(here due to the<span style="font-weight: bold">possibility</span>of sexual content &/or mild gore)<br/><br/>The small town of Gildyr bustled with its usual busy air. The marketplace was lined with vendors and full of people. Towards the more residential areas, a small family of homeless children sat up against buildings. Their parents had gone into a coma, like so many others. No one knew what caused these people to go into sudden comas, but it was an epidemic.<br/><br/>That was the other thing. These people in comas wouldn't die. Not a single one of them had died since the disease began. One in five-hundred people had it. It might not sound like many, but the population of Ieshyra was large. Most families were effected.<br/><br/>People walked by and handed the children food. Only one family had the disease in Gildyr, so the entire town contributed to feeding the currently parent-less children.<br/><br/>Gildyr had not been hit by the disease very hard. Their people were unusually happy for the times that Ieshyra was in. They were blissfully ignorant of the destruction the disease was causing.<br/><br/>---<br/><br/>No one knew what caused the disease. No one was aware that some creature was gathering souls together for power. No one knew why.