THE 19TH CENTURY
I.
A new morning has dawned. I am writing these letters into my trusty book, mere hours after our departure from the river. What has transpired is still shaking my bones. My heart appears to always skip a second, teetering my already frail body to the edge of the sweet oblivion gazing back at me. My hands are sweaty, and I am surprised of myself to write these words down even. But I have to of fear that my mind may not have any other way to be put at ease.
I, Jasmine Polter, am of sound my mind and health, and shall start at the beginning.
II.
This tale starts with a man. His name was Harold Roberts — even to speak of this man with a name, O Lord — and he was ordinary like any other. Born to parents that settled for the rural life, Harold decided to venture to the more illustrious corners of this world by exploring the big city. With nothing more than a few pennies — barely enough nowadays for such a simple thing as horse carriage — he took in work at the first few factories that cropped up in the land. He would work, day in, day out, at this hell upon earth to just scratch barely enough for the next morning. A fact most troublesome, but even moreso with the prospect of a child, for this man had found himself a beautiful woman he fell in love with.
Their child would soon come and they would name the son Arthur. This little family would try to survive in this ever-changing landscape. Harold remained a factory worker, another gear in the death machine that was society, and the son would grow to be quite a curious scholar. Indeed, Arthur would sit under the trees and read up on any books that he could buy, and he would get enthralled by the stories of unimaginable beasts and faraway worlds. And although the father would not have much time, he always put aside some time to talk to his son about the books he was reading and read a few books with him.
Then Harold became very ill. It did not look good for Harold and his family; the wife, now just as old as he had grown, crying a river; and the son heartaching. To find any sort of hope for their loved one's health they contacted a doctor of the great London for help, who was me.
I fancy myself as a scholar, an explorer of which no man dared to explore. Maybe I am brave, maybe I am foolish. For whatever the case may be, despite my taste for the unknown having always been part of my very roots, I can never forget my starting point. A doctor of the health who helped those people in need.
As the family led me into the bedroom of the man, I could not help myself, but feel a strange atmosphere in the air. It was as if death itself had nested its long, cold fingers into the farthest corners of the room and was looking down upon all of us. I sat down next to Harold, he who was bedstricken and could barely move a muscle. I inspected the man, the wife and son holding each other dearly right to the left of me. When I lay my eyes on the man, there was something amiss about him. About every aspect of him. It looked as though his blood had turned into oil; the eyes into depthless pits; the arms and legs mere twigs; and the breaths of sounds of a dying engine. For what I can add, too, is what I saw in those eyes, or rather lack of something thereof.
Years I have spent exploring the mystical and arcane. Legendry of all sorts popped up in whatever detestable locales I had found myself in on my travels. Some tales were more believable than others, while some others only received a slight wandering thought from me. My mind was open to whatever people had to say, but I did not believe everything. Because, for every sighting of a haunting deep in the woods, there was a person that draped themselves in sheets to spook whoever was stupid enough to actually believe their tale and then laugh their behinds off. That was why my thoughts on the human soul were less than favorable, at least from the religious community. I believe, and still stand by it, that all we as human beings are are only sacks of flesh and bone, strung together by chemicals and electrical impulses. No higher forms. No realm of light or of fire and eternal damnation. We are just animals, and that is all there is to us.
But, by God, what I saw in the man's eyes was an abyss. An inky, black abyss of where you feel there should be something, but there was nothing. A soulless husk that somehow was still clutching onto the threads of this realm, unable to move on. That put the fear of God Himself into me.
Of course, I still proceeded with my check-ups, although definitely more anxious than when I had not looked into the eyes of the man. Suffice it to say that, despite all my efforts, I was unable to pinpoint exactly what was wrong with Harold. I told the prospect to the family. The wife, her name was Matilda I recall, leaked tears onto the bed covers, before storming out of the room. Arthur just stood there, a blank expression on his face. He looked at his father, never resting his eyes on me, before he followed the path of his mother. As he walked out, he finally set his eyes on me; his gaze was piercing, like a bullet through the chest. He closed the door behind him.
III.
I had not heard any correspondence of the family for the next few days. It troubled me deeply, for although I had tried my best, I knew that that was not enough respite for the family that was slowly withering away from the roots. Honest to say that I saw myself somehow responsible for the pain they were feeling; was I not a doctor? What help was my help of really? It did not save this poor man, who had never done anything to anyone in his entire life; why did he need to die? As mentioned earlier, God, or any conceptions of a soul, were not beliefs I sided with, but I caught myself praying that at least the man's death would be a quiet, peaceful one.
The next day, after what had been a week of absolute silence, a letter came in at my abode. I live near the center of the heart of London, a balcony right over the Thames river. From morning till the starry night I see ships with their foreign cargo pass by. My mind wanders; what curiosities may be in those crates? What stories do each of them have? It is quite a sight for such an imaginative thinker as myself, and for that I am grateful.
The letter was wrapped in simple parchment. I opened the cover and retrieved the main body inside. It was short, of the fewest of words. It read as follows:
Dear Doctor,
Please come visit me.
Yours sincerely,
Arthur K. Roberts
It was the young scholar Arthur. They wanted that I come see them, which I found oddly curious. For was it not I that had declared his father as dead already? And had it not been days already? Or had they found a cure, but why want me present for when they had pursued and found other methods? Those were all the questions that had run through my mind at the time, and ones I should have thought a bit harder about. But I was stricken by a guilty conscience. I needed to be present, for that was all they could ask for. For that was all I could do for them.
I wrapped myself in the thickest of coats I had, put on my boots and took my umbrella with me as one could already see the dark storm clouds on the horizon. A fresh breeze passed me by when I stepped out of my home and I shivered down to my core. Yet it was not because it was cold, far from it. Rather, I was overtaken by this deep feeling of dread. Something was brewing up on the horizon. I shook the feeling off and headed towards the place.
IV.
The doors to the Roberts abode creaked open. Behind the door stood Arthur, still dressed in the same attire I had seen him in last week. Strange, I thought, and put no further thought to the matter. Of course, with the gift of hindsight, everything about Arthur seemed strange. His mannerisms, all sudden and jerky; his clothes, roughed-up and dirty; and this weird smile that seemed too large and out of place for the occasion. And not only was there something quite odd with Arthur, but also his home. It was tidy — as best as one could keep it for such a low-earning family — when I had first entered, but now the walls were covered in some sort of substance — which I had believed was mud at the time — and the floorboards had splinters in them.
I asked Arthur what the occasion was — something he had not told me when I initially arrived — and his grin seemed to grow wider. He pointed upstairs. "It is my father," he said, "who has miraculously recovered! Well… not yet. But you will see, doctor… Please, I ask of you, check on him." I was skeptical. I did not believe a man could just recover from something as grave as that man was stricken with, even lesser so in the span of just a week. But I could not refuse as those expectant eyes stared at me and I did not want to disappoint. So I went up the stairs and entered the same bedroom Harold had been in the last time I had seen him.
The blinds were drawn shut, allowing no sunlight to pass through the windows. This caused me to stumble and nearly trip a couple of times, trying to navigate my way towards the bed. Arthur stood at the doorframe.
"He lies there. In his bed. Just like last time."
I felt a shiver go down my spine. When I took a closer look at Harold's face, with the little light there was that was shining through, to my surprise, nothing had changed. Harold was still this husk. I guess there was a part of me that desperately wanted to be proven false. That the world was not as harsh and unforgiving as I believed it to be, and that there really was a divine creator that had gifted the man a second chance to live. But I was wrong. So horribly, horribly wrong.
Before I could utter even a word, I had heard the door shut behind me. With a resounding click of the lock, I knew I was trapped. I ran at the door, and banged and rattled against it with all my might, but it just would not budge. I remember the panic seeping into my bones. Then I remember the screaming for the panic only grew, and my lungs were aching. I remember that my hands were pulsating with pain every time I hit against the door. From the other side came Arthur's voice, whom I could tell had stemmed his own weight against the door. He was raving mad. "Father, O, father! We meet again! I have sinned, O yes. But you are alive again!"
Whence came a grotesque noise from behind me. A blistering, tearing sound. I looked to see an outline of something in the dim light. It was coming out of where Harold's head was. His body had tensed up, before it slumped into itself after whatever it was had departed from Harold's body. The body was like a mere chrysalis and that thing that had crawled out was the worm. In the light, it looked like one. Misshapen and bubbly its skin was, its face had very human contours. In fact, the face of the being that was barely bigger than an infant bore an uncanny resemblance with the face of Harold, covered in some slimy fluid. I felt my heart sink to the bottom.
"Live again, father! Live again!"
Its face retreated back into the shadows. The mass fell to the floor and spread out to crawl around, like an amoeba. It was only a few seconds, and the thing did not crawl for long, but in those couple of seconds, I had felt a greater fear than I had ever felt. By then I had already ceased my noisy administrations and was tip-toeing around the thing to the farthest corner opposite of wherever that thing was headed. Then the thing lunged at me.
It was so sudden that I basically had no time to react. It knocked me to the floor and was wrapping its slimy appendages up against my arms. I felt a searing pain whenever the creature so much as brushed past my skin. I was holding it off, that weirdly human face mere centimeters away from mine. I gathered the remaining strength I had still in my body and shoved it off to the side. I hastily got back up, grabbed for my umbrella and with a heavy thrust plunged it right through the creature's face. It felt soft and wet, and as the breath of the creature left its body, I took a deep, long breath. The walls and floor were now covered in that disgusting substance, myself included. It felt warm and sticky on my skin.
The door unlocked again and behind it stood Arthur, somehow horrified at the sight of the unmoving mass in the corner. His stance was trembling, I could see tears form in the boy's eyes. And then all of that sadness and horror turned into a blind rage, as the boy charged towards me. Me, already exhausted from the nightmarish encounter just moments prior, could do nothing but take the blows that he was delivering to my face. Still he was rambling mad as blood trickled down my face.
"You monster! How could you?! You are a disgrace to all humankind! How could you let my father die?!"
After each blow, I could feel my life waning. The pain was starting to numb my head, and I felt myself getting closer to the edge of oblivion. Arthur stopped his relentless assault all of a sudden. I looked up, my eyes covered in blood, to see what the reasoning was behind his ceasing. I received screams as an answer. Horrified, painful screams. I saw along his leg the misshapen mass, its wounds having reformed, and it was beginning to pour itself into his skin. He screamed some more. Now, I can only speculate what kind of hell spawn Arthur had conjured up in his years of reading up on books, some may having been more unorthodox and of a more otherwordly nature than others, but what I had seen that day was a parasite that had found its perfect host. I presume that was not Arthur's plan, that he had intended me to be the host for whatever he had transformed his father into. The thought frightens me.
He reached out a hand to me, me who was pressed up against the farthest corner of the room. As he gave his last breaths, which consisted solely of moaning and screaming, he finally slumped in on himself. I gave out a few trembling breaths as I expected the boy to rise again. And was surprised when he did not.
I ran out of the house to the nearest calling station. There I telephoned my dear friend McConway, with which I have lived through many dicey joints, more than I can recall. When he answered, he first asked me how my day was to which I immediately answered that he should arrive with a horse carriage and a casket as soon as possible. There was concern in his voice, I could tell, but he just accepted it and ended the correspondence. I stood as the first rain droplets started to fall and gazed back fearfully at the house.
V.
When McConway arrived, we brought the casket into the house and retrieved the body of Arthur Roberts upstairs. His body was light, lighter than what I had expected. We also loaded in what remained of the poor Harold, as what had remained of the man could not even be called remains at all. We then loaded the casket onto the carriage and started heading to the end of the Thames river. Once there, we sank the casket to the bottom of the river; I did not dare to do anything with the Arthur body, in fear of driving out the parasite. Better it remain trapped in a body not of its own, at a place where no one would ever find it.
I am now sitting on my balcony, looking at the stormy clouds. I have already called the authorities to the Roberts residence; I have heard that they have found the body of Matilda in the basement, descriptions matching the appearance of the remains of her late husband. Whatever that may imply, only the Lord knows. I am just thankful to have escaped that scenario still alive, and although my mind is waning, I know that what I have experienced is something I will never forget.
It haunts me in my sleep, and I can hear knocking from the casket in unrestful nights.
— Jasmine Polter
18XX