU TRY TO EAT A VEGAN CIABATTA AT THE ART UNIVERSITY CAFETERIA