A doctor is locked in a room with a patient exposed to a deadly virus, bound by a strange death contract.
The episode opens with a Tax Act advertisement before entering the fiction. The physician introduces Case 001, Addendum A, dated 8th of Tishot, year 976. Patient 12 — Varnal Dinch — was knowingly exposed to Mavetaviridae Rivericon through oral contact with his deceased son, a act that established the patient as a willing participant in the observation. A pre-observation note explains that the physician was sworn to inaction by the patient under a Death Contract witnessed by the village elder Niklaus Gavro. The physician complains that the contract was uneditable, that his name was spelled incorrectly, and that the nearest library is 30 kilometres away. He describes himself entering the room as the door locks behind him. The next entry, 23 hours later, records what appear to be the signs of death: peripheral edema, cyanosis, tissue decay, jaundice. However, an aneroid manometer — a real 19th-century device here transposed into a fantasy setting — reveals a blood pressure of 45 over 30 and a pulse of 12 beats per minute. The physician concludes the patient is comatose rather than dead and restrains him for the violent stages ahead. The third entry records reanimation beginning: moaning, rising blood pressure, response to auditory stimuli, extreme pupillary dilation. The physician fell asleep and missed some of the progression, admitting self-criticism before noting the patient's rising vital signs. He observes drily that a loved one would embrace the reviving patient, at which point virus-inflamed cannibalistic impulses would likely lead to infection or death. The fourth entry records the patient at 147 over 103 and 184 beats per minute, salivating, producing bloody vomitus, and beginning to decay in ways that make any skin contact a risk. The physician asks aloud whether the patient can hear him, calls him by name, and receives no response. The final entry records death by cardiac arrest at 51 hours and 13 minutes after infection, caused by self-inflicted wounds to the wrists, neck, and tongue combined with systemic failure. The physician closes with a brief personal apology to the patient before stepping outside the fiction to thank listeners as Zachary Golden, co-creator with Slapdash Studios and Realm FM.
