Oh, look!

More *checks notes* fulfilling, gratifying, positive content! *checks again*
That doesn't sound right...


Chapter 4: A withered limb

Vlad woke up – not dead not gone still here dead maybe – and then he woke up again, and again, and again.

Maybe days passed – or maybe that was only one day, scarce moments of consciousness stretched over short and uneven hours of sleep. He never remembered falling back asleep, too conscious of the pain coming and going, like a dial being moved up and down at random intervals – and then suddenly, gasping for breath as he struggled out of nightmares and flashes of green and "banzai" Jack's voice just after Maddie tried to stop him unidentified stretches of awareness in an unresponsive body.

He did not – could not – count the times he woke up again and again and again.

Then he woke up once more.

Things were different this time – it hurt, he was tired, it was hard to move, he burned with fever, that was almost normal by now – but there was more.

it didn't stop there there was always something else something more something to hurt him even when he thought it couldn't get worse

This time it was hard to breathe, from the very moment he woke up, without an end in sight – not just gasping for air out of a nightmare, and calming down afterwards.

This time he couldn't feel his arms anymore like when he'd first come aware trapped stuck a prisoner in his own corpse.

this time it was hard to be

Vlad looked for the call button – blurry, but he knew where it was supposed to be even if he couldn't see well, even if he couldn't focus – and wondered how he was meant to call for help when he couldn't feel his hands.

And yet, as he thought it, his hand, his arm reached up.

He didn't understand how, he didn't understand why, it didn't make any sense – he couldn't feel his damn arm, let alone his hand or his fingers, so why why why why did it still obey his thoughts – but it didn't matter at all when he saw – when his eyes took in the state of his fingers.

He must have pushed the call button, but he didn't remember at all, too busy staring with morbid curiosity shock at the blackened fingertips – how long how long when did that start when was he unaware for that long how can since he last looked at his fingers, since he last felt something, since he had he just not noticed had it all happened in a few hours had he been sleeping for weeks had normal, healthy fingers like someone alive?

The door opened, someone entered his room, but Vlad barely noticed.

was death everywhere now not only in his mind in his memories in his nightmares but also in his fingers in his body what next his arms his heart his

It wasn't only his fingertips he couldn't feel, it was his entire arms. Did it mean it would spread all the way, that it just wasn't done yet, that it might get further, that tomorrow he would wake up and not feel his torso?

Was it another consequence of having ectoplasm in his system? The rashes were one thing – they hurt and likely caused the fevers and were horrible to look at – but this was worst, this meant his corpse body was rotting away, that there were parts he would never gain back, that even if they managed to purge the ectoplasm under his skin, the longer it would take the worst off he'd be.

"Mister Master?"

Vlad started.

There was a nurse looking at him looking like she wanted to bolt out like her smile was barely true like she could feel that she was talking to a dead man burning like she would still do her job like there was no chance of him making it out alive like and standing there – her eyes not on his dead blackened fingertips but on his equally repulsive full of rashes and death face.

Vlad's hand fell back on the bed sheets – but he felt nothing of it.

"I..."

The nurse let out a breath she'd been holding.

"Good, you are aware! You've woken up a few times, but we've never managed to get anything coherent out of you. I'm not even sure you remember it?"

...He didn't. He had vague memories of presences around him for some of the times he'd awoken, voices, maybe, but he couldn't remember any words told to him, not really.

"Am I..."

He didn't know what he wanted to ask.

Was he what? Dead? Alive? Going to heal, going to get better? Eaten from the inside by the very essence of the afterworld?

Vlad didn't finish, and seeing that, the nurse's smile faltered a bit.

She started telling him what he'd already started guessing about the state he was in – with different words, fewer thoughts about ectoplasm and ghosts and more medical terms he only had a passing understanding of, but still, the conclusions were the same.

He was badly off, and they didn't really know what was going on with him, what the infection was doing to his body. They were able to help – somewhat, making sure he didn't die completely, that his rashes didn't evolve into open wounds – but so far they couldn't really cure him, only manage some of his symptoms.

Vlad's throat was dry, his head pounding – but he couldn't stop thinking about his fingers, about the fact he somehow could still move his arm despite not feeling it at all, about how it didn't make any kind of sense.

"What's wrong with... with my arm?"

He couldn't feel either arm, but he hadn't checked to see if...

The nurse would have told him, eventually, he'd just asked ahead of schedule, he knew – but the look on her face controlled careful clinical but he knew still made him feel like she didn't want to actually say it.

He certainly didn't want to hear it, but.

he knew he knew the word he knew what it was he knew what it would do he knew even if the nurse didn't say it

Vlad needed to hear the word, to be told it was exactly what he thought.

that he wasn't imagining things that yes his body corpse was dying even as he remained stubbornly alive that death had its hook in him and would start scratching at his members if he refused to follow to come with it as if he'd ever been given a choice

"The doctor will come and tell you more, but both your hands are showing signs of necrosis, Mister Master. It started yesterday morning, and it's been spreading abnormally fast, but we can work on slowing the progression. However, until we make the cause disappear..."

There, she'd said it.

Necrosis. Incurable, progressive, there forever. Absolutely not normal, too, because he wasn't supposed not to feel yet, he wasn't supposed to move if he couldn't feel he wasn't supposed to be alive either and yet here he was.

She'd said 'yesterday morning', too, and that meant – that meant he hadn't noticed right away, because Vlad was certain he hadn't slept more than half a day, he knew he'd been awake at some point after the doctors noticed the necrosis, and he hadn't noticed.

His fingertips were drying away and he hadn't noticed.

Fingers on both hands. What would he do without fingers, without hands, without...

Vlad should tell the nurse to contact Jack and Maddie about ectoplasm, about the proprieties of the substance they'd synthesized, because his friends might have ideas about the rashes and the infection and the necrosis. No one knew ectoplasm like they did – like Vlad did, but Vlad was chained to his hospital bed, barely able to think, hardly able to move, asleep or hurting most of the time – and they might be able to study its effects on human tissues so that the actual medical specialists could devise a treatment that worked.

Maddie and Jack "banzai!" wouldn't actually know what to do to help him, not directly, but it would still be more, more for the doctors to work with, more knowledge and more opportunities to deal with this, with the consequences of...

"Jack those calculations aren't right"

...with the consequences of the accident, with the state he was in after Jack hadn't stopped to check if... "banzai!" flash of green pain burns please make it stop burns

Vlad closed his eyes and gritted his teeth.

It had to stop.

please