Chapter 34: Hershel's Bite
The deeper sections of the prison complex felt different from Cellblock C—older, more oppressive, filled with shadows that seemed to move independently of their flashlight beams. Jake's death sense painted the corridors in irregular patterns, detecting pockets of walkers scattered throughout the maze of administrative offices and storage areas.
"Medical wing should be through here," Hershel said, consulting the facility map they'd found in the warden's office. "If we're going to make this place livable long-term, we need proper medical supplies."
Jake nodded, extending his supernatural awareness as far as possible. The confined spaces made precision difficult, but he could detect maybe a dozen walkers spread throughout this section—manageable numbers if they were careful.
They moved in formation through the dim corridors, flashlight beams dancing across institutional green walls that had probably been depressing even before the outbreak. Hershel walked slightly ahead, his veterinary training making him the natural choice to identify useful medical equipment.
The walker came from a supply closet that Jake's death sense had read as empty. One moment Hershel was examining a cabinet full of surgical instruments, the next a desiccated figure in a nurse's uniform was lunging from the shadows with hungry determination.
Jake was twenty feet away when it happened, too far to intervene physically, too slow to prevent what he saw coming with crystal clarity. The walker's teeth found the soft flesh of Hershel's calf, punching through fabric and skin with the efficiency of evolutionary design.
Hershel's scream echoed off the concrete walls like the sound of hope dying.
"No. Not him. Not Hershel. He's too important, too good, too essential to lose. There has to be something I can do. Some way to fix this."
Jake was moving before conscious thought could interfere, sprinting across the corridor while his mind raced through options. Amputation was the standard response—cut off the bitten limb before the infection could spread. But Hershel was seventy years old, and losing a leg might kill him through shock and blood loss even if it prevented zombification.
"Don't move!" Jake screamed, dropping to his knees beside the old veterinarian. "DON'T MOVE!"
Rick was already pulling out his knife, his face grim with terrible necessity. "We have to amputate. Right now, before the infection spreads."
"No," Jake said, his hands already moving toward Hershel's wounded leg. "I have another way."
Equivalent Exchange. The most advanced form of alchemy, the ability to transmute matter from one form to another while maintaining conservation of mass and energy. Jake had used it for healing before, trading raw materials for healthy tissue. But this was different.
This was trading injuries.
Jake placed one hand on Hershel's bite wound, feeling the torn flesh and invasive bacteria with senses both medical and mystical. His other hand gripped his own calf, preparing for agony beyond description.
"This will hurt," Jake said, his voice steady despite the magnitude of what he was attempting. "Both of us."
"I can transmute the bite itself. Move the injury from his leg to mine. The infection, the tissue damage, the zombie virus—all of it. Take it into myself and let them cut it out of me instead."
The transmutation was the most complex Jake had ever attempted, requiring him to move not just matter but the very concept of injury from one person to another. He reached deep into his alchemy, pulling on reserves of power he'd never accessed before.
Reality bent around his will like heated metal, malleable and responsive to his desperate intention. The bite on Hershel's leg began to dissolve, flesh knitting itself back together as if the wound had never existed. But the injury didn't disappear—it transferred, reappearing on Jake's own calf with perfect fidelity.
The pain was indescribable. Not just the physical agony of having his leg torn open by supernatural force, but the psychic backlash of manipulating reality at such a fundamental level. Jake screamed until his voice gave out, his consciousness fracturing under the strain of impossible transmutation.
"WHAT DID YOU DO?!" Maggie's voice cut through his agony like a blade. "JAKE, WHAT DID YOU DO?!"
Jake looked down at his leg through tear-blurred vision. The bite was there—Hershel's bite, transferred in perfect detail down to the pattern of tooth marks. But worse than the physical injury was what he could feel spreading through his bloodstream: the walker virus, aggressive and virulent, beginning its work of transforming living tissue into something hungry and dead.
"RICK!" Jake gasped, black spots dancing at the edges of his vision. "CUT MY LEG OFF! NOW!"
Rick stared at him in horror, unable to process what he'd just witnessed. But Daryl understood immediately, grabbing the fire axe from his belt and moving toward Jake with grim determination.
"Do it or he dies!" Daryl shouted. "The infection's spreading!"
Rick's hands shook as he took the axe, his face white with the enormity of what was being asked. But Jake could feel the virus racing through his system, could sense his own cellular structure beginning to break down and rebuild itself into something monstrous.
"Do it," Jake whispered. "Please."
The axe fell with surgical precision, severing Jake's leg just below the knee in a single, terrible stroke. The shock was immediate and overwhelming, but Jake forced himself to remain conscious long enough for one final transmutation.
He reached out with the last of his strength, using alchemy to seal his own blood vessels, to cauterize the wound at the molecular level and prevent him from bleeding out on the prison floor. The effort nearly killed him, but it worked—the bleeding stopped, the wound closed, and Jake collapsed into merciful unconsciousness.
When awareness returned, he found himself surrounded by faces painted with shock and grief and something that might have been awe. Maggie was sobbing over him, her hands pressed against his chest as if she could hold his life inside his body through will alone.
Hershel knelt beside them both, his leg whole and unmarked, staring at Jake's severed limb in horror and disbelief.
"Son," the old veterinarian whispered, his voice breaking. "You gave your leg for mine."
Jake tried to speak, to explain that it had been the only choice, that losing Hershel would have cost them more than Jake's mobility ever could. But consciousness was slipping away again, dragging him down into darkness that felt like peace.
His last coherent thought was a question that would haunt his dreams: What else could he transmute? What other injuries could he take upon himself? How far could he push the boundaries of equivalent exchange before it pushed back?
The answers would have to wait. For now, Jake Martinez slept the sleep of the profoundly changed, while around him his family tried to process the magnitude of what they'd witnessed.
He had revealed a new aspect of his powers—the ability to move injuries between people, to take suffering upon himself in order to spare others. It was a Christ-like ability, divine and terrible in its implications.
And it raised questions that none of them were prepared to answer: What else could Jake do? What other miracles and horrors were hidden within his transmigrated soul?
The prison walls stood strong around them, but the safety they provided felt fragile in the face of such impossible abilities. Jake Martinez was becoming something beyond human understanding, and that transformation was far from over.
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