Hi all! This is a first draft of a short story I wrote for class during my fall 2021 semester. It is a really really really rough draft so be gentle. With that said, I am currently editing this short story and will be self publishing it soon on Amazon. When I do publish this piece I will be making a few blog posts about it leading up to the day I publish it. Feel free to use this story to practice your critiquing skills and if you like the story please let e know in the comments!
The Doctor
The woman writhed and screamed as she lay upon the table. Large, painful, pustules bursting across her arms and legs. The strange doctor, clothed in a mask shaped like the beak of a bird, and long, layered robes the color of a crow, stood next to her putting his gloves on and stuffing more medicinal herbs into the beak of the mask. The smell wafted through to his nostrils, making him feel light headed for a moment. The glass in the mask fogged up from his hot breath, causing the doctor to try and wipe away the condensation. He took a deep breath, ready to begin his work.
It was unclear if the strange woman before him suffered from the beginning stages of plague or demons, but the doctor knew that he still had to medically examine her before turning the woman over to the bloodthirsty priests. Their crimson robes were clearly stained with the blood of those they “helped”. The church had no problem blaming the gruesome scenes they left behind on demons and spirits. Obviously they would pretend to try and save the afflicted souls before gleefully decapitating and driving a stake through the heart of the “possessed” or burning them in the town square as a warning to any other demons that might be lurking around.
The doctor sighed as he started poking and prodding the woman with his stick so as not to touch her, just in case she did have the plague. He had his young assistant rub a healing ointment on the parts of the woman’s skin that was afflicted with the agonizing rash. The doctor knew it wouldn’t completely fix her skin, but at least it could help numb the agonizing pain that she was clearly in. Parts of her skin were already starting to turn black, yellow, and blue. The smell of decay had set in, most likely coming from the spots that were the most decomposed. The doctor winced, knowing full well that she was nothing but a living corpse, tormented by this unknown disease, waiting for her soul to depart.
In each new section the doctor prodded he watched the patient’s reactions, trying to gauge the levels of pain she felt in each section. It seemed to him that the closer he got to her heart the more pain she was in. As he moved closer and closer to the spot the doctor noticed something slithering beneath her skin. He prayed for parasites but knew that if the church saw this phenomenon that she’d be brutally executed within the hour
The doctor took out his scalpel, ready to make an incision to try and coax the parasites out. The first incision he made just above her left clavicle where he saw the slithering disappear. He waited a moment, nothing came out. Another incision on her sternum, not centered but skewed slightly to the right where he first saw the mystery creature slithering beneath her skin. Again nothing, the doctor placed some leeches on the cuts he made. Surely some intentional bleeding will help, and it was not uncommon for the doctor to find that the leeches would also suck out parasites along with disease.
After trying everything he could to remove the parasites he decided to watch and wait for the slithering to start once again. Just as he was about to give up the slithering thing rippled across the woman's stomach. This time there was no mistaking it for a parasite, it moved unlike anything he had seen before. The doctor poked hard at it, stopping the movement in its tracks. As the doctor did this he heard a disturbed hissing, like that of a snake, come from the woman. She rose from the table, her limbs bending and twisting unnaturally, her hair stood up on end like a gorgon about to strike, her eyes stark white with bloody tears pouring from the sockets. The doctor stumbled back in utter terror before regaining his composure and trying to lay her back down on the table. But before he could even place a hand on the woman she let out a terrible and almost demonic scream.
The scream was enough to break the glass on the windows, pelting them with the jagged shards. The woman contorted her body more, speaking in an ancient language that the doctor did not recognize. He knew Latin well and had been exposed to Greek as a child, but this was something much older, more primal. As the woman spoke her voice multiplied and became more fervent. Her hands rose towards the sky and in a spurt of blood bursting from her fingertips there protruded claws, long, dark, and razor-sharp. The doctor and his assistant gasped and fell back away from the woman as she fell forward onto her knees, as if forced there by an invisible entity.
Before the doctor and his assistant could process what happened a terrible sound filled the room and something unseen slashed across the woman’s body, leaving two large gashes forming vertically down her back. She wailed in agony as two large black wings sprouted from the wounds. They looked strong, thick with feathers. There was now no doubt in the doctor’s mind that this woman was possessed and a priest would be needed at once in order to contain the demon.
The doctor instructed his assistant to run to the nearest cathedral and tell them what had happened with the woman. Upon hearing his voice the woman’s head snapped towards them. The boy tried his best to run to the door but the woman was much faster. In a flash she had the boy in her clutches, her nails digging into his throat. The red, sickly sweet blood of the boy dripped onto the floor, the woman noticed this and threw the boy across the room and dropped to her knees lapping up the little droplets of blood. The boy laid in a crumpled, lifeless heap across the room from the doctor. He knew it was too late to save his young assistant.
The doctor took this momentary distraction as a sign and sprinted for the door, leaving the grisly scene behind. When the doctor finally made it to the church his lungs and legs felt like they were going to give out. He could taste blood in his mouth and thought that surely it was the work of the devil. He pounded his fists on the doors till they were torn and bleeding, when that didn't work he ripped off his mask in desperation and shouted until his voice would no longer sound. A priest inside heard the commotion and soon came out and asked the doctor what was wrong. He stared at the priest in disgust before recounting the story of what had just unfolded. The priest looked genuinely shocked and concerned, but the doctor only saw it as an act and knew that deep inside the priest was actually delighted to hear of this. The priest ushered him inside to alert the archbishop of what had happened.
Archbishop Nicholas was a pale thin man with shifty eyes and a bony figure. The doctor was well aware of the rumors surrounding “his excellency”. The townspeople speculated that he was just as evil as the spirits he exorcised and that is why he was cursed with such a crooked body. With being in the papacy he was granted special treatment that allowed him to act as he wished as long as he said that it was “God’s will”. At first the people believed him despite his obvious abuses of power, but recently they’ve become fearful of him and the local church. Despite all of this he was proficient at expelling demons and lingering spirits, the doctor knew this much and understood the need for an exorcism at this point.
When the archbishop heard what had happened he immediately gathered his tools with a sickly demonic grin twisting his features. The contents of his demon expulsion kit were a crucifix, rosary, small statue of the Virgin Mary, Bible, holy water, holy oil, salt, candles dedicated to Saint Benedict and dedicated to the archangel Michael, the blessed sacrament, and some rope and matches. The doctor winced at the rope and matches that the archbishop hungrily grabbed at.
The doctor, archbishop, and priest ran back to the doctor’s place praying that the possessed woman was still there and not out wreaking havoc on the town. They burst through the door, a sulfuric smell overpowering their senses. The sight before them churned the doctor's stomach, in the corner of the room the woman was feasting on the flesh of the assistant that was left behind by the doctor. Her head snapped towards the men who had just disrupted her dinner. The woman’s face no longer looked human, it was as if a monster was wearing her as a mask. The demon let out a terrible laugh and ripped the boy's guts out of his limp, lifeless body, never once breaking eye contact with the three men. The doctor did everything he could to keep himself from throwing up at the sight but he failed at containing the bile. As he retched the demonic woman rose from her crouched spot in the corner. Her back arched at an unnatural angle, the top half facing the trio upside down, the bottom half still faced the boy.
The archbishop took this as a sign to start the exorcism. He muttered a quick prayer under his breath, and for a second the doctor thought he was praying to the devil, but quickly brushed off his suspicions. The archbishop screamed at the priest to grab the other side of the rope they had brought and rushed towards the demon woman. She fought back hard, writhing against the rope and using her claws to shred the priest and archbishop’s arms. After receiving a lot of damage they were able to bring her back to the table. The archbishop then instructed the priest and the doctor to hold down the demon as best as they could while he started on the prayers and holy water. Even with the ropes securing her to the table the two men struggled to keep her still. Each scream and shriek from the woman caused the three’s ears to bleed.
Due to the unbearable pain he was in, the doctor wanted nothing more than to just kill the woman and be done with it all, just like the church had done with so many others before. But he knew that if they simply just killed her without exorcising the demon first it would just transfer to another wretched soul. He shook the dark thoughts from his mind as the demon took hold of his arm and was about to bite down with large razor-sharp teeth that had not previously been there before.
He yanked his arm away in terror just as the archbishop brought the crucifix down upon the demon’s head. It left a cross-shaped burn in the woman’s flesh but the demon seemed more angry than harmed. It let out a terrifying, animalistic noise before throwing the three men across the room. It snapped its head in the direction of the doctor and he felt himself go into a trance-like state. The demon beckoned him and he felt himself moving forward uncontrollably. The doctor’s mind was screaming at him to stop but his feet continued to carry him away.
The priest and the archbishop quickly recovered from being thrown and made eye contact before nodding and running towards the demon shouting bible verses in Latin at it.
Before the demon could fully take the doctor hostage the archbishop and priest reached it, knocking the doctor out of the trance. They threw both the holy water and the holy oil on the demon. It hissed in pain and let out a puff of dark smoke that clouded the room and the men’s eyesight. Nevertheless the archbishop finished his prayer and lit the match, throwing it onto the woman. The demon inside the woman separated from her soul and a bright shining light drifted towards the heavens. But because of the two clergymen’s prayers the demon was still tethered to the woman’s body. Both went up in flames as the priest read the woman's last rites. Everything became perfectly still and the smells dissipated from the room as the doctor’s former patient laid in a heap of ash on the cold stone floor before him. He held his breath waiting for something worse to happen, the priest saw this and clasped his shoulder, letting the doctor know that the exorcism was complete and that despite not being able to save the woman’s life, they were able to save her eternal soul. The clergymen left the doctor alone to clean up and mourn the loss of his patient and assistant.
As they trudged back to the church, beaten, battered, and bleeding the priest noticed that his superior was acting strangely and muttering curses under his breath. He turned to face the archbishop but stopped in shock as his features were contorted, twisting and as crooked as his spine. The priest let out a cry for help but the archbishop quickly struck a bony, sharply clawed hand towards the priest’s throat, silencing his cry. While still gripping the priest the archbishop started maniacally laughing, doubling over in the guffaw and fell to his knees. He reveled in the pain and fear radiating off of the priest, feasting on his suffering. The archbishop regained his composure and stared at the priest with murderous, dead eyes. He chuckled darkly and tightened his grasp on the priest’s neck, bringing him closer and whispered: “you're next.”
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