Challenge to Contain

I hastily checked the unconscious woman's body for any broken bones or large open wounds before lifting and getting her into my house. Aya was still frightened, looking at the red trail she was leaving behind. It could easily be mistaken for a murder scene, but I had no time to think about that.

Obviously, the first thing that came to my mind was my previous patient's complaints. I quickly removed her clothes and took a look at her stomach. I couldn't believe that her situation could be worse than Mr. Yunus', but there she was... There was no skin on her stomach; it was a soup of flesh, veins and blood, disgusting even for a doctor's standarts.

From the looks of it, she had lost a lot of blood already. Only then I remembered to check her for life signs.

She wasn't breathing. Her heart wasn't working.

"Aya, to the room." I ordered my daughter to go away from my side. As the daughter of the only doctor in the village, she had quite some experience despite her young age; but she had already witnessed quite a lot of things she wasn't used to. If it came to that -and it was very likely at that point- I didn't want her to see someone dying just in front of her eyes, in our hands.

Aya hesitated to walk away.

"Go!" I shouted. She looked down and went to another room.

I started performing cardiac massage on the woman. I had very little hope considering how much blood she had lost, but if I spent any time trying to stop the bleeding, I would certainly lose her. For me, this was the best option in this lose-lose situation.

After about a few really tiring minutes, I gave up like I should've done a long time ago. It was futile.

"Aya, stay there, don't come out." I said.

"Okay." she replied.

"Watch outside the windows. Tell me if you see anything unusual." I told her.

"Yes, father." she said.

I went to take another look at my previous patient, Mr. Yunus. He was remaining still in the bathroom, in the exact same position I had left him. Pessimistic thoughts started occupying my mind.

"Mr. Yunus?"

There was no movement.

"Mr. Yunus!?"

I walked up to him and hit his shoulder smoothly. He turned his head to look at me.

"There we go." I said. "Can you hear me?"

He was simply looking at me with no attempt to communicate.

"Can, you, hear, me?" I asked more loudly.

He kept looking at my face.

"I think not..." I said and sighed. "Anyway, let's look how our little experiment went..."

When I examined his stomach to see what kind of solutions had been more effective on the wounds, I couldn't notice any difference in between any of them. The tiny holes were all enlarged, merging together and ripping the skin apart.

"Dad!" Aya screamed from the other room. I ran out of the bathroom and went to see her.

"Dad, the cows!" she said.

I looked out of the window. One of my neighbour's cows was laying still on the ground. Then, the other cow started mooing loudly.

"What happened?" I asked.

"It... just did something, tried to escape from the fence, then gave up, then simply fell down."

"Oh my god, no!" I said. "What will I tell him now?"

Aya was silent.

I went outside to look at the animals. The seemingly healthy cow suddenly started mooing, and tried to escape from the thick tether which I had used to tie it to the fence.

"Hey, hey, easy!" I said. I tried to calm the cow down, but it was dangerous to approach a raging animal of that size by myself. A well-aimed kick or toss could easily cripple me.

I remained far and tried to look at the other cow from a distance.

"I knew it. This time, I knew it." I said. The cow still alive, but it was vomiting out blood. "The disease is much faster than I am!"

My neighbour had woken up from all the noise. He was coming out of his house.

"NO!" I shouted at him. He was startled. He stopped to listen to me.

"You are back alive, thank goodness." he said. "What is going on here? Didn't you make it?"

"I had some trouble on the way and I had to come back." I said to him, without approaching his house.

"What happened to my girl? Wolves?" my neighbour asked about the obviously unwell cow.

"Look..." I said. "Don't approach me or your cows. There is a deadly disease, it is spreading pretty quickly. Don't come closer! People are dying. I may have to seal off my house."

"You have no cure?" he asked.

"It is the first time I've seen this." I said. "There are similar diseases in appearance, but I have no cure for whatever this is."

"After you seal off the house... What about you?" he asked.

"I don't know, I can place a tent somewhere near the temple... or something." I said.

"No, I meant the disease..." he said.

The penny dropped, at last.

"Oh no, this can't be happening!" I said. "I am an idiot!"

I ran back into my house.

"Aya! Aya! Come, quick!" I shouted.

"Coming, coming!" she said, running outside her room. "Dad? You look scared."

"Dress up and come outside." I said. She followed me out of the house. I didn't hold her hand like I usually did, instead, I intentionally placed some distance between us.

"Go find the old man for me." I said. She nodded and started running into the snow.

'The old man' was one of the oldest residents of the village. No one knew his real age, but I could guess he was around 80-90 years old. He was the widely accepted religious mentor/guide of the village since his 'teacher' had died around 10 years ago. Although with help from other people, mostly he was taking care of the temple just north of the village.

People would often come to him to seek spiritual advice during the day, but if he was being woken up and bothered in the middle of the night, it would rarely have a positive reason. And surely, this wasn't one of those days...