Dear Brother

Prologue

Holy Rome solemnly strolled down the streets of his country, he marched with his head held high, calmly waving at the empty pavements and alleyways, creating the illusion of a steady, orderly society, his prideful brain blocked all but supportive humans around him, and ghosted the ones who sat on the edge of the gravel paths, bathing in their own vomit and filth.

The aroma of death lingered in the air like a ball and chain wrapped around the ankle of the atmosphere that had settled around them.

The smell of shit and regurgitated cholera-infected stomach contents lay in stagnant puddles all over the cracked, eroded pavement.

The deceased lay strewn in the gutters full of filth, congealed blood oozing out of their eyes, mouths, ears and gruesomely swollen lymph Nodes; each individual droplet sliding off their leathery skin and plopping on the ground with a heavy splat.

Some bodies had a crowd of sickly little boys and girls shaking them, bawling their eyes out for their lost family, all the while being naïve to the fact that they would soon follow them, as the plague festered inside their bodies, just waiting to burst, bubbling up on their flesh in the form of puss and blood-filled sacks.

"My lord, please!" A peasant boy in a baggy, badly woven straw garment called, his voice breaking with every word.

He scampered up to Holy Rome, falling at his feet, trembling. The Aristocratic nation halted suddenly, his expression that of disgust, annoyance buzzing in his brain as he stared down at the peasant boy like a lowly rat.

"What do you want, boy?" He sneered, signing for the boy to rise to his feet, the grime from the street smeared all over his arms, face and legs.

Holy Rome, scoffed, and once again glared at the boy with disgust. The boy stood with his head held low like a scolded child below the colossal nation whom he presented himself to.

"My mother and father, please sir!" he begged, pointing to two semi unconscious people, a man and a woman lying just at the edge of the gutter.

Tears started to pool at the bottom of his eyes and roll down his cheeks in streams, creating clean streaks across his face as his salty tear water wiped away the grime.

Holy Rome raised an eyebrow at the child, his stern expression seeming to soften slightly, however never broke his confident act.

The child then lifted his grubby little hand, gripped onto the noble's rather large fingers and dragged him towards his parents.

The aristocrat was taken aback at the amount of strength mustered up by the frail little peasant child, to pull him along the gravel path. His feet dragged along the grime-covered sidewalk, the dense soles of his gold and red silk shoes scooped up clumps of brown, foul-smelling street sewerage.

He was forcefully brought in front of two sickly looking people, they lay almost completely lifeless in a heap right next to the gutter, the state of their being was enough to cause the noble towering above them to let out a silent gasp, his eyes widening slightly at the sight.

Their bodies were covered from head to toe in horribly swollen sacks of puss and blood, some of which had burst or had been cut, causing them to ooze this gloopy, green and red liquid.

Their bodies were also coated with dark purple lesions, these lesions came in all shapes and sizes, splattered across their limbs like a painter that had just had a hissy fit.

Their fingertips were also this colour, the two's already sickly pale skin faded out into that of a harsh midnight purple, as the blood was drained from their fingers from this devastating disease.