The Plague Bringer

Under the sun of the Kala system rested a great stinking pit, dug by the inhabitants of the system, the remnants of the Federation, which now feuded in civil war and torn apart by poor decisions and terrible leadership. Their many mistakes had come back to haunt them, but not just in war. Within the pit, which reeked of decay and death, were piles of hundreds if not thousands of bloated, sun cooked bodies. They were the victims of a terrible new plague which wracked the population of the Federation to its core and had spread through the Federation’s worlds without delay. It was a plague that was as of yet unseen by the modern Ancerious galaxy and its inhabitants until now.


A lone figure stood on the pit’s edge looking down at the piled up remains and yet somehow resisting the foul smell of the rot and decay which to any other would be strong enough to leave them unable to stand let alone remain so close. And yet this man held his place as though merely breathing in another day’s fresh air. Even more peculiar was the man’s clothing. He wore a dark green smoker’s jacket lined in bright red with pants and slippers to match.  He almost looked like a father from an old black and white sitcom given toxic color, disturbed from his rest by noise in his front yard. His hair was oily black and slicked lazily back with a few long strands in his pale face. He was thin, and through the corner of the eye the illusion faded to reveal he was even more unnaturally so, almost skeletal in form as though the man had been starving for months if not years. It was as if his body was in a constant state of change between starvation and perfect health. He looked upon the mounds of corpses with unblinking eyes as he scanned the morbid scene and nodded his head in apparent approval.


“hundreds? Thousands? Millions? How many must this disease have claimed…” he said to himself before smiling. “A masterpiece….that is what this plague is….” He held his hand out over the pit as though feeling an invisible surface. A wisp of bright green smoke arose from the corpses and into the man’s hand, wrapping around his fingers like a serpent. He brought his hand closer and looked at the wisp with intrigue as it passed through his fingers and around his hand. “Two normally harmless yet highly contagious diseases…but when combined they form this beautiful hybrid of death and art…I’m almost jealous” He inhaled and the serpent-like wisp drifted into his mouth. “Almost….but I’m certainly impressed” He said as he looked out over the pit once more. His mouth stretched open into a wide fang filled grin which spread from ear to ear in dozens of long inward pointing hook-like teeth. His face was like a mask covering something far more monstrous than his humanoid form disguised.


“I just have to meet the ones responsible for this delicious disease.” He cracked his neck in a loud *pop* and rolled his shoulders until they had popped as well. “I must get more.” He laughed. “And I simply must get their recipe….but first….it would be a shame if all these bodies were allowed to just go to waste. Tau Volaris was hardly even an appetizer… I’m still starving.” He took a knee on the edge of the pit as two serpents emerged from his shoulders and the rest of his body began to change as he assumed his true form and slithered into the mass of bodies.


Not even a drop of human blood would be found the next day when the area was visited by the soldiers who were supposed to burn the corpses. Instead of bodies, nothing was left in the pits except a thin pool of an oily black substance at the bottom that seemed to slither about and churn like a mass of writhing snakes. It beckoned the soldiers to jump, it touched upon their base instincts just by their looking into the pool of black blood and made them want to join it, and it was almost irresistible.


Only one soldier would be returning to the base that day,covered in blood and his uniform in tatters.With him was a gift for his superiors, sacks filled with that black blood, made with the skin of his companion.