Patient Zero

The man looked strangely familiar, yet his head rested limply on his chest.
‘What do you want? Speak up, please!’ Tanwar asked, sternly.
No response. Sigh.
‘If you’re not going to buy anything, can you please leave?’ he insisted.
The customer looked gravely ill, his eyes rolling back in his head.
Tanwar gasped aloud when the man’s mouth fell open and a thick streamer of blood dripped down his chin and onto the newsagent’s counter.
Tanwar’s eyes moved along his arm, coming to rest on an intricate gold bracelet.
The type of bracelet he’d had specially made for his brother.