Black Plague: A Miraculous Ladybug Fanfiction

Part 2

Two months later. The port of Messina, Italy

The wind buffeted the tall white sails of ships as they battled the breeze into the harbor.

On the docks, waiting in a buckled, white linen tunic, stood a twelve-year-old. He watched the ships from behind a thick cedar pole. His eager fingers dug into the wood as the ships pulled into the dock. These ships had traveled all the way from East Asia, a land Pagolo had only ever heard about in bedtime stories.

He watched as his father and the other dockhands fought to tie down one of the squatter ships as it was smacked around by the waves into the sides of the port. Rough hands wove the ship ropes through the dock's metal rings and secured them with expertly crafted knots. Pagolo's father shouted for the ship's crew to disembark. Pagolo steepled his toes to try and see his first glimpse of an East Asian sailor.

The ship creaked in the wind but no one emerged from the deck. 

Pagolo's father shouted again. No answer. Eyebrows raised, he signaled to one of the dockhands, who promptly leaned a spare board against the ship and climbed over the rail.

Pagolo tensed in surprise as a terrible shout cut through the air. He strained to see what had caused the alarm, but the man had rejoined the others on the dock and his words were whisked away by the wind.

Pagolo crept out from behind the pole. He tip-toed around his father's men, shuffling behind them onto the gangplank. Hesitantly, he approached the lip of the hull. He peaked over the brim and stifled a cry.

Strewn across the deck were the bodies of Asian sailors, each covered in hideous black tumors. 

There was a skittering sound. A rat scrabbled out of the tunic on one of the dead sailors and sprinted away into a hole in the wooden deck. Pagolo twitched back, almost more disgusted by the rat than the rotting bodies he saw before him. 

But some of the sailors had to still be alive. How had they made it into port otherwise?

As his wide eyes swept the scene, he heard a raspy breath from the body directly below him. It was a young man, barely eighteen, his chest rising and falling erratically. 

Pagolo carefully crept onto the deck, keeping a safe distance between himself and the dark-haired boy.

"Hello?" Pagolo said timidly, not daring to touch the diseased. "Hello?"

The older boy's eyes flickered open, unfocused and glazed. Pagolo noticed that one of the boy's hands appeared completely healthy, while the rest of his body was blemished by the boils. His skin was red from sunburn, but a strip of skin on the ring finger of his healthy hand remained stark white. He turned his head towards Pagolo, but when he tried to speak he made a terrible shuddering sound and coughs erupted from his throat.

"Shh, shh, it's ok, don't talk," Pagolo said. He wished there was something he could do for this person, but he knew nothing of medicine. "I'll get you a doctor, ok?"

The boy convulsed, his arm jerking in a short spasm. "No," he choked out. "No." He mumbled something which was rendered inaudible by another coughing fit.

"What?" Pagolo fought the urge to shrink back.

The boy's eyes were wild now. He seemed to be choking on his own mucus.

Pagolo shoved aside his disgust and carefully rolled the boy over onto his side, allowing him to expel the mucus and blood obstructing his throat. As his spasm calmed, the boy managed to refocus his gaze on Pagolo. His dark eyes were nothing but pools of regret.

"Black..." Somehow the boy knew a bit of Italian. The boy grasped at his robe pockets with his healthy hand, frantically searching for something. "Cat..." He shoved his fist into the thick cotton folds and struggled to remove what appeared to be a small, ornate box.

"Will that help you?" Pagolo asked. "Is it medicine?"

The boy shook his head, but was quickly thrown into another coughing spasm. When he'd quieted down, he looked close to passing out. "Black..." He grabbed Pagolo's arm and shoved the box into his hand. "Plagg....."

Plagg? Pagolo had never heard that word before. Pagolo stared at the box the boy had given him. It was simple but beautiful, painted with a complex Chinese design. He glanced back at the boils covering the young man's body. Perhaps he had meant plague. "The Black Plague? Is that what you have? The Black Plague?"

Pagolo looked back at the boy again, but the boy's eyes were filmy. Blood dribbled from his lip, and his neck lolled limply on the deck and his chest had stilled.

Pagolo swallowed a gasp. In a daze, he spoke a quick prayer he'd learned in church, and quickly disembarked the dead ship, holding the little black box close to his chest.

When he reached the dock, he bumped into his father and the dockhands. His father's eyes were slits. "Son," he said quietly. "Did you board that ship? Did you speak to one of the crew?"

"Yes, father," Pagolo admitted, hanging his head. "The boy died. It- it's terrible."

"Yes. It is." His father approached him carefully. "What did that boy say to you, son?"

Pagolo began to tremble, unable to hold the tears back any longer. The sickness, the death, the pure carnal destruction... He'd never seen anything like it before in his life.

He swallowed a sob.

"Oh, Father. They have the Black Plague."