I'm sorry I haven't posted anything in a while, I've been a bit busy working on a novella, but I am now back. I should be posting more frequently now. This is an older story of mine that I wrote up a while back and just never got around to posting. Here it goes. I hope you all enjoy it.

The oppressive Afghan heat lay over the long room like a heavy blanket, stifling everything below it. Rows of young men lay in evenly spaced cots amidst the sour stench of illness and waste. Hacking coughs and pained groans echoed around the hard-walled chamber. Another bout of fever had struck the British troops and spread like wildfire. A doctor and several nurses scurried between them, checking injuries here, changing hot cloths there. They exchanged quiet words with all the conscious patients they passed, but those were few and far between.

In a far corner, a young man, an army doctor himself, tossed on his cot in a fit of delirium. When he had first joined up he had been one of the hopeful, idealistic ones. Once he started in earnest, he was caught up in his unfortunately plentiful work, so busy that the change was barely noticeable, but by the time the Jezail bullet hit him in the shoulder and he was retired from the service, there was no doubt about it. He still smiled at the doctors and shared a frequent laugh with his fellow "inmates," as he jokingly called them, but he had undeniably aged. The young man, not even 30 years of age, was old and tired. His bright blue eyes, previously filled with wonder and laughter, had become dark, haunted, even.

But still, he had been recovering quite nicely when the fever struck and left him bedridden for weeks. His condition oscillated wildly from conscious and nearly healed, to barely alive. As he lay there restlessly in the grip of some delusion, the doctors suspected death was not far indeed.

Images flashed before his eyes. It was all bright, too bright.

His skin, darkened by full days of hard work in the harsh Middle Eastern-sun, burned against the cold blankets. Shivers shook his once powerful, sturdy frame.

A low buzz was all he could hear echoing around his numb mind.

A sharp ache constantly dug into his dull body.

"So you've given up? Just like that?" an inhuman hiss sounded in his ears, "I'm disappointed..." it trailed off.

For a moment there was silence.

"All you young men, your whole lives ahead of you, all going to waste. It's a shame really..."

"What are you?" the young doctor tried to demand, though he couldn't tell if the words actually came out.

A harsh wild laugh, "Most of your comrades swore me off as some sort of demon – or the devil himself – but not you, no you're different, aren't you?"

"Are you a demon?" the doctor croaked, "Or the devil?"

It laughed again, "No. But this isn't about me, it's about you. I have an offer for you. You can live again, but there's a price, always a price, I don't need much really, just something of equal value, perhaps your identity, your individuality. You can live, but only as a conduit for another. It wouldn't be that bad, better than death, perhaps." its tone hinted at a wide grin.

"How?"

"I have my ways. The question is, do we have a deal or not?"

"I'll take it." the doctor replied, with barely a pause.

"I knew you were different. See you around, Dr. Watson."

With that the man on the bed collapsed into a deep, peaceful sleep, the likes of which he had not had since he first took ill.