“Death’s Toll” By Faythe McDonald
AS I WALKED DOWN THE FAMILIAR ROAD that lead to my home, I quietly watched as children played by the pond, parents laughed by their porches, and animals ate at the grass. One family was sitting on the porch, laughing away as a young dog bounced around and barked at their feet. “Mother, may I go down to the water with the other children?” One young girl asked, her innocent eyes staring up at her mother. “No, Amara, we are having supper soon.” The young girl frowned, but then jumped back up again with a smile. “What’s for supper?” The woman got up and opened the door, beckoning her daughter and other children inside, where a father was sitting at a small wooden table, working on some papyrus.
I sighed.
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She looked up at me, blinked, and looked back down at the patient, wrapping a thin wool bandage around his side. “Hello, Adilia.” She nodded up at me, and stepped away from the unconscious man. “He should be fine..” She said, walking away from the table.
Our village was not very poor, as we were a more civilized village, with large stone walls surrounding us. We were beginning to pave our streets in cobble, and as our quarry was very large, we were able to buy enough stone to floor our homes. My home, since my mother was an apothecary, was one of the first to make the renovation.
The room in which you entered first was where she took care of patient, and was very neat and tidy. The next room was a little bit bigger, as it was where me and my mother lived. It was a small house, compared to the lord of our villages home and our church, and many other important buildings, but was large compared to some homes, where they lived with no walls, but poles of wood holding thatch above them. Other than that, there was only a straw bed in the corner, and a circular table near our oil furnace and wooden tub, cold water keeping meats and other food cold and fresh. We owned a small, tin tub for bathing, but was rarely used, as we would have to carry bucket by bucket from the bog and back, and would take lots of effort. So, we waited until the first rain of the month, when the waters were high to the tip of the bank, not far away from the back of our
Then some of people noticed a new guest, dress as a clothes of the Red Death. Everyone was freaking out because of him. When Prince Prospero saw this guy, he became angry and asked courtiers to seize him and unmask him. But no one have the courage to do it, including Prospero himself. The Red Death walked through the rooms, heading toward the black room. Prospero chased him with taking his dagger. Prospero reached the edge of the dark room, the Red Death suddenly turned to face him, and Prospero fell on the ground and dead. "Then, summoning the wild courage of despair, a throng of the revelers at once threw themselves into the black apartment, and, seizing the mummer, whose tall figure stood erect and motionless within the shadow of the ebony
The morning air seeped through the open window as the newly rising sun glowed on the barren rock landscape dome. It wasn’t so barren though, there was small house that laid nestled in the rocks. The house was more like a small shackled shed than an actually house. The house was small and simple, made out of wood equipped with a chicken coop and garden. The house was had one room. In the room was a fireplace, coal burning stove, table for two, and a twin sized bed shoved in the corner. The bed was unmade and a man stood at the stove making his morning breakfast of eggs.
Back in the main level of the factory, Wolf and Fox find Hawk lying on the ground, pale and unresponsive, his bulletproof vest next to him and the edges of a red stain showing around a wad of gauze. A soldier that Fox assumes is N-Unit's medic kneels next to him, along with Snake and Coyote. The three medics are talking frantically among themselves. The rest of N-Unit hovers nervously nearby; the rest of H-Unit is nowhere to be seen. Dust particles dance through the beams of sunlight from the holes where windows used to be, giving the whole scene a strangely dreamy air.
Once upon a time a few centuries ago I was a little girl who was energetic and adventurous, but one day all of that changed. I was in the yard playing tag with my sister and two brothers but then we heard “the bell.” The bell meant the sickness, black plague, was in town. When the people began to hear the bell they ran all over the place causing a panic and knocking on doors making sure everyone knew what was happening.
Whoever that is, was it so obvious that she was torn? Dizzy wondered if it was just Fallen that might notice or if she were wearing some damned sign or something. Maybe it was a guess, or nothing at all, Dizzy had no idea but she didn't want to dwell on it. Not when she had something that actually made her happy right in front of her. "Well anyone after any part of you will have to go through me." she spoke with a real amount of censarity in her words before a shiver ran down her spine.
Purgatory: A place where the most malignant/hazardous fiends are jailed due to their assailments on the human race. Their thirst for human blood still lingered within them, even after centuries of being caged in Purgatory. They probed everywhere for a way out of the illimitable, gloomy, foggy forest and rivers; killing themselves and others with hunger and insanity. Once a fiend is in, it’s nearly impossible to get out without a Reaper’s or Knight’s scythe.
I made my way to my aunt’s house. Her home smelled of fresh cut pine, and she offered me a cup of coffee with a cinnamon stick in it. I accepted, and we went to the kitchen table and discussed our week. As she talked, I looked out her kitchen table. A small oak grew in the front yard. Snow capped the birdfeeder beside her bird bath.
The smell of heated metal in this confined room started to clear my sinuses. As the temperature rose higher and higher, I felt my nose hairs slowly start to shrink and dissipate. As the walls crept closer and closer I realized I was being pushed to my death. The walls were closing on in on me and were forcing me to go in the only direction I didn’t want to. As I felt the heat of the walls start to slowly toast my back, I slid off the ground and into the abyss. As I held myself on the side of the pit for dear life, I find myself fixated on the hell laying below me, unable to avert my eyes. I looked around. Nothing. I looked at the sliding walls. Smooth as ice. There were no windows, no doors. I looked at the ceiling, there was no sky. I looked
So we started to run down the street once we got there we went into someone's backyard my dad said “stop” he looked around it was not Chili it was a gray cat and Chili is orange. We ran back and looked in the bushes our dad whispered “shhh do you see him in the bushes ‘ then I replied “yes” then my dad said “ Cale go by the back gate Leah go around front i am going to grab him. As my dad crept closer Chili ran my way I shooed him back, but he got scared and ran all the way around the front and into Michals bushes. Leah and I ran over there and leah went in the bushes but she could not find him so she came back out but she tripped on a weed and fell. My dad took her back to the house but me and my aunt kept looking. We looked and looked but
We are the ones taught not to speak as silence is our code of arms.
At a street corner miles off the Manhattan bay sat a man. The December winds and darkness accompanied him. He whistled with the tune of the passing trains and traveled throughout the day from one part of the street to another with the passing sun. The lethargic bones in his body and his hunched gait reminded one of an old tire swing, pivoting with every gust of wind. He walked on the street with an empty coffee cup, sifting the little change inside it. As the day went on, masses of people passed by the man with indifference. What is one brick relative to a whole wall? His shoulders looked burdened with grief, but could easily be mistaken for a drunken posture. Drunk on grief, though he would think with a humorless smile. As his routine continued,
“Some people say I was lucky to survive, other will say I deserved it for the choice I made. I’m here to say I was lucky, it’s never ok to say your life isn’t worth living even at your worst you can always look forward tomorrow will come and if you put your mind to it you’ll see that anything is possible.” – Stephen McGregor Professional Paralympian
My crew has slowly gotten smaller and smaller in the past two months. Only twenty of us remain and more of us are getting sick every day. However, we are at our last stop in Barcelona and then I’m returning home to you soon. Our captain has told us we need to stay here until we unload the rest of the cargo which take exceptionally longer when half your men are dead or sick. I'm worried that I am not entirely well and have an agonising headache. I’ve gotten my blood letted so that I am safe from the disease. Francis believes that the epidemic that spread through our crew is a punishment from god for locking our sick in the cellar. Maybe he is right maybe what we did is punishable by death. One more day here and then I'll finally be home.
The world is on fire. I crouch in the small interior of a vessel. Watching in disbelief as everything burns. I shall tell you what I know of how this tragedy came to be.
I stopped at my parents and pick up my thirteen year old daughter, Melissa. We had been living there for almost a week. It had felt strange to wake up in my childhood bedroom after 19 years of living elsewhere. Melissa is my youngest child and the only one of my three children still living at home, and we were both almost giddy with excitement. As we drove in, we could see the house set on our well-manicured two and ½ acres lot. The old growth trees lined the driveway which circle around another group of trees and lilac bushes, it was like driving into a park. The number of trees and the privacy of the lot is