The Wyrms of &alon

DAY 4

Contrary to popular belief, atheism was not a religion. I should know: had it been, I might have been one, myself. Like most things, belief was on a spectrum.

The gnostic theist: he who is certain that God exists.

The agnostic theist: he who believes that God exists, but isn’t certain.

The agnostic atheist: he who does not believe that God exists, but isn’t certain.

The gnostic atheist: he who is certain that God does not exist.

In the middle of these four lay the agnostic: he who didn’t know what to think one way or the other. In a very characteristic fashion, I’d somehow managed to end up in an even more unenviable category: the agnostic agnostic—if such a thing were possible. Actually, I think the best description of the status of my beliefs would be: confused, and unhappy about it. Chalk it up to my indecisiveness.

Did I believe in something greater than mankind, something that I did not fully understand? Yes. The Night. It scared the belasses out of me. Always had, always will. I was also certain that something freaky had happened during Angelfall, And, as for the miracles?—the powers of the Sword? The works of the Lassedites?—the rational part of my mind wanted to say, “no, those couldn’t have happened,” but then the sun would sink below the horizon on the night of a new moon and the rational part of my mind would squeak in terror and scamper off beneath the bedcovers like a pet raptor, with its feathered tail between its legs. Did the history of darkness, corruption and atrocities that shadowed the Church in all its forms—to say nothing of the denominational squabbles—make me doubt that Lassedicy was the one true faith? Yes. But then, I beheld the miracle of life and the majesty of the world and I shudder in the presence of my own ineradicable shortcomings and I doubt that I have the right to pass judgment in these matters one way or another.

The one core principle I believed in without question or hesitation was the call to do no harm. I didn’t care what the reason might have been; causing pain was unacceptable. I’d known pain in my life; I refused to let anyone else suffer from it. Pain was the real problem. In a world with God, I couldn’t believe why pain would exist. In a world without God, I couldn’t believe why pain would be worth enduring. It made life seem unjust.

Was I certain that the Angel loved us?

I didn’t know.

Had He existed?

Probably.

I wanted to believe that if He Loved Us, He wouldn’t allow for eternal conscious torment of those who fell short of His expectations. What was the purpose of Hell’s eternity? Pure oblivion would be more merciful; corrective, remedial punishment, would be ideal.

My life had always been torn between twin poles: faith and doubt; confusion and certainty; fact and conviction; hope, and despair. Now, there was a third pole: Andalon.

I was not a physicist. As much as I wanted to point out that people didn’t have psychokinetic powers in the real world, I couldn’t rule out some absurd contrivance that would provide a rational explanation for those kinds of powers. Maybe something with magnets, or possibly a secret bioweapon or super-soldier program being developed by DAISHU? Yeah, I wasn’t confident such an explanation existed, but, in my ignorance, I could convince myself that it might have been possible.

But then I saw Kurt with a tail, and my chest, and Andalon and the flames…

Was the supernatural real? Could that even be possible? Was that now on the table?

For much of the night, that thought kept me up in a cold sweat, laying on the sofa in Staff Lounge 3, staring up at the ceiling, on lookout for monsters.

I think every struggling believer secretly yearns for a moment of private revelation. We wish to be “that person”, the one whose life does a 180° after having a vision of the divine that brings them to their knees and turns their heart inside-out. “If only I could have that privilege, then I could believe without fear or doubt,”—that’s how the logic went.

I knew I wanted it.

Part of the reason the fantasy genre so appealed to me was that, in its own way, it made more sense than the real world. Everything was connected. Everything was explained. The great powers walked across the world, and only the ignorant or the complacent would ever fall into doubt. If you dug deep enough, everything came together. There was never—or, at least, rarely—a story where witches and ghosts existed, but only witches and ghosts, and nothing else: no God(s), no demons, no vampires, no werewolves, no dragons. Because that wouldn’t make sense.

But wasn’t that the exact situation I was in?

All my life, I’m torn between belief in my religion or disbelief in my religion, and then, suddenly, out of nowhere, Andalon appears, people have magic powers, and then those same people—people like me—start turning into wyrms? Was this some kind of sick joke? My entire life, I beg for a sign, or an insight, something to let me know to whom I can open my heart toward, yet the only doorways that open to me are in the bright spots in my life and the people responsible for them—my family, my friends, my role-models.

And now I had wyrms on my plate. Wyrms and powers and Andalon. And plague. And death—though those last two weren’t new.

What did it all mean? What?

Would I ever know? Did I even deserve to know?

I wasn’t denying reality. Any remnants of that species of denial had died tonight. There was no turning back, not after what I’d seen, and now, I was saddled with a new problem, one far worse than denying reality.

I was staring reality in the face, but had no idea what to do with it

I was frightened like a child, and more lost, confused, and alone than ever before. And so, I stared into the darkness, begging for answers, but to be met only with silence.

— — —

I slept poorly. I sorely needed an extra hour or two. Although I probably could have found myself a more decent bed if I looked, I didn’t feel I deserved it.

I was too broken, guilty, and corrupt.

I guess my bad night’s sleep was just desserts then, huh?

I sat up on the couch, dead and disheveled. The air around me might as well have been made of toffee and molasses. The lag seemed to have gotten stronger, as if to compensate for having relinquished its grip on my transformed chest.

The thought of food crept across my mind. A pit opened in my stomach, demanding to be filled with food. Saliva pooled behind my lips, threatening to drown my tongue or spill over in drool.

Ugh…

Steeling myself, I reached for my work console and powered it on.

There was already a message waiting for me on the screen.

Ward E CMT Meeting. Time: 7:35. Location: 2Ba452.

2Ba meant second basement level. Most of WeElMed’s labs and bulkier equipment were located in the basements. As were the morgues.

What were we going to be doing down there?

“Has someone made a breakthrough?”

I glanced at the time display on the screen’s upper right corner.

7:25.

Oh, snitbit!

Frantic, I flicked my finger across the screen, scrolling through my messages, skimming through anything I’d missed. One message in particular caught my eye.

Dr. Nowston is going to be guiding us through an autopsy of a recently deceased NFP-20 patient.

Oh…

I gulped.

It had been two decades since I’d last had the company of a corpse on an examination table. Then, as now, dead bodies gave me the heebie-jeebies. I almost wished we had supersonic pneumatic trains like Mu, so that I could jump on board and zoom away from the cadaver faster than the speed of sound. Unfortunately, just like when I was in medical school, high stakes kept me from flying the coop. If only the current stakes had been as simple as “get a good grade”.

If Brand was leading the charge, then he’d either found something, or thought he was on the precipice of doing so. Besides, given everything last night had unloaded on me, I was willing to put up with a lot more than just the heebie-jeebies if it meant a chance of getting answers. Or, Angel willing, solutions.

After getting out my sanitizer spray, giving myself a good spritzing, and donning my PPE, the first order of business was to stuff my face full of food, preferably before I started slobbering like a dog. And since I didn’t want to be late, I guess I was going to have to eat on the go. I took the elevator down to the first floor mezzanine. It and the other upper floors of the Hall of Echoes merged with the galleries encircling the Hall of Echoes upper reaches. The network of walkways connected to the galleries of nearly all the other atriums scattered around the hospital complex. It was in one of the corridors adjoining the Hall of Echoes’ mezzanine-level walkway that I finally hit pay dirt: a non-empty Pastry Pal.

Like any facility of its size, West Elpeck Medical Center was filled with service niches, featuring water fountains, bathrooms, and vending machines for use by patrons and personnel. I was most familiar with the niche layout in C Ward, seeing as it was the Ward where I spent the majority of my usual workdays, but I’d had to venture beyond C Ward often enough that I’d memorized more niche locations than just the ones on the map Dr. Dextra made for circulation amongst the Ward C’s staff to show folks where all the best vending machines could be found.

Though I was fine with many brands’ vending machines, my holy Triun were, in no particular order, the Ice Cream Sandwich Buddy, the SlushMeister, and the Pastry Pal. Along with chicken and vegetable tempura and cups of instant ramen, those three vending machine brands had sustained me throughout my college and medical school years, and had become small but important contributors to my well-being ever since. The Ice Cream Sandwich Buddy vended ice cream sandwiches and other frozen treats: strawberry cheesecake ice cream nestled between two chocolate chip cookies, ice cream stuffed tacos drizzled in chocolate and caramel, and so many others. The SlushMeister, meanwhile, would give you an ice tea slushie spiked with a concentrated dose of one or more of seemingly every variety of edible fruit known to man. And then, there was the Pastry Pal—my favorite, by a mile. It had all the luscious aromas and cozy warmth of an artisanal bakery like you’d find out by the marina, complete with sugar, spice, and everything nice—cinnamon, icing, fudge, caramel, sprinkles, gummies, and more—and all of it neatly stored in compact, vending-machine form.

Given the number of people that had stayed overnight, most of the Pastry Pals nearest to Staff Lounge 3 had been empty. Thankfully, this one wasn’t. I got a bear claw and a red velvet cupcake. Not really having any place to eat, I went into the men’s restroom, put my PPE visor and mask in a dry, squeaky-clean sink, and then lost myself in the simple joy of guzzling down my sugary breakfast before tossing the packaging in the garbage bin and donning my PPE once again. It almost felt normal. Almost. Normally, two quality pastries like that would have filled me up for hours. Instead, they’d barely taken the edge off my hunger. But I couldn’t go back for seconds. There wasn’t enough time.

There was an elevator niche just around the corner from the service niche. Getting there meant stepping out onto the Hall of Echoes’ mezzanine gallery. As I walked down the gallery, I looked over the railing to see what was happening down below.

Like the night before, people were everywhere, but—unlike last night—the hospital had finally succeeded in bringing some order to the old lobby floor. Tall, imposing cordons had been set up all along the ground level, to the point where the Hall of Echoes looked more like an airport terminal than an old hospital lobby. Folks stood in long lines, marching up to temporary reception desks that had been set up along one side of the Hall. From the storm of conversations that echoed off the Hall’s upper reaches, it sounded like people were demanding to know if they’d been infected or not, only to be informed by the receptionists and nurses on duty in the Hall that a diagnostic test for NFP-20 had yet to be developed. I also saw a good deal of visibly sickened people, coughing up a storm, clutching their bellies in discomfort, or laying on the floor, curled up against a wall. And, although I couldn’t see that far out through the main entrance, the sounds of shrill whistles being blown outside indicated that law enforcement had been brought into the loop. I imagined that helped with maintaining the current semblance of order.

But how long will it stay that way?

Only time would tell.

Part of me wanted to go down and try to give a pep talk to the nervous crowds, but I knew I didn’t have time for that. Out of force of habit, I reached to rub the edge of my lucky bowtie, only to remember it was buried beneath my PPE.

Next time, I’ll put it on after I put on the gown.

Then, barely a minute after I ate, weird things started happening—this was why I needed my bowtie. (At this point, I didn’t even know whether I was being sarcastic or not.)

The familiar spectral blue flames from last night’s bathroom horror scene fluttered out of thin air and swooped into me. It wasn’t very much—just a trickle—but, given what had happened last night, I was certain it didn’t bode well.

“Mr. Genneth!” Andalon scampered around the corner. She started bombarding me with words before I could react.

“I know you said you wanted Andalon to leave you alone but I don’t wanna be alone and I’ve never had somebodys to talks to and I know you are hurt in the here,” she rubbed her hands over her head and body, “so Andalon wants to show you that wyrmeh are cool and Andalon just remembered that there’s a thing that’s cool and so I want you to have the thing so please don’t be mad at Andalon anymore please please please?”

Wait, what?

Andalon spread her arms and went, “Ta-daaaa!”, and before I could get another word out, the backs of my eyeballs began to burn. The stool clattered onto the floor as I let go and brought my hands to my eyes to rub away the pain in a reflexive response. My sight darkened, fading to near black. The burning grew, its intensity rising, an icepick hammering at the bones behind my face until a dazzling flash boomed in my eyes like liquid light, making me flinch, keel over and groan. I kept rubbing my eyes and shaking my head, only to find the pain had suddenly vanished, and a couple blinks later, everything seemed to go back to normal.

I rubbed my aching skull.

“What did you just do?” I snapped, “Andalon… that hurt!”

“Now you can have fun with the shimmery-wimmery!”

I blinked. “What?”

“Normly, wyrmeh don’t get to do that ‘till their this,” she tapped her fingers on the sides of her head, “gets really wyrmeh, but Andalon thought it would make you happy so Andalon did it quick-like.”

I pursed my lips in confusion. “What’s the shimmery-wimmery?”

Smiling broadly, Andalon shook her head. “Andalon does not remember!”

I was about to palm myself in the face when I remembered one of the key rules of infection prevention: don’t touch your face.

But, still… what if I had fungus eyes!?

After a good minute wasting time fretting indecisively over whether or not I was about to waste some time, I eventually bit the bullet and rushed into the nearest restroom I could find and lined up in front of a mirror. I gripped the porcelain sink, holding onto it for dear life as I stared into the mirror, searching for any body horror at work inside my eyes.

“What’re you doin?” Andalon asked.

“I’m checking to see what you’ve done to my eyes! I need my eyes, Andalon!”

But no matter how much I looked, I couldn’t see anything. This only made things worse, because it got me worrying that maybe there was something wrong, but I couldn’t pick up on it.

I half-expected I’d start shooting laser beams out of my eyes if I got too worked up.

I checked the time again.

7:31

“Fudge!” I groaned.

I looked around the restroom nervously, not that that helped in any way.

“I give up,” I muttered, under my breath. If I was going to end up shooting out laser eye beams, I was going to end up shooting out laser eyebeams. Right now, I had places to be and bodies to cut open. I just hoped it wasn’t with laser eyebeams.

As I turned the doorknob, however, I spent a second too long staring at my hand, and that’s when I saw it.

Brilliant lacework of violet and aquamarine sheathed my arm, in dense, arcane patterns that wove in and out of my flesh. It was a geometric skein upon my skin, mathematical and methodical; ethereal and alien.

Was I looking at my own re-wiring?

The more I looked, the brighter it got. It pulsed and rippled, charged with an inner radiance.

Closing my eyes, I shook my head. When I opened my eyes again, the colors had faded back below the threshold of my awareness.

It was anyone’s guess as to what the lacework meant.

I’ll… I’ll figure it out as I go.

“Can I do that?” I asked her.

She stuck her hands up in the air excitedly. “Andalon does not know!”

“Great,” I muttered, “just… great!”

She hopped up and down excitedly. “Yaay! Andalon is great!”

I rolled my eyes and carried on.

Unfortunately, it looked like today was going to be “Bring your Andalon to Work” Day.