Doctor of Ire

Edgar had seen the sight with his eyes during his sixteenth year. His mother had been healthy once, but that was before the disease took over her body and made her look like a living skeleton. She was horrid to look at--her skin was pale, and a constant trickle of blood flowed from her lips. Edgar was always told to stay in another room to avoid contracting the disease, but he always wanted to view his mother and see what would happen to her as time went on. During her final days, she just stopped functioning. It was apparent that the woman his father married was long gone. The doctor said it was "death by consumption."

After her death, Edgar found that he could not entirely cope. Something was preventing the sadness from appearing. Instead, he felt rage, and general anger towards the very thought that a simple molecule could take a life. He even had a strange feeling of determination, as if that same something that was giving him rage was giving him a path to potentially stop the disease. It was as if he had two different things telling him what to do with his life, and they each seemed to have control. When he told his father, he decided to give Edgar's thoughts their own identities: Grim was his rage and sadness. Pleasant was his determination and everyday thoughts.

Scarily enough, he sometimes thought that Grim and Pleasant took "sides" in his mind at the same time: There were times where he felt Grim want to stop the pain of seeing dying patients, but there were times he felt his consciousness literally "snap" back to Pleasant and resume his thoughts of determining the causes of his patients' illnesses. That had happened almost four times. When he went to bed after an event, he'd have a strange dream. In the dream, there were reports of screaming from the infirmary. The nurses would rush over, but they would always be too late: the only glimpse they got of a perpetrator was a strange, semi-bipedal creature with dirty hair and a snout of pointed teeth. It would growl at the nurses and flee through a window, leaving behind a corpse drenched in blood.

Then Edgar would wake up from the nightmare, completely unclothed and sprawled within his bedsheets with traces of blood on his fingernails. He never really thought much of it. When he had company stay the night with him, they often said he had a habit of digging into his arms with his nails. They said it was as if he was cold and desperately trying to warm up. Sometimes he thought they were covering something up for him, but he never doubted his neighbors. What Edgar knew for sure was that the dreams must have been real--an extent. It was always because of one strange factor. If he went to work that day, he would find the broken window in one of the rooms, broken exactly as it had in the dream. Edgar always had something else to do, though, and he pushed the thought and dream to the back of his mind. From there, his day would begin. - Edgar looked up from his seat in his study and stared at the painting of the landscape: his fiancée, Viviane, had created for him on the day of his twentieth birthday. The painting itself was his definition of perfection. What spoke to him the most was the fact that she had painted a boy with scruffy, messy brown hair, a pallor, and light blue eyes that seemed alive and glowing constantly. He didn't need to guess who it was, considering he had the same features.

His childhood was pleasant, to say the least. As for his teen hood, he preferred not to speak of it, and considered it rather grim. Mentioning his mother and consumption in general was enough to send him in a melancholic state for almost a week at a time. When that happened, it was usually Viviane who made him feel better. He felt cared for in her hands, as if she were the sister he never had.

There was a gentle knock at the door. "Come in," Edgar called out. The door creaked open as a pale lavender dress appeared within the frame. When the figure closed the door, Edgar got a good look at it. The dress was worn by a black-haired, ivory-skinned maiden. "My, my, Edgar, your study does look lovely." She said as she scanned the room. "You even hung my painting where I told you to hang it. I like that." Edgar turned to Viviane and gave her a soft kiss. He loved her, even if she wasn't entirely a human. Then again, he wasn't either.

"How has your day been, my love?" He asked, smiling slightly. Viviane blushed a bit. She was notorious for being very shy. "My day has been fine, Edgar. I was looking for some mint to help you with your tonics. If I'm not mistaken, mint helps with rhinitis, and I figured you could use some help." Edgar nodded. "It does help. My father taught me that long ago, before I moved from the country to here. He was not exactly a doctor, but he was considered an apothecary during his youth. I guess that my being a doctor has something to do with that."

Viviane's eyes widened. "Impressive, Edgar. I must say--"

Suddenly, she began to cough. The maiden pulled out a handkerchief and gave a set of hacks into it. Edgar began to look concerned. "My love, are you alright?" Viviane nodded, trying not to show concern towards what she had coughed into. "I should probably leave. If I'm getting sick, I don't want to infect you." They said their goodbyes and Viviane placed the handkerchief on Edgar's desk, unaware that Edgar was studying it profusely. Specifically, he was studying the dark crimson stain that had splotched onto the center where she had coughed. As he looked at it, he thought he felt Grim "snap" into control. - Exhausted after rushing home, Viviane lay in bed. She was very uncomfortable, her entire body feeling unusually warm. She was glad to see Edgar, but felt bad that she had to leave before viewing his entire study. Edgar was always welcoming of others to see where he determined diseases using research, but today something was different. She didn't feel safe in her own home, and what made it worse was that she lived alone. She wanted Edgar there, but she didn't want to risk him getting sick at all. She knew she had some form of a disease if she was coughing up blood. All she knew of that was that it probably didn't mean anything good, but Edgar would make her better. She was sure of it. Suddenly, scratches were heard by her door. She didn't dare open it, but the force on the other side spoke for itself. The door burst down to the floor, and in came a monster. "Aieeee!" Viviane screeched as she clutched her blanket tighter. The creature lurked around the room, snarling at her presence as it trudged on twos. In the dim moonlight, she could make out prominent features about it: the creature had tousled brown hair, an elongated, wolfish snout or muzzle filled with pointed teeth, and had a slight hunch to its back. There was something, though, that caught Viviane's attention just as it pounced on her.

It had Edgar's eyes. - Edgar woke with a start. Another nightmare. ''Damn, when will these things stop? ''He thought to himself. Once again, his fingers had traces of blood. Then he remembered. Viviane was coughing profusely yesterday, and he noticed blood on her handkerchief. He refused to believe it was consumption, even as he got out of bed and washed his hands. He would prove it by visiting her. She would be fine. Everything would be fine. Then he would go to work and do more research, and Viviane would come back to his study and help with his research. It was only a dream. He was sure of it.

And yet... He couldn't stop crying, as if he knew deep down, she wasn't.