ONC 2024 Shortlister
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Just one week before his marriage with a chief bloodshaman of the Kurat's army, young surgeon Genul sees his wife, Kenit, die under his care after a terrorist attack launched by the neighboring nation.
As o...
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Genul sheathed the dagger still covered with Kenit's blood and tossed it inside his bag of surgical tools. For stealth, he dressed in his medical clothes and gloves to cover his wounds. Then he headed down the stairs, fighting against the pain and the heat in his flesh to feign the unpreoccupied stance of a Surig on duty.
To avoid the guards still regulating the entrances at the main door of the central hospital, Genul entered the first office left open that he could find. He used a high bench of massive wood to break the windows and jumped outside.
The tangle of carriages creating the traffic jam around the streets leading to the hospital was now subsiding, but it could still work in his favor to slow the forces of order when they came to find the human blood users.
In the dimness of the moonlit night, Genul ran across the open fields behind the central hospital and plunged into the bushes. He marched deeper inside the wilderness to reach the Maleka woods, where he expected either to find Daya or to quickly plan his passage of the lomuratian border before the forces of order executed him.
It was all a gamble. Daya hadn't given him her word because she had all the reasons not to help him. Still, Genul held onto that meager hope. Because giving up that hope meant accepting despair.
His body was working against him. The first time he had had his fleshpaths opened, he'd been lucky enough not to be among those who died from it. But he had only recovered from the tattoos of shamanism after a week of sickness. Just the opening of the fleshpaths couldn't kill him. But this time he was fighting the natural sickness of the tattoos and the poisonous human blood running through his newly opened flesh.
"Be there Daya," he muttered, his tongue bitter in his mouth, "be there in the old fountain, please." As if Fate Themself had the will to wipe him off the face of the earth, behind him, distant barks echoed. "Malignance," he cursed, tightly gripping the flask of blood Taria had given him with feverish fingers.
He rushed forward. A dozen paces ahead and he realized that the danger was imminent. The barks became more regular and louder, echoing like lights going on and off in a circle around him. Then, they suddenly stopped. Genul held his breath.
The dog was there, its black body melding with the night. As he turned around slowly, he could feel its eyes on him. With his thumb, he pushed the plug of the blood flask, but the dog lunged before he could absorb any of it.
In a cacophony of snarls, and sharp white teeth sticking through the darkness, the dog rushed toward Genul. He stepped aside, avoiding the dog's teeth in his flesh, but the fangs stuck to his trousers. It dragged him, driving Genul several steps back, off balance.
The flask spilled all the blood to the ground, rendering it useless. Genul gave in to the force of the dog and fell. As the dog dragged him across the bare ground, he opened his bag of tools and extracted the dagger.
