1 The Spread

The year was the early 18th century and a plague started to spread out nowhere and began killing a lot of people in the process. My name is Neal Kirkstoic, one of the last plague doctors. The story begins with Great Britain, a peaceful country suddenly got the worst case of mass death of many people in just one day. We called the plague the Time Plague, the reason for this is we found out when a patient gets the plague he or she is a walking timed death where each patient only has 5 days to live before he/she is silently killed by the plague.

There are two stages of the plague where, Stage 1 is the first three days of the patient getting infected by the plague this is quite curable in this state, though the patient might feel very ill especially on the third day nearing Stage 2 which is what we call, the "Dead Man Timer" since the fourth day begins the endless suffering of the patient especially their lungs and their legs as they can't walk the way they used too usually in this stage we, the plague doctors can't heal a patient since the infection is already half-way through a patient's body we can only watch the patient as they suffer towards the fifth day which is at any moment in this time the patient can die at any moment.

At the beginning of the plague, we started with 50 doctors in Britain which is enough but after 8 months we were left with 10 doctors and that includes me.

I usually stay at my laboratory and perfecting my cure for the infection... Though some people already took my medicine and... The results were not great, they died each time I tried to save someone after those 8 months I controlled my dosage for my patients since I can't save one since they die every time I gave my medicine to them. And the plague is still spreading like

wildfire outside so we called what use to call "outside" to now Dead Man's Land for even the healthiest man could not survive 5 minutes in the plague filled the air of Dead Man's Land. I only pick people that are desperate for my medicine even though I explained to them that my medicine might kill them instead of curing them, I gave them the medicine then after that I gave

them a piece of paper and a pen to write their last testament before they'll die from my medicine within 20 minutes. And every one of them died. I went outside today just because I need some samples of the deceased for my next try of the cure. While I was grabbing the blood that was spilled by a dead man on the street, it seems his body is still fresh so he just died. I said that to myself then I met this aristocrat that needed my help, I finished collecting the samples I needed and head back to my lab with the aristocrat as my next patient...

"Young man, I am at your mercy of receiving your medicine. I'll... Give you everything I have just to be cured by you, I know you're one of the last 10 surviving plague doctors. Please!" Said the aristocrat, I replied with "Sure, I'll help you but before that, I'll warn you that my cure isn't perfected yet and it might kill you instead of curing your sickness. Are you sure about taking this risk of losing your life to a life-saving person you thought of." The aristocrat replied with a desperate tone. "It's okay, I'll take any risk since I went through everything just to find any plague doctor!" After that, I replied again. "My name is Neal Kirkstoic and I'll be your plague doctor for today and when did you get the sickness?" The man replied.

"Three days ago..." I replied. "So you are on the brink of DMT. Good thing you arrived here before the fourth day. Here I'll give you the medicine through injection and within 20 minutes it's either you die or you'll be cured of the plague." The aristocrat closed his eyes and took the medicine and by the time he opened his eyes again I gave him a piece of paper and a pen to write his last testament, he only has 20 minutes to either live or die. 1

7 minutes later... "Here, young man if I don't make it you did you're best to save someone and never forget this..." after that he spat out blood and his dissolved organs... "Failed again I guess but his death is different from before..." saying that to myself while tears started to fall. I pinned his testament on my Wall of Testaments separating those who lived and died... And all of them died. I took some samples from the aristocrat's dead body to investigate what went wrong in my mixture.

When I found out that one of the chemicals that can fix this, is... My notorious medicine that is been in use on executions, "Deathiomion" the cleanest way to execute a criminal since it only kills the organs through deactivation of the organs making it unusable thus killing them without pain. I didn't expect that this would be the medicine that might cure the plague.

Well, I guess I'll try this again as the aristocrat told me, I will do my best to make the cure for this plague. Even though everyone calls me the Doctor Of Death... I guess that I specialize in medicine that kills people and yet they needed me to create medicine that cures and heals people. I mean I don't have any grudge on the people that put me on this position since I was the only available during that time, I don't hate anyone but having a reputation that labels me as a Doctor that kills his patients then I guess I'll live with that title at my back since I can't make a proper medicine that properly cures a person without them getting killed by it after a few minutes. After making this next batch of medicine I guess the cycle will start again.

After two days I went out again to see if there are any survivors near my location and maybe grab some more samples of the deceased, After three hours I got the samples and it seems no one survived I head back to the lab with a thought inside my mind. *sigh* 50 special doctors that will cure this plague they say.

I guess the others had their mistakes then but even though I lost someone I knew that was with me on the 50 special doctors, I can say that I can't get bummed out because of that memory remember every one did this with knowing that in one wrong move might kill you and in fact that happened with some of them. I guess I'm a lucky bastard that is still out here failing to cure the people...