The Eternal Sleep: A Collection of Short Stories

The Fall of a City

We were told we were the lucky ones.

Indeed, my entire life, I had always been told I was privileged. I grew up in a fine country manor, raised by my mother and a group of maidservants. I was educated, and learned to read. But more importantly, I learned to work, left my mother, and moved to Constantinople - moved into those slumbering white walls for protection and opportunity. And it was there that I did find those things.

The year was 1339 when I became known throughout the capital for my craftsmanship. By order of the emperor's council, I helped design the garrisons and forts around the city, and I taught the nobles' children physics and mathematics. We were determined to preserve the line of the educated, so that, when I and the other scholars were gone, we would have successors who would keep our city safe.

The year was 1341 when I married a nobleman's daughter. A life as a father became for me very similar as a life as a carpenter. My wife and I insisted on educating both our children, even our daughter, and I continued to build walls.

I built our house within those walls, and raised my children between them. I kept them safe from the dangers outside. The traders from around the empire were dangerous, yes. But it was what came from far away that, rather than damaging our walls, rendered them useless.

The Great Plague struck us in 1347.

I looked upon my son and daughter, their eyes glowing with such wonder of all the things to learn, and to see. As I did so, others looked upon their own children, their eyes flowing with rivers of blood and tears. When they would look upon them in two days, their eyes were covered in a shroud.

Then, they would never look upon their eyes again, only their distorted figure, wrapped in cloth if fortunate, thrown into the massive graves. If fortunate. But most died silently, littering the ground inside the walls of my city.

For those of us who lived as nobles, The Great Plague brought both anger and action. We herded our money closer, and barricaded The Great Palace. My family and I were taken in, given more protection, more walls, more false security.

The council acted quickly and rashly, hunting down whoever they believed was causing this wrath of God. First, they gathered up every Leper accounted for in Constantinople before The Plague. Executioners looked them in the eye, then killed them mercilessly. Mercilessly, because what they had been believed to be inflicting upon us was also merciless. The discovery of a cure was to say that God had forgiven us.

The next group of people to be rounded up were the Jews. By that time, there was no more council. There was no more leadership, no true emperor, no right to the throne - no throne at all - only those who claimed to be saviors, and were really murderers.

The year was 1355 when we found a tumour on Lisa's underarm. And our walls shattered. We were suddenly commonfolk, scared, lost, and alone, hiding in a large hollowed out stone that we had denoted made us more important than those beyond the barricades. When the walls fell, we became terribly, unjustly equal.

The doctors came in black masks that hid their faces.

After giving Lisa a thorough examination, one approached me. He placed a gloved hand on my shoulder. Coming from the inside of his mask I could smell lavender. It was always lavender that they used to keep the disease at bay.

"You already know that we cannot save your daughter," he said, his voice nasally. "But perhaps you don't realize that there's still time to..." He searched for the right words. "Take precautions."

Put up more walls.

"You and your wife are an able age. You're young, healthy." A pause. "At least, as healthy as anyone can be these days." He moved around the room slowly, dusting a mantle with his finger, like some predatory animal that I used to see back in the countryside all those years ago with my mother. He faced me once again. His eyes were hollow and bloodshot. If I hadn't have known any better, I would have thought he suffered symptoms from The Plague, too.

"Let me be clear," he said. "If you leave your susceptible children, you may still live." He dusted the mantle with his finger again. "But, if the two of you are too righteous..." For the first time, I saw humanity in his eyes. "... then I might have another solution for you."

It was later that day when we sat around the dining table, and ate as a family for the last time. Lisa was losing her strength quickly, and she complained occasionally about the pains under her arms, but she stayed optimistic for most of the meal. I was proud of her.

I had servants bring in everything - fresh roast, potatoes, vegetables from all over Europe, even fish. That evening, we dined just as much like peasants as we did like kings and queens.

Finally, we bid each other goodnight. Lisa and her brother felt the effects quicker than my wife and I; they grew tired, and we sent them off to bed. We joined soon after.

The effects did work quickly. I could feel myself beginning to shut down, but my will to not let my family die from The Plague shone bright in my mind. I had laced the food with hemlock, one of the most poisonous substances known to man.

During my final moments alive, I thought: Perhaps God was inflicting this disease upon us. Not as punishment for our sins, but to give us sight to what every noble seemed to have gone blind to - that, in the end, death claims us all, no matter the strength of the walls we've built.

Content, I closed my eyes peacefully.