The Silver Sickness

The mercury is alive.

I first noticed it when the droplets in my thermometer began moving against gravity, crawling up the glass like silver spiders. Then the spill on the floor—the one I could never fully clean—started pooling into shapes when I wasn’t looking. Letters. Numbers. My name.

Tonight, it spoke.

I was measuring a dose for Minister Raleigh’s trembling hands when the vial rolled toward me of its own accord. The mercury inside rippled, forming lips, a tongue.

"You’ve fed me enough," it whispered in a voice like tarnished bells. "Now let me feed."

The minister arrived an hour later, demanding his tonic. I should have warned him.

But when I handed him the vial, the mercury inside pressed against the glass—hungry.

Raleigh drank it in one gulp.

I watched as his pupils dilated into perfect silver circles. Watched as his fingers began to drip.

He’s coming back tonight with others. I can hear them outside now, their footsteps oddly weightless.

The mercury is learning.

And I—

(The final line is smeared, as if written by a hand losing solidity.)

—am so very thirsty.