"And I gave my heart to know wisdom, and to know madness and folly, I perceived that this is also vexation of spirit. For in much wisdom is much grief, and he that increaseth in knowledge increaseth in sorrow."

-Ecclesiastes 1: 17-18

-Ω-

"Holy fuck, you're a medical miracle!" Frank gushed as he and Perseus slowly picked their way through the ruins of the city. "You've somehow survived for all of this time!" Perseus didn't respond, per the norm, and instead concentrated on hobbling around the cars that were crammed in the street; this particular block's sidewalks were smothered by rubble, and it was easier to navigate through the maze of automobiles than to fumble for handholds on the debris. The patient didn't even give the bodies slouched in the seats a second glance, and Frank was perplexed before he realized that Perseus had been in a hospital when everything had gone to shit. He'd probably seen his fair share of corpses; if the sickness or the wreckage hadn't killed the other patients, the lack of medical personnel should've done the trick.

The crows had arrived once more, shrilling and cackling as they swooped down to peck at the windows of the cars, smelling food, and Frank felt nauseated as he and Perseus skirted around the handprint-bearing carcass of a man. The dogs had gotten to him, and now his stomach had been ripped wide, the organs that hadn't been devoured spilling out onto the pavement. The birds and flies would start swarming soon. Just in case Frank didn't have any immunity and was just horribly unlucky to survive, he covered his nose and mouth with his bandana as if it would somehow compensate for his extreme exposure to the sickness.

"C'mon, talk to me," Frank complained as he clambered onto the hood of a Prius that had T-boned another car. Tucking the IV pole under his arm, he extended his hand and hauled Perseus up beside him, also helping lower him down, too. The bareness of his feet made Frank cringe slightly whenever the soles touched the (most likely scorching hot) blacktop. "Please, Perseus. My only company has been a teddy bear and an opossum. Stuffed animals and rodents don't make for good conversation."

"Opossums are marsupials," Perseus replied nonchalantly, as if he hadn't been completely silent beforehand. His voice was hoarse from disuse, though, and it sounded as if he gargled gravel in his spare time. "And just Percy is fine."

"He speaks!" Frank whooped, and Percy flinched a little as Frank's voice echoed throughout the city. Realizing this, Frank added in a lower voice, "Sorry."

"It's fine. I just haven't been out of that hospital in a while. It was so quiet in there," Percy mumbled, his fingers tapping on the metal of the IV pole. They lapsed into silence after that, and Frank had so many questions, though he didn't really want to hound the poor guy so soon after he was liberated from the hospital. Frank wondered how Percy could be startled by his yelling and not the ungodly squeaking and squealing of the wheels of his IV pole.

The survivor didn't want to make Percy feel uncomfortable, but he couldn't deny that he was infatuated by the fact that the patient had somehow managed to survive the illness and was still walking and talking, though he did look incredibly weak. "So…when did you realize you were different than everyone else with the sickness?"

"You mean MRSK-1?" Percy inquired, his brows knitting. "They sometimes called it Beelzebub's Print, too. Well, I knew I was different from the start."

"I can relate," Frank snorted, tapping the handle of his baseball bat from where it was slung through a loop in his belt.

"No, you can't," Percy replied shortly, "Do you know what it's like to be strapped to a table and poked and prodded with needles by people in gas masks 24/7? No? Then I'm pretty sure you can't fucking relate." Frank immediately backed off, and he noted how Percy's shoulders were tense, the hand that wasn't holding the IV pole balled into a fist at his side. Frank was surprised when the patient continued, "I was only allowed to walk around at night, and in the morning they put roofies in my breakfast and would drag me off to the testing room. I'm pretty sure the government was involved to keep the staff hush-hush, because if my mom found out…" He stopped and laughed. And then he began to cry.

Percy's knees wobbled as he tried to smother his sobs with his hand, tears leaking out of the corners of his eyes, and he clutched his IV pole, leaning on it to keep himself upright. Frank sighed and, in the most stupid, life-risking moment of his life, swept Percy off of his feet and into his arms. He carried the patient bridal-style for the rest of the trip, trying to ignore the black handprint on his wrist that was dangerously close to Frank's face. He seriously hoped that Percy wasn't contagious, because if that was the case he was fucked.

-Ω-

Dusk was approaching when Frank finally reached the Old Dutch Church, his arms surprisingly fine for having to carry a teenaged boy for about a mile or so. Then again, Percy was light to the point where it was concerning. The patient had passed out sometime during the trip, his thin, glasslike hands clutching Frank's bare shoulders, and Frank felt pity beyond what he'd ever experienced before as he shouldered the doors open and slipped inside.

Mr. D greeted him with a particularly fierce chitter, and Frank promptly ignored the marsupial as he staggered the last few steps towards the pews and dumped Percy down on the nearest one. The patient stirred only slightly, his eyelids twitching, and now that he was close, Franks saw how his lips were cracked and peeling and his eyes were slightly sunken into his head. He'd barely been surviving.

Frank's desperation for human contact had made him blind when it came to considering just how foolish it would be to take in someone, especially an invalid. Before the raid on the mini-mart, food had been dwindling to dangerously low levels. Percy was in no shape to go around foraging, and Frank couldn't possibly manage to scrounge up enough food to feed the both of them. On top of that, Frank would have to ask what medicine Percy needed when he woke up, possibly having to make many trips to and from the hospital. He'd also have to go on a serious search for clothes; New York City became frigid in the winter, and with just that thin cotton hospital gown, it wouldn't matter if Percy had survived Beelzebub's Print- he could still die from hypothermia, especially in a drafty, crumbling church.

Frank draped a blanket over Percy, hoping to God that everything would work out and he wouldn't have to watch the patient slowly wither away. Wiping his sweat-beaded face, Frank took to the baths and scrubbed all of the dirt off of himself, glad for the extra rainwater he'd been collecting. He didn't have any pajamas, but he sure as hell wasn't sleeping in jeans, so he stripped down to his boxers and padded into the main chapel once more. By then, Percy was sitting up and staring around with wide and curious eyes, his fingers idly fumbling with the blanket.

"You live here?" he asked gazing around at the stained glass depictions of the Sacred Mysteries.

"Me and Mr. D up there," Frank gestured to the opossum in question. "It's not much, but it's home."

"It's very nice," Percy remarked, still enchanted by the windows, "Much nicer than the hospital. You can only go so long seeing stark white walls until it starts seeming less sanitized and clean and more like a mental asylum."

"I'm sorry for not finding you sooner," Frank responded, taking a seat right next to Percy. "You think we're the only people left alive?"

"I highly doubt that," Percy murmured. "We survived, didn't we? Out of seven billion people, you think a few would be like us. There are also seven continents, and the sickness might've not spread."

"We might not have to worry about that. You think Washington D.C. is still functioning? Or is it the whole east coast?" Frank asked, and when Percy only shrugged, he continued, "Maybe we could bring you there. You're a medical anomaly, and maybe they can extract whatever antibodies you've built up to defend from the disease to use as a vaccine for others. You could save millions of lives!"

"If there are lives left to save," Percy answered, and a furrow had appeared in his brow, "But if you're suggesting that I hand myself over to another set of doctors who'll experiment and jab needles in my arm every five seconds, then count me out." Frank's face fell. "I'm not going through that again."

"I understand," Frank agreed, "But I'll make sure that doesn't happen."

"How can you be so sure?" Percy inquired, taking incredible interest in his fingers, which he laced together in his lap. "I'm valuable. Perhaps an asset to the survival of the human race. Who knows what they'll do to me?"

"I'm not saying I agree with their methods, but wouldn't it be worth it to save people?" Frank probed. "I mean, it's not like it would all be in vain."

"But what if it is?" Percy snapped, his eyes suddenly blazing. Frank recoiled at his stony expression. "What if I'm only used as some sort of guinea pig to save a handful of people? How do I know if there are even people still left in the world, enough to save that it's worth it to go through hell? Even if we find the cure, how are we going to find all of the scattered survivors? It's not like there'll be entire cities that managed to be saved."

"But how do you know that? You seemed hopeful before. What happened in a span of three minutes?" Frank prompted. Percy didn't reply, but Frank saw the patient shivering despite the comfortable temperature. He didn't want to grill him, so he remained silent.

-Ω-

"I wrote down all of my medication and my clothing sizes," Percy stated, handing Frank a folded slip of paper when the survivor had assembled all of the supplies he could need for his foray. "The sizes aren't up to date, though, but it doesn't matter if they're loose."

"Thank you," Frank replied, scanning the paper and finding names of medications that he couldn't pronounce, though Percy had provided helpful descriptions of what the bottles should look like. Percy also needed bandages, considering the patient was planning on taking out his IV, which he was pretty sure he didn't need anymore. Frank wasn't a medical expert so he hadn't argued. "What will you be doing while I'm gone?"

"I can make this place a little more presentable and homey," the patient replied. "This is a permanent base camp, right? You don't move around?"

"Yeah," Frank confirmed, "But if I have to start venturing farther and farther to get food, then we'll have to move to a place that's closer to where the food supplies are."

"I also think I should go out on a little foraging trip myself," at Frank's aghast expression, he chuckled. "Don't worry, I won't go far. I want to see if I can salvage some furniture or maybe even a carpet."

"But how will you move it?"

"Don't underestimate me."

Frank only shrugged and, hefting his baseball bat and his several tote bags that would hopefully be filled with meds, food, and clothes, whisked out of the church. If the heat was unbearable yesterday, it certainly was today, and Frank hadn't even bothered to bring a shirt with him. Sweat dribbled down his face and in between his shoulder blades, and he quickly had to tie his bandana around his nose and mouth as the rank of bodies permeated the air. The sun hung high in the sky, watching with what seemed to be amusement as it scorched the Earth, simply standing by as it watched the world it had loved and nurtured turn into a barren wasteland.

Crows had long since recognized and committed Frank's face to memory, and they knew that following him meant leading to food, whether he felled a stray dog or dug up granola bars from abandoned stores. They called to him, circling above his head and occasionally landing on jagged bits of rubble before taking off after him again. Frank had been down this route a lot more often in the past few days, and had committed most, if not all, of its twists and turns to memory. He passed the hospital, deciding to raid the mini-mart again first and then swing back around to collect the meds, and couldn't help but compare it to a grave; it loomed overhead, a dark and gloomy mausoleum probably brimming with corpses, and its frame sagging. Its chipped and gaping windows seemed to follow his movement as he walked past, and he picked up the pace a little, anything to get away from it.

He searched high and low for clothing, actually searching instead of skimming a bit, and found heaven in the form of one of those cheap, sleazy souvenir shops that sell the snow globes next to the bongs. He raided it intensely, grabbing several 'I NY' hoodies, T-shirts, underwear, and sweaters, tote bags, and hats, as well as cheapy plastic flashlights, pencils, and flip-flops, which would be for Percy until Frank could find him some actual shoes. After the place was practically desecrated and half of Frank's bags were brimming with tourist shit, he took off to the mini-mart. The rats had found the cashier and now only a few bits of ragged flesh clung to his nearly picked-clean skeleton. Frank grabbed as many things as he could, from chips to nature bars to water bottles to essentials, and almost staggered under the weight of the bags he was holding.

To his concern, the mini-mart offered no more supplies, with Frank having salvaged everything, and therefore the survivor would have to scope out another source of food tomorrow. This wouldn't've been an issue had he not had another mouth to feed, but Frank tried not to think about that; once Percy removed his IV and got his strength back up, he would be perfectly capable of moving around and joining Frank on foraging trips. Much to Frank's dread, it was now time to go to the hospital, and he adjusted his bandana and mentally prepared himself for the stench as he neared it.

The red letters of the sign were faded, proclaiming to all that it was called Hope Hospital and Medical Center. Frank gulped a bit as he scaled the steps and hovered by the double doors, which were slightly ajar and revealing nothing but darkness ahead. He felt uneasy leaving the clothing outside but had to in order to be able to more easily rifle through the shelves of medicine. He kept the food bags with him, though, lest the flock of crows following him got to it. With a deep breath and a flashlight from the souvenir shop clutched in a death grip, he stepped inside.

The rancid smell immediately engulfed him, and Frank almost doubled over and retched as the stench of rotting flesh filled his nose, amplified ten times than when he was out in the open. He saw patients slumped over in wheelchairs and the bodies of nurses sprawled on the ground, all of them bearing a black handprint on their wrist. Frank gagged as he stepped over a woman with maggots wriggling around in her forehead, and the drone of flies was almost deafening. They didn't bother Frank, though, as the survivor produced the list from his pocket and followed the incredibly convenient signs labeled "medical storage". The names of the medicines were unnecessarily long, but he really couldn't be bothered by that as he stepped over bodies that he could barely see in the dark. His only light came from his flashlight, which cut through the blackness like a laser beam, and the windows, which cast squares of sunlight onto the floor and the bodies that littered it.

"Why are hospitals always so creepy?" Frank muttered to himself as he followed the directions that the cheerfully colored, though at times bloodstained, signs were giving him. Luckily he hadn't encountered any child corpses yet, which he'd tried to avoid doing ever since everything had gone to shit, though he had, unfortunately, seen shadows of children's bodies in the backseats of cars. Finally, he stood before the double doors that led into the hospital's medicinal supply, which it was clearly labeled. He had to kick it open, after trying it and finding it locked, and was shocked at the sheer amount of medicine that he was faced with. Even though he could really only see the outlines of the shelves in the dark, the masses of it almost gave him vertigo. Lucky for him, they were organized alphabetically, and his gaze kept flicking to the sheet of paper and back to the many neat rows of boxes, vials, and bottles.

After checking all of them letter for letter and matching the bottle shape, Frank managed to get all of the medicine bottles correct. From the sound made when he shook them, there were pills in them, and he quickly stuffed them into a tote that clearly stated that New York was the best place to be. Needless to say, Frank was just about ready to high-tail the fuck out of there as he shouldered his way through the doors with his bags brimming. He was just about to turn to duck down the hall and make the painstaking journey back to the lobby when suddenly something caught his attention out of the corner of his eye.

Frank turned and his mouth dropped open.

A sallow-faced corpse of a young woman was propped up against the wall, her eyes in the process of rotting right out of their sockets as they stared straight ahead, right at Frank. A cross glittered at her breast, shining like a golden beacon against her bloodstained nurse's scrubs. A machete lay next to her hand, obviously having been dropped during the decay process, and on the opposite side was a severed hand. Frank felt like he was going to vomit as he looked at the wall behind her. Written in the blood from the woman's mangled stump was a message:

THE HORSEMEN WALK AMONG US

Needless to say, Frank didn't stay for long.