Patient Zero

Originally published in the themed short story anthology, Darkness Wired. Republished with permission of the publisher, Notch Publishing House.

TRIGGER WARNING: This story contains brief depictions of hate crimes for the purpose of critiquing bigotry in the United States. This piece, its author, the original publisher, and Vocal do not condone racism, xenophobia, or other forms of hate and bigotry in any way, shape, or form.

DISCLAIMER: Fibrodysplasia Ossificans Aggresiva is a fictional condition inspired by the real condition Fibrodysplasia Ossificans Progressiva. However, it does not represent FOP in any way. To learn about the symptoms, causes, etc., about the real condition FOP, follow this link.

File Number: 113

Case Name: Maria LaBeouf-Garcia – FOA Patient Zero

Case Agent: Vanderbilt, Ludwig

Accessed By: Ludwig Vanderbilt, Case Agent

Access Date: June 20, 2021

As per the instructions of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Health, intelligence has been gathered from the social media accounts of Maria LaBeouf-Garcia to add to her file as Fibrodysplasia Ossificans Agressiva’s Patient Zero. The following is an excerpt from a blog post by Maria LaBeouf-Garcia on F-ing FOA, a companion site to her YouTube channel of the same name, dated June 20, 2021:

When it started, I mostly saw her in the dark, so I thought she was nothing more than a dream…a nightmare…no, a night terror, that’s what the psychiatrist called her. She was a night terror, a horrific personification of evil darker than the shadows in which she stood, with the exception of her eyes, which glowed so bright they could have easily been mistaken for headlights…but for the fact that they were the size of fireflies…

And then I started seeing her during the day. Fleeting glimpses at the edge of my vision that made me jump…that is, until I could no longer move my lower half. Then I could only flinch when I saw her. At first, she only came when I was alone, but soon it didn’t matter if I were alone or in the sterile, overcrowded waiting room at the ER. I saw her everywhere, but no one else did. That woman…that thing, blacker than black with only her glowing eyes distinguishable from the darkness, is now my keeper in the hell my life has become.

She’s still watching over me even as I write this.

* * *

June 21, 2021

James was helping me set up for my latest YouTube video when the notification flashed on our phones: FOA Has Claimed Its First Victim.

“What?” I exclaimed. “Where’s that from?”

“Says…The LA Times.”

“Well, read it to me.”

James cleared his throat. “Fibro…fibrodys…GAH!” Had the situation not been so serious, I would have laughed; James still couldn’t pronounce the condition’s name. “FOA victim Fernando Acosta-Martínez of Redding, California, passed away Monday morning, sources close to the Acosta-Martínez family report. The exact cause of death is currently unknown, pending an autopsy. However, it is believed that the twelve-year-old died of respiratory complications due to extra bone formation around his rib cage that restricted the expansion of his lungs and diaphragm. Having been officially diagnosed only two months ago, young Acosta-Martínez is but one of the latest cases of FOA in the United States. The first known patient in the country—and the world—is twenty-two-year-old Maria LaBeouf-Garcia of Los Angeles, California. Ms. LaBeouf-Garcia’s groundbreaking diagnosis was announced May 2020, but sources claim that the young woman is still alive and doing all she can to adapt to the rapid loss of movement throughout her body—”

“You can stop now.” My voice sounded bitter and defeated even to me, and that just made my blood pressure rise, according to the alert blaring from the health app on my smartwatch. One of the few luxuries gifted to me by a sympathetic follower. “Can you brief me on this kid a bit? I’m guessing he was Latinx—”

“Mexican American, to be exact.”

“Low-income family—”

“Yep.”

“Any history of mental or physical illness in his family?”

James scrolled through the article. “No mention of it, but that doesn’t mean anything.”

“What about where he lived? Where the hell is Redding?”

“One sec.” He typed away on his phone. “Ah, here it is. Redding, California. Just south of Mount Shasta. Generally middle- and low-income families. Majority white, mostly right-wing radicals. Notorious for nutjobs who believe in Lemurians and shit like that. Also broke the top ten most depressed cities in America for the last several years.”

“How big is it?”

“For a city, not very. Pretty rural place.”

“So, a Mexican American from a low-income family in a majority white hick city that’s notoriously crazy and depressed.”

“In a nutshell, though I wouldn’t suggest putting it so bluntly in the video.”

I snorted. “We’ll see. Gotta tell the people what the papers won’t.”

“At least they spelled your name right this time.” James gave me a crooked half-grin.

I rolled my eyes and would have given him the finger if I could have moved it. If I could have moved any part of my dominant hand…or arm. He knew how pissed it made me that they almost never talked about my life before this mess.

“We don’t have to do this today, you know,” James’s voice snapped me out of my thoughts. “I know that this news must be hard on you.”

I sighed. “No. If anything, it’s more important that I do this now than ever.” I closed my eyes, forcing back the tears that I longed to shed for a stranger. “Twelve years old, fuck. He’s gotta be the youngest case yet.”

“Unfortunately, he’s not.” James set his phone aside to adjust the camera on its tripod, probably trying to make sure that only my upper body fit into the frame. I didn’t want anyone to see the contortionist, disastrous freaks of nature that my legs had become from freezing up over the past year. “Remember that girl in Chicago? She’s only ten.”

I cursed under my breath. “I forgot about her. I think she’s the first white person reported to have it, too. Any news on that front?”

He sat in the chair next to the camera and tapped his laptop to life. “Nothing good.”

“I guess we’ll never be getting any good news.”

I waited for James’s inevitable retort, but he stayed silent. My heart dropped. I raised my left hand—my nondominant hand—shakily to push my hair behind my ear, but the pain was too much, and I let it fall back to the arm of my wheelchair with a soft cry.

Shit. Don’t tell me that’s next.

When I looked up, James was watching me patiently as he waited for me to let him know when to start. I narrowed my eyes at him.

That better not be pity I’m seeing.

“I’m ready,” I finally said, my voice flat.

James nodded and positioned himself behind the camera.

“OK, we’re live in five…four…three…two…”

He pointed to me and quickly sat down at his laptop.

“Hi, everyone,” I began. I was talking so quietly, I didn’t even know if my viewers would be able to hear me, but I couldn’t get myself to speak any louder. “I’d like to welcome you back to another episode of F-ing FOA. For those who are new to my channel, I am Maria LaBeouf-Garcia, Patient Zero for Fibrodysplasia Ossificans Agressiva. In this video series, I document my daily struggles living with a condition for which there is no cure, no known cause, and, frankly, no precedent. It’s not a happy topic, but it’s something that I think people need to see, especially as we continue the ridiculous debate over the state of our stupid, biased, price-gouging—” James cleared his throat, forcing me to collect myself. “I mean, our evolving healthcare system here in the United States.”

I took a deep breath and steeled myself for the next part. “I’m sure most of you have seen the news alert, but if you haven’t, we unfortunately lost our first patient to FOA today. Here’s what we know about him so far: His name was Fernando Acosta-Martínez. He lived in a rural city in Northern California. It’s thought that he died because extra bone formation restricted his lungs’ ability to expand, and so he stopped breathing.”

I had paused for dramatic effect when a dark shadow flashed in my periphery. My breath caught in my throat. The smartwatch on my left wrist blared a warning to me that my pulse was abnormally high and that my blood pressure had gone through the roof. I waited, but the shadow did not appear again.

“Maria,” James hissed, drawing my eyes to him. He leaned over his laptop as concern glistened in his narrow, almost black eyes.

I struggled to start breathing again.

“I’m fine,” I whispered back. “I just…I thought I saw something.”

I knew he wasn’t convinced, but he leaned back in his chair again.

I returned my attention to the camera and cleared my throat. “Sorry, everyone. I don’t know how many of you know this, but there are some strange side effects to FOA. The most bizarre is…well, hallucinations. They’ve been getting more frequent recently, so you’d think that I’d be used to them by now, but I guess there are some things you can never get used to…”

The black shadow darted at the edge of my sight again. My smartwatch started to chirp in addition to the visual alert. I closed my eyes tight, taking deep breaths as I waited for the spell to pass, and then opened them to James staring at me.

“I’m fine, really,” I said, more to James than to my viewers. He did not relax, and I couldn’t really blame him for that. “Back to the topic at hand. While Fernando’s passing is incredibly unfortunate, I’m afraid that it won’t be the last. From what I’ve heard, FOA is gaining traction in the United States, especially among underprivileged groups: people of color, the poor, the under-educated. Of course, a lot of you have pointed out in the comments that most of the victims have had some Mexican blood in them, me included. But I assure you, this has nothing to do with ‘illegal immigrants’. My mother came here legally in the 1980s, and I have not heard of any patients who’ve been—”

She stood behind the camera now, watching me with those glowing firefly eyes. My heart raced. I wanted to ignore her, but it’s hard to ignore your nightmare come to life.

“I have not heard of any patients who’ve been illegal immigrants or the relatives of illegal immigrants.” My eyes darted to the shadow, wishing she would leave. My voice cracked as I continued. “So, these theories…these theories that illegal Mexican immigrants…or illegal immigrants, period…or even Mexicans, period…have somehow caused FOA are just…stupid…”

She stepped around the camera. Shit. What did she want with me?

“Maria?” I heard James whisper. I couldn’t answer. She stood between the camera and me now. “Maria, what’s wrong?” I couldn’t move my lips. She stepped closer. “Dammit, answer me!” She stopped inches from me. “Fucking hell, talk to me! What’s going on?”

She knelt in front of me so that her eyes met mine. My chest refused to rise with my breaths. One of her hands stretched towards me until the tips of her long fingers touched between my breasts, but they didn’t stop there for long. Inch by inch her fingers crept into my chest, and by the time her knuckles entered me, a scorching pain ripped a scream from my throat. The rapid chirping of my smartwatch filled my ears.

The last thing I saw before slipping into unconsciousness was her bright, piercing stare.

File Number: 114

Case Name: Maria LaBeouf-Garcia – FOA Patient Zero

Case Agent: Vanderbilt, Ludwig

Accessed By: Sean Hunter, Media Ambassador

Access Date: June 22, 2021

As per the instructions of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Health, intelligence has been gathered regarding media involving or about Maria LaBeouf-Garcia to add to her file as Fibrodysplasia Ossificans Agressiva’s Patient Zero. The following is an excerpt from a news article from the LA Times covering Patient Zero’s latest hospitalization, dated June 21, 2021:

On the heels of the first tragic loss of life to Fibrodysplasia Ossificans Agressiva, the illness’s first victim, Los Angeles resident Maria LaBeouf-Garcia, was rushed to the hospital Monday afternoon after collapsing on camera during her live YouTube show, F-ing FOA. It is still unclear what caused this sudden turn of events for LaBeouf-Garcia, whose condition was previously believed to have stabilized. However, it appears that she was suffering from hallucinations during her live feed moments before she passed out.

Whatever the cause, the violent manner of LaBeouf-Garcia’s physical attack has resulted in an outpour of support for the young woman and her loved ones on social media:

@FingFOA OMG! WTF just happened? Plz let her be ok!

--@sassygrl321

Oh no! Hope she pulls through. Thoughts n prayers, @FingFOA

--@ChristianLiberal

Her poor BF, he’s gotta be freakin out! Wishin u speedy recovery, @FingFOA

--@XYfeminist

Some have taken this moment to debate the effectiveness and affordability of the American healthcare system for minorities and uninsured individuals:

Better not call an ambulance. Just another expense

--@MadAsHell

How will she & her novio afford this? ¡Que caro!

--@diegobanderas

She can’t work. He had to cut hours to help care for her. Neither have insurance. This won’t end well.

--@soberingtruth

However, the incident—and LaBeouf-Garcia—are not without critics, with some suggesting that LaBeouf-Garcia’s Afro-Mexican American heritage might be to blame for her condition:

b**** prolly just fakin it why else wld it happn during her vid?

--@lumberhick45

Timely indeed

--@StephenMarks

F*ing tired of these putas n bad hombres puttin REAL Americans at risk. Bad enuf they take our jobs

--@redwhiteandtrue

* * *

June 24, 2021

Flashes of darkness. Children snatched from their beds by an unseen force. Women and children in prison camps, nothing but skin stretched taut across their bones. Mothers dead in childbirth with blood drenching their nightgowns or hospital gowns and up the forearms of the midwives and doctors tending to them. Parents clinging desperately to the corpses of their stillborn children as the black shadow loomed behind them, her eyes burning like miniature suns. A name…an ancient name…Hk'Lacrima…

My eyes snapped open, my chest heaving and my mind racing. I lay on my back in a bed. My right arm was still bent as though propped on the arm of my wheelchair, but it only grasped air; my right leg was in a similar position, bent at the knee with the flat of my foot perpendicular to my calf; and my left leg had had the misfortune of ossifying in a way that left it only partially bent, making any position, even sitting in my wheelchair, hell to maneuver. I flexed the fingers on my left hand and let out a small breath of relief. At least I could still move those. The sheet beneath them felt thin and slightly scratchy, and after one deep breath, my lungs burned from disinfectant. James must have brought me to the hospital.

Snapshots from the last moments before I lost consciousness flooded my mind. That woman, that thing…my eyes darted about, searching for the shadow on the ceiling and the tops of the walls. I half-expected her to crawl across the tiles above me like a demon straight out of The Exorcist or to tower over me like a government scientist about to dissect an alien pulled from the burning wreckage at Area 51. I thought of the women and children wasting away in the prison camps, and my heart sank as I considered the possible connections between my waking visions and this vivid nightmare—

A pair of dark eyes and a light brown face suddenly blocked my vision, and I gasped in fright.

“James, for Christ’s sake!” I panted. “You scared me.”

"Not as much as you scared me.”

A small smile crept across his face before he broke out in shaking nervous laughter.

“Oh my God,” he said as he lowered his head to my chest, trembling so badly that the bed vibrated. “I thought I’d lost you…”

I closed my eyes slowly. “Yeah, I thought I was a goner. That thing…”

“The shadow?”

“Yes.” I didn’t dare open my eyes again, afraid I’d see her again and have another fit. Yet the longer I kept them closed, the more my mind cycled through those horrific images from my dreams.

“Hk’Lacrima,” I whispered as my eyes fluttered open.

James’s brow furrowed. “What?”

“Hk’Lacrima,” I repeated. “It’s a name I heard while I was out of it. Do you know it?”

His eyes lost focus for a moment. I knew that he was trying to access whatever part of his mind he managed to keep his vast knowledge of useless information in. It brought a small smile to my lips.

“I’m…not sure,” he finally said. “I can look it up later and let you know what I find.”

“What would I do without you?”

“Pay these hospital bills yourself, for one thing.”

I cringed, sending waves of pain through my body. I whimpered but would not allow my treacherous body the pleasure of hearing me screaming. “Why did you bring me here?”

“You passed out. I panicked. After what happened with that Fernando kid, I was worried…”

My smile trembled as I put my left hand over his. “I know. Next time, though, please just take me to a clinic or something—”

“They’ll just send us directly here.”

Silence fell between us until the flickering of the cheap fluorescent lights—why hadn’t they changed to LEDs?—started me panicking about seeing Hk’Lacrima again.

“Isn’t this usually the part where a nurse or doctor use their patient-dar to sense that the unlikely heroine is awake and come check on her vitals or something?” I asked with a smirk.

James shook his head. “You have way too much screen time. I’m gonna have to cut you off or else you’ll get addicted to Beige Anatomy or something—”

“Grey’s Anatomy. And no, I don’t watch any of that, Mr. Smartass.”

We shared a laugh for a moment, but it didn’t last. As much as I didn’t want to ask my next question, I had to.

“On a scale from one to doomed, how much in the hole are we for this one?”

James hesitated. “Doomed plus three.” He buried his face in my chest as I groaned. “I had to sell the camera, and it’s not even going to scratch the surface. I would’ve sold my laptop, but we need to be able to update your blog if we want outside help. Bad enough that we won’t be able to post any videos for a while.”

I stared up at the ceiling, watching those damned outdated fluorescents flicker above us. I hadn’t realized just how spoiled the infirmary at Terra Mythos Laboratories had made me until my first ER visit after TML had diagnosed me with FOA. There was a lot that that internship had made me take for granted until it was all ripped away from me.

For a moment, I wondered if Hk’Lacrima might kill me the next time I saw her if I asked nicely. Then I remembered that a funeral would just add to the healthcare expenses.

File Number: 115

Case Name: Maria LaBeouf-Garcia – FOA Patient Zero

Case Agent: Vanderbilt, Ludwig

Accessed By: Sean Hunter, Media Ambassador

Access Date: June 25, 2021

As per the instructions of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Health, intelligence has been gathered regarding media involving or about Maria LaBeouf-Garcia to add to her file as Fibrodysplasia Ossificans Agressiva’s Patient Zero. The following is a trending Twitter headline about Patient Zero’s release from the hospital, dated June 25, 2021:

FOA Patient confronted by activists outside home after hospitalization

While standing outside her home, American nationalists accused @FingFOA and other Mexican Americans of spreading FOA to white Americans in latest conspiracy theory.

* * *

June 25, 2021

I had expected the paparazzi outside the hospital. What I hadn’t expected was the horde of protestors blocking the street in front of my parents’ house. At first, they wouldn’t so much as budge when Madre’s ten-year-old van rolled up behind them. Then, having lost what little patience she had left, Madre blared her horn at them, causing them to cover their ears and create a path, glaring at her the entire time. Even James and Papa gave her looks as they finally lowered their hands from their ears, but I smirked a bit.

They wouldn’t let us into our own driveway, forcing Madre to park on the street. Papa and James left the car to get the wheelchair out of the back, and for a brief moment, I could hear chants of “Send them back!” and “Build the wall!” I flinched, and when I looked up front, Madre held her rosary beads and muttered a quick prayer in Spanish. Something about protecting us from the nutjobs.

And Hk’Lacrima, I mentally added.

I chanced a glimpse out the window, hoping to see James or Papa rolling my wheelchair to my door, but instead she appeared, as though me just thinking her name had summoned her. My smartwatch flashed an alarm at my spike in blood pressure. The shadowy figure stood beside a thirty-something-year-old white man who held a cardboard sign that read in crude handwriting, Open the Borders, Seal Our Fate! FOA Kills! Beside him stood a little boy, probably no older than nine, whose right arm hung stiff as a board by his side, refusing to move while the other swung freely out of boredom.

Shit. Nine years old.

My gaze snapped back to Hk’Lacrima, and her bright eyes locked on mine. In an instant, everything faded into a dark tunnel but for the little boy. He now lay in a hospital bed, the thin sheet pulled up to just beneath his chin. His face pointed straight at the ceiling with his chin tilted up and his neck slightly arched as though he were standing proud and at attention, yet the grimace on his little face and his eyes tightly shut told an entirely different story. A story of pain, of agony, a story of suffering that no child should have to bear. Tears welled in my eyes, and my chest hurt from the strain of trying not to sob.

Then a low, rasping groan escaped the boy’s lips, and I saw it. A bright white-golden light encompassed the boy, radiating through the dark tunnel separating us. It pulsated—no, it breathed in and out with the quiet serenity of a sleeping child. It called to me. It was so pure and beautiful and warm, I wanted to run to it and embrace it, but I couldn’t. Even in my hallucinations, FOA inhibited me.

A shadow rose from the other side of the boy’s bed. She slowly leaned over him, as though searching for something. Her face finally fixated on his chest, where the light glowed most intensely, and reached a long-fingered hand deep inside him. He did not flinch, but I did. My heart thumped so hard that I felt certain it would break my ribs, and a cold sweat trickled down my face and neck. I didn’t know what Hk’Lacrima was doing, but I wanted nothing more than to keep her from it.

I watched as she withdrew her hand with one swift, powerful yank. She turned to me and met my eyes again. Her hand stretched out to me, and one by one, her fingers uncurled to reveal—

“Maria?” James’s frantic voice reached my ears. “Are you there? Are you OK?”

It took a painful moment for my eyes to refocus, and the bellowing of the protestors came back like a sonic boom, but I was just relieved to see James and Papa squatting in front of me and, right where I last saw him, was the boy with his father, alive and well. My eyes darted about the crowd. Hk’Lacrima was nowhere to be seen.

* * *

The headlines on my smartphone sent my pulse and blood pressure through the roof, an achievement marked by the annoying alarm coming from my smartwatch, but I couldn’t tear my eyes from them.

Mexicans Brought FOA to America, Study Suggests, one read.

Scientists Say Minorities to Blame for FOA Epidemic, said another.

And, at the very top, Americans Call for Wall to End Spread of FOA.

I looked up at James, but he continued to glare at the screen for another minute before he finally acknowledged me.

“These papers are garbage, everyone knows it,” he said as he stuffed his phone in his back pocket. “No one will believe them.”

The words “fake news” came to mind, causing me to shiver. No matter who was saying them, those words had never done anything good for people like James and me. As I stared at the headline, “Americans Call for Wall to End Spread of FOA”, I knew without a doubt that people would believe them. Maybe not many, but enough. This morning’s protestors. The boy’s father, who had watched me with murderous eyes as though I had personally caused his son’s condition.

My eyelids drifted closed. My inner eye filled with the image of the boy in a hospital bed, Hk’Lacrima standing over him and removing something from within his light after death. I thought about warning him and his father, but I wasn’t stupid. I wouldn’t spend my final days being mentally evaluated as well.

A tapping on my left shoulder startled me.

“I’m going to go shower,” James mumbled. “Will you be OK?”

I nodded. The cops had come to break up the protestors just before any of our neighbors could fire a shot at one, and it had been all quiet on the western front since then. Besides, I couldn’t remember the last time I had been alone outside of my dreams, and now even my mind had been compromised.

After I heard James get into the bathroom and start running the water, I leaned my head back to get some rest. As I closed my eyes, I thought back to thirteen months before, to the days just before my diagnosis. A junior in college, interning at one of the world’s leaders in experimental gene editing, I had spent every day at lunch picking my mentor’s brain about duplicating a human’s natural tumor-suppressing gene. Her team was working on how to make future generations genetically immune to polio, mumps, and pneumonia—suck it, anti-vaxxers—but I knew they could do so much more. I knew we were really onto something bigger, but getting my mentor to talk about it eventually became like pulling teeth. Then FOA reared its ugly head—

The sound of shattering glass and something heavy thudding by my wheelchair snapped me from my memories. I opened my eyes to find a brick with an anti-Mexican slur spray-painted on it. My heart raced. I looked up at the window, and the last thing I saw before a rock came flying at me were the fiery eyes of Hk’Lacrima.

* * *

Darkness surrounded me, but I could see her clearly. She stood less than a foot from my side. Slowly, she lifted her hand and draped it over my shoulder. I shuddered, my heart racing. I shrugged her hand off and took a step away, and I nearly stumbled when I realized what I was doing. I was standing. I was stepping. I could move both legs and both arms; I could bend my knees and at my hips. I hadn’t been this elated since I started working at Terra Mythos Laboratories. I didn’t think I could ever be this happy again after the doctors gave me their prognosis.

Hk’Lacrima put her hand on my shoulder again, drawing my attention to her.

Hk’Lacrima. She pointed at herself, and then she pointed at me. Maria.

She then motioned forward, and I nearly fainted at the sight that met me: a shimmering purple pyramid the size of Mt. Everest resting beneath a greenish moon. It hadn’t been there a minute ago, and yet there was no way to miss it.

I tried to speak, but nothing came out. Hk’Lacrima shook her head, as though to tell me not to bother. The silence put an unnerving hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach, but I didn’t have any time to think about it as she grabbed my wrist and dragged me through the abyss toward the structure. I had expected her touch to freeze me, but it was oddly warm…comforting. The hollow feeling in my stomach started to fill. The longer that she touched me, the more I wondered how I could have possibly feared her. The incident during my recording must have been a misunderstanding. She didn’t try to hurt me any other time; she just watched me. I didn’t know what she was doing with that boy, not really. Was it even really going to happen, or was it just a warning? There was too much I didn’t know. I couldn’t make a conclusion based on the evidence I had; I should’ve known better as a scientist. My mentor would’ve been ashamed.

The pyramid was only more astonishing up close. The smooth, shining surface put the rough limestone pyramids in Egypt to shame; not a single chisel mark marred the mountainous monument, as though it had been constructed from a single slab of obsidian nature had miraculously colored purple. Bathed in the light of the emerald moon, the color shifted from purple to amber and back again, changing as I examined it from different angles. It didn’t take long for the illusion to get to my head, and soon I swore that I saw the surface swirling like moss inside a pond. As Hk’Lacrima walked me through a concealed hole in the front of the pyramid, I thought I saw the structure inhale.

Inside, the pyramid was bare except for a flat screen television floating in the center of the room with a podium positioned beneath it. As we approached, I scratched my head in confusion at what sat upon the podium: a panel of controls from a QWERTY keyboard to what I assumed was some sort of touch screen or hand-print recognition and many keys and buttons whose functions I did not know with characters etched into them from a language I did not understand. I chewed my bottom lip. This seemed so much like things I had seen on Ancient Aliens and other paranormal shows. It made my stomach hollow and queasy, and all I could think to do was fill it with shreds of the skin on my lip.

Hk’Lacrima tapped the control panel and television—monitor—to life. In a flash, thousands upon thousands of news streams and social media posts scrolled across the screen. The few that caught my eye almost made me bite right through my lip:

U saw th rprt snd thm back! Snowflake libs protct ur own frst!

Hey FB friends! Need some honest advice here. Best friend of twenty years invited me and my son to her daughter’s b-day party, and at first I said we’d go, but after that study came out, I got real scared and told her I couldn’t. I’m just scared my son’ll get FOA because my BFF’s husband is Mexican and her daughter is half-Mexican. Now she’s pissed. Am I a you-know-what?

Breaking: Guns Pulled on Mexican American Heritage Block Party as Anti-FOA Protest Turns Violent

I tore my eyes from the screen. Hk’Lacrima stared at me, as though she knew I had a million questions I’d rather ask than continue to watch this train wreck. After a moment of thought, I motioned around us and shrugged, trying to give her my widest, most curious eyes in an attempt to convey, Where are we?

She reached over and tapped my temple. Your mind. I gaped, and before I could figure out how to ask, she continued, In hospital.

I subconsciously rubbed my forehead as I suddenly remembered the rock hitting me.

Not dead. I tilted my head. I couldn’t figure out how she was telling me this. I heard nothing; I saw nothing. I just knew what she wanted to say, and I didn’t know if I liked that. Special.

I pointed to myself, and she nodded. I hoped I laughed in her mind because that was what I wanted to do. No, no “chosen one” shit. That just didn’t happen.

Not chosen. Chance. Body weakened, mind strengthened.

I squinted at her. She didn’t give me a chance to gather my thoughts before she tapped something out on the keys with foreign characters and motioned to the screen.

Disasters, just like in my dream. Children abducted in grocery stores and parks in broad daylight. LGBT+ youth and children of color beaten within an inch of their lives. Children of all ages ducking beneath their desks or hiding in locker rooms during an active shooting, bodies of staff and students alike bleeding out in the hallways. Mothers and fathers killed in drunk driving accidents. Children ripped from their mothers’ arms at the border and thrown into detainment camps, left to wallow only God knew how long in those horrendous conditions. I shed a tear for one particular girl; she was the spitting image of my darling niece. Thank the Lord she was safe and sound in San Jose.

Hk’Lacrima swiped her hand over the panel, and the visions disappeared. Humans terrible. Cruel. Summon me. Summon us.

A few more clicks, and the image that popped onto the screen felt like a punch to my chest. He was a tall, thin man with flowing robes and a hairless head. Most prominently, like Hk’Lacrima, he was darker than the night, and the white-hot luminous orbs that passed for his eyes bore deeply into me. Nyarlathotep. The Crawling Chaos.

Father.

I shuddered. I had feared her before, but now I didn’t know if I could even face her. Yet I had to know…

I turned to her, raised my hands defenselessly, and shrugged, my pathetic attempt at asking, What do you want from me?

Fix man. Together.

Nyarlathotep’s image was replaced with one I knew very well: my mentor’s, Dr. Lee’s, office inside Terra Mythos Laboratories. Dr. Lee sat behind her cluttered desk, and across from her was her colleague, Dr. Hamm. I was used to seeing Dr. Hamm sour, but the moment I saw the frown on Dr. Lee’s lips and etched into her forehead, I knew that something was wrong.

“I still think Maria’s right,” Dr. Lee said. “We could be doing a lot more here.”

“We do what we’re paid for,” Dr. Hamm replied. He didn’t even bother to look up from his tablet.

“But her idea about the tumor-suppressing genes…that’s why elephants and whales are so incredibly unlikely to get cancer, the number of tumor-suppressing genes they have. If we could somehow duplicate our own—”

“Population control, Margaret!” Dr. Hamm snapped. “That’s all.”

Dr. Lee put her head in her hands. “No, it’s not all.”

Dr. Hamm sighed and set his tablet aside. “No, I suppose not.”

I glanced at Hk’Lacrima. What the hell were they talking about? She only motioned again for me to watch.

“Sterilizing our low-income volunteers like this…it’s Eugenics, Erich.” I choked back a gasp.

“It’ll help with overpopulation,” Erich countered, “and we’ll still get to test the deadly disease immunity genes. It’s a win-win.”

“Except for our patients. They’ll be sterile, and they could suffer adverse side effects. And it might not even work.”

Dr. Hamm’s mouth pressed into an even thinner line.

“And what about weaponizing FOA? How do you justify that?”

My knees gave out, and I was forced to grip the edges of the podium.

Dr. Hamm explained slowly, as though to a child, “The General said if the issue with China gets any worse, well, it’ll just be good to have handy, if you catch my drift.”

“But we don’t know how this started or how it spreads, and we’re nowhere near curing it. And you’ve seen the mayhem they’re causing out there over the people who have gotten sick.” As mad as I was, as disgusted as I was, my heart broke when Dr. Lee began to cry. “If Maria ever found out that we took her blood for that, she’d never forgive me. Those racists wouldn’t leave her alone before…”

“It’s the risk we’re going to have to take.” Dr. Hamm’s stern expression and short, slick blond hair reminded me why James and I had nicknamed him “Hitler’s Youth”. “We’ll deal with any problems that arise when we come to them.”

Dr. Lee accepted Dr. Hamm’s proffered tissue but just balled it up in her fist and shook her head. “We don’t need another Pandora’s box.”

Hk’Lacrima turned to me.

Man corrupt. We fix man.

She mimicked reaching for my chest before curling her hand into a fist and withdrawing it. When she opened her hand again, a miniature version of me hovered above her palm, shining like the light I had seen coming from the dying nine-year-old boy in my vision. I gawked at the little me until Hk’Lacrima suddenly pretended to throw it into her mouth and swallow. All the color drained from my face when I realized what she was proposing—and what she did to children’s souls after they died.

Before you die, she explained. Me in you. You in me. Work as one. Start Earth over.

I turned to the screen, mostly to have anywhere to look at but her, where now appeared the vision of a new world. The lush green grass and vibrant fruit trees looked like a veritable Garden of Eden. The animals seemed so much more peaceful without man’s homes encroaching on theirs and scums hunting them for sport. Sure, new man would have to hunt for food, as would animals themselves, but it would be much more natural and purposeful than today’s chaos. Yet the more I looked, the more I realized: man was nowhere to be found.

I took a deep breath and raised my head to stare her squarely in the eye. I firmly shook my head “no," stepping back from the deranged shadow.

For a moment, she only stared back at me. I almost let myself smile. Suddenly, the outline of her lips turned gray, allowing them to stand out from the rest of her dark face for the first time since I had started seeing her all those months ago. To my horror, it was only to let me see the snarl that they formed before she let out a low growl and leapt at me.

I turned on my heel and made to run, but even in my mind, I couldn’t outrun anything. She was right on my heels, I could sense it, but I didn’t dare turn around to check. She could go anywhere in there, cut me off before I got far. She was in no hurry to catch me. She was going to torture me for my rejection, and the hunt was only half the fun. The idea sickened me, but all I could do was channel it into my running and hope it gave me the energy I needed to keep this speed up until I had a plan.

A way out, there just had to be a way out of there. It was just my mind, all I had to do was wake up. If I could just anchor myself to the real world…I strained to sense something from around my body, anything I could grab hold to.

“Maria,” I could hear James’s voice penetrate the abyss. “Please wake up, my love. Please.”

I nearly stumbled from the surprise, but I silently encouraged him to continue.

“Don’t leave me, Maria. I need you. I love you. Please, please wake up.”

Tears welled up at the corners of my eyes. My vision began to fade, the abyss becoming fuzzy as my head spun and my feet struggled to feel the ground beneath it. The burning scent of disinfectant stung my nostrils. I had never been so glad to feel as though my lungs were on fire—

Hk’Lacrima’s strong arms snatched me from behind, squeezing every whiff of disinfectant out of me.

The era of Nyarlathotep is nigh.

July 1, 2021

My eyelids flung open, and my eyes darted about, taking in the flickering fluorescent lights of the all-too-familiar ER. My chest heaved and my nostrils flared, but no mattered how hard I tried, I could not get anything else to move. It was all painful and stiff as a bone, from my left arm to my neck and jaw. I didn’t think it possible, but my breathing grew even more rapid and shallow. My head began to swim, and I had to force myself to calm down. I couldn’t even open my mouth for any deep-breathing exercises, and this made me panic more. Was this how Wolf Larsen felt at the end of Jack London’s The Sea Wolf? Trapped forever in his own body?

“We don’t know when there will be a cure readily available, Mr. Santos,” I heard a woman say from near my feet. “Honestly, I don’t know if we’ll even see one in our lifetime, let alone one that’ll be affordable for someone like…”

“For someone like what?” James snapped. “You mean someone who can barely afford insurance because we’re being paid shit? Or maybe you mean people of color.”

“Mr. Santos, I meant no offense. I only meant—”

“I know what you meant.” James sighed. “Just please tell me what our options are now.”

“We can try to put her on life support in the hopes of a miracle.”

“How much would that cost? Just show me after insurance, please.”

After the shuffle of papers and a moment of silence, I knew it wouldn’t be good.

“What’s the other option?” Tears streamed down my cheeks. James sounded so defeated.

“You take her home, make her as comfortable as possible, and let nature take its course.”

I could have sworn James wasn’t breathing when he next spoke.

“And those are our only options?”

“I’m afraid so. If you need some time to decide—”

“No. No, let’s just…I’ll just take her home. Could you…could somebody please call her parents to come and help me? I don’t think I can get her home on my own.”

“Of course. I’m so sorry. I’ll leave some instructions with a nurse on how you might be able to give her nutrients and water. I’m going to have them talk to you about stomach tubes and intravenous feeding, but given your financial situation, I’m not sure how viable those solutions are. I’ll also leave some resources for in-home caretakers you might be able to hire for when you and her parents are at work. If you have any questions, you have my number, so don’t hesitate to call.”

There was a pause, and then footsteps started for the door.

As they bid each other good day, I knew I should feel something. Anger. Sadness. Fear about my impending doom. But I felt…nothing. If anything, I would say I was relieved. It was almost over. A sudden peace washed over me. They could only force-feed me for so long, and if God truly is merciful, the muscles in my chest or throat would ossify and it would end even sooner. They could take the world to hell, and I wouldn’t have to see it.

I heard the legs of a chair scrape across the linoleum and settle by my bed. James’s exaggerated sigh soon followed as he plopped down.

“Doomed times infinity, in case you were wondering, mi amor,” he mumbled. Then some paper crumpled, and he said, “What the hell did you mean by this note, anyway?”

Note? What note?

“We summon them / We worship them / Our greed, we feed them / For eternity, we serve them.”

A chill ran down my spine. My eyes widened. Over me, Hk’Lacrima’s dark figure faded into view. Suddenly, a bright light blinded me. I felt her long, bony fingers dig into my chest and grab hold of something deep within me. She pulled, tortuously slowly, and I could feel as each of the sinewy attachments holding it in place stretched and snapped. I screamed as loud as I could, but it only echoed in my head. Hot tears stained my skin. Somewhere, I could hear James calling to me, but we might as well have been separated by a canyon. All the while, Hk’Lacrima’s eyes never left me.

The final attachment released its grip, and I hyperventilated through my nostrils. I would have welcomed passing out, but no such relief. My innards trembled as she took the tiny glowing me in her hands and popped it in her mouth.

File Number: 132

Case Name: Maria LaBeouf-Garcia – FOA Patient Zero

Case Agent: Vanderbilt, Ludwig

Accessed By: Ludwig Vanderbilt, Case Handler

Access Date: July 20, 2021

The following is an emergency update regarding the condition of Fibrodysplasia Ossificans Agressiva’s Patient Zero, Maria LaBeouf-Garcia. Following an attack on her home by anti-Mexican radicals on June 25th, LaBeouf-Garcia was treated for a concussion and slipped into a coma for six days. (For the name of the hospital and access to her medical records, see Report M, p. 25.) During this time, ossification appeared to resume after a grace period of approximately twenty-three days, according to her boyfriend, James Santos (Interview J-32). Witnesses, including a Department of Health physician, claim that LaBeouf-Garcia can only move her eyes, eyelids, nose, throat (not neck or jaw), and chest.

Due to her limited range of motion and lack of access to alternative feeding and watering methods, the initial prognosis was an expiration date of no later than July 8th. As of July 15th, the most recent visit by Department of Health physician Dr. Lupita Khumalo and FBI agent Park Ji Yoo, LaBeouf-Garcia is living without need for water or nutrients. Dr. Khumalo and all other physicians consulted have no explanation for LaBeouf-Garcia’s current state. Additionally, due to the lack of understanding of FOA and no possible cure in the foreseeable future, she could be stuck in this state indefinitely.

Update Amendment July 20, 2021

Upon further review, Dr. Lupita Khumalo and Agent Park Ji Yoo wish to go on record as describing an incident that occurred at the LaBeouf-Garcia residence the night of July 15th. According to both Dr. Khumalo and Agent Park, the two watched over Maria LaBeouf-Garcia while the rest of the family slept in other rooms. As they do not wish to disturb potential guests with her condition, the LaBeouf-Garcias and James Santos have secluded Maria LaBeouf-Garcia to a bedroom at the very back of the house with no other occupants, and so Dr. Khumalo’s and Agent Park’s observations were not contaminated in any way. Furthermore, the women swore under oath to have not been under the influence of alcohol or any other mind-altering or mind-hindering substance.

According to Dr. Khumalo and Agent Park, all was quiet after the family went to bed at approximately 10:00 p.m. Dr. Khumalo confessed to almost falling asleep from the quiet when Agent Park nudged her awake. At exactly the midnight hour, something bizarre began to occur. Initially, only LaBeouf-Garcia’s eyelids flickered. Dr. Khumalo said this was not abnormal and they ignored it. After a couple minutes of this, her eyes flung wide open in shock and stayed that way. Still not unusual, said the doctor, but alarming. Then her eyes began to glow inhumanly brightly. Whispers whipped around them, almost tangible enough to caress their hair.

They swore they heard a deep but still feminine voice coming from LaBeouf-Garcia, but her lips did not move. They leaned closer to try and hear, and they could just make out these words:

Vosotros os someted a Nyarlathotep. Servid Nyarlathotep.

Submit to Nyarlathotep. Serve Nyarlathotep.