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“You believe I’m this way because I made a choice to extinguish the light in people’s lives? Because it revealed my darkness, therefore my pain of self-awareness? Au contraire, Padre. Think of me as an inevitable stage in human evolution. My pure entropy simply conflicts with your naïve vision of goodness. Extremes such as you and I have to be locked in combat. It is as natural for evil to hate good as it is for good to hate evil. Wouldn’t you agree?”

Throwing the girl’s bloody clothing into the fire’s dying embers, he placed the knife back into the bag and snapped it shut before moving towards the door. Casting a look back towards the bed, he caught sight of his face in the mirror on the opposite wall. It was an image familiar and yet, at the same time, alien to him. Sweat had matted his brown hair to his head, his face visibly flushed even in the soft firelight. His moustache remained perfectly groomed, its semblance of normalcy darkly amusing amongst the scene of abhorrence around him.
It was the face of a husband, father, and now… a monster.
The man I have become was not the man I was born.

“You know, I met Obadiah Stark,” Joe stated emphatically. “I can already tell you’re a rank amateur compared to him. I don’t even think you’d be interesting enough to make him sick.”

It’s funny how you feel when you’re looking down the barrel of a gun. I realise that no matter how helpless I might have been before, nothing actually compares to the utter fear and hopelessness coursing through my body at this very moment, knowing I’m about to die. All the things I was going to do. All the places I was planning to go. They’re erased from existence, one by one.
I want Hudson to believe I don’t give a shit. That in my final moments, I’m still the hard lad… the big fella. But my eyes’ll be betraying that fact that I’m scared. Scared and utterly defeated…

Every nurse knew where Florence was going, just as they quietly took a breath of relief that it wasn’t them. They would rather attend to the patients crawling in insects and be surrounded by the smell of urine, faeces and infection than venture into that room.
Florence stood almost prostrate outside the door, as though showing humility to its occupants.
But many nurses knew it wasn’t reverence that forced her stance.
It was fear.
Fear that what was inside wasn’t godly, but the exact opposite.
If evil was a tangible presence, something that you could wrap around yourself like a blanket, then she believed its origins were lying in a bed within the side room.
Waiting. Watching. Patient.
Taking a deep breath and uttering a silent prayer, Florence took firm hold of the handle and slowly opened the door.
She gasped slightly at the smell of rotting flesh and bodily fluids that assaulted her senses.
Her eyes began to water.
Wiping at her face with the sleeve of her dress, she glanced over her shoulder at the nurses watching her with frightened expressions. Florence knew better than to show emotion. She had to appear strong, aware that they were already under so much pressure there was no room for any vehemence that might hinder their ability to function.
Faced with traumatic amputations, wound infections and immolated men from the battlefield, Florence would be steadfast in her professionalism and attitude to administer the best care she could.
Nothing phased her, nor turned her stomach.
But what lay inside, in a bed towards the rear of the room, was beyond anything she had ever seen. It was this uncertainty that made her fearful.