[Before you can react, figures surround you on all sides.]
[Another medic steps forward, auspex scanner and laspistol both aimed at your head. The weapon's power cell hums, primed and ready.]
[You force yourself to remain calm. No sudden movements. No reason to give them cause to fire.]
[You watch the green light from the auspex wash over you, listen to the device's low humming as it completes its scan.]
[After a long moment, the medic lowers his laspistol with a disgusted grunt.]
["Damn it, he's clean. Not infected." He glares at his colleague. "Charles, your auspex's machine spirit is acting up again. You need to perform the proper rites or get it replaced."]
[The medic called Charles looks down at his malfunctioning device and makes a helpless gesture in your direction, something between apology and exasperation.]
[You exhale slowly, tension draining from your shoulders.]
[You'd really prefer not to experience the exciting death of having a las-bolt cook your brain from the inside out.]
[Charles, still checking his auspex, glances back at you. "Sorry about that, soldier. These damned things..." He trails off, shaking his head.]
[You accept his apology and carefully ask about the current situation. Where are you? What's happening?]
["The war continues," Charles says, his voice muffled and weary behind his mask. He gestures toward your uniform. "You Cadians have taken heavy casualties. Heavier than most."]
[You look down at yourself.]
[Cadian pattern uniform. Purple and tan. The colors of the Shock Troopers, the planet that broke before its Guard did.]
[You want to ask more questions, but Charles is already moving away, called elsewhere.]
[You follow his path and see why. A dozen Valkyrie transports descend from the sky, their hulls scarred and smoking. Each one disgorges more wounded, more broken soldiers to add to the growing collection of casualties.]
[By the end of the first week, your injuries have healed completely.]
[Through conversations with other recovering soldiers, you piece together the basic situation.]
[A fierce battle rages for control of the planet Yax, a garden world that had once been green and beautiful.]
[The Plague Alliance, the forces of Nurgle the Rot Lord, have torn through the Warp and invaded. They're determined to drag this world into Chaos, to transform it into a festering paradise of disease and decay.]
[You want to rejoin the fight immediately. Every moment wasted is another moment the enemy gains ground.]
[The medical staff stop you at the door.]
["Can you please think about other people's feelings?" Charles blocks your path, his tone sharp with frustration. "Do you think you're the only one willing to die for the Emperor? What difference will one soldier make on his own?"]
[He points back toward the rows of recovering wounded.]
["Wait your turn. The wounded need time to recover their morale. Units need time to reorganize, to integrate replacements. Charging off alone accomplishes nothing but adding your corpse to the pile."]
[You try to argue, to convince him to let you join a unit being reformed now.]
[Charles nods to one of the orderlies.]
[You feel a sharp pain in your neck. A sedative, injected before you could react.]
[Your vision swims. Your legs buckle.]
[Darkness takes you.]
[You find yourself walking through a wilderness wrapped in thick fog.]
[Is this a dream? A vision? The line between them feels impossibly thin.]
[The air is humid, almost oppressive. It clings to your skin like oil. You breathe it in and taste something wrong, something organic and rotting beneath the moisture.]
[Your hands grip a lasgun tightly, knuckles white. You don't remember picking it up, but it's there, solid and real.]
[You scan the unchanging landscape. Desolation stretches in every direction, identical in its bleakness. No landmarks. No reference points.]
[Your boots sink into mud with each step. The ground is soft, yielding, wrong. It squelches obscenely.]
[Your consciousness begins to drift, sliding into a strange state of confusion. Thoughts become sluggish, heavy. Reality feels distant.]
[Then you hear it.]
[Singing.]
[The voice is low, grating, utterly repulsive. It comes from everywhere and nowhere, bypassing your ears entirely and drilling directly into your brain.]
["Oh, Ku'gath, good... Ku'gath, wise... Ku'gath's medicine pot is divine..."]
[The words burrow into your skull like maggots, impossible to dislodge. You know, with absolute certainty, that you will never forget this song. It's carved into your memory now, permanent as a scar.]
[The fog begins to thin.]
[You snap back to full awareness, the confusion burning away like morning mist under a harsh sun.]
[You're awake. Truly awake. And you wish you weren't.]
[You turn your head toward the source of that nightmare melody.]
[Several kilometers away, in the ruins of what was once a hospital, something moves.]
[A body. Rotted. Fat. Massive beyond comprehension, like a hill of diseased flesh given terrible life.]
[It wears what might charitably be called a protective suit, though the material looks suspiciously like human skin, countless hides stitched together into a grotesque mockery of clothing.]
[Its bloated form sways slightly as it works. Nurglings, small daemonic creatures like diseased cherubs, attempt to climb its bulk. They slip on the greasy surface of its exposed flesh, tumbling back down with giggles of delight. Each time one falls, the others laugh. They find failure hilarious.]
[The horned figure hums that same horrific tune as it works. Nearby Plague Bearers, daemon servants of Nurgle, hand it various compounds. Vials of liquid filth. Powders that smoke and corrode. The figure accepts each offering and tosses it carelessly into an enormous crucible that dominates the ruined hospital.]
[The crucible itself is ancient beyond measure. Looking at it hurts. Not physically, but conceptually. It radiates the fundamental truth of entropy, the inevitable decay of all things.]
[Green poisonous mist roils from its surface in thick clouds. The pus-like liquid inside bubbles and churns, each bubble swelling to grotesque size before bursting with wet pops. The stench must be indescribable.]
[Occasionally, a droplet of the thick pus splashes over the crucible's edge. It arcs through the air, drawing a lovely green trail, almost beautiful in its own horrific way. Where it lands, the ground immediately begins to rot.]
[Beneath the crucible, plague zombies throw themselves into the flames. They serve as fuel, willing offerings to whatever dark alchemy is taking place. Their howls of agony echo across the wasteland as they burn.]
[When the sticky pus touches even one of these mindless servants, their already-rotted bodies dissolve. They simply cease to exist, unmade at the molecular level.]
[You stare at this scene, and for a moment, you forget how to breathe.]
[Your mind goes blank, unable to process the sheer wrongness before you.]
[The lasgun in your hands vibrates. A low, excited hum emanates from the metal.]
[You glance down.]
[Horror floods through you.]
[The gun has changed. The cold metal has warmed, softened. It feels like skin now, like living flesh pressed against your palms. As you watch, a mouth forms near the trigger guard, gasping for air. Nostrils sprout along the barrel, flaring as they breathe.]
[You hurl the weapon away with a strangled cry.]
[You need to run. Need to escape. Need to wake up from this nightmare.]
[But your clothes have changed too. Colorful mushrooms push through the fabric, their caps spotted and glistening. Strange flowers bloom along your sleeves, their petals gorgeous and utterly alien.]
[Panic seizes you, cold and absolute.]
["Well now, little brother, why such fear of Ku'gath?"]
[The singing has stopped.]
[The massive figure in the distance turns its attention toward you. Interest sparkles in eyes that shouldn't exist.]
[Nurglings surge across the wasteland like a chittering tide, their laughter echoing. They swarm over you before you can move, before you can even think to run.]
[Sticky bodies press against you from all sides. They wrap around your limbs, your torso, your neck. You're completely encased, only your head left exposed to the air.]
[The smell is overwhelming. Rot and filth and sweetness all mixed together, a stench beyond description. It fills your nostrils, coats your tongue, violates your senses.]
[The Nurglings form living armor around you, giggling with each movement. They propel you forward, shambling and stumbling toward the massive figure.]
[You have no control. You're a passenger in your own body.]
["Though we meet for the first time," the horned figure says conversationally, "I have heard Father speak of you, little brother."]
[It waves its medicine ladle absently. The tool is stained with deadly compounds, dripping with corruption. Where drops fall, plague zombies dissolve into nothing.]
[The daemon's voice shifts, taking on a melancholy tone.]
["I am Ku'gath, Father of Plagues."]