Prologue

The clinical scent of the industrial cleaner clung to the nostrils of the patient. He inhaled deeply, the catarrh lodged deeply in his throat. He tried to cough, struggling with himself.   Eventually, he cleared the strange gunk from his windpipe and felt the artificially purified air enter the vacuum of his lungs. Sweat beaded upon his pallid forehead, and his eyes, which were once green, had taken on a dark blue tinge, which irritated the surface of his iris. This uncomfortable itching begged to be remedied, but the reason for the man’s solitary confinement prevented him from doing so.

He was one of them, an invalid of the Mercyship epidemic. The only thing his body allowed him was thought. The sun shone brightly upon his burning face. The man wanted more than anything to turn away from the beams of light as they attacked his already suffering eyes. He wanted to ring the bell at his bedside and ask the nurse to close the curtains; he wanted her to adjust the pillows behind him.

He wanted her to feed him.

"Sit up, please," the nurse commanded him. He did so, in a robotic manner. She spoke to him, allowing him one mouthful of food, before being called to another invalid, leaving him lying in the same position as before.

The man’s dull face spoke nothing of his agony, his lack of control over his body. He lay there, slack-jawed, seemingly unaware of his surroundings.

Yet, he felt every undulation in his vicinity, heard every door creak, felt the warmth of the surrounding bodies on his skin. And all the while, the burning on the surface of his eyes grew stronger. As he lay, helpless upon his bed, the pain of his eyes making up for the numbness of his body, he couldn’t help but feel that his affliction was all his own doing.

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Mercyship. A small island located off the coast of America. In the recent weeks, there have been reports of a strange disease which prevents the inhabitants from acting for themselves, requiring full care. The hospitals on the mainland are filling up with Mercyship's inhabitants, healthy people in body, with blank expressions and dulling eyes, who have to be told to perform any task. The strangest part of all this is that once they are told what to do, they can do it perfectly. Myra Asthore, Undercover Intelligence Extractor - Special Agent 414, has been sent to find out what is causing the disease before the whole island is infected.

updated May 9 '11 by emptyanima