It came from the computers. That was what they finally determined. All those who fell sick been sitting at their computers when their monitors made a strange flash. That's it, just a strange flash.

The first I noticed that something strange was going on, was when we were walking along the crowded walkway. People were everywhere, but then it was a holiday, and the weather was beautiful, so it was not unusual for so many people to be out and about at that time. As we were walking, a noticed a family gathered around a little girl. They had been eating lunch together, when the girl, she looked to be about six or seven, became violently ill. She looked miserable, and the entire family was gathered around her, trying to comfort her. I felt sorry for her, but didn't think anything more about it, as we walked along.

It was only afterward, surrounded by the sick, that I realized she must have been one of the first to fall ill.

Michael started to feel ill a few hours later. We had been walking around, so we had missed the news broadcasts, detailing the hundreds of thousands of people falling ill. We walked to the doctor's office, since it was near-by, only to discovere it packed, the ill lining the hallways. It was there we first heard that it might be radiation poisoning. But there was no ambient radiation, or bomb signature, and the sick were surrounded by the people who had been with them, who were not themselves ill. We waited in the hall, surrounded by the sick, and it was there that I first noticed the man in the corner. It was impossible to determine his age, for all his hair had fallen out, and sweat glistened over his naked body, but what caused me to stare was his head. His bald skull was squared off--unlike anything I'd ever seen before. There were no sharp corners or anything like that, but it was still noticeably rectangular, unlike anything I'd ever seen before. He was writhing in pain, as if the gurney upon which he lay caused him pain.

It was then that Michael became very sick. Horrible, wracking, dry-heaves that shook his entire body. I tried to comfort him, failed, and then ran in a blind panic to the nurse's desk, sobbing in fear. “You have to help him! It's horrible! Please help him! Please!” I was nearly incoherent with fear, for I could see all around me where the illness led.

The nurse at the desk was strangely calm. She reached under the desk and handed me a package, flat, like a shirt box, and half-covered in wrapping paper. I thanked her, and ran back to Michael with the box. He had stopped retching, but was still quite obviously ill. I handed him the box, which he opened, to find a flat package that looked like a wrapped book, then he pulled out a long cane, covered in brightly colored sigils and images. If I had not been so incoherent with fear, I would have noticed that the cane was much, much longer than the box from which he pulled it. It was probably about 6 feet long and slightly thinner than my wrist. As soon as he touched the cane, he started to look better, and a man farther down the hall, to whom I had paid no attention before, was immediately drawn to us. I noticed that the man had what looked to be a sword, its case decorated in images and sigils similar to the ones covering Michael's cane. A sick man who had been lying beside us, reached over, placed his hand upon the cane and the sword case, which were lying side by side, and he too immediately began to look as if he felt better.

I wondered how many of these artifacts there were, and where they came from, and was looking around for the nurses station, when I realized that the nurses station, and the woman attending it, were gone.

5 June 2003