This novel is now nine-tenths finished! Are you curious how it will end? I bet you are. Well, shut up and read! We’re getting there. ;)

Word Count: 90,087

But he never laughed. That meant that I was the fool there.

“Doctor, you’ve been using – we’ve been using – an antibiotic that isn’t my own. Where did you get the stuff from? It’s bad. We have to get rid of it right away and—”

“We’re not getting rid of anything. And besides, even if you did have a cure, the people of Srinagar have spoken. They like it better when the dead remain dead, and when things don’t defeat the laws of nature. The ‘cure’, Dr. Hemmings, is to make sure that once Athan’s Disease has defeated somebody, that they never gain jaya over the bacteria – victory. I will continue to uphold this standard, but if you refuse, then I suggest that you pack your bags and go. We’ve been using the medicine since you arrived several days ago, and we cannot afford – literally – to order some other random medicine from who knows where.”

“It’s no random medicine, it’s my medicine, and it comes from Pharand, apparently the same place that shipped this other load of crap.” But I couldn’t say any more. My mind was processing everything – all those people weren’t treated, they were killed. But who else had called? I thought back to Westendorf. How all those people on the top of the mountain, though I’d treated them, never woke up. Some of them died soon after I administered the drug to them. Could this drug also be used to keep the people who had already awakened from death dead as well? That was what the hospital owner in Westendorf called to thank me for – for keeping everybody dead! I felt disgusting. Thick, viscous ooze covered my body and inhibited my movement. I heard clicking noises all around me. My face contorted. I shivered, just the slightest bit.

That also meant that the man in Westendorf had connections to Doradwe’s secret organization. That meant that everybody I’d met with so far had some connection to Doradwe. Was this a coincidence? I doubted it. Puzzle pieces fit together. I was being constantly watched to make sure that I didn’t screw anything up. That I was administering the drugs exactly as planned. That I was doing Pharand’s dirty work, earning them money off of unethical pharmaceutics which might have been going straight to Doradwe as well. But who’s to say that the drugs were really the same in Westendorf? It mattered not. I knew how to recreate my antibiotic. Wherever they sent me next, I would make it there. I would use the hospital’s materials to create my antibiotic once again and make sure that all of the people I treated were cured, and not killed. And while the doctors in Srinagar and Westendorf continued to keep their patients dead, I would be the force of good in all this, keeping my patients alive. I felt more alone now than ever; I was alone in purpose, and alone in spirit. But I knew that I wasn’t alone in company.

“Even so, I do not think we’ll be testing out any new antibiotics. There simply isn’t time. People will be coming in again, more and more every day. We must treat them with what we have, and I believe that what we have is the right medicine to use. I have also received word from Pharand that a new, cheaper version of this medicine will be soon released, which is perfect for our waning budget. We will order this, and you will distribute it to all of those with Athan’s Disease. It is a simple pill. I hope you can manage to give that to the patients without complaining.”

I wasn’t alone in company. This man was my company. He had good intentions, as most people do. But his budget blinded him. He could not see through Athan’s Disease to the person infected. Srinagar seemed incapable of accepting the infected for who they were – people, real, living human beings with thoughts and feelings! But they didn’t care. Nobody cared, as long as the person had awakened from death. Once a person spawned, they could then either creep back into death or face untold discrimination from the uninfected. Now this discrimination was turning into something greater – mass murder. Thousands drowned in a lake. Hundreds dead, hidden on a remote mountaintop. Citizens exiled from their hometowns. This was no longer just a disease, but a movement. It was no longer an illness, but a way of life – one that apparently took the greatest sacrifice to adjust to.

“I’m sorry, but I refuse to stay here if distribution of this drug will continue. So, you can pick the medicine or me; only one of us will stay. You’d better make the right choice, Dr. Rochak, because once I’m gone I now that I’ll never come back.”

“Then I’ll miss you very much, Dr. Hemmings. Good-bye.”

In that moment, the world chose genocide over a cure. Dr. Rochak went back to his paperwork, and I went to leave the hospital. “Close the door before you leave,” he said while sitting down at his desk. I closed the door. Click. Hear him pick up the phone. Click. He dialed a bunch of numbers. Click-click-click, click-click, click-click-click-click, click. “Hello? Did your initiation go well? Glad to hear it. Yes, I spoke with him. Yes, he knows about the… oh,” his voice slowed, and became tremulous, “that is my mistake. My apologies. He told me that he wishes to leave, so you should give him a call soon. No, not you. Dr. Afalsi should be the one to do it. Yes, tell him I want the pills, but that it will be the last time I conduct business with him. No, that’s not it – I’m sorry, I don’t— you cannot say that to me. I am tired of working with you people; I did not ask for it, and I would like you all to stop intruding on the businesses of this hospital. I will be hanging up now. Good-bye. No, please stop— please stop talking. I said that is enough. Good-bye.”

Click. He hung up.

I left the hospital. Not five minutes later my cell phone rang, and from none other than Dr. Afalsi himself.

“Hello, Dr. Hemmings? This is Dr. Afalsi. I think we’re ready to send you somewhere else for a while – Athan’s Disease is spreading so fast that we need you out of Srinagar right away. Are you alright with that?”

“Absolutely fine, Doctor.”

“Good. I’ll overnight a plane ticket to you. A city in Argentina is specifically troubled, slightly more so than Srinagar was when you arrived. I advise you to take caution when you arrive; make sure to stay safe, as things might get hectic. Ushuaia is less than one-tenth the size of Srinagar, but that can only mean that it will act like a caricature of the larger city and exemplify all of its worst aspects. That is my personal fear, but for that reason they need your antibiotic more than ever.”

I couldn’t believe what came out of his mouth. Everything was pure bullshit. My antibiotic. Plagiarism was wasted on me. I decided I would arrive in Ushuaia and get the first plane ticket home. Then I would ignore Afalsi and Doradwe and everybody else related to them – forever. “Okay,” I said. “Just get me there as fast as possible, and I’ll be there to help people.”

“Oh, I must tell you one more thing.”

“Yes?”

“We have been working more on your formula, and have found a way to encapsulate it. People can now take it as a pill – we recommend two of them for an average sized adult. This will make the drug much easier to administer and distribute. We have sent out shipments of this pill everywhere we can. We’ve even given out the formula to other companies, who are manufacturing generics as we speak. Money is beyond this, Dr. Hemmings. I hope you know that. We only want to distribute this drug as fast as possible, so that everybody who falls ill can be cured quickly.”

Bullshit. Pure bullshit. Every last word that came out of his mouth reeked – I almost held my nose over the phone.

There were still over one million people alive in Srinagar. But not for long, I imagined. I was glad that I wouldn’t be around to see it. I would hear about it on the news, as the town quickly died away and continued to split in half. Eventually there would be more infected than healthy, but the healthy would always maintain their stranglehold over the city. When a minority comes to power, it grasps it and holds it tight. The people of Srinagar would never be able to release it from this stranglehold. It would choke the city, until there was no air left. And then Srinagar would be nothing but corpses – not corpses waiting to spawn, but corpses truly devoid of all life. I could see the future of Srinagar through my daydreams; Srinagar would be no more.

I kept telling myself that it wouldn’t be long until the plane ticket arrived. Soon I could leave this city, and everything attached to it, although I felt slightly sympathetic to Dr. Rochak, who, according to his phone conversation, never had intended to get involved with Doradwe’s organization. I wondered if the man in Westendorf was the same, if he had been forced into some strange agreement with Pharand and Doradwe’s organization. It may have driven him mad. It may have made him want to get out of Westendorf in order avoid the turmoil that was more than likely engulfing the village at that moment. I no longer felt like doing work for Pharand; I was beyond them, and they were beyond humanity. Their creation was more of a monstrosity than the spawned were. Did Doradwe himself know about this?

If he didn’t, I knew what he would do. He would bring Pharand to the ground and crush it with his might. Doradwe was without a doubt more powerful than I could imagine – his connections were seemingly endless. If he wanted to, he could have probably controlled the flow of medicine in and out of Srinagar alone, and determined exactly what the people needed. I thought of him by that point no longer as a freelance doctor’s associate who gave medical advice to highly paid, highly skilled practitioners, but as a man who ran an organization with limitless connections of every aspect of medicine in the world.

The bus to the hotel was virtually empty. I sat alone, near the center of the bus to avoid the awful fumes that came in through the dirty plastic windows. Although it was early in the morning, only about ten thirty, it felt late enough for me to fall asleep. I spent the rest of the day working on my laptop, writing down exactly what I’d done to make the cure – again. I refined it for more everyday ingredients, just in case I couldn’t find everything I needed. I didn’t know if it would work properly, or if I’d even get a chance to create it, but it was better than sitting alone in my hotel room for the rest of the day. I was far too afraid to go outside now. I could see Srinagar crumbling. It was like molasses compared to Westendorf, considering how large Srinagar was and is, but the changes were still visible. More than visible. They were downright unavoidable. And so I remained indoors from that time until the plane ticket arrived in front of my hotel room door the next day.

I frantically packed. Afalsi had a knack for booking flights that happened on nearly the same day that I got the ticket. This flight would take place at one in the morning; not the same day, but not too far off. I prepared everything and once again double-checked to ensure that I wasn’t leaving anything precious, akin to my painting, behind. I missed the painting terribly. I had trouble thinking without it. I had eaten several weeks’ worth of meals with no doctor above me displaying his knowledge to that group of ever-attentive students. It was now, to me, more than just a painting – it was a motivational tool, and it was missing, in the most important time of my life! I stumbled over my own fingers while retyping the recipe of my antibiotic. I couldn’t think how to make it properly without the painting nearby.

And then the day of the flight came. I’d been indoors the entire time, managing to confide within myself, my computer, and my various notebooks and journals until the time arrived when I’d have to emerge from my pod to travel inside another. I shut the blinds during those days so that I wouldn’t know day from night; I ate my meals sporadically, whenever I felt hungry. But I kept the clocks on, so that I would know when to sleep, and most importantly, when to leave to catch the plane. Finally, that moment came. I’d hired a taxi service to pick me up at the front door and take me to Srinagar airport. The man driving the taxi was sluggish; I could see that he was sick with Athan’s and was in the stages where he’d be struggling to remain alive. He made it to the airport, but I’m not sure how much further he went before dying at the wheel. I guarantee, however, that he survived the crash he must have gotten into – Athan’s, as I’d witnessed it everywhere I went, was resilient to more than just antibiotics. They would regenerate; wounds healed incredibly quickly, though the body aged incredibly slowly.

I found the gate that would take me to Argentina. It, like the bus to the hotel, was almost empty. There were only a few passengers prepared to board the plane – especially so early in the morning. It was still pitch black outside, so even if there were people coming and going, I wouldn’t have been able to see them outside in the darkness. Thankfully, the gate was inside, and the building was quite nice. I sat down and waited for the announcement that would let me onto the plane. Instead, static came on the air, and then garbled speech. I jumped, slightly afraid of the strange noises, but then listened intently to the sounds. It sounded like a man was screaming; no, choking. He was choking for a minute or so, but it was covered in static. Somebody was tampering with the microphone – but why would they just shut it off? Unless somebody was doing something to the man at the microphone, and he was trying to hold his hand down on the switch to keep the microphone on. Unless that was what was happening. Unless.

Finally, the microphone cut off. A minute of silence, and then, “We apologize,” said the voice of a women. “Due to special circumstances, I will be temporarily taking over the previous announcer’s position. Gate 23A, you will be boarding in five minutes. Gate 23A will be boarding in five minutes. Please note that the plane flying to Ushuaia, Argentina has a new pilot this morning. Thank you.”

It cut off again. “Strange,” I said out loud. “Strange,” I said to one of the only other humans in the gate. And five minutes later I said it again, to the same person, only that time we were boarding the plane together. I said it once more, when we sat down next to each other. I said it one final time when we swapped seats, and he moved up a few rows. The plane was all but empty – six people total, not including stewardesses and pilots, were relaxing on the flight to Ushuaia, Argentina. The plane took off; into the air we went, the roar of the plane decimating the city behind us. That roar was created by the cries of the people living in a dead city – in Srinagar, down below. I had long since lost hope. It had begun to slip as soon as Dr. Rochak refused to work with the true cure for Athan’s Disease.

I fell asleep once again during the flight, and missed all the meals, but saw all the dreams. I was in the valley again, and my twisted face was in the sky. It wasn’t just my face now, but my entire body. In the sky was a clear image of myself doubled over on an invisible floor, my face contorted not into that raised eyebrow look that Edward Nambet used to cause, but into the face of death – my jaw dropped and held that way, as if plastered in that position. My eyes were so squinted that I probably couldn’t have seen out of them. My hands were curled and my fingers knotted amongst each other, holding my body up from the ground. I looked like I was about to vomit, or as though I were in extreme pain of the worst sort. My body in the sky never moved. It was like watching a photo just float there. When I tried to move, I couldn’t – my body was tied down! By what else but the grass? Perpetually I stared at the sky. I lacked the ability to close my eyes. Had my eyelids disappeared? They ran circles around me – I could turn my head and see them, rolling around in the grass - my two eyelids.

They reattached themselves to my eyes. My eyes closed, and then opened. But this time when they opened I was not in the valley – I was on the plane, and the plane was landing. The increase in pressure woke me up. I swallowed and heard my ears dramatically pop. I swallowed again, but the ear popping noise was surprised by the sound of the plane’s landing gear hitting the runway. We had landed in Ushuaia International Airport, so said the large lettering on the side of the building, which was nowhere near are large as the airport I had just come from. It seemed that the size of the airport reflected the size of the city. Was this building really only one-tenth as large as the Srinagar Airport? When the airplane stopped, I grabbed my luggage and existed as fast as possible. The only thing my mind could focus on was flight times – the flight times, specifically of the next trip to the USA. I was heading home as soon as possible.

Unfortunately, the next flight was not for a week, and tickets were expensive. I paid for a ticket reluctantly, but would have to wait out the week to go home. What I didn’t know yet was that by the end of my stay in Ushuaia I would not want to return the USA. Not knowing this, I wasted my money on that ticket, and exited the small airport into the city streets. It was about noon, and although the sun was high and there were no clouds it was considerably cold out. I soon found out why: not too far from when I stood outside was a sign that read “USHUAIA: Fin del mundo.”

It surely looked like the end of the world. Several buildings were in ruins – they looked like they’d been blown to bits by a bomb. Other buildings simply looked like they’d been left to rot. These must be the homes of the sick, I thought. The infected were getting this kind of treatment. That was more that I didn’t know – that everybody in this town was sick; that nobody had been spared, and that people were destroying each other to get to the hospital for some medication. People were robbing each other for any sort of money they could get their hands on. All to buy the one special drug that could keep them dead and out of their misery. I believed, at the time, that there was some inevitable split between the infected and uninfected, but that was just my naïveté. I was oblivious to all the possible situations that could have occurred to make Athan’s Disease the worst thing in the world to happen at the end of it.

I had already been told where I was staying. Afalsi had mentioned it to me on my way to the airport; it was another touristy hotel, but not as lavish as the buildings in Srinagar. I didn’t mind; I felt humbler than Srinagar did. After all this time and all the traveling I was still wary of the city. I flashbacked to not so long ago, in Srinagar, and realized just how might the city itself had frightened me – not because I was surrounded by death and disease, but because everything towered over me in the new city district. It was in the old city district where I’d felt the most comfortable; where the poor lived in deceptively small homes and the ill begged for retribution amidst the already spawned. In Ushuaia it felt perpetually that way; Ushuaia was, in essence, the old city of Srinagar. It was not poor by any means, but it had the homey, cozy feeling that I enjoyed in a town. Nowadays I’ll live anywhere I can, but when I had the opportunity, I’d always choose the more rural over the urban. That said, there was still part of Ushuaia that made me wary and nervous; I lost myself once or twice, wandering the streets of this sub-city.

Originally my first stop was to be the hospital, where I was originally going to work, and where I’d originally be giving out the new pill-based “biotic” (it could hardly be referred to as anti) to all of the patients waiting in what I assumed was a long line that stretched out the door and across the street, possibly over into the next town as well. But my original plans did not include me knowing that this pill-based medicine was a “biotic” and not an antibiotic, so I scrapped them all and went straight to the hotel, checked in and fell on top of the bed with all of my belongings. They felt heavier now, too heavy to be my own bags. I was tired from jetlag. I ended up falling asleep again.

I wondered if the hospital had been expecting me. If they had the same connections to Afalsi and Doradwe that the previous two hospitals had had, then they would surely have expected me to come in and begin working. They might have reported to Afalsi that I hadn’t gone there. If I continued skipping work, Afalsi might find out. And Afalsi would report that to Doradwe. I could just imagine Dr. Doradwe turning my life into a living hell through all of his connections. He’d stop my flight home and trap me in Argentina. He’d make sure that the hospital never hired me, and keep me out of a job. I felt threatened by his omnipresence, even though he was never there.

I woke at half past six in the afternoon. Although it was a tad late, I decided that it would be worthwhile to make the trip to the hospital I’d been told about – the Ushuaia Regional Hospital – which wasn’t far off, and I felt that if I could fool Dr. Afalsi into thinking I was doing what he wanted me to do, I was better off doing that than sitting around waiting for my next flight to the USA to roll into the airport. Once again I wasted my money on the local taxis. Another reason I hated cities – and, though I hated to think about it, Ushuaia was still a city – was because of taxis. Taxis took a person anywhere he or she wished to go, or rather their drivers did. Even so, it prevented the passenger from learning the whereabouts of key points in the city. I never knew where the Regional Hospital truly was. All I knew was that the taxi drivers knew, and that was enough for me. I assumed that meant that it was also enough for everybody else in the city, never once thinking that not everybody wants to pay for taxi trips everywhere they go.

It was a small, uninviting place. A ramp on both sides led up to an even smaller double-door entrance. It was deceivingly large, though, not deceivingly small. The inside was smaller than the outside, and I wondered how this hospital treated most of Ushuaia. Thankfully I was able to witness the line that went to Hell and back. The lobby was full – the receptionist couldn’t speak to more than ten people at once, but she tried as best as she could. She was a young girl; fresh out of nursing school it looked like, and was having some serious trouble keeping up with people. I assumed that’s why she was placed at the reception desk and not with real patients.

The beds were empty; the morgue was full. A full time staff was hired just to put the beds away and make room for more dead bodies. While it was nothing compared to the sight in Srinagar, it still chilled me to think that so many were affected by Athan’s Disease in such a short time. How long had it been since Shane Evans first wandered into the hospital? I tried to remember. I felt like it was years ago, but it was really only months. Half a year at most; I couldn’t quite pinpoint the dates. But in that half a year or so the disease had found resolve to spread around the entire world, even to its southernmost tip. If I hadn’t been so terrified, or so engulfed in thoughts of what the rest of the world must have been experiencing, I would have been astounded by Athan’s ability to maneuver and conquer an entire race in under one year.

I had reserved a spot on line to approach the receptionist. I was called when it was my turn to speak. “Hello, I’m Dr. Ethan Hemmings. I’m here to administer medicine sent from Pharand, Inc. so that all of these people can be well again.” I continued on with the usual spiel. By the end of it, as always, the person’s face lit up and they directed me towards whoever was running or owning the hospital. In this case, I was brought to the Chief of Medicine, Dr. Moncayo. She was a perky Latina woman who, like many perky Latina women do, enjoyed talking more than most other activities – possibly more than doctoring. A conversation with her could last an hour or more easily, as mine did when I was first introduced to her. She smiled not because she’d met the man who could supposedly cure all of the people in Ushuaia, but because she’s found a new talking-mate. It didn’t matter to me – I wouldn’t be sticking around for long, in spirit at least.

I let her give me the tour of the building, which was not as small as she was, but not much larger. On and on, about how ill the city had become. On and on, about how fast it had happened. “Only two weeks and everybody was in here. Many of them were, how you say… family members bringing their deceased into the hospital. Nobody knew that they were dead! Everybody in Ushuaia watches the news, so we knew about this early on. We didn’t get rid of any bodies as soon as we heard the news. And now you’re here! We’re all very excited. I hope you don’t feel, how it is… out of place in this hospital. If you need anything, ask and I will get it for you!” She smiled. The smile was so wide that it just might have been larger than her head. But I was glad she offered what she did. I took advantage of that offer.

“I do need a couple of things. I have a list of ingredients; I’m trying to improve my antibiotic, you see. I was wondering if I could use my time here to do that before distributing what we’ve already got? I’m not happy with the producing company’s new ‘pill’ version of my medicine. You’ll see what I mean when you give it to the patients – it just doesn’t work the same way it used to. Not as strong, not as fast acting… there’s not much good about it.” I continued my incessant lying. I wasn’t sure if she believed a word of it, since I knew she’d been in contact with Dr. Afalsi for weeks, but by the end of our long conversation I had access to my own workspace, in my own room, much like my little setup back in the USA. It reminded me, sadly, of that hospital a little too much – I began to cry when I was showed what room I was allowed to work in.

“Why are you crying, honey?” Dr. Moncayo asked. She was sweet, but I could see she didn’t really care why I was crying. She was just making more conversation, while trying to appear sympathetic at the same time. I gave it to her, if only to continue on so that I could conversation my way out of the hospital for the day. I’d visited, but now I needed to go back to the hotel and get my list of ingredients. Or better yet, I told myself – hold off until the next day, and bring yourself one day closer to that US flight, and never do Pharand’s dirty work again. It sounded too good to be true. I’d already gained stalling time. Now I just had to use it wisely. As I mingled my way out of the hospital and bid Dr. Moncayo a gracious, heartfelt farewell, I contemplated a trip to the local pharmacy. Perhaps they would have a bottle of Emeticillin. It would make recreating my antibiotic that much easier – almost as easy as speaking with Dr. Moncayo for two hours straight.