It has become a routine for Rokah, in the dawn before the sunrise. He will give a visit to some patients who are gravely ill and near their death. Despite he can’t do anything about their condition, just spending a few minutes talking to them, sometimes giving them a painkiller if he collected enough ingredients to make one. This small tour always provided him a certain feeling of appreciation towards his own body.
An individual approaching death has this unusual aura that surrounded the air around him, majestic, fearful, and mysterious. Was it an elderly person who had lived tens of years, wounded and drained by time, or a youngster, who hasn’t seen the worst or best a life can offer?
The smell that pumped into Rokah’s nose when he entered the room wasn’t pleasant. Once he looked at the young girl who was lying in a bed three times her size, he tested the bad savor of prolonged painful agony. He predicted, right away, her destiny. Maybe not at this moment, but not long enough, so he could visit her the next day.
His heart didn’t bring him to tell her parent the truth, he rarely hid the truth about a patient’s condition. It was that new bad habit he has picked up while staying in this place.
His next stop was an elder woman, probably the oldest living person in this village. He spent the time chatting about her past and memories, good and bad ones. It always astonished him, how can someone accumulate all these emotions, regrets, sorrows, then still be able to go on in life and speak of them lightly as if they were fragments of a marvelous fairy tale.
Finally, when this heavy stroll ended, his heart was completely delighted, a sensation of euphoria eluded all his numb spots. Those brief encounters and brief visits have the effect of painkillers. It remarkably filled the emptiness that dwelt inside his hollow, pitiful self. Even though for a moment, even though this satisfaction had a short expiration date. For him, this was plenty. It gave him the will to go on.
Recently, Madam Linda took the responsibility to cook for him. Every day, when the strolls ended, he always returned to find out that his preferred table was reserved by her and the breakfast ready.
In his understanding of people’s nature, Rokah believed that this was Madam Linda’s method to fill up her own emptiness after she deemed herself alone. He believed every person had some kind of ritual to fill up their emptiness. Just like him.
She placed a newly baked loaf of bread and a hot cup of fresh milk on the table, then she sat in front of him and asked: “How was it your tour?”
He smiled at her… well; she became very natural and familiar with him those last days, and he didn’t show any disapproval of her friendly conduct. “As usual… nice and depressing.”
Her lips lost the happy curve and turned sad. She learned not long ago the hidden meaning behind Rokah’s words. There was someone who doesn’t have much time left. She asked him again with a different tone: “Who?”
“Little orange…”
“There is no hope.”
Madam Linda got silent. Rokah knew she was recalling her loss and sympathizing with the parents who were going to take the arrow of the death this time. Whoever surprisingly, she changed the subject: “Don’t feel bad about it… I know that you have done your best to save her.”
Rokah’s eyes widened at her declaration, and he stopped the spoon just before his lips. He wanted to check his face to see what kind of expressions he was making to the point that she needed to console him. She continued after noticing his response:
“When I remember how bad the condition your friend was when you first arrived and when I have seen him…”
The bit of the bread Rokah was chewing on stopped in his throat. He was nearly shocked when he heard Madam Linda speak of that wolf, yet he controlled his reaction and continued to listen to her.
“He was very handsome, yet he was kind of weird. There is something terrifying about him.” Linda muses as she remembered his face and the drools that escaped his mouth, “I think he didn’t fully recover.”
“Did you meet with him?” Rokah urged a response. His instructions to him were extra clear concerning any involvement with the villagers.
“Yes, he lost his way to the kitchen, so I was going to show him the entrance to the tavern. He seemed hungry… Thank goodness, but Mr. Isidore was with him.”
Rokah didn’t recall how fast he has finished the breakfast, how hurried he was to finish the small chat with Madam Linda. His peaceful morning moments and flair of satisfaction burned with rage.
He sprinted to his room, pushing the door like he was trying to break it. Peering left and right, the raging breath of his lungs never settled. It became hotter when he screened the whole room and didn’t find a trace of him. No smell, no trails. It was just as though he was banished from this world, leaving nothing.
He approached the bed, tearing all the sheets and kicking the damn covers away in wrath until those waves of madness slipped from his trembling body, and all his power got consumed. He paused while lying down on the messed bed to regain the pieces of his exhausted mind.
He was shocked at himself and at this intense emotional reaction; he wasn’t like that. Perhaps it was the first time he has felt like he was betrayed.
He murmured in an audible voice, “what I had expected…”. Biting his lips. “I was careless. It’s easy to be careless when you take care of someone this long. ¨
He led his bandaged arm before his eyes and said soothing his anger: “what a foolish move, even if the Aractantrope won’t kill him, without the remedy the plague will slow his regeneration ability and will weaken his muscles.”
In the middle of his trembling carelessness and sinking anger, a very familiar fading scent blended with his breath. It got stronger and stronger with every second. He shut his eyes and covered his face with his hands. He could feel his burning heart like a hammer beating on solid metal. And he waited on to the moment when he could hear the heavy steps approaching the unlocked door.
The sound got closer and closer to where he sat till he sensed a huge shadow cast on his body, like an approaching death. He was just waiting for the moment when something was going to crush him…
His breath grew heavier and his waiting became longer. Then he opened his eyes, seeking the gape between his fingers to see what was going on.
