Withering World [MCSM Fanfiction]

ENGULFMENT: Chapter 45

Jesse

It's rowdy in the hospital and I might know why. A hunch or instinct isn't much worth to me, though. I need the proper answer.

It doesn't matter if I seem to be reaching the end of the engulfment stage. So far, I've had flash fevers, shivers, internal bleeding, stabbing pains, and a few hallucinations. I'm paralyzed and I've vomited twice already.

I haven't entirely lost everything, which makes me a little more grateful. I pick up the distinct, earthly smell of coffee as well as chocolate and custard pastries floating through the wall.

Being alone sucks. If I could, I'd stick an SOS symbol to my door just to attract anyone, even if it were someone I don't know.

My other form of disassociation was watching the drone's perspective on my TV, but it's boring now that it's returning with no other quest in its database. The only vine of excitement I'm grabbing onto are the rumors that they're back.

A pulse on my door floods me with curiosity.

Not Petra or Lukas.

Harper's solitary, walking into my room with the potion I'm all too familiar with. "Jesse, I know you're probably aware of what's gonna happen now."

I barely have a voice. My critical condition glues most of my airways closed and taking deep breaths seems to fail me, anyway. Despite the circumstances, out comes the questions I've been dying to ask someone for the past few hours.

"What happened? Are Petra and Lukas back? Can I see them?"

"She's..." Harper begins, unable to mask remorse woven into her complexion, "she's not ready to see you right now."

My heart lurches daringly inside my chest at such words. Harper is going crazy... or maybe it's not like that at all, and Petra's mission was just too much. What if she's mad? She's always mad, except for when she's not, though I'm praying that I'm not the cause. I can't be the cause right? "What- I- what did I do?"

The Old Builder's round face crinkles, telling me I misunderstood. "No- you-" she stammers as her style of speech mimics mine. "You did nothing wrong, Jesse. Petra's just not ready, but she'll come around soon. I can't tell you everything, though. She told me she wants to deliver the news to you herself about whether she and Lukas were successful with the mycelium and... other things that happened along the way."

"But-" I say, then retracting immediately. It's not worth using up the rest of my fissured voice box. I'll leave all the mystery-solving contained in my mind.

Before, she was so eager to lay off her sword-swinging and stay with me in the hospital for the rest of my time. So why is it that in my (allegedly) final days of distress, she chooses to walk away?

"They know that I'm alive though, right?"

"Ivor told Petra, yes. I could tell she had never been so relieved in her life... but anyway..."

Harper returns her gaze to the potion, uncorking it with a dull emptiness in her eyes as they follow her hands setting the bottle plug on the desk nearby. Her austerity multiplies in her next remarks.

"Jesse, you also need to know that you're at the engulfment stage. We've done everything we could to slow down this drab sickness in your body." She looks down at the bottled elixir in her hands, blinking a little too much. "This is the last healing potion we're giving you because any more after this will be ineffective. If you reach Ravagement before the cure is fully concocted... I'm sorry. There'll be nothing else we can do. We will work as fast as humanly possible, but the speed of the WITHER parasite will be entirely in your control now. I suggest hydrating and resting regularly - one minute of extra sleep could be the difference between life or death for you."

She gives me the space to reply, but I physically can't say anything else. I have potentially just over two weeks left to live. Of course I was suspecting this, but it still feels like it's just a nightmare, a vision suspended from crossing over to reality.

Some of the chilled solution spills down my chin when I drink, and Harper gives me a tissue.

The door swings wide open, revealing Ivor, who tells Harper she's needed back at the research department. He plants his foot at the door's edge to hold it open where I see half of a frazzled Petra, her one eye that's not hiding behind the frame suddenly meeting my withered pair. Her hair is soaked and she wears a navy zip-up hoodie, denim shorts, and black knee-high socks armored with combat boots, a fresh outfit, indicating she's already been here for a while to bathe and change.

She's the first to break eye contact and it's a second too quick. Then, she takes cover behind the frame as if my gaze were to turn her into stone.

That confirms Harper's statement. It was undoubtedly true - Petra couldn't even bear to look at me.

I snap back into reality when the Old Builder rises from her swivel chair. Only then do I find my speech, pleading for my loneliness to end.

"No, wait. Don't-"

She doesn't hear my tiny voice, walking out the door with the empty bottle just like everyone else. But it's not just Harper I address this to.

The door clicks shut and the world locks away.

"-leave."

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