"I'm not the only one, right?"
Freminet and Mika simultaneously look at Aether.
"What?"
"Something's... something doesn't feel right."
When Freminet Hearth encounters a special procedure alongside his new-found friend, the interns eagerly look forward to overtiming and assisting their techs with the bedridden outpatient. Only when they unloaded a young girl from the medical bed and on to the patient table did Freminet feel reluctant to continue. Something in his head desperately clanged the alarm bells that triggered his fight or flight reflexes. The build up of dread and confusion prickled his skin, so much so that the urge to run out of the room, heck, the building emerged within his gut like an ambush. He swallowed dryly before glancing at his colleagues to see if it was just him.
It wasn't just him.
There was something unsettling about the young girl on the table, and he knew it wasn't just a gut feeling. Something was amiss.
Prologue
Her nimble fingers trembled at the feeling of wetness on her skin. A realization hit her, though it wasn't the first time her gut wrenched at the iron stench, so strong, it pervaded the box and made her gag. She rolled to her side to vomit, but held it in, opting to make practiced breaths through her mouth instead. Muffled footsteps percussed the tiled floor outside, approaching her way, and she froze. It was the same and old routine, all over again. Light flooded her confinement, and so did a dense fog of trepidation as she met eyes with a pair of cold, scarlet irises.
As he pulled her to sit up, some of her joints cracked faintly, her weight shifting on the rough surface of the box she was in. The underlying malevolence coated his sweet nothings, followed by this hideous, bone-chilling laughter when a faint wail fell out of her cracked lips. He slid a finger under her chin, the movement sickeningly soft and gentle, but only bringing fear instead of the comfort she wished to have at that moment.
"You did wonderful. Here, you must be parched."
He gave her a cup of water, its purity a drastic contrast to the situation.
He gave her false care. He gave her a disease. A curse. A burden to shoulder for as long as she lived under his control. She trembled more at his presence over the sight of blood and smears of dirt all over her body.
She needed help.
"Let's get you the help you most certainly need, shall we?"
Day 13 of Internship
"Barbara? As in, Barbara Pegg of our Cathedral?" Mika asked in disbelief. "She died?"
"Yeah, man," his co-intern, a fellow Mondstadter, answered somberly. "She was found hanging at the bell tower."
"I'm... I'm confused. This really happened?"
It came to his shock to know a childhood friend from ages ago passed away so suddenly, in such a dark direction too. The last time Mika ever saw her was in the church, mouth open wide and belting high notes. She was joyous and proud, a kind soul to anyone and everyone. To hear the news about such young girl...
"I can't believe it either but the leaked pictures are all over the media, dude. What happened just seemed surreal, the Favonius Police Department's trying to get the town to calm down."
Mika frowned. He looked back at the pictures before looking away to give himself some breathing room. He was expected to be familiar at graphic images but, to see the nuns posing at terrifying ways that made him question how such pose was humanly possible; to see their downturned mouths and wide eyes open, looking at Barbatos' statue together and crying blood, all of them seemingly catatonic—it was all too much for Mika.
He never got to see the last two pictures, a picture of a bloody altar and a pile of bodies stacked at the cemetery behind the cathedral.