The Doctor will see you now
Recommended music: https://youtu.be/cY4B0m9A0Nc
Warm light engulfed the waiting room of CCH Towers. Lounging in one of the armchairs, an Asian girl was browsing a fashion magazine. Her pick was the latest issue of Vogue Paris, flown here this very morning. On a table next to her rested a cup of freshly brewed Saint Helena coffee and a tray with some artisanal French confections, recommended to her as a suitable pairing for her choice of reading.
The Towers branch was the flagship of Cyan Cross Healthcare, so no expenses were spared in providing the luxuries to its clients. The décor provided by the top interior designers was enhanced by amenities, the cost of which alone exceeded the yearly budget of some smaller clinics. However, the investment paid off by attracting clientele of the highest calibre. If you wanted the best for yourself and your family, and it was something that couldn’t be handled off-site by a visit from your personal physician (services of which could also be contracted through CCH), the Towers office was the best place to go.
”Miss Lee, thank you for waiting. Doctor Carter will see you now.”
The girl cast the magazine aside and followed the nurse, who could have easily been a supermodel if that was her career choice. After a short walk, she was welcomed in his office by a man in an impeccably white coat.
”Please, come in. The test results are ready, and we can go over the details in a few moments, but don’t worry, Miss Edith. Everything went perfectly. Your appendectomy will not be marked as my first failure.”
Recommended music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcwENtsV3cQ
Light flickers on and off in the tiled corridor leading deeper into the basement’s bowels. Sounds of steps and the body being dragged echo through the space. Two tattoo-covered men haul an unconscious girl, with a black bag over her head, over to a little front desk behind which a bored looking henchman sits reading a book. Rather than getting up to deal with the bothersome flickering, he decided to just strain his eyes. The laziness was on display again when he doesn’t even look up before speaking to the new arrivals.
“Medical assistance, interrogation, punishment or material?”
“A message from the Big Boss to this one’s owner.”
This seems to catch the receptionist’s attention.
“Oh, so that’s the one. Go this way, then the first door on the left. Just leave her there.
Recommended music: https://youtu.be/4PvmyZBwS-Q?t=34
Gentle music filled the hall, that the annual Brockton Charity Gala took place in. The upper echelons of society gathered here today to share some of their blessings with those below them, or at least be seen doing so. Little groups formed here and there, giving the rich and famous the time to network. One of such was formed around the CEO of Scylla Conglomerate.
“Please, Miss Zelenin, as a representative of Cyan Cross Healthcare, I have a doctor’s advice for you: relax a little and focus on having fun tonight. Don’t worry, even if something did happen, with your insurance, there is close to nothing we won’t be able to help you with after.”
Dr Carter offered her a glass of champagne. The practised broad smile straight from a commercial hid his real intentions, but the onlookers suspected that with the way he was trying to get close to her, he’s just another one hoping that he will be the one to melt the ice queen’s frozen heart.
The look he received suggested that it was not to be so. With an excuse, Nemian declined his offer and disentangled herself from the group. Followed by her mecha bodyguards, she left the doctor standing there, the hand with a glass still extended.
Recommended music: https://youtu.be/e9E9j-o1E4Y
The girl wakes up surrounded by darkness. She struggles to get up, but finds herself unable to do so, her arms and legs tightly bound. She tries to scream, but her voice gets drowned out by the gag in her mouth.
“Seems that you’re ready for our talk, Miss Fortune.”
She initially gets blinded by the lights in the room when the bag gets removed from her head. Once her sight stabilizes, the first thing she sees is the face of a man in a surgical gown. Besides the typical mask and cap, he’s also wearing star-rimmed sunglasses. Latex gloves remove the gag from her mouth and toss it on a desk nearby. She takes this moment to have a look around. It seems she doesn’t like what she sees.
“HELP! SOMEBODY HELP ME! PLEASE! LET ME GO!”
The man pulls out a scalpel. A light reflects in it. Even with most of his face covered, something about the man’s expression fills Miss Fortune with such dread she goes quiet.
“Thank you. I’d prefer not to have to silence you each time I aim to speak. Now, I suspect you might have an inkling why you’re here. If so, you’re probably correct. This is about your boss. After all, no one truly cares about you, Miss Anna Fortune. You just had the misfortune of being someone we might use to reach her.”
“THEN LET ME GO! PLEASE! I KNOW NOTHING! I’M JUST HER ASSISTANT! I CAN GIVE YOU HER ITINERARY, BUT IT CHANGES SO OFTEN IT PROBABLY WON’T BE OF USE TO YOU!”
The man sighs at the outburst. He reaches out with his free hand and touches her throat. The screams instantly stop. Even if the girl starts trashing about even harder, only some quiet guttural sounds escape her mouth.
“Ah, the blessed silence again. You might be wondering what happened to you. The mystery of why your incessant hollering was ended like cut with a knife. That is actually close to the truth. I did do that in a sense. With a scalpel, to be precise. And not now, before, on one of my patients downstairs. I like to keep some vocal cords removals just in case.”
All Anna can do at this point is let the tears roll down her cheeks while she tries to mentally prepare for what is about to take place.
“Now, let me tell you, Anna (I can call you that, right?), what I’m about to do to you, and why. The thing is, your boss rejected a very, very generous offer my Boss made her. That’s not something she should have done. What more, she actively started to act against our Conglomerate. Both Dread and Scylla could really benefit from working together, and she stands in the way of that. Big Boss says she really hurt his feelings. So, he’d like to show her how hurt he was by her actions. Contacting her directly proved difficult, so instead we decided to go through you. And it fell to me to complete this task. For you see, I’m somewhat of an expert suited specifically for such occasions. I will steal Boss’s hurt, and pass it on to you, so you can later pass it on to her. I hope everything is clear now.”
During his speech, he walked behind her. She could hear the sound of some tools he was setting on a tray. He came back, and she felt a hand grabbing a hold of her face.
“Now, my dear. Have you perhaps seen ‘An Andalusian Dog’ before? It has a very famous scene. I like to copy it. Dali was truly a master of his craft, and I like to believe I’m a master of mine. I do this as a sort of an homage from me to him. This one is for you, Salvador.”
A razor slices open her eyeball in one smooth stroke. The pain strikes her like a lightning. She howls voicelessly, struggling against her bonds.
“Oh my, I completely forgot! I took half the fun out of it for you if you can’t see it! Here, let me get you a mirror.”
He quickly brings one, and sets it on a desk in front of her.
“Now, let us do that again.”
Anna dreads the idea of her other eye suffering the same fate, but going blind might also be a small salvation of making her unable to see what other atrocities the man has in store for her. To her surprise, she realizes that both her eyes work normally again. In the mirror, she sees her eye as it was, just a small streak of blood below it. Did she just imagine that? Was it some kind of an illusion? Or just her mind playing tricks on her in a blind panic?
But the reality sets in when her eyeball gets sliced open one more time, and this time, she sees it happening from a perspective of the reflection.
“Now, you may call it juvenile, but I can’t help but admire my work. It does bring me that sort of childlike glee. Makes me want to scream ‘again, again’. Luckily for me, I have the means to do that. For you see, like your boss, I have some special skills, and they truly elevate me to the position of the best physician in the world. Not that I was a slouch before I have acquired them.”
Once again, she can see with both her eyes. The streak of red, more vivid on her face than it was before. And like in a bad dream you can’t get rid of, a nightmare that haunts you night after night, she watches her eye being sliced open again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again.
“Now. This is starting to grow a bit dull, I’m sure you’ll agree. Let’s switch it up a bit. Don’t worry, the next steps of the operation will be more inventive. After all, I have all the time in the world, and you have so many body parts for me to toy with.”
The scalpels and a variety of other tools are put to use through the night. Hours pass in this hell, but to her, it feels like an eternity. Tendons are cut, muscles are removed, bones are broken. And then it gets taken away like it never happened. She experiences being crippled, mutilated, violated in ways she never thought possible, brought to the brink of death. And then, her wounds disappear, as if the Doctor waved them away with a magic wand. The only traces of them are left in her memories and in bodily fluids going down the drain on the floor.
And then it happens all over again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again.
Recommended music: https://youtu.be/T_vk_VyFne4
“Ready to strike?”
“Yes, sir.”
The Lair of Doctor Hurtsteal was surrounded, its location revealed thanks to the tracker Nemian planted on her assistant. A special unit of police and capes, prepared specifically to take him down, has just finished the final preparations. A group of Heroes chosen because their powers gave them a shot at apprehending him. A team of operatives there to tear down any obstacle in their path and create the opening they need. They were ready to pounce.
The infiltration started quietly. Covering the multiple entrances of the Lair, they cut off every possible exit that the villain might want to take. Silently, they cleared room after room, taking down any henchmen in their path.
Finally, they reached the interrogation room where Doctor Hurtsteal was. They got a drop on him. One of the capes was able to disrupt the power of other shards. Normally, Hurtsteal was able to undo the effects that the powers of others had on him, but now he was only able to lessen their effect.
A race began. Will he be able to reduce the power disruption enough to nullify it? Or will the other heroes be able to capture him first in his weakened state? The battle began. It didn’t take long, but it did take some sacrifices, however, the side of good did turn out to be stronger that day.
A splendid victory it was. Anna Fortune was rescued, her body only slightly damaged at the time the raid took place. Along with her, many other captives held in the Lair were freed, though not all of them were as lucky as Miss Fortune.
A serious blow was struck against the Dread Conglomerate. The heroes could only hope it was the first one of many.
Recommended music: https://youtu.be/HMnrl0tmd3k
“It has been three weeks since the apprehension of Doctor Hurtsteal, his trial is set to take pla-“
“Radio off. Sorry, Anna. I know it must be difficult for you. Are you sure you’re ready to get back to work?”
The automated systems in Nemian’s lab obediently fulfilled their master’s orders and turned off the news. The two women were looking at each other.
“Y-yes, miss Zellenin. I need this. This sort of normalcy. I can’t just wallow in misery. That’s when the nightmares strike.”
“If you ever need someone, know that I’m here for you.”
Nemian stepped closer to her assistant. She reached out in an attempt to comfort her, but Anna shied out away with terror in her eyes.
“I-I’m sorry. I’m still afraid of being touched. But I know I can overcome this. After all, you did so in the past.”
“It wasn’t comparable to what that creep did to you. You don’t need to compare yourself to others. If you ever need help-“
“I know. Thank you. I think your example is help enough, at least for now. I just need to be stronger, like you. I know I can… I can…”
Anna turned pale.
“Anna, what’s wrong? Do you want me to call someone?”
Miss Fortune’s eye turned downwards. Nemian’s followed.
A pool of scarlet was gathering at their feet. Anna was wearing open toe shoes that day. And now one toe on her right foot was separated from the rest of her, the wound being the source of the liquid on the floor.
And then another toe on her right foot fell off as if torn away. And then one on her left foot followed suit.
Anna collapsed. Nemian caught her in her arms before she could hit the ground.
“I-I’m scared, Miss Zellenin. Help me. Please.”
As if letters being carved, a writing appeared on Miss Fortune’s forehead.
[The Dread Conglomerate sends their regards.]
As Nemian started to call for a doctor, more and more wounds opened on Miss Fortune. She screamed as her body exploded in a fountain of gore. It didn’t take long for her to go quiet again.
When the help arrived, they found Nemian sitting on the floor and sobbing softly. She rocked back and forth. The lab and its owner were painted red with blood and viscera. The remains still held in the arms of the hero were barely recognizable as human.