Plague Doctor

Translator: Lonelytree

The thunder crackled and rain poured, it casted a layer of shadow over Warsong in the dream world. In stark contrast, there was a rowdy celebration in front of the old manor.

“Itoch, the Carlot Doctors are here!” The mayor who led the group sang out happily. He was a slightly rotund middle-aged man, the joy on his face could rival that of the young man, in fact the whole group was rapt in good cheer. Whenever they chanced a look behind them, their eyes were filled with respect. However for Gu Jun and Wu Siyu, the doctors were merely blurry human cut-outs. This seemed to suggest that the young watcher had not encountered any single Carlot Doctor in his life and thus there was this emptiness in his dream.

“Mayor, everyone…” The young watcher called Itoch staggered forward. His tongue was tied when he faced those doctors, “Sirs and madams, nice to meet you, it is our privilege to have met you. This, this is… like a dream…” The blurry shadows did not reply, it was probably because the watcher had not interacted with the real Carlot Doctors before and the respect he had for them was so deep that he did not dare to even put words in their mouths in his dream.

On the other hand, Gu Jun and Wu Siyu walked out from the house and this time the watcher did not stop them. After all, the Carlot Doctors were already here, all of them were going to be saved. However, based on the previous entry in the watcher’s diary, when the Carlot Doctors arrived at Warsong, all they did was to bury the victims. It would be impossible to imagine how disappointed the young watcher was then, and how much deeper that disappointment cut when he realized he had been infected by the disease himself. But this in itself was a contradiction. If the Carlot Doctors had really arrived at the young watcher’s hometown, then the watcher should have no problem envisioning their faces in his dream. Therefore, Gu Jun could not help but ask, ‘Was the entries in the watcher’s diary even real in the first place?’

‘The diary is a product of this nightmare,’ Gu Jun percolated, ‘Perhaps it has been embellished and edited to record the worst, most painful and horrifying retelling of the actual story.’

Right then, Wu Siyu whispered to Gu Jun, “Is it possible for him to see the real Carlot Doctors? That should bring a real smile to his face.”

“I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to try…” Gu Jun said and was about to do something but he saw a new entry had been added into the diary on its own, “Every single one of them was extremely kind, even the Son of Steel, Landon. They even praised me for my contribution in controlling the epidemic by standing guard at my post! That was truly the proudest moment of my life. How I wish I could run home to tell my whole family about this but I could not bring myself to be away from their presence. I would not miss any chance to spend time with these chosen of the Goddess. It was such a wonderful time.

“But what happened next pulled everything back into hell…”

Suddenly, Gu Jun was assaulted by an intense headache. Wu Siyu could sense the change in the atmosphere, the thunder boomed and a murder of crows cawed from inside the jungle. They weathered the storm and flew into the dark sky.

“Be careful…” Gu Jun told Wu Siyu warningly, “There is another force which is trying to wrestle control over this dream.” The cawing of the crows pierced through the thunder, it sounded like a lullaby from hell. Behind them, all the rooms in all the three floors inside the old manor lit up in yellowing lights!

For the young watcher, the manor and the other villagers, the joy on their faces turned into shock and then finally into terror. The watcher gasped, “Mr. Chandler… what, what are those things?”

Gu Jun turned around and narrowed his eyes. He saw that behind the foyer window of the second floor stood a cluster of shadows, their shapes suggesting a gathering of both adults and children. In the middle of the shadows, there was a particularly curious figure, its limbs appeared to have mutated. With a shattering boom, the foyer window on the second floor cracked, giving the gathered group below a clearer view of the faces of these shadowy figures… They were the dead bodies from the gallery. The stitched smiles on their faces were creepy and their supposedly dead eyes appeared to be lit up with some strange life force. It felt as if some kind of unknown soul had been shoved into these hollow shells. Gu Jun could recognize the figure in the middle, it was Ol’ Uncle Dog, his withered bark-like face had no expression.

“So no more tricks?” Gu Jun hissed through his teeth, the fury burned through his veins. “Finally you have deigned to show yourself?”

Ol’ Uncle Dog did not reply but the carcasses around him groaned in this strange throaty voice, “Child, you think you have arrived at the truth but you have no idea what our great plan is, and you are no close to fathoming our purpose. You do not realize that every single psychological pain gathered here is used to cultivate a presence greater than all of us.”

“This dream has to be a nightmare,” Ol’ Uncle Dog suddenly spoke. “And the Carlot Doctors have to be hated creatures.”

“And you will have all the time in the world to understand why because this nightmare shall be your grave.” The bodies’ voices suddenly picked up and they continued into the chanting of a spell. Their surroundings started to change once more!

Every single rain drop carried with them a different version of the same nightmare. Gu Jun, Wu Siyu and the watcher were instantly overwhelmed by them… The trio appeared to have been sucked into a whirlpool, one made up of the twisted pain of the souls trapped within the old manor.

In one moment, they were posited in the foyer of the second floor. The lights were dim, next to them, the corridors on both sides extended endlessly into the darkness. The endless corridor was filled with endless rooms. Every room was locked and a palpable darkness could be felt trapped behind each door. As they were dragged down the corridor, they could hear different maddening shrieks coming from inside,

“No, don’t do this to me!”

“Why, why has this happened to me?!”

“Save me!”

The deranged wails swam over the chanting of the carcasses. There were millions of different language but they were all saying the same thing,

“You have walked through the first room,

Walked through the 100th room,

Walked through the 1000th room,

Walked through the 10000th room,

You will never escape this place,

You are not an inmate of this nightmare, you are the nightmare itself!”

At that moment, the young watcher gripped his head and his face became wet with tears. Endless images surged into his mind, his hometown shrouded in darkness, the giant hole dug outside the village, the storm that would never abate, the patients being kicked into the hole and the patients screaming with madness as they jumped into the darkness embracing it. The patients, the patients were people that he knew, they were the owner of the tavern, the farmer in the field, they were his family, his friend, the girls whom he had silly crushes on…

This town was meant for destruction from the very beginning, there was nothing he could do to stop it. He was too weak, too small. The so-called Carlot Doctors were just figments of his imagination… a tortured imagination that would repeat itself and never end. The Carlot Doctors had never been to Warsong.

“Hallucinations, hallucinations… None of this is real.” The young watcher was shivering. The blurry shadows behind them had all started to shake, showing signs of collapsing.

“No, Itoch, the Carlot Doctors are really here.” Gu Jun said comfortingly. He moved his left thumb and index finger with difficulty to push at the fingertip of his pinkie. The sharp jolt of pain shocked his mind into action. He took out the Carlot Scalpel and opened the incomplete page of spell book in his mind. This was just a try but he had a feeling that it would work.

He channelled his mental power into the page, and transplanted the notes left behind by Landon and the illusion inherent within it into the watcher’s diary, into this dream. A surge of energy flowed through him, it was the power of the Son of Steel, it lent a determination to Gu Jun’s eyes.

“See, they are standing right there. Even I can recognize them. That is Teacher Orlem, this here is Pedra Raybundy, and that is Landon, the Son of Steel!”

A booming thunder eclipsed the chanting for a moment! Wu Siyu saw in surprise the change and so did Ol’ Uncle Dog and the carcasses on the second floor. The blurry shadows that were almost collapsing suddenly gathered in light, the brightness forced even the crows back. The shadows materialized into corporeality. There were both males and females, they were dressed in clean and pure white robes. Some of them carried medical bags and others tools. All of their details had been filled in. Each of their faces could be seen clearly.

Even for Gu Jun, he was seeing some of these faces for the first time.

The howling cry had stopped. The despairing face of the young watcher was once again filled with the rays of hope.