Melva would never understand why some people liked to live so far away from civilization. Sure, the forests and meadows were green and lush, the rivers and ponds clear and blue, the wildlife docile and people-shy, but who would choose all of this appallingly pastoral tranquility over the soothing clamour of a busy Lorderon market? More importantly, living alone in the wilds meant that you could lay dying on your own front step for days before anyone noticed you were missing and sent a handy adventurer after you.
Unfortunately for this woman, the handy adventurer had been a hunter, rather than a priest or a paladin, and the poor man had been unable to do more than move her inside out of the sun and race back into the small town of Brill to get a healer. The traveling druid he found there had immediately declared that the woman needed more than her rudimentary skills, and sent a letter to the temple at Lorderon for a priest to come and provide their more advanced healing powers. Melva had been sent.
The woman was dying. The fever that had ravaged her body had left her weak and vulnerable. The priestess had tried, but her medical prowess, both magical and mundane, had had no effect on the woman. Melva planted her hands on the stone wall of the well and sighed. Her patient was in pain, excruciating pain that left her crying out at all hours of the day and night, and no amount of persuasion had convinced The Light to save her. She couldn't even ease the pain.
People died all the time. In a kingdom the size of Lorderon, several citizens a day went on into the Beyond, and left their friends and families with heart-hurt and questions for the priests and priestesses of The Light.
There was another tortured scream from inside the house.
"People shouldn't have to die like this."
"People always die like this." Melva clapped her hands over her mouth to smother her squawk as Ealvin dropped onto the well beside her. His pack thumped against the stones with a metallic ring.
"Ha. Scared you."
"Of course you scared me! I'm keeping a death watch!"
"Shouldn't you be inside the house for that?" Melva stared down the well.
"I'm waiting for the screaming to stop."
"So this is the benevolence of your blessed Light?"
"Ealvin!" He jumped to his feet.
"It's senseless! It's cruel! If a person were doing this to her, you'd be the first person to smite him!"
"Remember that The Light has a purpose for all of us, Ealvin. She's in pain now, but-"
"Why is she in pain? What possible purpose could that have? If she has to die, why can't it be quick and quiet in her sleep? Why this screaming spectacle? Why is she in pain your potions and poultices have no effect on? Why doesn't The Light hear her? Isn't that what It's there for? To help and heal? WHY IS SHE DYING?"
"WHY ARE YOU YELLING AT ME?" The glared at each other across the small grassy yard.
"Talk to me, Ealvin. Tell me what's wrong." He rubbed his gauntleted hand across his face.
"When was the last time you were at the church?"
"I've been here for days. Why?"
"Because she's not the only one." Suddenly, the whole conversation felt worlds away. There couldn't be more. Not more people suffering like this.
"How many?"
"For every ten people in Lorderon, six have fevers that can't be controlled and are in screaming pain at all times. The best anyone can do is put them to sleep and keep them there."
Another shriek from inside.
This isn't happening, Melva thought. This is a dream. A horrible nightmare. I've fallen asleep against the wall in the church kitchen, I've slipped in the mud and knocked my head, I've had my mind stolen by murloc sorcerers, anything so long as this is not happening. Ealvin was still talking.
"-epidemic. People are evacuating as fast as they can get their oxen yoked and heading to Stormwind."
"The Stormwind priests won't let them in." He stopped.
"How did you know-"She laughed bitterly.
"Are you even listening to yourself? Lorderon is plague ridden! The citizens of Stormwind can't let them across the border until they know they aren't infected. Which means they will get infected, setting up shanty towns all along the roads and living off of what they can scavenge. If not with this strange new plague, then with one of the usual ones." She laughed again. "Those might be the lucky ones. If they recognise an ailment, the priests might let the person across to be treated." Ealvin gaped.
"Have you lost your mind? Lucky?"
Another blood curdling howl.
"We may all want to get lucky very quickly. How many have died?"
"None, yet." Melva began ticking off days on her fingers.
"She was out here for at least a week before people came looking for her. Conservative estimate of five days. Took three to get me through red tape and out here to her, eight days. I've been here for nine days, so she's been down for a total of seventeen days. Are children or the elderly getting it?" Ealvin was looking a bit panicked
"Yes to the old folks, no to the kiddies."
"Noted. We take off four days for the aged and we have thirteen days plus however many more she lives to find some kind of a cure. If the children aren't catching it, they may be where we need to look. I want you to-"
There was a crash from inside the house. Melva lunged to her feet and raced inside, Ealvin on her heels with blade drawn. She threw open the door into the bed room and heard Ealvin retch and reel back into the other room. He had a point. It reeked in there.
The woman's body was covered in hideous sores, seeping pus onto the sheets and filling the air with the aroma of rotting flesh. The fever had burned away at her body, leaving her skeletally thin. Her eyes were dark and sunken, and goop from the sores on her face dripped into them.
The sickness had drawn in every part of her as tightly as possible, leaving papery skin stretched taut across the shape of her bones and her hands and feet gnarled and curled into claws. Every part of her but her mouth, which gaped like a raw red wound, greedily devouring everything in front of it. The druid had been able to heal her wrist, and had only mentioned it thinking that some animal had tried to eat her, and that they sometimes carried diseases. She had been half right. The first night Melva was there, the woman stopped her wailing and began to gnaw on her arm. Blunt human teeth didn't do much damage with the priestess there to stop her, but left alone for days with her own madness, it was a simple thing to think that she had injured herself.
At the moment, that night was at the forefront of Melva's thoughts, primarily because the woman's hand was dangling loose in it's restraint, completely unattatched to the arm it had been born on. The thump had been her spilling out of the bed as she lurched for the door. She was ponderously studying the wrist that remained tied, patting the bloody stump where her left hand had been against the ground. It made a strange noise and Melva's mind took a brief vacation as it tried to catagorize it instead of coping with the madness.
The soft squelch of blood being pressed into reminded her of mud being walked on, the thick sort of mud where continual rain divided it into two parts- the bottom solid, and the top mostly water but solid looking. The flesh was making an odd rasping sound ans it dragged across the wooden floor, and the jut of bone did, too. But the sounds were different, the first like a broom across a dirty floor, and the second more like-
The woman-monster noticed Melva standing frozen in the doorway and screamed again. Melva did not move. The creature pounced, free arm flailing wildly at Melva's head. Two things saved her life at that moment. First, that the sickness had stolen the woman's control over her own limbs and her blows wouldn't have landed even if her hand had still been attatched. Second, she was still tied to the bed. That didn't stop her from trying, though.
Ealvin, recovered from the smell, lurched back into the room. Melva did not move. He poked the door closed with his sword. Melva did not move. He touched her shoulder. Melva did not move. He grabbed her around the waist and hauled her downstairs and set her on a wooden bench. Melva did not move. He fished around in his bag for some cheese and waved it under her nose. Melva did not move. Ealvin sighed and scratched his head.
"You'll forgive me for this later." And he upended a bottle of water over her head.
Melva, predictably, screeched like an irate cat and punched him in the ribs.
"Sorry, sorry! You wouldn't wake up!"
"And so you dumped water on me?" She pulled the pin out of her bun, sending soaked blonde hair spilling over her shoulders. "Blast and blast and blast! I'm soaked!" She twisted her hair between her hands, wringing out the water.
"Look, what happened up there? What's wrong with her?"
"She's sick. The fever's burning her brain, and it's making her crazy. She's attacking herself and everyone around her. Are the others like this?"
"Like I said, they've been putting them to sleep and keeping them there. Why does it smell like that?"
"The sores. I think they're rot."
"Dead things rot, Mel. Not live people."
"Apparently, that is not the case. Doesn't it smell at the church?"
"They have people washing away the gross all day, and windows open to let in the air. It smells some, but not that much."
"Well, she's been shut away with a sponge bath every other day and a linen change every four. Of course it smells."
"Why haven't you-"
"Because she's mad and she keeps trying to bite me. That's why."
"Are we just going to leave her up there?"
"I'll keep throwing food at her, but other than that yes, we're leaving her in there."
"That isn't exactly humane."
"She isn't exactly human anymore, now is she?" There was a series of thuds and the sound of something, probably the bed, being dragged. Melva swore and dragged herself to her feet.
"Melva?"
"I have to make sure she isn't hanging herself or something." She mounted the stairs wearily, and dragged open the door like a woman walking to the gallows.
Her patient was sitting cross legged on the floor, staring at her left arm. More specifically, she was staring at the end of her left arm, which was now about six inches closer to her body than it had been yesterday. Her eyes were clear and focused as she looked up at Melva.
"What happened to my hand? I can't find it."
"It's on the bed. Over there." She turned, slowly but deliberately, and looked over the edge of the bed.
"Well look at that. It is. I don't know how I could have over looked it. Say, do you have anything to eat? I'm so hungry."
"Well, I-" The woman choked, and began to vomit blood and gobbets of her own flesh. Melva, finally presented with a situation she knew how to handle, snatched the basin off the table and set it in front of her charge, tipping her over it and pulling back her hair. She automatically began spouting the comforting nonsense noises healers and mothers had used the world over to comfort sick patients and children.
"You're such a good girl, just let it com up, better out than in-" As quickly as it started, the vomiting stopped. Melva gently tipped the woman back against the bed and went to wipe her mouth.
But the woman was dead.