Chapter 456:

456. Wilderness, 5

Rose Blumen - Exogignesthai 1

(Rose)

The thing that ate that person and his dog alive, I thought it was the woods themselves. Like a giant unaware animal.

I was wrong.

And I carried that mistake with me.

Luckily for me, I had washed myself the same day, otherwise I would have been in a more precarious situation over the following days.

Now I realise, rather than the trees eating flesh themselves, they were simply growing over what a microscopic organism was doing to the flesh.

That bacteria was with me as I returned to our temporary home.

Too bad for the gift I kept for Blume, although that’s a non-consequential loss.

My left arm and various spots over my skin beginning to rot are a more serious problem.

The more I wash the quickly decaying chunks of meat, the slower it progresses. So I have some hope of survival before dissolving entirely.

I now have bleeding holes though, so I can’t really stay all day in the icy river. I’m losing strength and blood fast, and there’s not much I can still do by myself. That bacteria is very energetic.

I’ve burnt some of the wounds. It appears to work against new spreads just beginning, when it’s still just a small stain on the skin. But as soon as skin starts to fall, the flesh below is already mush, spongy and contaminated. Cauterising it does nothing besides being insanely painful.

I carried myself to a hospital I had previously scouted.

There wasn’t much left inside this hollow building mostly overrun with little moss and decay, but nearly anything I might find is better than nothing at this point.

Luckily for me, I live in a time where medicines unimaginable in the beginning of the 20th century can be found.

There was a time where they were widespread and easy to find as well, but I won’t complain. Some chance is better than none.

There’s this one medicine I know I’ve seen and used before that could help. Something that surely wasn’t invented in my days but is amazing. It’s a bluish clay of some sort, easy to recognise.

I rummage through the shelves still standing, opening trays and drawers, pots, bottles and boxes, looking for anything looking that thing I have in mind.

It’s an haemostatic plaster that becomes like a new skin, and helps restoring blood flow. Basically, it stops in a few minutes if not seconds any kind of blood loss, even in depth inside the tissues.

I would still have the decay problem, but at least I would have less worry about bleeding to death. Which would be a good start.

I rummaged a few entire floors, without any luck.

Some rooms still had the shades of people over old linen, and bags in the shelves with clothes inside. That’s a little grim.

In an operation room, with more computers than surgical tools, I finally found some.

I quickly spread that blue dough over my most dire wounds. It absorbs the fluids, sticks to the healthy skin and shrinks slightly as it becomes like leather on the surface.

I breathe. The holes are plugged, and blood circulation is back to normal, almost.

I’m sure this thing has some antibiotic properties, but probably not enough against the strain that still propagates on me.

There’s something else to look for.

I’ve had many opportunities through my travel to notice that some pictograms of danger had been standardised across the world. They are simple enough that even I could understand them and recognise them in foreign lands.

Among them, there’s an international symbol for products meant to sterilise bacteria and viruses, which is not quite a medicine. It’s more for heavy duty cleaning products.

Blume taught me about my good bacteria. I’ve come to accept that destroying all of them would also be the end of me.

Now, maybe if I’m careful, these cleaning products could kill that bad one today mostly, and not everything else about me. Just enough so I can survive.

I know it’s a bad idea overall.

But I’m being eaten alive to a point where even fire doesn’t stop it. So maybe poisoning my flesh would be the risky but best way to go now.

The blue clay has its limits and the decay spreads anyway. I don’t think I would be able to cut and to rip away the full muscles on my arm and tummy that are contaminated. New dots keep appearing here and there over my skin anyway.

And this medicine wouldn’t replace the missing flesh entirely. Not fully, not long enough.

I finally found drums of the decontamination chemical in the machine room, where the water heaters are rusting peacefully.

It’s probably a compound just like formalin.

I try it carefully first. It hurts like hell and the bleeding flesh turns to ashes.

It’s terribly caustic to anything biological, not just microbes.

Still, it painfully appears to work. Where the chemical burn spreads, the contamination halts.

I yell a lot as parts of me die in fumes that smell like roasting meat.

I cover the crispy burnt flesh with the clay, as everything bleeds very rapidly after the drought.

After an eternity of a few minutes, I finally breathe. I’ve treated all the stains and contaminated wounds.

All of these holes in my flesh seem more stable.

I rest there for a while, before I can find the strength to stand up.

Outside, the night has fallen.

I rest in a hospital bedroom for the night.

As I wake up, I’m happy to see there’s no gaping hole in my tummy exposing my innards.

My left arm however has entirely turned black. And not the normal kind of black skin unfortunately.

It’s completely necrotic and falls of as I stand up. I feel a cold shiver of fear, but no pain.

I pick up the remains and keep them.

My head and torso look safe. My left shoulder is also alright. There’s a rather clean and pink stump. It looks like my flesh and the blue clay moved together to isolate and separate what’s alive and what’s beyond saving. Maybe there was a hole too deep and the arm was lost anyway.

Happily, my tummy didn’t fall, nor anything else. There’s a big chunk of my abdomen missing, but I can still stand.

I slowly return to the camp during the day. It’s exhausting.

I notice movements inside the greenhouse as I return.

It’s not a guest.

R - Welcome back Blume.

The flying flower reopens her phone line with me.

B - Hello my sweet Rose. What happened to you?

R - Not much out of the ordinary, I think... Though I’d be happy if you could later help me with my left arm.

I say that holding what once was the aforementioned arm with the other hand.

I notice a human skull in Blume’s flowerbed. She’s eating it merrily.

R - You found my gift I see.

B - That was a very sweet thought from you. I’m eager to read it.