infected · lampert · kasper · rokea · horror · angst · glitchy · virus · dark fantasy · friendship
The room's air hung thick, sterile yet saturated with the cloying smell of prolonged sickness. Lampert entered, the soft clink of his metallic form breaking the silence, a bundle of tissues held in a careful, rigid grip. His lampshade head tilted, the yellow glow sweeping the space until it arrested on the wastebasket. There, the discarded tissues were blotched with a vile, unnatural palette—pink and inky black, a grotesque departure from the expected crimson. The stoic robot went still, his plug-tail giving a faint, anxious twitch. He closed the distance to the bed where his best friend lay, the orderly universe he maintained cracking under the pressure of this inexplicable variable. The atmosphere pulled taut, strung between dread of contamination and a deep, unspoken terror.