Alice's doctor
There once was a girl named Alice Liddell and she is most known for her adventures in Wonderland, but you see this is not another tale of her life this is a tale about her brilliant doctor that treated her at the hospital she stayed at after her parents died. He was a man who believed in logic and reason, and that things are usually how they seem. However he had no idea that like Alice he himself had the touch of madness. He was troubled by the small things at first. Hearing things that didn't have a reasonable source as to where they came from, then having it get worse because occasionally he would hear a whisper or two behind his ear when no one was there. The doctor dismissed all of that as just stress.
You see though insanity is a patient predator, when you think that you have defended yourself from it consuming you it will sit and wait in the deepest darkest corner it can find. It will wait until you are at your weakest then it will consume you totally and utterly. The doctor was safe, for now.
So the doctor continued with his patients and his work to help them. There was something so interesting about his patients delusions and the way most of them believed whole heartedly in them resonated with him. He was fascinated with how the mind could create such intricate fantasies and delusions. The dear man even went so far as to consult some doctors that were more experienced in how the mind worked, but this being Victorian London all that had been learned so far had still been pretty archaic.
Unfortunately all this work put strains on his home life. His lovely socialite wife hassled him every night on how he was never home spending time with her or their son. The doctor's only reason that he was gone so much was that he felt that he was more himself when he was trying to help his patients. He loved solving the puzzles that were their problems. He went days without sleep and he rarely ate if he did it was only to keep himself going. For a time he was getting more patients out of the hospital and on the road to recovery more than any other doctor in London.
From the deep darkness insanity laughed, because it knew that it almost had the dear doctor. So to try and help him along it crept out of its hiding place. It was time to stalk its prey and wear the poor man down.
After an exhausting day the doctor was on his way back home. He took the same path he always took home, but today something felt different. It felt like all of the world's eyes had turned to watch him yet he was the only solitary person around. He picked up his pace to try and get home to where he knew he was safe. It was when his house was in sight that the doctor began to hear footsteps behind him. He picked up his pace and the pace behind him picked up, but he looked behind him and saw nothing as he entered his house. That night he started to have nightmares and he would be cursed with those dreams all the days of his life. They were violent and chaotic dreams, the first time he had the dream it felt like it was almost a premonition of things to come.
It always started out with him getting into bed and getting just about to sleep before he hears a noise in another part of the house. At first he thinks it might be his son waking up. After sneaking to his son's room to find him sleeping he hears the noise again. So he makes his way down to where the noise is, when he gets close to where the noise is he hears a growl that keeps getting louder. Without warning something jumps out and knocks him down to the floor and runs to his bedroom. Not wanting to take any chances he quickly goes to the kitchen and grabs a knife. Going into the bedroom he sees the covers in the bed move around and he hears what he thinks is a crunching sound. Fearing for his wife's safety he attacks the covers and stabs until his arms hurt. He thinks he kills it but he is somehow kicked off the bed with the covers flung on his head. The doctor hears it scurry towards the direction of his sons' room so he gives chase and attacks the bed as he enters the room. After he stands there for a minute there was a deep laugh that sounded like it came from the pits of hell itself. "Shame shame doctor how could you do such a thing?" The room then glows and what he has done comes into view. He has not killed some mystery animal that has snuck into the house but before he can see what he has attacked the house shakes and shivers violently. The tremors split the house open right underneath the doctor. Instead of falling to what he thought is the ground he seems to fall forever.
In a cold sweat the doctor woke up. From then on he never would sleep until he was completely and utterly exhausted it was even somewhat of a chore then.
Even with the dreams the doctor still believed that he was perfectly alright and could handle one night of nightmares. Like all prey though there is a point where they think they have been through the worst and can out run the hunter but it has been proven that time and again that the hunter usually gets its prize. This depends on either how good the hunter is or the universe saying that the preys' time has come. For the doctor it was a bit of both.
He came into the hospital to find everyone in a hurry as if some emergency was happening. He asked an orderly what was going on and he was told that one of his patients had killed themselves the night before. He was devastated and started to think of everything that he could have done differently. The doctor doubted himself immensely. Was there something that he missed? He stayed at the hospital more and more until he didn't even come home at all. Even his patients noticed how much he was starting to look ill.
The doctor's dedication to his patients was starting to cost him, dearly. It was costing him his family, because his wife and child couldn't stand the sight of him much. They wouldn't leave though because it wasn't proper to do that kind of thing in that age. It was costing him his health because he closely resembled on of the corpses that was in the morgue.
The doctor was wounded now. It was time for insanity to go in for the kill and take the prize that it had waited for. The night ended as it always did with his preparation for bed, and a small argument with his wife. Then he would lay in bed and wait for exhaustion to take him. Only this time the dream didn't happen. Instead the premonition that the dream had made would come to pass. He would carry out its dark prediction on this night. There was nothing but blackness and calmness has he slept. He felt like he was somewhere else, and he also felt like he was nothing. Like he was a freshly erased blackboard. Just blank. He started to feel like he was coming back into his body, but he was puzzled because he was standing. He was on his feet and he was holding something in his hand. The next thing he noticed was that he was wet. He walked into the light of the moon to see what it was.
It was blood. He lifted his hand into the light to see what he was holding. It was a blood soaked knife. He became filled with anxiety over what had happened, so he went to his sons' room and found a horrific sight. He had stabbed his son numerous times and blood was everywhere. So he went to his wife's room to find the same thing. That is where I came in "Shame shame doctor how could you do such a thing?" He turned to look at me and replied to himself "How it is possible for this to be happening, this smiling cat is Alice's delusion?" I was annoyed that he wasn't talking to me but I answered him in a way he would understand. "You are a logical fellow, think. If you are having a delusion that another crazy person is having there is only one explanation don't you think. Not forgetting that you just killed your family" I knew I reached the poor man when he fell to his kneesand started to weep.
For the rest of his days the doctor could be found in the same hospital that he worked at but he was there as a patient this time. In fact his room was right next to Alice's. I couldn't have been happier because I had my dear Alice and I had my new friend that had been her doctor. The one who won the most in this story is insanity because we all carry this beast in us in some form or another it just takes some time for it to find a place where it can come out.