An unknown sickness has been spreading throughout the world.
***
The bell above the café door chimed.
Two men in suits stepped inside.
Something about them pressed the room. Conversations started to thin out, customers started eating and drinking faster as if they weren't there to converse. Others looked away.
These were not ordinary businessmen.
"A sickness, huh."
The other man exhaled slowly, fingers tapping on the table.
"That's what the media calls it," he replied. "There's nothing we know of it."
"No cure?"
"Well, let alone a cure. Nothing. No origin, no consistent symptoms. So far, laboratory tests have found no known pathogens, no viruses, no bacteria, nothing identifiable."
"Some countries are already responding."
"Yes. Travel restrictions. Containment zones. Public statements." A faint scoff. "Reassurance."
"And yet the mortality rate is high."
"But the number of cases remain low. It appears to be much more concentrated around one area."
"Where?"
"... Here."
The other man looks visibly shaken. He gulps, then gazes at the first man.
"What do you think it is?"
"A Malediction."
***
A crowd of students circled an empty patch of the campus, cheering loudly. For what seemed to be a competition — or a fight of some sort — indeed it was a fight. A spider fight.
Among the participants was Emilio, who had bet 350 pesos that his spider, a red one, would win. That 350 pesos he used was for snacks. Betting that money for two spiders fighting wouldn't exactly be the smartest decision.
"Go! Go! Go!"
"Come on, you can do it! I believe in you Red Spider!"
Emilio clenched his fists, leaning over the edge of the table. His red spider started grappling the black spider, and though it seemed that he had the upper hand... the red spider stopped moving, and fell off the stick.
"Noooo!! Red spider!"