Hallo thar! My brain decided to come up with this horrible idea while mindlessly doing work stuff. What kind of horrible, fucked up nightmares does our ragtag team cope with on occasion? I plan on hitting each member, but if there's a specific character you want me to hit up quickly go ahead and say who you're waiting for the most. At least it'll give me time to think out a drabble.
I'm starting off nice and easy and then I'll fling us off into fuckedville after a few chapters. I'd think Cid/Reeve/Nanaki/Yuffie would have the least disturbing, While Cloud/Vincent/Tifa/Barret could get out of hand. In fun ways. Anyway, tell me what you think of this little experiment.
Shera hasn't been cured of that damned Geostigma yet. Science so far has failed us as we look for a cure, anything that could make this fucking disease disappear off the face of the goddamned Planet. After several years of intense research by any remaining scientists they came up with fuck all yet, just a serum that delays the inevitable.
I've been giving Shera that shit whenever it becomes available. She tells me not to, that it's fine, but fuck if I'm gonna give up and let this sickness take her. Day by day she gets weaker, the rashes grow and ooze more, and she's in bed more days a month than up and about.
Every day she gets out of bed is a fucking miracle.
Today she's not. The white bed sheets are stained black as her infected arm advances further into the illness. She can't use it anymore at this point, and the necrosis is traveling further up her arm every fucking goddamn day. What started out as a bruise-like blemish on her hand one day a year ago has eaten up her fucking arm, and now there's some of that shit on her back.
A lot of people don't know how bad the advanced cases are, don't wanna know. Usually the poor bastards are stuck inside, or in some alley where no one can watch the Geostigma finish them off. The fever gets hotter, the seizures become more violent, the pus runs almost constantly, the infected skin begins to slough off. That part is some of the worst shit and why I keep giving Shera that goddamn serum, because when it gets to that point they just moan constantly from the pain. I don't want Shera to be in any more pain than she already is.
I look her over and the skin is still peeling back here and there as I sponge bath her. It's not much just yet but I know it's gonna get worse soon. She looks me in the eye, and I gotta look away and keep bathing her, get this pus off her body, as if that'll do fuck all. Her eyes are bloodshot and gummy, but she still has that spark of life in them, like she hasn't given up hope yet. Either for herself or for others.
I'm not gonna squash that hope in Shera, even though I know if they came up with a cure tomorrow it'd probably be too damned late for her.
Some blood mixed with pus weeps out of a deep crack in her skin before I bandage it up, and I can't help but wonder about any secondary infections. I'm no doctor, but fucking pus doesn't belong in your bloodstream. Especially not this shit. Shera's skin is hot to the touch as I finish wrapping her arm up. The fever just never fucking stops these days and it takes a lot of ice to manage it on the worst days. I know it's too late for her, but I keep fucking trying like a miracle will happen.
I'm looking at her now, it's been a few days. The skin peels deeper. The rashes on her torso aren't this bad yet, but I've heard of them tearing open and finishing off the infected. They jerk too quickly or try to move a certain way, or a seizure hits them hard and out comes a fucking kidney and more. Her arm stinks from the wet necrosis, I told her and the fucking doctor it'd have to be amputated but they didn't fucking listen.
Shera shouldn't have gone through this. Why the fuck her? Why any-goddamn-body? I hate this shit, feeling so helpless. Was it Holy that created this? The Planet? Shitty way of saying 'thank you' to the people that saved its ass from that crazy motherfucker Sephiroth.
It's advancing quicker and the serum's stopped working. She's been puking up that pus at all hours now, and I've been trying to keep her from choking on it. Damn. So this is why Tifa has that faraway look in her eye now, maybe that's why Cloud ran away like a fucking pussy. Geostigma victims stop looking like living people and more like black bloating corpses as death nears. It ain't peaceful and it sure as fuck ain't pretty. I feel trapped by everything, like I've been in this room for weeks on end just watching Shera devolve into this.
Her dead arm drips pus and blood onto the floor. Geostigma finally got her. I tried to get her to hold on as long as she could but it wasn't fucking enough. Not for her, not for that kid Denzel, not for those orphans I've seen around Edge when I visit. The whole city smells like this goddamn room, like rot and death. The world is slowly dying and here I am holding onto a dead woman's decaying hand.
The world is a sick child screaming out into the universe.