The silence that fell was denser than the smoke, heavy and absolute. I stood there leaned back and fell flat on my bum. My lungs burned, not from the smoke, but from the raw, desperate air I dragged in.
Theron stood up.
It wasn't a sudden jolt; it was a slow, agonizing heave. The movement was wrong. The body didn't shift or settle; it simply pivoted, all the stiffness of death replaced by an unnerving, fluid momentum. The black mist that had seeped into his chest now radiated outward, thicker, absorbing the light of the fire so completely that his outline seemed to blur against the meager glow.
His eyes were open. They were the color of cold river stones, flat and vacant, reflecting absolutely nothing.
I stood there watching...
Theron took a step. His boot didn't crunch on the earthen floor; it slid, unnaturally smooth, and the black mist around his ankles intensified. He wasn't looking at me with recognition, rage, or even pain. He was looking at me with the empty focus of a tool awaiting instruction.
I tried to turn away, but my muscles refused to obey. The terror was a paralyzing, icy grip that canceled out every instinct for flight. The spot where Theron stood seemed to be sucking the heat out of the air.
He took another step, closer to the cot where he had just died, and then he stopped. Not because I had commanded it, but because I had mentally screamed the word: Don't!
New thoughts ran through my mind, what's this black mist, is Theron inside this body... The body was dead, still very fresh, you couldn't see that he was dead, just the empty look in his eyes. "what have I done..." I whispered.
A chill, a horrifying understanding, ran down my spine, sharper than any knife. My grief and fury hadn't just been strong—they had been a key. My adult mind, fueled by the rage I felt for Elian and my desperate need for survival, had somehow commanded the plague, the instrument of death, to reverse its work.
I had bound the Rot to a corpse. "how to what degree" "is this magic!..."
"Theron," I whispered, testing the theory, the word tasting like ash. "The axe. Get the axe."
Theron's arm moved. It was not the movement of a tired, hungry man struggling with the weight of the day, but a simple, perfect extension. He reached down, gripped the polished handle of the wood axe, and effortlessly lifted the heavy tool. He held it vertically, the blade resting against the crook of his shoulder, exactly as he always did before heading out to the woods.
He stood waiting, a silent, undead servant wrapped in the mist of his own passing.
The protective rage I felt for Elian was gone, replaced by the profound, stomach-churning horror of my own power. My past life as an accountant felt infinitely far away, a dull lie compared to the reality of this moment. I was no hero, no savior. I was a desperate thief in a dead boy's body, and now...
We need wood, the primal survival mechanism in Elian's starved body insisted.
I forced myself to breathe, standing up slowly, my gaze fixed on the dead man holding the axe. "Good," I rasped, the word hollow. "Now, we go. We don't stop until we have enough to last the winter."
I stepped past him, not caring if the black mist touched me, knowing I was already contaminated. The heavy timber door was the only way out, and as I reached for the latch, Theron's cold, dead hand reached over my shoulder and pushed it open.
The Morbid Winter howled a greeting, but this time, the cold didn't feel quite so absolute. I was walking with the plague, and for the first time, I felt a horrific, terrifying chance at survival.