[AN: Thank you so kindly for your reviews, follows, and the like. I sincerely appreciate the support. *smiles*]
April the Fourteenth, 18XX
Dear Mana,
This is Allen.
I am afraid this will be my last letter to you.
Even now, as I write this, my left hand aches and throbs as darkened skin reaches my elbow, causing my body to spasm uncontrollably. If my pen jerks across the page unexpectedly, please, forgive me. I will attempt to make it as legible as possible. I did not know it took so long for the disease to spread, centimeter by centimeter, but it will take me, undoubtedly.
At the moment, the sun is warm, and the river I rest alongside of is idly drifting by. Timcanpy is on the riverbank, pecking at the ground here and there. I see flowers, Mana. So many different flowers—this spring has been kind to Nature, but not Her children. In this sort of setting, I simply want to sleep for hours upon hours, not having to worry about many impending crises that could occur within the next few days—if I even have days, now. With this ever-present fever and pain surging up and down the length of my arm, I doubt I even have until tomorrow. We shall see.
I am sorry, Mana. I feel as if I have failed you not only as your trusted comrade, but as your son. To die, not even having reached London, is simply...
Is simply upsetting.
I am sorry, Mana. I am really, really sorry.
You have given me everything. When schoolmaster Cross found me, years back in the snow on Christmas Eve, after having been abandoned by my birth-parents, you took me in. You introduced me to the circus, and gave me a name of which I cherish to this day, "Allen." You showed me what it means to love and be loved, and never gave up on me, even while I struggled in school. And for me to repay you, for me to show you my thanks, by failing you? By stopping here, in the spring sun, near a river to appropriately drown myself in when I become close to losing my mind, trying to not scream too loudly, lest more come here to feast on me is—
I still need to know. I need to know why this is happening, and what caused it all, and why we as the human race must perish to this. For what reason have humans deserved this? I do not truly understand yet. Death is a cycle of life, but extinction is an erasure of life itself, and I think we may be on the brink of humankind's peril. It cannot simply end here, yes?
Perhaps that is what everyone thinks when they are dying. "It cannot end here." Then, where can it end? There is always a goal after your original goal, and another after that, and so forth—which is life. Life is a journey, a path, or whatever else cliché phrases humans use to describe it as. It has to end sometime, since we are not immortal. We all eventually hit the dead-end, even though there is more in the distance—we cannot reach it. We can never reach it, can we?
I do not know what I am writing. My ramblings are no longer making sense, not even to myself. Perhaps I am more delirious than I initially thought.
It happened yesterday, while crossing through an apple orchard near an old church and graveyard. Those diseased are learning, Mana. Originally, I believed them to be inept intellectually-wise, but upon my arrival, during my search for food, a child—he looked to be about ten, and still had a pair of goggles on his matted hair—jumped out from behind one of the trees, teeth piercing through my glove. The sensation jarred and stunned me for a brief second, allowing him to chew through the back of my hand and bone quite easily, but not for long.
After freeing myself, I knocked him down and, with a nearby thick, fallen branch, I impaled the child through one eye, and then the other. Shortly thereafter, he ceased movement, though the damage had already been done; my hand is irreparably damaged. If only I had but some sort of blade on my person, I would have hacked it off, though Fate is no longer on my side, it seems.
Was it ever?
My eyes keep shutting. Every time I reopen them, the sun has moved significantly in the sky, and now it is beginning to descend beyond the horizon. The reddish black tint is still seizing my arm as its own, as if it never belonged to me in the first place. When I touch it, it feels quite like snake scales—cold and seemingly-damp. I can still move my fingers, but barely.
Do not go outside. Do not go outside, promise me that, Mana. Maybe we were fools, thinking that by my setting-out, I could somehow influence the world in a search for the cure. But now, I am simply another number of those diseased or deceased. Do not go outside. For my sake. Until you run of food or water, stay inside, stay safe, stay alive, please, Mana.
Someone will find an answer. I am sure of it. I am sure of it.
I can feel myself slipping.
Just woke up agan. Its almst morning or non here. Sun is ud. Everytime I move mypen, everthing blus togther in amess
got t tie this to tim befr to late plese feed hi well
deseve that muc for coming with me
arm hurts so bd mana nothing cmpares miss you
godbye
love alle