The First Test
742 Words
The plague came from the east, carried by traders who should have stayed home.
Elara smelled it before she saw it—a sweet, rotten stench that clung to the air like a second skin. She stood on the wall of Ember's Rest, watching the carts roll toward the gate. Bodies wrapped in grey cloth. Faces pale and sweating.
"What is it?" Taylor asked.
"I don't know. But it's not natural."
It is hunger, the void whispered. Not mine. Another kind. The hunger of rot. Of decay. Of ending.
"Can you stop it?"
I do not know. I have never tried.
"Then learn."
---
The first victim collapsed in the square.
A young woman, no older than twenty-five. Her skin was grey, her eyes sunken, her breath shallow. Sarai hobbled to her side, pressing cold cloths to her forehead.
"The fever is like nothing I've seen," Sarai said. "It burns from the inside out."
"Can you cure it?"
"No. I can only watch them die."
Elara knelt beside the woman. The void inside her stirred.
Let me try, it said.
"What will you do?"
I will enter her. Find the sickness. Consume it.
"Consume?"
The void consumes. That is my nature. But I can choose what I consume. Hunger can be aimed.
"Do it."
---
Golden light flowed from Elara's hands into the woman's chest.
The woman gasped. Her back arched. Grey veins pulsed beneath her skin—then faded. The light grew brighter, hotter.
The sickness is strong, the void said. It fights.
"Fight back."
I am trying.
The woman screamed.
Then she went still.
---
Elara pulled her hands back.
The woman's eyes opened. They were clear—not grey, not silver. Brown.
"What happened?" she whispered.
"You were sick. Now you're not."
The woman sat up, touching her chest. "I feel... light. Empty."
The void consumed the sickness, it said. But it also consumed part of her fever. She will be weak for days.
"She'll live. That's what matters."
Sarai stared at Elara.
"You healed her. With the void."
"I didn't heal her. The void did."
"The void doesn't heal. It destroys."
"The void is changing."
Sarai was silent.
Then she nodded. "Help the others."
---
Elara worked through the night.
The void consumed sickness after sickness, fever after fever. Each patient took longer than the last. The void was growing tired.
I cannot do this forever, it said.
"Then rest."
If I rest, people die.
"Then don't rest. But don't burn out."
I will try.
By dawn, Elara had healed forty-seven people.
She collapsed in the square, her hands shaking, her vision blurry.
James caught her.
"That's enough."
"There are more."
"You're no good to anyone dead." He carried her to the clinic. "Rest. The void can wait."
The void was silent.
It was sleeping.
---
The plague lasted three weeks.
Elara healed who she could. Sarai treated who she couldn't. The void learned to target sickness, to consume only the fever, to leave the patient intact.
By the end, over two hundred people had died.
But over five hundred had lived.
James stood with Elara on the wall, watching the funeral pyres burn.
"You saved lives," he said.
"I couldn't save everyone."
"No one can save everyone."
"The void tried. It's exhausted."
"Then let it rest. You've done enough."
Elara leaned against him.
"I don't feel like I've done enough."
"You never will. That's the curse of being a healer."
---
The void woke three days later.
I dreamed, it said.
"Of what?"
Of hunger. Of healing. Of the line between them. I think I understand now.
"Understand what?"
That consumption is not always destruction. Sometimes it is transformation. The sickness I consumed did not disappear. It became part of me. I am different now.
"In a good way?"
I do not know. But I am different.
Elara smiled.
"Good."
---
The townspeople no longer crossed the street when Elara walked by.
They nodded. Some even smiled. The void had healed their families, their friends, their children. Fear was fading.
They accept me, the void said.
"Some of them. The rest are still afraid."
That is enough.
"For now."
---
Taylor sat with Elara on the porch of the farmhouse.
"You're not leaving," Taylor said.
"The void needs to rest. So do I."
"How long?"
"I don't know. A week. A month."
Taylor nodded. "Stay as long as you need."
"I will."
They watched the sunset together.
- Writer
