Brayden was sitting on the baby Little Suzie when Beverly slammed the door closed behind. She leaned her back against the door praying that it could keep the horrors at bay. She was adrift in a chaotic sea of emotions and memories of her day.

  That scene was enough to cut through Brayden usual dismissal of his sister, “Everything alright there, Bev?”

  “Yeah. Yeah. Just… just need to go lie down.” Beverly trying to shake off whatever she just experienced.

  “Well alright then. let me know if you need anything.” Brayden told his sister slightly offput.

  “Kay. Kay.” Beverly called out over her shoulder as she rushed up the stairs to her room.

  Right when Brayden was about to get back to helping Little Suzie, a shriek sent him running up the stairs to his sister. Only stopping to grab the hammer they leave by the front door.

  “What’s going on.” Brayden asked from the doorway of his sister’s room.

  “Look.” Beverly said while pointing at her wall. Said wall had the message “the doctor is good” written in animal blood. Or at least they hoped it was animal blood.

  “Seriously what’s the deal with that stupid phrase. First that woman, then your mirror, and now this?” Brayden said exasperated.

  “I have no idea. I saw it in a bathroom mirror today. Except it wasn’t really there. It was a hallucination. Ms. Gretchens was there. There was also this shadow, then this raven.” Beverly rambled.

  “Do you know who we have to see?” Brayden asked his sister.

  “Krazy Kayla.” “Krazy Kayla.” They said at the same time.

  ***

  “Hey Krazy Kayla…” was all that Beverly got out before being elbowed in the stomach by her brother.

  “Kayla, we need your help.” Brayden said with a fake smile nailed onto his face.

  With a raised eyebrow, “I don’t love your sister calling the me crazy with a K, but you have my curiosity. What can I do for the sovereigns of the nerds and anthophilas?”

  “Anthro whats?” Beverly interrupted.

  “Bees” Brayden told his sister before turning back to Kayla. “You’re into all that magic stuff, right?”

  “Yeah. Again, what do you want?”

  “Does the term “The doctor is good” mean anything to you?” Brayden asked the girl.

  “Only everything…” Kayla starting her exposi… impassioned storytelling with practically a squee.

  The story went something like this. In the mid-1800s, there was a woman. Well, there were many women alive at the time, but I’m talking about a particular one. This one had all her perfection concentrated in only two decades or at least that was what people said. For you see the young woman was beautiful, kind, wealthy, intelligent, … and sick.

  No one had any idea what was wrong with her. Only that every breath she exhaled took with it a sliver of her vitality. Some posit that her beauty was almost parasitic in nature as the disease only made her ever more enchanting as it killed her.

  Her father, a wealthy land baron, searched for a cure. Most doctors simply wrote it off as an offshoot of consumption and recommended rest, exercise, and fresh air. Her father refused to give up and sought ever more fringe experts. This continued until he met Dr. Dasheil, a doctor that claimed to be pushing boundaries and searching for answers wherever they were found.

  Dasheil claimed to be able to call on mystic forces that in combination with his treatments could cure anything. Her father was blind to the fanatism burning in his eyes due to it burning just as brightly in his own. So blinded that he let the treatments continue no matter how grotesque they became.

  In the beginning it was just shots that brought a new torture with each one.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  The red with maroon flakes made the young woman feel like she was in an oven. Her skin turned flush and started dumping out water almost like it was attempting to douse the magma in her veins. This attempt’s intention was to purify the body like a sword in a forge.

  After hours of agony, Dasheil did not see anything that would prove that the elixir was working. In fact, he had used too much, and the young woman was cooking from the inside. Seeing that he quickly injected her with another needle. This tincture was pale blue that brought her back to normal. For a couple of minutes, before the woman slowly started to look like she had been left out in the tundra.

  She grew increasingly pale and lost feeling in her extremities. Dasheil quickly injected the first again.

  The young woman’s skin alternated between a flushed red and a deathly blue over the next several hours until Dasheil finally was able to restore her to a proper state.

  Dasheil claimed that what happened was hot and cold tempering and was necessary groundwork for the true treatment. The father’s desperation caused him to gobble the lie up like a chocolate éclair.

  The next tincture was a noxious green. The idea was akin to modern day chemotherapy in that he wanted to kill whatever was causing her disease. Unfortunately, Dasheil was quite the dullard as he did not think about a simple fact. When in danger a parasitic organism would feed on its host often causing the host to die first, in this case the young woman. He quickly gave her the antidote.

  He tried a crimson one next. This one was akin to a steroid. He had concentrated several types of beast blood into a single concoction. This caused the young woman’s veins to bulge and her to start thrashing about. Said thrashing caused severe muscle tears and cracks in her bones.

  He quickly gave her a grey injection that acted like a sedative. Seeing her breathing slowing to a stop, he quickly injected the crimson one again. What came next was another several hour ping pong.

  He told the father and daughter that it was all a part of his treatment plan. The father’s desperation deafened him to his daughter’s pleas to stop.

  Dasheil’s desperation on the other hand drove him to increasingly desperate means. People say that God, the devil, or some other entity imbues every human with a sin as punishment, trial, or gift. If that’s true, Dasheil’s sin would be pride. He could not accept that he would fail, that he would be stupid.

  You see all his concoctions were made based on a book that he had found detailing various mystical fields. Dasheil was smart enough to avoid the entries involving the more esoteric entries that were completely outside his knowledge. He was content to use only the knowledge on potions to be considered a great doctor. That was until potions were not enough to feed his pride.

  He started performing rituals, summonings, and anything else he could try.

  This continued until one-night Dasheil decided to give up on saving the young woman. He decided that if a genius like him could not save her no one could. So, he decided to bind her spirit to the mortal plane so as to appear successful.

  It did not hurt that binding a beautiful young woman to himself had other advantages. After all it was only fair that she repaid his services with her own.

  So that night her father and him bound her to a ritual circle as she was much too smart to not see the cracks in Dasheil’s facade. Luckily for her, Dasheil’s grasp of proto-grecian languages was not nearly as strong as he thought it was. He had confused contractee with contractor.

  So, when he completed the ritual, his body dissolved into energy that impowered the young woman while also binding his soul into her service. All things were not good though, that increased power flooding her devastated body only killed her all the quicker.

  With her dying breath she cursed the man that had filled her last days with agony, “Josef Dasheil, I take that which you value most, recognition. May you never again utter your name. May you never again show your face. May you never again appear before any who would come to know you. May you never again act in any way, shape, or form that would cause your deeds to be remembered. I bind you to walk until this earth forever more as an unremembered, unremarkable unperson.”

  And with that a brave young woman was dead.

  If only she had known the loophole she had left. A loophole that would haunt her father for the rest of his short life. While Dasheil could not do anything to those that did not know him, he was next to someone who did. Someone who could introduce him to others if given the right incentive and all memories of his deeds would die with him.

  And thus, a cognitive hazard was born. Dasheil who would eventually just be remembered as The Good Doctor would spend the next decades trapped with those who knew him. Forever fearing that his current host would die before he could leapfrog to the next.

  Artifacts:

  [Disparate Unity]

  Materials:

  [Nascent Energy Vampire Progenitor Mantle (Remnants)]

  [Empowerment (Remnants)]

  [Frankenstein’s Lightning (Remnants)]

  [The Black Wasp Jackal’s Face (Remnants)]

  [Emotive Fire]

  [Emotive Ice]

  [Time Seed]

  [Olivia’s Friendship (Remnants)]

  [Beastly Heart (Remnants)]

  [Murder Weapon (Remnants)]

  [Various Utility Artifacts]

  [Various Articles Of Clothing]

  [Death Dogtags]

  [Leech Muscles]

  [Leech Teeth]

  [Chimeric Essence]