As I slowly woke up, I shook my head, trying to dispel the sleepiness from my head. I slowly opened my eyes, and was suddenly barraged by senses. My nose and throat were killing me, I could faintly hear some sounds, but I couldn’t figure out what they were. The area I was in was too blurry to make anything out, and I felt like I was laying on something soft.
‘Ah… it’s good to be back in my bed. I’m glad that was all a dream.’ Then the pain struck, I shot up, my eyes practically bulging out of my head, as I clutched my chest in pain. “GAH!” I yelled, as I looked at my bandaged chest. ‘Definitely not a dream!’
I stopped screaming in pain, and instead just breathed in and out, trying to hold down the pain. While I was doing this, I noticed I appeared to be in some kind of a small room cut out of a cave. There wasn’t much to the room, except for a dresser, the bed I was laying on, and a nightstand. I noticed my breathing slowing, and the pain felt more bearable.
Unfortunately it wasn’t like that for long, as I heard something coming. I quieted down, trying to figure out what was going to happen. The footsteps came closer, and I could have sworn I heard claws scratching against rock. Eventually, the person, no, the creature walked in, and I started freaking out.
The newcomer was a giant bipedal lizard with sharp teeth, sharper claws, and clearly a FREAKING DRAGON! I felt my heart beating out of my chest, and I ignored all the pain there as well.
The dragon clearly saw my freak out, and rushed over to me, holding me down. “Calm down! You don’t want to open your wounds, do you?” I was still panicking, every single instinct in my body telling me to run, but the rational part of my brain was telling me to calm down, and listen to the dragon. Seeing that I was clearly not calming down, the dragon grabbed something that was balancing on his tail, and I took this moment to push myself free.
I quickly rolled off the bed, and got to my feet, before putting my fists out defensively. “Who are you?” I ignored the burning feeling in my chest, as I imagined my wounds are bleeding again.
“Calm down young one. My name is Ral’nor’kin, I am a healing dragon,” the male(?) dragon spoke, a wise hint to his voice. “I found you nearby, you were passed out, bleeding badly. You were lucky the manticore quickly died of a severe and rare disease, or you would have been the one who died.”
I blinked in surprise, and I just now realized that the dragon had a blue aura around him. I looked down at my hands, still extending in a fighting pose, to notice my aura was blood red. I looked back up, and almost felt some primal fear again. Not because of the dragon, but because of the blue aura that contradicted my own aura. For some reason, I hated that blue aura.
“Why do you have a blue aura around you?!” I yelled, unaware that my hands were glowing red.
The dragon looked surprised at this. “Blue aura? I do not have a blue aura around me. I need you to calm down. You might have ingested some kind of hallucinogen that’s making you see things. A hallucinogen is a…”
“I KNOW WHAT A HALLUCINOGEN IS! I’M A DOCTOR!” I screamed at him. How dare he try to explain something like that to me. “AND I KNOW I’M NOT UNDER THE EFFECTS OF A HALLUCINOGEN! I’VE BEEN IN THIS FREAKING WORLD FOR TWO DAYS! I’VE FELT MASSIVE PAINS! SO UNLESS THIS ENTIRE WORLD IS A HALLUCINOGEN, I AM NOT CRAZY!” With a roar unlike any human can make, I ran past the dragon, and quickly navigated through the cave, one that luckily had some light in it. Deep inside my mind, I asked myself about my behavior. ‘Why am I acting like this? I’m usually calmer than this.’ Those thoughts were quickly overtaken by anger of the blue aura, and as a result, the dragon.
I ran for a minute and quickly came across a natural light source, the sun. I ran towards it, hoping to leave the cave, when I quickly stopped, noticing that I was near the top of a mountain. Unfortunately I lost my balance on some of the melting snow, and slipped, sending me over the edge.
I fell, screaming all the way. I thought I was going to die, and I was also curious how I wasn’t hitting anything sticking out of the mountain yet. I eventually impacted the tree line, and hit the ground.
I hesitantly opened my eyes, to see the green grass of the forest, and several broken off twigs lying around me. I groaned, “How the hell did I survive that?” I gently push myself up, and looked down to see a giant stick stabbing my gut. “Oh… okay then, I’ll take bleeding out over being dinner.” I carefully get back to my feet, knocking off all the other twigs on my back, before looking at the thing spearing me.
I gently touched the stick, and flinched at the sensitivity of the wound. “Why is there no pain?” I firmly grasp the stick, and rip it out, like pulling off a band-aid, and let out a scream of agony. I dropped the blood covered stick to the ground, ignoring the fact that the wood covered in blood looked radically different than the part that wasn’t covered in blood.
I stumbled forward, trying to escape the dragon, and kept one hand on my wound, trying to stop the bleeding. “Hell if I’m getting eaten today.” I don’t know how long I walked for, but as I did, I noticed animals sniffing in my direction, and running away. I eventually got to a familiar location; the clearing I was in earlier.
I looked around the clearing with a small smile, before noticing the rotting corpse of the lion creature. ‘Manticore! That’s what they’re called.’ It took me a minute to register that the manticore was a rotting corpse, and there were several more corpses of different animals near it.
I walked up to the dead animal, noticing the faint red aura around it. The same aura was around the other dead animals. As I walked up to it, I instinctively lifted my hand and touched the Manticore, before my hand glowed red, and the red aura absorbed into my hand, before flowing through my body.
I took a step back, and was about to yell in fear, but I didn’t want the dragon to find me. The red continued to go through my body, until it disappeared, and I felt a soothing sensation across my body. The bandages fell off, revealing no scars or wounds, and the hole in my torso was gone.
“I’m healed?” I muttered, looking at my freakishly pale hands, and then back to the corpses, before walking over to the other dead animals, and absorbing the red aura from them. As I did this, I felt more and more alive. Like this red aura stuff was ambrosia, and I wanted more.
Eventually, all the red aura was gone, and I was sad. The rush faded, and I fell down, coughing up blood. “What the hell is happening to me?” I managed to wheeze out, before I coughed up more blood. I noticed the blood was killing the grass as it touched it. The once green grass was now brown and ugly.
When I stopped coughing up blood, I felt a familiar presence, and quickly turned around, and got to my feet to see the dragon with the blue aura.
“There you are. I was worried you might have hurt yourself during that fall. It’s a miracle you’re still alive.” The dragon actually sounded like it cared for me.
“Stay back!” I yelled, trying to contain my anger for the blue aura.
“You need help. It’s not safe to wander this forest. Please, let me help you,” the dragon tried to reason.
“I said STAY BACK!” When I yelled that, my hands glowed with a red aura, and the dragon looked surprised at that.
“Your hands. The red aura. You’re a Plague Master, aren’t you?” The dragon had a hostile tone to its voice.
‘A Plague Master? That’s the name of the mode in Plague Inc!’ “I don’t know, but I suggest you stand back!”
“You were the one who killed the Manticore. I should have guessed, that disease appearing in a Manticore around this time?! You’re a monster!” the dragon roared.
“I was defending myself!”
“There’s no such thing as defending yourself when you’re a harbinger of disease and plagues! You’ll see this world burn! I won’t let you!” Then, with a screech, the dragon flapped its powerful wings, and flew at me, claws extended.
I panicked, and took a step back in fear, as the dragon grabbed my throat with it’s claws, and trapped me against a tree. The dragon’s mouth started glowing very blue, causing me to panic. I instinctively pushed my hands against the dragon, trying to escape, but I wasn’t strong enough.
‘I don’t want to die! I will not die!’ I slammed my hands against the dragon again, and this time, its eyes widened in fear, as it stumbled back, grabbing its body, and I looked down at my hands, noticing the red aura surrounding them. I looked back up to see the dragon falling to the ground, coughing up blood.
The dragon’s scales were losing their luster, and I noticed some of them turning brown, before spreading to more scales. The brown quickly overtook it’s body, and I noticed it’s blue aura was fading, in favor of a red aura. Eventually, the dragon wheezed out one last thing.
“You’ll destroy everything, you monster.” I noticed the life disappear in his eyes, and I quickly ran over, about to eat his corpse, when I realized what I just did. My mouth fell open, and I took a step back, my vision getting blurry. I rubbed my eyes, feeling wetness against my hands. I quickly turned on my heel, and ran as far away as I could.
I ran for what felt like hours, until I came across a small river cutting through the forest. I crouched down, dipping my hands in it, and bringing them up to my face, trying to drink some water. When I was done, I looked at my reflection in the water.
I didn’t look much like I used to. My once neatly combed black hair was now greasy and slicked back. I had some stubble growing on my chin. My skin was sickly green and pale at the same time. It looks like I haven’t taken a bath in a month. But the scariest thing about my reflection, was my eyes.
My normally green eyes were now completely blood red. Not blood red like someone who has something in his eyes. I mean my eyes were only blood red, with a small white dot in the middle where my irises used to be.
I blinked, trying to get rid of them, but they were still there. I saw my eyes watering, and I slammed my fist into the water, dispelling my reflection. I noticed my hand was glowing red, and when it was touching the water, the water was changing to an unhealthy brown color.
I walked away from the water, before falling to my knees, and crying. I killed a creature. I killed two creatures. I’m a monster. I let out a loud howl of pain, as I mentally swore.
I would never kill another again.
The dragon called me a Plague Master, the same mode I clicked on in Plague Inc. before I arrived here. I think that means I have some sort of control over diseases. ‘But how can I help others with my powers?’
Easy, I will try and help cure diseases.
I will make ‘Plague Master’ a name to be proud of. I will help others.
I am the Plague Master.