In men and women alike, the plague spread with across the skin with a terrible tenderness. Under the armpits and groins swelled with sores, some waxed to the bigness of a common apple, others to the size of an egg, some more or less but still vulgar enough to be called "plague-boils". When touched, blood and pus seeped out. But it was not the worst to befall those with this malady. A host of other symptoms of fever, chills, vomiting, diarrhea, terrible aches and pains, would follow in short order, before death courtly arrived.

  Those who survived or hadn't contracted it yet, buried their own dead, dragging bodies down the street by tying rope to the deceased feet. Millhurst, a small countryside town, was seeing its first wave of body haulers. The plague had hit three days ago, and the vulnerable, young, and old already began to wrinkle away.

  "This damned sickness," a man muttered under his breath. He pulled a woman's body, probably his wife, behind him. Her eyelids were closed and her long golden hair splayed on the stone road. She looked at best asleep, if the black sores on her face and neck were ignored. But she was not. She was dead. He seemed to laugh at this fact, maniacally chuckling, then sobbing.

  "I'll join you soon honey. This plague, it'll conquer me eventually, I know it will. Just look at me, look at my state. I'm no healthier than you are. Don't laugh at me. I know I'm a mess, but what will I do without you?" He looked up at the sky. "What will I do without you?" The clouds were plump and soft, like her skin. They hugged the dusk with the warmth of human touch.

  The night smelt sweet, and the soft purple sky at the horizon made his eyes wince. He fell to his knees, weeping uncontrollably. The handkerchief that covered his nose and mouth fell too. All that remained was a face that crumpled like paper, a tall nose twisted in anguish as his cries racked his chest. His cheeks were pale and slack, as if each tear drained the life from him.

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  "Do not cry, my child." A voice called out.

  The man looked up. In the distorted lens of his red-rimmed eyes, a woman stood in front of him. She was faceless, for a black veil spanned from the top of her head to to the ends of her feet. Its hem fluttered with the breeze, but untouched by the dust that arrived with it.

  He opened his mouth, but his questions and words caught in his throat.

  "Do not cry, my child," she repeated. It echoed distantly, tender yet devoid of warmth. Her eyes spanned the man, as if searching for something. "You will join her soon enough, but it appears I have underestimated... It appears your time is not yet. There is still work for you among the living."

  The man gave a blank stare, then burst into an amused roar. Then, just as disturbingly as he started, he stopped: "Are you here to take me too? Just like how you took my wife by spreading this forsaken plague to her? Or is this some cruel jest of the gods?" He pauses, furrowing his eyebrows in a dispirited smile. "... This is some play you have created.... Reuniting the murderer with her victim's husband."

  Stepping around the man, the woman whispers "I am no jest, nor am I the cause of your grief." As the man continues to weep, the woman briefly touches his wife's corpse with black lace gloves. A momentary breeze brushes the wife's blonde hair above the ground, and a translucent image of her arises out of the body. She wears the same blue dress as the body, but it is cleaner. Her skin is free from black sores and even has an animated blush; her features no longer marred by the sickness that had claimed her.

  The image, or perhaps ghost, floats above the body, smiling softly as she mouthed ‘Thank you, Dame Mortis.’ The woman nodded once before turning away. The man, still kneeling at the same position, subsided his cries, though it isn't clear whether it is from distance, death, or from the consolation of his wife's ghost.

  Dame Mortis turned her veiled face towards the rest of the grey, sullen houses, where shadows gathered like storm clouds. The dead were already calling her name and there was no time to waste.