FELIX had been wandering the halls of the Quarantine Ward to no success. So many areas seemed completely unused, the spots marked on his map where patients should be, lay empty with a thin layer of dust. Empty cots appeared to have been used at one point but now smelled of dust and decay.
So far every room had been more of the same, and he was beginning to despair as he opened the next door. An elderly woman spun around at his entrance, she was dressed from head to toe in an overdone thick rubber suit—likely protective clothing—with only her face visible through the clear plastic mask. Behind her lay dozens of cots covered with domes of hazmat plastic. At first, Felix thought that was all there was to them; until he saw pale, sickly people move inside. The woman stepped forward as if to protect the patients behind her, a look of utter rage in her visage.
“Leave here this instant! You are placing my patients in danger just by being in this room as you are! You can’t say you don’t know what this place is.”
Felix had good reason not to back down. He quietly took a step through the door into the Isolation Ward that actually had people in it. With its sanitary white walls and clanging pipes, this room was cleaned to an obsessive level unlike the previous unused rooms.
“It’s dangerous here. Do you have a death wish?” she threatened in a low voice taking a step forward, contradicting her previously docile posture. She put her body in between Felix and his destination.
“But I won’t get infected, will I? We’ve looked into it. We have solid evidence.”
The elderly woman shook her head and pulled out an oddly shaped turtle shell with a handle and trigger on the bottom. From the tip oozed a pungent smell of hot-peppers causing Felix’s eyes to water even at a distance. The weapon was likely filled with some form of irritant to keep aggressive patients in check.
She’s serious. Felix cringed at the thought of being sprayed by the contents of that weapon but stood his ground.
“Can I be infected?” Fear and panic rose in him. He wanted it all to be a misunderstanding. He focused on her face, hopeful she’d prove him wrong.
“You can,” she austerely confirmed, holding his gaze. She definitely didn’t look like she was lying.
Felix thought of Mia’s drive and clenched his teeth. Cutting through the last of his hesitation, he firmly fixed his mind on what had to be done. “Then…that’s all the more reason I need to be kept here.”
For Mia’s sake.
Felix’s mother didn’t exist—at least on paper. Her low birthright kept her from recognition as his father’s wife or as his mother.
In accordance with the rules of the land, Felix had been ripped away from his mother in his infancy and raised without one. Strictness had marked his upbringing, and he was taught to avoid asking for anything or relying on anyone. Love had been absent from his childhood. He’d done everything possible to meet his father’s expectations, but when his first attack had come, out of nowhere, he instantly became a failure. In his father’s eyes, a quitter. From then on, his attacks would occur incessantly, at every little thing that cropped up to trigger them.
He understood why now that he was older—he was lonely. His body had learned people would pay attention to him, coddle him, if he was writhing in pain. But once they learned that his attacks posed no threat to his life, they returned to neglecting him. He was fine as long as he didn’t die. Furthermore, his father had concluded his son was soft and overly reliant, so from then on no one had dared to comfort him again. Even the doctors began prescribing him medicine that was nothing more than a placebo for placating a child.
Around the time he unconsciously began to doubt whether his existence had a purpose and if his life had value, that incident occurred, as if to kick him while he was already down and struggling on the ground.
He’d believed these were wounds that would never heal. Guilt whispered to him and kept the wounds fresh. If he moved on, he’d be betraying his friend. But then, Mia had found him and said, “It’s not your fault,” as she caressed his bleeding heart with her empathy. She’d effectively healed his wounds. She’d taken a young man who’d been stuck in the past and changed him to look toward the future.
Mia didn’t know just how desperate he’d been, that she had saved him from the brink of no return. He wanted to repay her for what she’d done for him. From the bottom of his heart, he wanted to return warmth to her life—to return her mother to her.
“I want to save Mia. We have to create a cure for Demon Claw no matter the cost,” he earnestly pleaded with the woman.
“Make a medicine? Mia? Are you talking about Mia Baumann?” Surprise flickered in her eyes.
“You know Mia?”
“…I see. So Letts finally passed away. I guess it’s my turn next?” she muttered, without answering him.
Felix’s eyes widened at the name of Mia’s mentor.
After a long pause, the elderly woman gestured back to the door Felix had entered through. “Let’s talk, but not here. You put them at risk just by being in here.” Felix glanced at the sickly patients behind the doctor and allowed her to guide him back into the hall where she sealed the door shut.
“Follow me.” With a nod she led him further down the hall through a set of doors into what looked like it had once served as a cafeteria of some kind. She gestured to a table and chairs, taking off her helmet to reveal a pale-skinned elderly woman with graying hair and sunken eyes. “Have a seat, I will get us some tea, and then you can tell me your story.”
As she walked off into a back room, Felix was beginning to wonder if he had made a mistake, but was pleasantly surprised when the woman returned with tea instead of security.
“All right, then! Let’s hear your story, and be sure to leave nothing out. Tell me everything you know about Mia!”
✦ ✦ ✦
AMID the chaos swarming like someone had poked a hornet’s nest, Mia dragged Henrik and Mathias along with her to try and escape the borders of the Royal Academy. Leaving campus during weekdays was strictly forbidden, so she was planning to take advantage of the mayhem and make a run for it, but the Academy had a large automobile parked out front due to the emergency. Starting with Professor Rueger, the Law Department’s Professor Kesten, Mage Department’s Assistant Professor Bahr, the headmaster, and an unfamiliar gentleman with a magnificent mustache climbed into the vehicle.
The huge automobile looked like it could fit additional passengers. Mia made a beeline for the automobile and banged on the window. “Professor Rueger! Please, please take us with you!”
“It’s too dangerous. You stay here.”
“But…!” Mia divulged her greatest fear, “What will you do if Felix has another attack?! I can cure him on the spot!”
Professor Rueger sent a questioning look to the mustache gentleman behind him, who appeared to have authority over the situation. The man nodded, and Professor Rueger opened the door. Mia piled into the automobile with Henrik and Mathias climbing in after her.