The room was lit by a pair of oil lamps, their flickering light more emphasizing the shadows than casting any more light. A young man, in what should have been the bloom of youth, lay on the room's single bed with the sheets pulled down away from his bare chest. Sweat glistened on his skin as he slept, lost in fever-dreams. It was chilling, how quickly the disease had taken hold of him. Just that morning he had been smiling, laughing about a joke he had heard recently.
Then he'd started coughing, and when he'd lowered his hand there had been blood on it. The immediate diagnosis was consumption, what would later be called tuberculosis, and he was given orders by the town's physician to not strain himself. A slight young man already, straining his body when consumption had taken hold would only speed the progression of the disease. He had switched tasks with his brother, taken the easier inside duties of running their father's small dry-goods shop, and had collapsed later that day with a high fever. That had been when the physic realized the true nature of the youth's ailment. Not consumption, but the more dreaded demon that stalked sixteenth century Europe.
The plague.
Since that afternoon the young man had been unconscious, and the physician had tried every remedy he could think of. None of them had worked. He had even gone so far as to speak to the town's herbalist, a woman who just barely escaped being labeled as a witch for her skills and talents, but she had refused to even go into the house. Even the youth's family wouldn't go in, so great was the fear and danger of contracting the plague. The physician, however, refused to leave the young man's side, regardless of the danger.
The youth had had a bright future. An intelligent, quick-witted young man with a gentle manner, he'd had quite a few options open to him that would not leave him simply helping his older brother with their father's shop. The physician had seen that promise, and had begun giving him some tutoring in the ways of medicine; it was through those lessons that he had grown very fond of the young man. To see him caught in the merciless grip of the plague, powerless to do ought but watch as the disease stole his life away...it was more painful than the physic could have imagined.
Through the night the physic worked, foregoing sleep in his efforts to find some way to stop the disease, to break the fever and bring the young man back from the brink he teetered so dangerously on. There had to be something, some possibility that could be stumbled upon, but no matter how hard the physic looked not one was to be found. Morning came to end that sleepless night and still the fever raged in the young man on the bed. Cool compresses did nothing to abate it, and bleeding had already done nothing but weaken him. The physic could only watch as the youth grew paler, as his breathing grew more labored and the breaths themselves came shallower and shallower.
It would be a full day more before they stopped altogether.
Eric jerked awake with a soft gasp, eyes staring around at the dark room around him. They came to rest on the small mantle-clock whose soft ticking was the loudest sound in the room. A little after midnight? The shinigami stretched, shifting in the chair he'd apparently fallen asleep in. His back wasn't going to thank him for this; it was already stiff and uncomfortable from sleeping sitting up. He'd get over it, though.
A further glance around brought his attention to the bed beside him, in which his roommate slept. Alan's face was peaceful, if a bit on the pale side currently. The younger man's illness had been acting up that day, and the staff doctor had ordered bedrest. Eric had been making sure Alan stuck with it; the man had a tendency to push himself beyond his limits sometimes, which was at once an endearing yet frustrating trait.
It looked as though Alan would recover from this particular bout by morning, though. His color had been steadily improving, and would probably be back to normal soon enough. As long as Alan took it easy the next day everything should be fine. For a while, anyway. Shi no Toge, Alan's illness, didn't always wait for him to strain himself before it made itself known again.
In the darkness, Eric's eyes hardened slightly. He hated that disease, more than anything else he could think of. All but incurable, causing such pain to those it struck...he would find a way to fight it, no matter what it took. He would free Alan from the curse that hung over him like the blade of a deathscythe. There had to be some way, some legend that would hold even a hint of how it could be possible.
But that was a matter for later. Eric's eyes, watching Alan's sleeping face, softened again and he reached out to gently brush a few stray strands of hair off Alan's forehead. For now, he could at least watch over his friend, stand guard as much as he was able against the clutching claws of the disease.