There was that silent hope, as there is with every passing illness, that they were immune. That perhaps, despite everything, they had done enough.

But being in close quarters with the sick is the first and most reliable predictor of being next. That foolish hope persisted though, even long beyond when it was clear that the battle was lost. An ache was from long hours on the feet, a sneeze was just dust, a cough was a small tickle, until at some point it became absolutely undeniable that sickness had come.

Wildwing had hoped, and would not have faulted any of the others for feeling the same, that what he had witnessed inside the Raptor was a fluke. It could be some strange, freak accident that was unrelated. It was foolish, but for some reason, despite all evidence, hope remained. Maybe this parasite was relatively harmless and treatable, and everything would be fine in relatively short order.

The next person to become visibly ill was the one named Tank.

She had too much personality, but it appeared that at least some of it came with common sense, so she did not hide her decline. Despite her earlier reluctance to comply with questioning, now she seemed to understand the gravity of the situation, or at least comprehend that even if she did not trust, she had no option but Tanya’s attention for a chance of survival. Maybe they had earned some precious good will with her, just by virtue of being the first people to ever tell her what had been done to her, and what she had been carrying since.

Wildwing had only been gone for a short time, but the situation that he came back to was vastly different from when he had left.

Tanya was too focused to notice him, and may have forgotten she had even pinged him to begin with. He was used to that; it was how she operated. She would remember, in a moment between tasks, and now it was far more important for her to focus on the problem at hand than to demand her attention.

Tank now had the only active medicom.

The first outward signs Wildwing could identify were the extremities–-particularly fingers and toes—a deep shade of purple and black that suggested the tissue was already dead. Feathers fell away, exposing skin, and perhaps, though he did not wish to look, bone. Frostbite was rare on Puckworld, but occasionally someone took to the northern winter without the respect it deserved. This seemed similar in presentation, but more severe. He could see the trace work of necrotizing feathers and flesh moving inward, slashing a network of lines through otherwise healthy tissue towards the torso.

His second association was radiation sickness. This he had even less knowledge of, but every once in a great while, there were accidents. Years before he had moved out for college, someone in the Metro campus had exposed their hands carelessly to a sample for a few seconds, and the images of the hands melting away had been censored and stifled by the university, yet there was no defense for a global network. Everyone had seen them, and no one was supposed to—especially groups of teen boys on a mission to gross each other out.

Something that started in the limbs would have easily been covered by Grumpy’s baggy, ragged clothing. Any strange stains would not have stood out in a group of soiled and miserable people pulled from a planet that had been thrown a couple hundred years back into chaos. Whichever ailment fit best for comparison, he did not doubt that it was painful. Perhaps it was unfair that they had called him ‘Grumpy’ with this context. Terrified and in constant pain, it was not unlikely that a great deal of his reluctance to engage with his cellmates was that he had little energy or willpower left for anything beyond withstanding the ravages of the parasite.

Wildwing did not doubt that Tank benefited from the addition of the medicom. Even if it could do nothing to stop the spread of dying tissue, it would at least be able to ease the suffering. He had been under its care enough himself to attest to this, though nothing at this scale or severity. Through the machine’s best efforts, Tank was still awake, and groaned in a way that suggested there was still pain there. It was possible she had reached a threshold where the machine was unwilling to administer any more aid, for programmed concern of overdose.

Tanya appeared to have done her best to seal and dress where the flesh split open, was doing so now as it traveled, but even if he could not quite see the damage moving, it was clear enough that an area that she worked on spread beyond the bandage by the time she had finished.

Mallory stood silently nearby, with no way to meaningfully help. No doubt she had administered first aid to herself or a companion during the invasion, or even before, but this was not that. This was last aid. This was racing against something that could not be outrun, and both she and Wildwing would have gotten in Tanya’s way more than been of any assistance. Mallory had been Tanya’s companion in his absence. She was visibly relieved, in the small way that most people would not have seen, when he approached.

As if there were anything he could do about their situation.

None of them were what was needed right this moment, which was a surgeon with expertise in exobiology. The medicom could not do it, completely unfamiliar with the task at hand, and none of them had the skill. It seemed dubious, as well, that they would have been able to get Tank to hold still long enough to do anything drastic, in any case.

The final two patients, Ariana and Emily, had taken up space in a corner of the room. With no where to go and no way to shield themselves from being witnesses, the only option they had was to watch, horrified at the glimpse into their presumed future.

Tank herself, as the person most able to speak to what was happening, was not coherent. She did not answer him as he cautiously stood by the beside, out of Tanya’s way. Nor did she even seem to notice when he raised his voice and asked again, more firmly. Instead she babbled a string of words he did not quiet understand, thrashing as she did so.

Her death was just as violent and instantaneous as the first, leading all in the room to flinch back, no matter how far away from the bed they were positioned. The speed at which that terrible parasitic tree appeared was nearly explosive, shredding the body and redistributing pieces far from the host.

One moment she was screaming and the next she was mercifully, terribly silent.

Wildwing was unable to process anything. He stood there and did nothing. Whatever this thing was that the Saurians had created, it was truly evil. He could not come up with a better word for it.

He never would have claimed Dragaunus wasn’t cruel, but there was a certain ruthlessness to this infection that was hard to believe. It was more than the person it destroyed, it was the secondary terror of people that had to witness the act. This was a whole level of torture that Wildwing had not before seen, and he was more sure than ever that, should they survive this, they needed to put a stop to it. It could not be allowed to continue.

Not one more person. Please, not one more person.

Wildwing heard a sound from the hallway, and realized that the final two patients had vanished from their corner.

He took off at a sprint, thinking for a moment they had taken the opportunity to slip away unnoticed. It was unlikely they would have been able to escape the Pond, it was far too complex a maze, but he could not take the chance.

Instead of having to give a long chase, he found that they had only disappeared into the adjoining hallway, where Ariana had then crumbled to the floor, covering her face, under the quiet vigil of her infected companion. Emily stared up at him with truly dead eyes, acknowledging that he was there, saying nothing, and making it clear she did not care what he said. They would not be moving from this spot until they were ready.

Beyond them, the hallway grew dark, the lighting dim to conserve power in sections where no one traversed. It was practical, but did have the unfortunate effect of making it appear as though their little arm of the Pond was isolated, cut off from everything and everyone else.

“I’m sorry,” Ariana blubbered from the floor. “I’m being stupid.”

“No, you’re not,” Emily said, an arm around her shoulders.

“Aren’t you scared?”

“Of course I’m scared.”

“You’re not crying,” Ariana complained.

“No,” Emily agreed, finally looking away from Wildwing. “I haven’t cried in a long time.”

“That sounds nice.”

“It’s not because I don’t feel like it. I just can’t,” Emily sighed. “The wires fried, somehow. I should and I just can’t anymore.”

Ariana said nothing to this, and it was unclear whether or not she had heard it at all.

“All I feel is tired, anymore,” Emily mused. “Just so very tired.”

There was nothing he could say that felt appropriate, so he said nothing, but stood to the side to watch them.

“Did anyone ever ask her her real name?” Ariana asked.

Emily quirked her head to the side, thoughtful. “I’m not sure? I don’t have a good memory for names. I don’t think so.”

“I don’t think so, either,” Ariana said quietly. “That’s so awful. I should have asked.”

Emily half-smiled. “She introduced herself with the name she wanted.”

Mallory shook in absolute fury in the med bay. She stood with remains splattered across her, fists clenched, looking as though she would personally deliver Dragaunus to his death on the spot of her first opportunity.

“You said this wasn’t contagious,” Mallory stated.

“I...said I couldn’t find any indication of how it was supposed to spread,” Tanya looked down at the bloodstains on her own uniform. “I could see an argument for why this could be an effective way to pass to anyone that tried to render assistance.”

Mallory still refused to move, as if doing so could have been the trigger that brought her to a similar fate. “So, when will you know?”

“I mean, it’s an entirely new organism. I don’t even really have a name for it.”

“Could you-” Mallory began, then eyed Wildwing watching her, and took a deep, cleansing breath instead of saying whatever was on her mind. “Can I please go shower?”

“Oh sure,” Tanya said, as if this had not occurred to her. “Water treatment is fully functional.”

“Great. I’m going to do that, and then burn my uniform.”

“Well, that seems unlikely, that chestplate is designed to withstand temperatures that surpass anything you could do down here without the fire suppression sys-” she realized the phrase was figurative, and ceased her line of thought.

“What do I do after that?” Mallory asked.

“When I tell you to come in for a scan, don’t put it off for three days,” Tanya answered, much more gravely.

Mallory gave a curt nod, and then left, marching between Wildwing and the two women in the hall, not looking at any of them.

Tanya leaned against her workstation, grimly looking at the body in the med bay, but saying nothing. Wildwing had put his jacket on, in the absence of his armor; the gold epaulets at least gave him a slight bit of authoritative glimmer. There was a smear across it. He gingerly slipped it off and folded it up in his hands, making sure not to touch the stains, even though he was unsure that would have made any difference. It was likely ruined. That wasn’t going to be any worse than losing a set of bulletproof armor, but it did leave him without anything outside of the clothes he had attained on earth, for the moment.

He gave one final glance to the two women in the hall. One still crying, and the other with her arm around the first, looking listlessly at the facing wall, on the verge of falling asleep again. He decided that they would not be making a run for it any time soon. He left them to some privacy, and rejoined Tanya.

The dark tree-like structure of the parasite stood in tact on the medical bed, glistening from its newly destroyed torso. Wildwing had to put his back to it, though was surprised Tanya did not follow suit.

“What are you thinking?” Wildwing asked.

She smiled, sadly. “Did you know static is the sound of everything? Traces of background radiation from the creation of the universe.”

Wildwing stared at her for a moment, wordlessly. He had no idea where this thought had come from. He supposed that what she was doing was thinking of the work she would rather be doing, instead of standing here, looking at the ruined remains of what had been a person ten minutes prior.

“We don’t have a morgue,” Tanya said, refocusing.

Wildwing blinked. “A what?”

She scrubbed at her face, adjusting her glasses afterward. “We didn’t ever plan somewhere to put a body.”

“I guess we made a lot of naïve choices.”

“Hmm,” she said by way of agreement. “We need somewhere to store this, I mean. At least for now.”

“We could consolidate one of the cold storage units,” he suggested. “A couple of us could move the food.”

“When-” she paused, unsure, and then tried to regain some confidence. “When this is over I’ll draw up something more permanent.”

“Permanent,” He repeated, stupidly.

She waved away his concern. “I think we both would agree we can’t leave the remains somewhere someone can find it. Even if it wasn’t infected, I do not want to know what humans would do with it.”

He nodded in agreement.

“I’m going...I’m going to have to dissect it. With the medicom’s aid.”

“Have you considered that might be dangerous?” he asked.

“I’ll put on protective equipment.”

“What about the fact that it appears to be ambulatory?”

“It’s not like its going to get up and walk away,” Tanya said.

“You don’t know that,” he said. She had no rebuttal. As she had told Mallory, she had no idea what the life cycle of this creation was. But, she was right, it needed to be examined for answers, and then it needed to be moved somewhere safe, so that the med facility could be used again.

Their conversation was interrupted by a loud crack, and for a split second, Wildwing thought that his ludicrous suggestion had been correct, and now there was something they were going to have to fight off crawling out of the corpse.

Instead, when he turned, the tree-like structure was collapsing. The sound had been a branch breaking off, and landing on the floor. The main structure lost shape and form entirely, collapsing in on itself, shedding brittle pieces, and coming apart. In a matter of seconds, it resembled less a tree and more a pile of black sand. Doubtfully, he pulled open his jacket to inspect the stains there, and discovered at least part of the viscera had also turned into black dust. It fell to his shoes.

There was still no air contamination alarm.