THE FIRST INFECTED (2)

AUTHOR’S POV 

“Everyone who touched him must wash,” Elena said, forcing herself to stand. “Use soap and clean water. Don't touch your faces, and don't return to your families until I've examined you.”

Garrick frowned. “You think we can catch it?”

“I think we shouldn't gamble with something we don't understand.”

“And the body?”

“Leave it where it is. Nobody touches it without protection.”

She looked toward the shattered jars and the blood smeared across the floor.

“Clear the room. Keep everyone away from this building.”

Garrick hesitated.

“What are we supposed to tell the settlement?”

“The truth.”

“They'll panic.”

“Then let them panic while we still have time to prepare.”

An hour later, Elena stood alone in the treatment room.

The dead man's belongings lay on a clean cloth beside her. A few coins. A crumpled piece of paper. A small photograph of a woman and a young boy.

She turned the photograph over.

Three names had been written on the back.

The last belonged to the dead man.

Elena stared at the smiling faces.

Someone was waiting for him.

Someone who might never learn what had happened on the eastern road.

She set the photograph aside and pulled back the cloth covering his forearm.

Her breath caught.

Dark lines spread beneath his skin, branching from several small wounds toward his elbow. They resembled veins, except they were almost black, as if ink had seeped into his flesh.

She leaned closer without touching them.

She had treated infected wounds. She had seen tissue turn dark from injury and disease. But never anything like this.

Luma?

Her wolf remained silent for several seconds.

Then came a low, uneasy growl.

Get away from him.

Elena immediately stepped back.

“What is it?”

I don't know. But something is wrong with his scent.

Elena covered the body again.

Outside, raised voices drifted through the settlement. Word had spread. People were demanding answers, arguing over whether the stranger had carried a contagious illness, and insisting the gates should be closed.

She couldn't blame them.

She was frightened, too.

But fear would not keep them alive.

Elena summoned Garrick and gave him orders to move the exposed men into an empty building at the settlement's edge. She instructed them to report any fever, dizziness, confusion, or unusual behavior immediately.

Then she sent riders to the neighboring settlements with an urgent warning.

The replies arrived the following afternoon.

One leader thanked her but dismissed the incident as an isolated case.

Another refused to restrict travel over an unconfirmed illness.

Elena crushed the second message in her fist.

“They'll regret this,” Luma muttered.

Elena turned toward the shelves of medicine.

“Perhaps. But we won't make the same mistake.”

She began counting their supplies, calculating how long they could survive if trade routes closed. She ordered more food stored, the gates reinforced, and an unused building cleared for isolation.

It wasn't enough.

Not nearly enough.

A howl rose from the forest.

Elena stopped writing.

Another answered from farther down the mountainside.

Then a third.

The calls echoed through the trees before abruptly falling silent.

Luma stirred uneasily.

Elena.

She stepped outside.

The evening wind carried the familiar scents of pine, damp earth, and woodsmoke. Beneath them lingered something bitter and foul.

Blood left too long in the rain.

Elena turned toward the eastern road.

A dark shape moved between the trees.

Then another.

Too far away to identify, they slipped behind the ridgeline before she could call out.

Her wolf pressed close to the surface, alert and restless.

They're coming.

Elena's fingers tightened around the railing.

For three years, the mountains had kept her safe.

Now something was moving through the darkness toward her settlement.

And whatever had killed the stranger was no longer a rumor.