The storm ranged outside, sand pounding against the sides of the ramshackle lean-to, slithering in through myriad cracked metal seams and badly spackled joints to whirl madly at their feet before going on its way. The man on the cot stared up at her, a mixture of fear and hope gleaming in his eyes, reflected in every minute twitch of his body, the instinct to flee warring with the more rational knowledge that any sort of healing would be better than a slow death marked by agony and madness.
Nezumi tilted her head to the side, sun-dried and cracked lips quirking into a grimace, a brief parody of a smile. The infection was screaming through his body, huddling through his leg with feral possessive, howling defiance and fury at her. It knew the presence of its own Death.
Only she could see how bad it was. The others had no idea how deep it had gone, how the bone had rotted right through.
Still.
"I can help him."
The people around him moved at that, some creeping nearer, others huddling together more tightly, all of them behind the cot as though using the wounded man as a shield.
She could not save. Anyone. Never that. Not anymore.
Such things weren't for her.
"But this is gonna hurt," she added, looking down at him coldly, giving nothing but the hard, pitiless truth as she reached for her bag and started to take out her tools.
Nezumi tilted her head to the side, sun-dried and cracked lips quirking into a grimace, a brief parody of a smile. The infection was screaming through his body, huddling through his leg with feral possessive, howling defiance and fury at her. It knew the presence of its own Death.
Only she could see how bad it was. The others had no idea how deep it had gone, how the bone had rotted right through.
Still.
"I can help him."
The people around him moved at that, some creeping nearer, others huddling together more tightly, all of them behind the cot as though using the wounded man as a shield.
She could not save. Anyone. Never that. Not anymore.
Such things weren't for her.
"But this is gonna hurt," she added, looking down at him coldly, giving nothing but the hard, pitiless truth as she reached for her bag and started to take out her tools.
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