Chapter 5: The Yellow-Eyed Faithful

Chapter 5: The Yellow-Eyed Faithful

Five years passed in a monotonous, feverish cycle. The world outside marked time with the release of his books; Leo marked it by the silence between them. The Siege of Veridia was followed by the desolate poetry of Elias and the Ochre Wastes. Then came the nautical horror of The Sunken Choir, the clockwork conspiracies of Glass Imperium, and the bleak regicide of The Marrow King.

Each release was a global cataclysm of culture. Each book sold more than the last, the praise growing more hysterical. Leo Vance was not an author; he was a religion. His name was spoken with the same reverence reserved for dead poets and prophets. Online, they called it the “Vance Effect”—the strange phenomenon where, after reading one of his books, all other fiction felt bland and tasteless, like trying to eat after a feast. People joked about it, but Leo knew the truth. It was the mark of the disease.

His house was no longer a project; it was a monastery dedicated to a dark god. The boxes were gone, replaced by sparse, functional furniture he’d ordered online. The windows were permanently covered. His life had only two phases: the frantic, feverish transcription of a new manuscript, and the agonizing, soul-withering withdrawal that followed. He was a gaunt silhouette haunting his own home, his body thinning and weakening with each cycle. His only contact with the world was Isabelle.

Her calls, once crackling with manic energy, had become brittle and sharp. She too was a part of the cycle. She was the high priestess, delivering the Scribe’s gospel to the masses.

“Leo, we have to talk,” she said, her voice a rasp over the phone. It was a week before the release of his fifth novel, The Last Candle.

“There’s nothing to talk about, Isabelle. Send the contracts. Wire the money. You know the drill.” His own voice was a dry rustle, thin from disuse.

“It’s not about that. The publisher… they’re insisting. A launch event. A flagship store in Manhattan. Just one signing. One hour of your time, Leo. That’s all they’re asking.”

A cold dread, slick and oily, seeped into his gut. Go outside? See people? “No. Absolutely not. The answer is always no.”

“You don’t understand,” she hissed, and for the first time, he heard the raw edge of her own addiction in her voice. The desperation. “They’re getting suspicious. No one has ever seen you. The theories are getting wild. Some people think you’re not even real. If they start to doubt the source, Leo… the whole system could get shaky. We need this. I need this.”

He understood her unspoken threat. The system she spoke of was the one that fed them both. The publishers, the readers, the entire global machine was built on the lie of his genius. If it faltered, the supply chain might break. And if the supply chain broke, the crawlspace might remain empty forever. The thought was more terrifying than any crowd.

“Fine,” he whispered, the word tasting like defeat. “One hour.”

The journey to New York was a disorienting nightmare. A black car with tinted windows spirited him from his silent tomb to a private airfield. The roar of the jet engines was a physical assault. The sunlight glinting off the wing felt alien and hostile. He hadn't felt direct sun on his skin in years. He sat huddled in the plush leather seat, a scarecrow in a ridiculously expensive suit Isabelle had sent, his hands trembling in his lap. He looked out the window at the patchwork of the world below, a place he only knew from the stories he transcribed.

The bookstore in Times Square was under siege. A line of people, thousands deep, snaked around the block, a writhing serpent of anticipation. Barricades held them back. News vans were parked across the street, their satellite dishes aimed at the sky like hungry mouths. Leo was hurried through a back entrance, his head down, the distant roar of the crowd a terrifying, inhuman sound.

He was sat at a simple black table on a small, raised platform. To his left was a veritable mountain of hardcovers: The Last Candle. Their covers depicted a single, guttering flame against an oppressive darkness. A marketing girl with a clipboard and a terrified smile gave him a bottle of water and a pen.

“We’ll start letting them in now, Mr. Vance,” she whispered, as if he were a fragile deity who might shatter at a sudden noise.

The doors opened. The first of them approached the dais. He was a young man in a college sweatshirt, probably no older than twenty. He clutched his copy of the book to his chest like a holy relic.

“Mr. Vance,” the young man breathed, his voice trembling with emotion. “I… I don’t know what to say. Your books… they’re the only thing that’s real.”

Leo looked up from the title page he was meant to sign, and for the first time, he truly saw one of them. He wasn’t looking at an admirer. He was looking in a mirror.

The young man’s skin was sallow, a waxy, unhealthy sheen under the bright store lights. His eyes, wide with a feverish intensity, were not clear. The whites were tinged with a faint but distinct yellow. His hand, as he pushed the book across the table, had the same fine tremor as Leo’s own.

Leo’s blood ran cold. He signed the book on autopilot, his hand moving in a clumsy scrawl. The boy shuffled away, replaced by the next person in line—a middle-aged woman in a business suit. She was trying to maintain an air of composure, but her mask was cracking. The same sallow skin. The same tremor. The same sickly, yellow-eyed gaze, burning with a desperate, frantic obsession.

“When is the next one?” she whispered, her voice conspiratorial, hungry. “I finished the advance copy in six hours. I need to know what happens next.”

I need the next hit.

Leo’s head swam. He looked past her, down the long, shuffling line. It wasn’t a queue of readers. It was a procession of the afflicted. Hundreds of them, all marked by the same disease. Gaunt faces, haunted eyes, trembling hands. They didn’t look like they had come to celebrate an author; they looked like they were lining up for their ration of medicine, the only thing that kept the shaking at bay.

His gaze drifted to a polished chrome stanchion beside the table. In its distorted reflection, he saw his own face: the sunken cheeks, the paper-thin skin stretched taut over his skull, and the same jaundiced, desperate eyes that stared back at him from the crowd. He was not their creator. He was just Patient Zero.

He had thought he was a prisoner, but he was a plague carrier. He was a monster, sitting on a throne of books, surveying the millions more he had made in his own wretched image.

His eyes locked on a woman halfway down the line. She was trying to soothe her son, a boy of no more than ten, who was fidgeting impatiently. The boy wasn’t looking at the toys or the colorful children’s section. He was staring directly at Leo. His small face was pale, his expression one of raw, unnerving need. As he turned his head, the light caught his eyes.

They were yellow.

The pen slipped from Leo’s numb fingers and clattered onto the table. The sound was lost in the reverent hush of the room. This wasn't a story anymore. This was a pandemic of the soul. And he was the one who had opened the door and let the sickness into the world.