Chapter 3: Hope in Madness

It had been three days since Doctor William Witherbark last visited the home of Erica Rivers and he knew he would have to go back there any day now. It wasn’t something he was looking forward to, but it had become a necessary task to fall on his plate as none of the other doctors had the patience or perseverance to deal with Erica. Especially in recent years as she was growing increasingly agitated and hostile. The weekly meeting between the four doctors of Willowcreak was coming up where they were going to discuss how to move forward with Molly’s treatment. Normally there would be more patients to discuss the long term treatments of, but in the last few weeks the medical centre had been empty of patients, something which was likely to change as the winter months approached.

That was of course not what he had told Erica, these days he simply told her whatever would possibly keep her from exploding in anger. In truth the doctors feared treating poor Molly. Never in their lives had they seen anything like what she was suffering from. All the research they had done had come up with nothing that would help her either, but that was not something they could tell Erica. If she gave up hope then Molly’s life was over, and all their efforts in searching for a cure would be for nothing.

“Mornin’.” A tired looking elven doctor said as she stepped into the staff only section of the clinic. She wore a blue robe similar to his own, which complimented her blue eyes well. Her long, blonde hair was tied up into a bun, showing off her long ears which reached almost to the top of her head. While she could surely be considered beautiful, William found her rather distasteful. People said that ‘beauty is on the inside’, and with that in mind Lore’leia was hideous. It sure didn’t help that her name was similar to that of the goddess of death either.

“Good morning.” William responded quickly while frantically searching his mind for something he could say to end the conversation before she said something insensitive as usual, he didn’t have the energy for her antics this morning. “The others are here already, we should be able to get the meeting started early.”

“Good, because I got some news regarding young Molly… Or, the institute does at least.” Lore’leia said in an almost monotone voice.

“Oh?” William asked with genuine interest.

“Yeah, they figured out what she is suffering from, and it isn’t good. There are a few more cases in the kingdom too, but all of them are adults so it seems to have taken a bit longer for them to show symptoms.”

“Wait, are you serious?” William then asked, for once actually interested in what Lore’leia had to say.

“Yes, they call it ‘Night Pox’, it is apparently some ancient plague from long before the beginning of recorded time. All the documents on it are in terrible condition as well as in dead languages, and it seems they took this long to find it because it was in the restricted section of the Endron library. As well as how they didn’t take the search seriously until some famous archaeologist started showing symptoms.”

“So, is there a cure?” William then asked, genuinely hoping for there to be one. Perhaps then young Molly could actually have a future where she wasn’t bedridden or in unimaginable pain.

“Quite the opposite actually, from what they have managed to translate it seems everyone who had it died quite brutally, while in a lot of pain. It kept people suffering for many years before it finally killed them... The institute thinks the archaeologist dug up something that should have stayed in the ground, though no one knows how Molly got it. It is quite the mystery really, since the dig site is far from here and none of the participating diggers have been within 200 miles of Willowcreak.”

William let out an audible sigh before he went quiet for a minute or two. With such a mystery in place it wouldn’t take long before the institute came here, though thankfully this likely meant that he wouldn’t have to deal with Erica Rivers anymore. Though he could not help but ask himself which of the two would be more of a pain to deal with. He wanted to take out his pipe and smoke to calm his nerves, but he knew he couldn’t do that here. It would have to wait until after the meeting. “I assume they are doing their best on looking for a cure? With their seemingly unlimited resources it shouldn’t be that hard for them to get to work on it, right?” He asked once he gathered the strength to break the silence.

“I am not so sure… I’ll explain during the meeting, go and get the others.” She ordered while waving her hand dismissively.

“Alright then.” William responded, more than happy to not have to be alone with Lore’leia any longer. He quickly headed further into the building to find the remaining two doctors which were thankfully much more pleasant to be around. The first of the two was not difficult to find, as he found the man with his nose deep in a book in his usual spot at the back of the break room. His black curls were tucked behind his ears and there was a sparkle in his brown eyes which made it seem like he was reading something interesting. Riley considered himself quite the romantic, and had a tendency to read soapy, fictional novels of heroines and forbidden love. While William couldn’t read the title from this distance, the cover of the book told him that this was something he could possibly find his wife reading.

“We need you in the meeting room Riley.” William stated loudly, tearing the man from his focus on the pages before him. While the man was rather lazy, he was likely the kindest of the doctors in this town.

“Huh, already?” He asked with a touch of disappointment in his voice.

“Yes, we have apparently gotten news from the institute and Lore’leia wants to start the meeting early.” William explained calmly. If he found anyone else slacking off like this he would be rather annoyed, but Riley had an attitude and an aura that made it incredibly difficult to be mad or annoyed with him.

“Alright, can’t be helped then I guess.” He said as he placed a colourful bookmark with a plethora of flowers on it inside the book before closing it.

“Have you seen Penelope by the way? I need to go get her for the meeting as well.”

“Yeah, she’s in the garden I believe. At least she yelled at me for napping there earlier this morning.” Riley chuckled as he got up from his seat.

“Alright, thank you. I’ll see you in the meeting room in a few minutes then.” William said and quickly headed off towards the garden. The building was rather small and consisted mostly of confusing hallways which William now knew like the palm of his hand. At the centre of it all was a herbal garden where Penelope had taken charge of growing a plethora of medicinal herbs, roots and flowers. While it was refreshing to see someone not give up on this profession despite living in a world where magic could cure most diseases, it didn’t raise William’s spirits much. His entire livelihood depended on the common folk not being able to afford to pay the holy warriors and priests for their services and taking money from the poor was not something he prided himself in. At least this was not what he had in mind when he set out to enter this profession. The only thing that kept his profession afloat was the limitations on healing magic, as well as how they had yet discovered a way to magically mend broken bones. For a few years now he had considered trying to change career paths into that of a herbalist or alchemist, but there was no way he would be able to find the energy to dig his nose back into some kind of education or apprenticeship.

He had considered asking the small woman sitting in the grass before him to teach him the basics of herbalism, but figured they weren’t close enough for him to ask her for such a favour. Penelope was surprisingly short for a human, which she begrudgingly blamed on her ancestors. While she was normally sweet and innocent to the point of almost being child-like in her personality, she was likely the most intelligent of the doctors of Willowcreak, and the feistiest one as well. If someone had foolishly called her short she would verbally tear them a new one through a barrage of insults before they’d even have a chance to react, as if some caged away little devil had been unleashed within her.

Her hazelnut brown hair was braided in a long braid which fell over one of her shoulders, and her round glasses were perked up high on her thin nose, their thick spectacle frames almost making it impossible to see her brown eyes from this angle. “Hey Penelope, Lore’leia wants us in the meeting room early. Seems we got a letter from the institute.”

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“Oh? What could they want with little ole’ Willowcreak?” She asked curiously without looking up at him as she was carefully uprooting a red flower with large petals.

“Seems they figured out what Molly has, and it doesn’t sound good.” William responded with a sigh.

“Please don’t tell me the institute is coming here…” Penelope frowned somewhat, after having finally turned her gaze to William.

“I’m not sure, I guess that is what Lore’leia is planning to tell us. It seems urgent so how about we head over there and get started?”

“Alright then, hopefully there will be some good news for Molly in that letter. No child deserves what she is going through…” Penelope said and quickly placed the uprooted plant in a small clay pot before taking many small hurried steps after William. Without any more words exchanged they made it to the waiting room where Riley and Lore’leia were already waiting, sitting on opposite sides of the meeting room table in an awkward silence.

“Finally, let’s get this meeting over with.” Lore’leia said and threw an opened letter to the centre of the table. “You guys are not going to like the contents of this, but I think it is unavoidable that the institute will be coming here now.”

William picked up the letter and quickly skimmed through it, not even bothering to hide the frown on his face as he read through its contents. “What does it say?” Penelope asked before William was even half way through it, though Lore’leia spoke up as if to purposefully ignore Penelope.

“They also sent us this.” She said and took a stack of papers out of her bag. “Basically, it is all they have managed to translate from those old documents regarding Night Pox. The symptoms fit really well with what Molly is dealing with, and judging from all this it looks like it will only get worse with time. They aren’t going to allow her to stay in Willowcreak, that is for sure.”

“Can I see those?” William responded as he handed the letter to Riley, motioning for him to pass it onto Penelope when he was done.

“Of course.” Lore’leia said and slid the documents over. Sure enough, she was right. This ‘Night Pox’ was basically a ticking time bomb using Molly as some strange incubator. Once the incubation period was over it would grow increasingly contagious and conquer the entire town within a few days.

The blisters filled with the strange, thick, black liquid, abdominal pain, muscle pain, migraines, strange nightmares and visions which with time would turn into hallucinations, fatigue, loss of muscle strength, nausea and the list of symptoms went on. The worst of all being the inevitable failing of the patients organs, as the disease caused them to decay. The reports spoke of how the autopsies of those who suffered from Night Pox had revealed that their organs had taken on the same black colour as the night sky, hence where it got its name from. There had been no recorded recoveries from this illness.

With a heavy heart and an audible sigh he passed the reports on to Riley, who had now long since passed the letter over to Penelope who looked really sad at the letters contents.

“Now if I am to be honest, no matter what happens from here Molly dies.” Lore’leia said nonchalantly in a tone that pissed William off somewhat, even if he knew she was right. “Either she is turned into the institute's labrat and dies in their dark, damp basement after months of suffering… or we do her a favour and put her down before the institute gets here.”

“Do you have to talk about her as if she was some kind of dog?” Penelope said in a somewhat annoyed voice as she put the letter back down on the table.

“It is not like how I refer to her will make a difference to the situation.” Lore’leia shrugged and leaned back in her chair.

“Shouldn’t we leave that decision to her mother?” Riley asked in a worried tone, clearly highly uncomfortable with the conversation.

“Oh come on, you honestly think that woman can make a rational decision after all these years?” Lore’leia swiftly interrupted. “You know what will happen if we tell her? She’ll grab her kid and run. What happens next? The stress Molly would be experiencing will drastically shorten the little remaining incubation period and if the two of them manage to outrun the military we would be dealing with this shit on a much larger scale. Now of course that won’t happen, because the institute will pay good money to hire wizards who will use magic to track her down. Molly will become the institute’s rat and Erica will spend the rest of her life in a prison cell. The least we can do is give them the least awful of a plethora of awful options.”

Silence had filled the room as none of the other doctors had anything else to say. Lore’leia was right, but that hadn’t made any of this any easier. Several minutes of silence went on as Penelope was finally handed the reports for her to read through. Halfway through the stack of papers she spoke up. “Is there really nothing we can do?”

“You are welcome to try.” Lore’leia said dismissively. “You are more than welcome to become the first to be infected once the incubation period is over.”

“So what do we do? Are we really going to kill a kid?” William spoke up to take the attention off Penelope as she looked as though she was about to start crying.

“Killing a kid, killing an adult, there isn’t much difference. At least for you humans, your life spans are so insignificantly short either way. People die every single day, this one death won’t make a difference.”

“All life has value and meaning.” William said as guilt filled his voice. “Besides, I promised Erica we would do everything in our power to help Molly…”

“And we did just that, but clearly only the gods can do something about this. Which they seem to have chosen not to do, so what can we do? We’ve worked hard to try and save this kid for years, it is time to let natural selection do its thing.” Lore’leia shrugged.

“How did we end up with a Night Pox case here anyways?” Riley quickly changed the topic, his skin so pale he might as well have seen a ghost.

“No one knows, that is why the institute is coming here. Other than to pick up Molly of course.” Lore’leia quickly responded.

“So there really is no escaping them now I guess…” Penelope said with a saddened sigh.

“Now if we are to get back on topic…” Lore’leia began speaking in an arrogant tone. “I would suggest poisoning her. We can make it relatively painless and give her a few more days to live depending on which we choose, this way we can also suggest it to the Rivers family as an experimental treatment. Erica would have to sign a consent form for that as well, much to our benefit.”

The room went silent again, as no one wanted to agree to Lore’leia’s suggestions, yet no one could disagree with her either. The amount of suffering awaiting Molly was unimaginable, and the more time passed the worse it would get. “Okay…” Penelope said after several moments of silence, which came to the surprise of everyone. “As much as I hate to say it… putting Molly out of her misery seems like the… least awful thing to do…” She stopped mid sentence several times as if to find the least insensitive phrasing to this awful situation or possibly to process the words leaving her mouth. “Letting her end up in the hands of the institute is out of the question in my opinion, and letting Erica run off with Molly could risk the lives of not just the entire nation but the entire continent…”

“If this is what we have to do, what is the most painless way we could go about it? For Molly’s sake.” Riley added in an uncomfortable tone.

“And… who's going to do it?” Penelope asked nervously.

“William of course.” Lore’leia answered nonchalantly.

“And why is that?” William quickly asked, increasingly frustrated with the decisions that were being taken without him.

“Because you are the one Erica trusts the most out of us, as well as the only one who can remotely stand her. Riley lacks the balls to keep a straight face, Penelope won’t be able to lie where she is needed too, and Erica isn’t even going to let me through the front door.” Lore’leia spoke in her normal, carefree attitude.

“And what if I don’t want to? What if I think we should consult Erica?” William then asked, despite already knowing the answer. Though part of him hoped Lore’leia wouldn’t know, just to put her in her place somewhat.

“Because otherwise you can have fun dealing with the consequences that follow on your own. Once Molly starts being contagious, if even a single person is infected the institute might involve the crown… and then, well… I can’t imagine anything that follows being fun for anyone involved. I’ll enjoy reading about you in the newsletters, as the man who ‘endangered the nation’. You’ll make quite the headline.”

“Fine, fine. I get it... prepare something I can inject her with and I can get it done tomorrow. Though you better make it painless.” William responded as he stood up and prepared to leave. His own words made him want to throw up and he felt as though he needed a bathroom, a smoke and a deep breath of fresh air. Was he really doing this? Had he sunk this low?

“I’ll do my utmost, and let’s all agree that the rest of the town hears nothing of this, shall we?” Lore’leia added as she stood up. “Remember, we are doing this not just for Molly, but also for the safety of the kingdom.”