Embers

Dove was striding along the street directly behind me. She was constantly wiping her arms and hands on her clothes, hoping she wasn't going to catch the contagion.

"Why do we need to go to the Greek Camp?" She asked, starting to scratch her palms.

"I heard some people at the collage talking about how they might know a cure." I said emotionless, not looking back at her. I started to cough. It was a small, sudden desire... but soon I was sitting down by the Inner Wall, trying to breathe through my spastic coughing.

"Oh, great." Dove said, not bothering to wait up for me. I held my breath and tried to catch up to her, but she was going to fast.

After a small while, I stopped coughing, but completely lost Dove. I started winding through the streets trying to find my way back to the Greek Camp, which took up four whole blocks of New Rome.

I finally merged with a large crowd, heading past multiple coughing fits and rashes. I tried not to touch as many people as possible.

"Listen up!" Someone said from the front of the crowd. The mass of people went dead silent. "We're going to take three or four people out in search for a cure. We believe the antidote for this sickness can be found in a rare plant. All we need is one of these plants and we could mass produce them, possibly curing the plague."

Multiple people raised their hands from the crowd. Young and old, female and male,. The man searched the crowd and pointed to someone on the left side of the crowd. "You, sir." He said as a man with dark hair and piercing green eyes showed up in the crowd and onto the stage.

"You!" The man said, pointing to my right. A girl ran up onto the stage, with dark eyes and freckles. I raised my hand in the air to volunteer. The man searched the crowd one last time.

"You!" He said, pointing at me. I slowly walked up to the man and the two other companions. "We shouldn't waste any time introducing ourselves." He said, walking from the crowd that was in a nervous uproar. "Let's get this show on the road."

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