Three days had already passed since the ghosts arrived, and they had not stopped moving.
The doctors adapted fast. At first they only watched. Then they started carrying the patients themselves, hauling limp bodies to the cots as if the district had become a forge line and the sick were the iron.
Those who survived the puncture and the draining were handed back to mortal hands.
Scalpels came out. Excess appendages were cut away through plain physical surgery.
The work looked merciful if you stood far enough back. Needle. Wait. Breath returns. Knife. Stitch. Bandage. Another bed. Another miracle.
From a distance, it could have passed for a philanthropic mission.
Up close, Fay saw what it really was. Everyone had a plan. Everyone had a price.
The cured were so thin they looked borrowed, muscle and fat stolen away until their cheeks sank and their ribs mapped themselves under bruised skin.
They suffered, and their suffering became a market.
