Pandemic

Twilight spent most of her time in AJs room. She felt a certain level of responsibility for dragging her out of one pit and tossing her into another. Out of the frying pan into the fiery inferno of death one might say. She hadn’t slept sense she woke up yesterday and her mind worked at close to the speed of a lame slug. She had read the book a total of nine times already but nothing had said anything about how to decipher the map.

AJ would occasionally stir in her sleep and cough up blood onto the cot. She still hadn’t recovered her color even though miraculously they had found some good blood to use in a transfusion for her. Twilight absentmindedly watched AJ’s ragged breathing. She wheezed with every inhale and coughed with almost every exhale. She had an estimated two days to live; that is if she didn’t lose any more blood. Twilight examined the red-stained sheets near AJs mouth. Not good. She was losing more and more blood each hour, maybe not as quickly as before but it was still amounting to something. Twilight redoubled her efforts on the book determined to find the location of the cure.

She woke to the sound of retching. Twilight hadn’t realized that she had dozed off and it was now dark outside. She looked up at AJ who was leaned over the edge of the bed vomiting almost pure blood. She suddenly lost balance and fell to the floor with a sickening thud. To Twilights amazement she stood up by herself and turned slowly to get back on the bed. Twilight jumped up to help but as soon as her hooves hit the floor AJ fell as her legs contorted at odd angles and her body began to spasm. Twilight looked on in shock not knowing what to do. AJ continued to seizure for a moment and then she laid still. Twilight’s brain was unable to process what had just happened. She took a step back and almost tripped over the book that she had dropped into the floor. She looked around to find it and run outside with it before she lost all control but stopped at what she saw.

The book had a glow coming from inside the front cover. She opened it and gaped at what she saw printed plainly in blood on the front page: a key to the map with explanations of other markings and locations in English. But just as quickly as it had appeared it started to fade. Twilight looked around for a quill to trace it but could not find one. She did find a sharp medical tool on a table in the corner which would have to make do. Now for ink. She looked around and then slowly realized what the only substance in the room capable of writing was, and AJ was lying in a pool of it. Twilight dipped the quill in AJ’s blood and then quickly traced over the fading lines. She got almost everything as the last line faded. It would have to do.

Twilight quickly threw the sharp tool away, grabbed the book, and ran. She didn’t stop running until she was a hundred yards from the clinic. Then she collapsed on the ground and sobbed.