As Isadora Holic, a young woman with curly black hair and bright grey eyes, left her family's apartment and walked down the halls, the sky outside was choked with clouds the colour of ash, and the air carried the sharp scent of burnt ozone and old, wet stone. Engelstadt rarely had good weather.
It was a small town far from the Front. Calling it a town was giving it a favor, but many of its residents would get into a fight with anyone who would call it otherwise. It started out as a hotel, its gray walls were once filled with children running around while on a school trip, and their teachers doing their best to stop them from disturbing other guests. But, after the world shattering events of The New Year Zero, it had become a shelter for many refugees, who had built a well known commune. They had everything a community could need: a school, a chapel, a general store…
Isadora was a nurse by trade. She could have joined the Everlight Army as a Field Medic, but she believed her community needed her more. Her brother Sébastien had also joined the Army and had been gone for six months now. He is alive, that much they know by reading his letters.
His last deployment was at the Italian Front, just south of the Alps. He was a foot soldier.
The clinic was small; a few rooms on the ground floor. From the back room, or rather the office, a faint sound of prayer could be heard. Doctor Abbas and his family lived down there, next to the clinic. They prayed their second prayer of the day, as they always did by the time Isadora would come. Isadora entered slowly, careful so as not to disturb them. She had long since memorised the rhythm of their prayers, and while she didn't partake herself, she found comfort in the familiarity of it. She and her family prayed as well, as did everyone in the community. God's name did not matter as much as pure and honest faith in them.
She quietly walked behind the counter, a large desk in one of the rooms. She removed her coat and left it on a hanger, revealing a long cream dress. The room smelled of cleaning supplies. Isadora was used to the smell. All that blood had to be cleaned. Small wounds were common, people worked in the greenhouses or were repairing barricades. Sometimes, a virus would pass through town and they wouldn't have enough medicine for everyone. A few years back, before Isadora was a nurse, a wild, wrath-infused influenza ravaged the town. It was quite literally due to a Miracle that the town recovered. Since then, two of the Archangel Raphael's angels have been stationed; both to ward off the Hellspawn and the Sin-created illnesses.
She checked the patient's chart from last night. Nothing, even the patients who were recovering in the clinic had a good night's rest. A perfectly quiet night. Isadora chuckled, glad that everything was right, but also that she didn't work the night shift this week. She poured herself a cup of thick, bitter coffee from the shared pot in the waiting room, savouring the warmth as it seeped into her palms. The generator-powered lights overhead flickered slightly. She sipped slowly, her eyes drifting to the window where the silhouette of the old welcome sign. The hotel's name used to be Engelsgasthof, the second part of the word now painted over and the word Stadt added to it.
The prayer died out in the next room. Isadora put down the mug. The building was silent. Engelstadt, in general, was silent. Too much noise would always attract Hellspawn.
Just as she was about to say hello to Doctor Abbas and have breakfast with the family, the clinic door swung open. A man walked in, falling face-first to the floor before Isadora could even take a good look at him. "Doctor!" Isadora called out as she rushed to the man's side, her coffee mug clattering to the floor behind her. The man was young, just about her age. He had dirty, oversized clothes; you could have mistaken him for a street beggar back in the day. Under a woollen hat, Isadora could see strands of bright red hair. She turned him on his back after taking the heavy winter coat off him. No wounds so far, but his eyes were dry and sunken, and his lips were dry.
"What is it?" Doctor Abbas rushed into the room, the Holy Quran still in his hands. He handed it to his son Karim who was behind him, and then quickly came to Isadora's aid. Doctor Abbas dropped to his knees beside her, his expression shifting from concern to grim focus in a blink. "Dehydrated," he muttered, brushing his fingers gently along the young man's jaw and feeling his pulse at the neck. "Exhausted. Maybe hypothermic. No obvious trauma."
Karim hovered nearby, already moving to grab the portable heater and a fresh blanket from the supply shelf. The boy was only fourteen, but Isadora had seen him stitch a gash without flinching. Doctor Abbas motioned for Isadora to help him lift the man onto one of the exam cots, and together they hoisted him gently, careful not to jostle him too much. The man groaned softly, a ragged sound that barely made it past his cracked lips.
"Help me get him on a bed," the doctor commanded. " Karim, set up the IV and bring some more blankets from the storage." The boy left to do as he was told, and Isadora grabbed the man's legs and helped Doctor Abbas lift him onto one of the spare beds in the room right by the reception.
"He's so light," Isadora noticed.
"Will add starvation to the chart…"
Isadora could hear the movement in the other room. First, the light and short steps of a woman, then the rushed steps of Karim, who carried the supplies his father requested. Just as the boy was about to enter, someone pushed him and his mother out of the way and stormed into the patient's room. Isadora looked up, a barrel of a gun in her face. Behind that gun, a man her age, with tired eyes and a sharp nose: Russell Mitts, her brother's friend and a captain in the local militia.
"Move aside, Isadora," he commanded. The woman stood up straight, protecting the patient behind her. "I don't have time for you," he hissed as he cocked the gun. "Check his arm and move the fuck aside." Isadora could see that he felt uncomfortable holding up the gun to her face. The two had known each other since childhood, and while they weren't too close, Russell couldn't look Sébastien in the eyes if something happened to Isadora.
Isadora was calm, but she knew the risk when it came to foreigners. The man who collapsed before her minutes ago wasn't local. In the very rare case that a foreigner arrived alone at the clinic, the militia would always escort them. Carefully, she turned to the patient and rolled up his sleeve. A pungent smell of rot and decay filled the room. The arm was necrotic, with dark yellow pus oozing out of it. This was one of the early stages of the Avaritia strain of the Hellspawn infection.
"Do what you must," Doctor Abbas solemnly said. Isadora turned to him in protest, and Russell saw it as a sign to move Isadora away and point his gun at the patient. The infected man couldn't come to his senses, he couldn't even beg for his life before Russell pulled the trigger.