Chapter 4 The Doctor
The Doctor
The stench of sweat and blood burns my nostrils, flooding my veins with something primal. Every year it’s the same thing. They drink, they dance, I sniff out the ones infected with the pestilence, and then I hunt.
This year smells different, though. A little too sweet. Like autumn is trying to weasel its way into me, the heady notes of pumpkin and vanilla are almost overwhelming. Sickly sweet, but oh so fucking good.
I float through the crowd, a ghost hidden behind smoke and drugs. The mirrors are much too cracked here, and I thrive on hiding in the cracks.
Smooth leather presses tight into my face, my protection from the pestilence. My own form of fucked up anonymity, allowing me to move as my true self. Behind it, I can be anything, a monster, a saviour, a god.
Wild eyes meet mine, and I assess each one, taking care to mark the ones that are too glossy, too… much. I can’t explain to you how they look, not really. In the many centuries I’ve existed, I’ve only ever learned how to spot them better because there’s not one specific thing about them.
It’s not a lack of color or red-rimmed pupils, it’s not the ones holding back tears, or the ones that have too much hunger in them.
It’s the ones that feel empty, hollow. The ones that feel like they are holding back more death than joy.
The ones that just don’t look right. The ones holding secrets.
I clutch my bag in my palm, fingers curling in on themselves. One is close, my body feels it. I shut my eyes, focusing on the energy. The humors of life, as I’ve learned to refer to it. Each human has four humors—fire, water, earth, and air.
You can find them in their auras, the stench of their skin, even down to the body fluids they exude from themselves.
Every living creature has them, but humans? Humans tend to have much less balance between them. When a patient suffers from an imbalance or excess of one or more humors, that’s when I step in.
A cough on my left catches my attention. It’s not a cough from drugs or lack of oxygen; it’s something deeper than that, more wrong. I glance over, my bird mask hiding my face.
The patient in front of me continues to dance, losing themselves in the moment. It’s almost laughable. Their oblivious nature, the way they trust their environment so deeply.
Hallow Lands is cursed to fester, and I’m cursed to cure it.
I work quickly, pulling out a clear vial from my worn leather bag. My gloved fingers flick at the top of the glass until it cracks off, leaving an open bottle pressed between my thumb and forefinger.
Inside is a dark, viscous fluid. Yellow, like a burnt sunflower. And the smell, oh the smell, like acid and anger. It burns my nose as I take a whiff, filling my lungs with its essence.
The humors don’t work on me the way they do patients; maybe it’s because I created them, or maybe it’s because I’ve become immune to their symptoms. Either way, I’m not complaining.
I move quickly, wrapping my arm around the waist of the man.
He smiles up at me, eyes wide from whatever drugs he’s rolling on.
Unfiltered happiness…disgusting. I lean in, feigning something more intimate, more special.
He matches my movements, the bass and screams of other patients surrounding us, creating the perfect moment.
I smile back, though I know he can’t see it, and begin to glide my fingers up his chest. He shivers under my hands before closing his eyes and leaning his head back.
I’m behind him within seconds, moving my hand to cup his chin.
The hand holding the vial twists as it flies into the side of his throat, broken side first. Warm crimson streams out of the hole as he looks up at me, eyes wide and shock splattered across his face.
I watch, hopeful, as the humor makes its way into his system. His mouth opens and closes, blood still falling around us like a macabre waterfall. Within seconds, he’s been filled with the yellow substance.
I smile to myself.
This one seems to be taking it well.
But then, his mouth starts to foam, his body spasming. I sigh to myself and guide him to the floor.
The body continues to convulse below me, shaking like he stuck his finger in an electrical socket. I rise to my feet again, and the yellow foam continues to pour out of his mouth, forming a puddle on the ground below him.
Patients around me continue to dance, so fueled on drugs that they don’t even notice the life draining from the body below them. Useless.
I tilt my head to the side, watching as the tormented soul takes his last breaths. His eyes are wide in fear, staring up at me like he’s seen God.
Perhaps he has. His very own savior stitched into the shadows of death.
I turn away, knowing my job is done here, and start to make my way to the main stage.
The other patients are none the wiser to the undead body within their midst. Them being strung up on drugs and alcohol for the weekend allows me to do my work in peace, especially when the majority of the drugs being passed around are of my own creation.
I call it Euphorium. It’s a psychoactive drug that sends anyone who takes it into a blissful, euphoric-like state. Hence the name.
I remember the day as if it just happened.