Chapter 120: The Curse

Astrid Vale

Something heavy hit a wall somewhere outside my room, and I jolted upright before I’d even fully woken. For a second I thought it was part of a dream, but then footsteps came fast down the corridor, hurried and overlapping, followed by someone shouting a name I didn’t recognize.

Then the growl.

Low, distorted, wrong in the same way the father’s had been. I was out of bed before I’d decided to move, crossing to the door but stopping myself before opening it. Watching from the crack seemed safer than stepping into whatever was happening out there.

"Alpha," a voice said, close enough that I could hear the strain in it.

"What’s going on?" His voice, sharper than I’d heard it before.

"Another one," Dr Audrey said, breathless. "It’s happening faster this time."

I pressed closer to the gap in the door.

"More of our people are showing symptoms," Dr Audrey continued. "And sooner than the last cycle. We’re losing ground."

I edged toward the corridor’s mouth, careful to stay in shadow, and caught sight of a man being half-carried between two soldiers.

...one hand pressed hard against his stomach like something inside him was tearing itself loose. His breathing came in short, ragged pulls.

No one around him looked panicked. That was the part that unsettled me most. The soldiers didn’t hesitate over where to stand, didn’t glance at each other for instruction. The doctors moved like they’d rehearsed this exact sequence more times than I wanted to imagine, each of them already reaching for something before anyone gave an order.

This wasn’t an emergency to them. It was a routine they’d perfected out of necessity, born from watching this same thing happen to person after person until the fear had worn down into practiced efficiency.

Then his eyes changed, the same way the father’s had...

This time I made myself watch closely instead of flinching away. His skin looked unnaturally pale, almost bloodless, veins standing out dark beneath the surface. His whole body trembled, sweat soaking through his shirt, one hand pressed hard against his stomach like something inside him was tearing itself loose. His breathing came in short, ragged pulls.

Then his eyes changed, the same way the father’s had, and I understood something I hadn’t before. The transformation wasn’t instant. There was a whole process leading up to it, the body fighting something for long minutes before finally losing.

The medical team moved with the same unnerving efficiency I remembered from before. Soldiers restrained him against the wall while doctors converged, one holding him steady, another producing a syringe, a third arriving with a sealed container of dark liquid marked with the same symbol I’d seen etched onto the blood containers in that guarded corridor. I watched them administer whatever was inside, and slowly, agonizingly, his trembling eased. The transformation didn’t reverse. But it slowed, stalled somewhere short of completion, enough that the doctors regained control of him.

They weren’t only treating people after they turned feral.

They were trying to stop it from happening at all.

Once he’d stabilized, Maximus’s voice cut through the quiet, tight with something close to anger. "How bad."

"It’s spreading faster than we anticipated," Dr Audrey said.

"How many have shown symptoms?"

Dr Audrey gave a number I didn’t catch clearly enough to hold onto, but the pause before he said it told me it mattered more than the figure itself did.

"If the progression continues at this rate," Dr Audrey said, "we could have every citizen showing symptoms before the next full moon."

Silence stretched for a second. "Every citizen," Maximus repeated, something cracking through his usual composure.

"If we don’t find a permanent solution," Dr Audrey said.

"Then fasten the process," Maximus said, sharp enough that I flinched slightly behind the door.

"We’re trying," Dr Audrey said, an edge of frustration bleeding through his usual careful tone. "We are doing everything within our capability."

"Are you close?"

A pause, longer this time.

"Closer than we’ve ever been," Dr Audrey said.

Something in the way he said it, ever, made my skin prickle. However long they’d been chasing this solution, it hadn’t been days or weeks. It sounded like generations.

Then Maximus’s voice shifted, quieter, more deliberate. "And the new arrival?"

I went perfectly still.

Dr Audrey hesitated. "We’re still examining her."

"Any results?"

"Not yet."

"We don’t have time to wait," Maximus said.

"We need to understand what makes her different before we proceed," Dr Audrey said. "Rushing this could destroy whatever advantage she represents."

I backed away from the door slowly, my heart pounding hard enough that I was certain they’d hear it through the wall. They weren’t simply studying me because I’d washed up here unconscious from the surface. There was something specific they were waiting for. Results. Results from what, my blood, my body, something about the fact that I’d survived whatever had happened to me at all.

I thought of the blood containers marked with that same symbol. The restricted ward and the sounds coming from behind that heavy door. The doctor’s careful, unreadable expression every time I asked the wrong question. All of it connected now to a single, unbearable thread. They were searching for a cure to whatever was consuming their people from the inside out.

And somehow, impossibly, I was part of finding it.

I shifted my weight, and my foot caught the edge of the doorframe, a small sound escaping before I could stop it. The doctor’s head turned instantly toward the corridor.

Our eyes met.

I didn’t run. Some part of me understood, even in that frozen second, that running would only confirm exactly what he already suspected.

"What did you mean?" I asked, stepping fully into view.

He didn’t answer right away. He studied me with an expression I hadn’t seen from him before, something beyond his usual careful neutrality. Not anger. Not quite fear either.

Disbelief.

"You shouldn’t have survived the surface," he said quietly.

I stared at him, the words settling into me like a stone dropped somewhere I couldn’t reach to pull it back out.