Motel Serendipity

Remedy - Part One

I shuffled through the dingy back alley, keeping my head low. I avoided the eyes of all the detestable creatures who made this slum their home. The black market merchants and their contraband peppered the sides of the lane. Offering their wares for outrageous costs or trades of an unfavorable nature. They laughed and taunted as I walked. My innocent face shone without the pocked skin that infested the addicts and diseased who congregated in the shadows making it apparent that I didn't belong here, and they were bracing to pounce at a moment's notice.

I breathed in and fixated on the movement of my feet underneath me. I came here for one thing and one thing only. A vial of an alleged cure for my baby sister, the sole person left for me in this merciless world.

Since our parents passed in the early days of the plague, it was up to Sabrina and me to find our own way. We struggled, but we survived, which was more than I could claim for most of the population in our area. The sickness decimated our village with a force stronger than any army. The sole symptom was one bluish purple circular bruise on the victim's forearm. Once you spotted that, you had approximately 24 hours before you were the next name recorded on the wall of the departed.

That morning, during a routine run to the market, Sabrina's never-ending kindness had been her undoing. Despite our situation, she still remained the sweet girl she was before the plague, continually searching for someone to help or a friendly word to say.

She claimed she bought an apple for a frightened little girl, only to find that the girl was infected after she gave her the food and hugged her. The mark appeared on her within the hour.

I tried to be courageous for Sabrina. The last thing she needed was her older sister falling apart right now. But there was scant hope for the infected. The purple mark was a death sentence. There were rumors of a cure although I never met a soul who had experienced it firsthand. If it was accessible, it was certainly more than I could afford.

I felt helpless, there was nothing to do but wait as my sister died. I couldn't even hold her, comfort her, because then I too would take on that horrid mark. When sitting across the room from her sobbing, curled figure became too much, I began to walk the streets of the town, avoiding lingering eyes that seemed to burrow into my mind and see my troubles.

In my incessant pacing, my mind cleared onto a single thought. A thought that repeated itself over and over in my head until it burned itself behind my eyes and between my ears. A thought that would likely be my downfall.

I would not let her die.

I made my way to a local tavern, stopping in not for a drink, but for the sordid information that solely the priests, brothels, and bartenders seem to know about their community. If anyone could tell me if the remedy was legitimate, it would be Darius, the bartender there. He had his finger on the pulse of the city, knew every toothless scoundrel and wasn't afraid of the criminal element. And he helped us before. When mom and dad first died, he conceded to let me tidy the pub in exchange for food for Sabrina and me. He was one of the few people in town that I trusted to tell me the truth.

The promise of a month's wages bought me what I required from him, the location of a vendor who may or may not be in possession of a serum developed by the government to keep the soldiers well. There were no guarantees it wasn't just colored water. But it was more hope than I had before I entered this place, so I took the information and started for the worst end of town.