In Memoriam

Dear F—

I made it.

You’d be proud of me.

You were right that all the high and mighties had their secret doctors, their private alchemists, their secluded little hideaway where they’d get better without us riffraff clamoring at the gates for help. Getting in was easier than I’d expected. I found a dead noble and his attendants on the way, and with that rich clothing, no one questioned my arrival, appearance, or admittance.

I’m sat now in the waiting area writing in the journal the dead nobleman had on him. They have brought me water that tastes stale, but no bread and no wine. I expect a meal is coming soon, but do not want to seem impatient. I must be confident.

The door to the outside is locked with a key that the head of the guards keeps on her belt. I see no other upper-class ladies or gents, just guards, attendants, and a greasy cook who rolled his eyes when I mentioned food. I think I hear moans in the distance. Sick attendants, I am sure.

Ah, here they come. I must attend, myself, to acting the part.

In memoriam,

A—

Dear F—

They took everything of value from me. Yes, I had relieved those riches from a corpse only days ago, but still, it is the principle of the thing. The truth is, they treat me as more a prisoner than their better. After they robbed me, they handed me a mask, gloves, and a cloak, then led me down several flights of stairs to an underground room that looked well-used by the guards. Several played cards around a table, not even looking up as I was led by them.

We stopped before a trapdoor that led into darkness. There was no ladder. They tied a rope around me and lowered me through the hole until I touched the ground far below.

It felt like they were interring me into my grave. But as my eyes adjusted, I realized it wasn’t dark, just very dim. A very low fire burned in one corner of the room, and tall, slow-burning candles gave off the barest amount of light. And in that light huddled people who still sat stiffly, as if at court instead of deep in the earth.

Still, they look healthy. And despite the guards taking the goods I had, I’ve known many rich people more determined to hold onto their treasure than the poorest beggar with a scrap of bread.

I’m a fox in the henhouse. I’ll survive this plague yet, and be the better for it.

In memoriam,

A—

Dearest F—

Before the Rot took your mouth, you said it was madness to come here, if the rumors of a lazaret for the nobility were even true. I argued that there was no better place to be at the end of the world than with those who have money and power.

I was wrong.

We are all masked, every inch of skin covered with fabric. Any weakness invites bullying, and though I’m strong and untouched by the Rot, the others here are desperate as rats caught in a trap.

There’s a pit where they throw the dead and the dying. Of course, we are all dying. The pit was meant for our bodily waste, but now is a hole for those too weak to resist, just so those left can have a greater share of the food, the undivided service of the servants condemned here with us, or whatever treasures the dying had smuggled in with the vain hope they’d be able to buy their way back to power in the new world.

I’ve resigned myself to it. There is no new world for any of us.

In memoriam,

A—

F—

I pushed a woman into the pit.

She wasn’t even very sick, but I noticed she’d been cagey about her stone bed and the crevices carved into the wall she’d claimed as her own. The woman had gold and silver jewelry there smeared with dirt to lessen their shine and blanketed with a scrap of cloth. Not only that, she was hoarding food.

For days, I watched as she nibbled her rations and stored the rest away as though planting seeds for later harvest. When the rest of us quieted down as though practicing for death, she would decorate herself with rings and necklaces.

She refused any help from the servants, out of fear they would find her out and take what she’d held onto for so long. This meant she was responsible for throwing away her own waste, which she did also in the dead of night when all others were sleeping.

I walked up quietly behind her, but she must have heard me for she turned at the last moment, her eyes wide with shock through the holes in her mask. She tried to fight me off, but a firm push with both hands sent her falling, all without a sound.

My fingers pressed into her flesh like it was rotten fruit, my gloves smeared with black. I tossed the gloves into the pit, too. I have her food. I have her jewelry. I have her bed.

In memoriam,

A—

F—

I have the rot. It was that woman, damn her.

Though I take all the medicine the guards send down to us, I fear it does nothing. My right hand is dark with Rot and numb, smearing any surface I touch.

I will survive, though. I will do it, I swear. The Rot works on the spirit as well as the flesh, and I may lose myself before I recover. In case my memory becomes splotched like a rotten apple, I’m leaving this journal with the treasures I've gathered and all the extra food. I grow less and less hungry, but know I will need every bit of it after I fight off this sickness.

The others eye me with envy and suspicion. I avoid going near the pit. I can still hear the woman crying for help from the bottom of it.

In memoriam,

A—