The Healer's Choice
1154 Words
The plague came from the Underbelly.
It started with a child—a young boy who had been playing near the old Rust deposits. His skin turned black. His eyes clouded. His breath came in short, wet gasps. The healers didn't know what to do. The Rust was supposed to be gone. The Saint's power was supposed to be scattered.
But the Rust was not gone. It had only gone dormant.
William stood at the entrance to the healing house, watching the boy struggle to breathe. Elara was inside, her hands pressed to the child's chest, her face pale with exhaustion. She had been there for six hours.
"How is he?" William asked when she emerged.
"We're losing him." Elara's voice was raw. "The Rust is eating his lungs. Marcus's healing technique isn't strong enough."
"Then use mine."
Elara looked at him. "Your blood is full of Rust. If we transfuse it into him, he might not survive."
"And if you don't, he will definitely die."
Elara was silent.
"Do it," William said.
He rolled up his sleeve and held out his arm.
---
The transfusion took two hours.
William sat beside the boy's bed, a tube running from his arm to the child's. The Rust in his blood pulsed, flowed, transferred. He could feel it leaving him—not the healing kind, but the hungry kind, the part of him that had always wanted to consume.
The boy's skin lightened. His breathing steadied. His eyes cleared.
Elara watched the flow, adjusting the tube, monitoring the boy's heartbeat.
"It's working," she whispered.
William nodded. He was tired. Not exhausted—something deeper. The Rust had been part of him for so long. Losing it felt like losing a limb.
When the transfusion was complete, William leaned back in his chair. The boy was sleeping, his chest rising and falling peacefully.
"You saved him," Elara said.
"We saved him."
She knelt beside William and took his hand. "How do you feel?"
"Empty."
"The Rust?"
"It's not the Rust. It's the hunger. It's gone." He looked at his arm. The black veins had faded to pale gray. "I didn't realize how much of me it was until now."
"You're still you."
"Am I?"
Elara squeezed his hand. "Yes. You're the same person who walked into the black tower. The same person who broke the Saint's chains. The same person who sat on the roof with me every night."
William looked at her.
"The Rust didn't make you a hero," she continued. "You made yourself a hero. The Rust just helped you survive long enough to do it."
He wanted to believe her.
---
The plague spread.
More children fell sick. Then adults. Then the elderly. The Rust deposits in the Underbelly had been disturbed by the rebuilding—workers digging new tunnels, clearing old rubble, releasing dormant spores into the air.
William gave blood every day.
His body healed quickly—the Rust's last gift—but each transfusion drained him more. He grew thinner. Paler. The gray veins on his arms faded to white.
"You can't keep doing this," Julian said one evening. "You're killing yourself."
"I'm saving people."
"You're saving some people. But if you die, you can't save anyone else."
William looked at the line of sick citizens waiting outside the healing house. There were dozens. Maybe hundreds.
"Then we need another way."
---
Marcus found it.
He had been researching the Rust deposits, taking samples, running tests. The spores were not alive—not exactly. They were fragments of the Saint's power, scattered across the Underbelly when William had broken the chains.
"If we can collect the spores," Marcus said, "we can seal them in lead containers. Bury them deep. They won't be able to infect anyone."
"How long will that take?"
"Weeks. Months. I don't know."
"The people are dying now."
Marcus was silent. Then he said, "There's another way. But it's dangerous."
"Tell me."
"The spores respond to the Rust in your blood. If you walk through the infected areas, they'll be drawn to you. You can collect them like a magnet."
"How many spores?"
"All of them."
William looked at Julian. At Elara. At the line of sick citizens.
"I'll do it."
"No," Elara said. "You heard Marcus. It's dangerous. The spores could kill you."
"They'll definitely kill the people in that line if I don't do something."
He stood up.
"Prepare the lead containers. I'm going to the Underbelly."
---
The descent felt familiar.
William walked through the tunnels he had known since childhood—the same tunnels where his father had trained him, where the Hound had taught him, where he had first learned to fight. The Rust deposits glowed faintly in the dark, pulsing like slow heartbeats.
The spores rose from the walls as he passed. They clung to his skin, his clothes, his hair. He could feel them burrowing into his pores, seeking his blood, his Rust, his hunger.
He did not fight them.
He welcomed them.
Balance, he thought. His mother's word. Balance.
The spores poured into him. The gray veins on his arms darkened to black. His skin grew cold. His vision blurred.
He kept walking.
Through sub-level 4, where he had been born. Through sub-level 5, where the Hound had trained him. Through sub-level 6, where the Saint's chains had hung.
The deposits dimmed behind him. The spores stopped rising.
He had collected them all.
William collapsed at the bottom of the stairs.
---
He woke in the healing house.
Elara was beside him, her face wet with tears. Julian stood in the doorway, his hollow eyes wide. Marcus was checking his pulse, his hands trembling.
"You're alive," Elara whispered.
"I'm hungry."
She laughed—a broken, relieved sound. "I'll get you food."
William tried to sit up. His body ached. The Rust in his veins was stronger than ever, pulsing with a dark, hungry rhythm.
"The spores," he said. "Are they gone?"
"Gone," Marcus said. "Sealed in lead containers. Buried deep. No one else will get sick."
William lay back. The ceiling was white. Clean. Healed.
"Good."
---
The next day, William went to the cave beneath the Underbelly.
The black chamber where the Saint had trained. Where the Hound had died. Where William had first learned to control the Rust.
He sat in the center of the room, cross-legged, the black sword across his knees.
The Rust in his veins pulsed. The hunger in his chest ached.
He closed his eyes.
Balance, he thought.
The Rust surged. The hunger roared.
Balance.
He felt his mother's presence. Her hand on his shoulder. Her voice in his ear.
You are not the Rust. You are not the sword. You are William. My son. My heart.
The Rust settled. The hunger quieted.
William opened his eyes.
The black sword gleamed in the torchlight.
He picked it up and walked out of the chamber.
- Writer
