The Casebook of Doctor Mortimer

by Gazelle City

On the edges of a desolate region, a pair of researchers begin investigating mysterious and deadly creatures. 19th century-styled episodic mystery series. 'Pokémon before Pokémon'.

1. I

* * * The Casebook of Doctor Karl Mortimer * * *

authored by his apprentice, Miss Marcella Sagan.

I

In the year 18— I began my degree of Doctor of Medicine of the Université Lumiose and took lodgings nearby, having previously lived in the banlieues. My studies were coming along naturally, my graces in study and ease in diagnosis far outshining my peers. In no time at all, it was the hour in which I was to complete a period of study overseas. The matter of what demesne in which to reside for the coming year was of little interest to me—indeed, the chatterings of my adjourning camarades regarding their future destinations, our sister colleges in Kanto and Johto or faraway Unova, a place spoken of at length as unparalleled in entertainments and earthly delights, grew quickly vexing. Certainly, it made sense to me that my lesser colleagues would centre their conversation on the banalities of their future; lacking my intelligence, they had little hope of achieving anything notable in their chosen field—who would not long for the miniscule pleasures of the world, drinks and dresses and men, if they could live for nothing else? My opinions on such things were well-known, my solitude an easy sacrifice for the dedication to my studies needed to make a name for myself. My destination meant little—the lecturers and professors of my université saw to it that my work would receive a just reward.

(To perhaps best furnish the following writings with appropriate purpose I shall allow temporary digression to best explicate my situation. The confidence in which I cultivate in my person is not, despite certain implications, indicative of arrogance alone. I have always been a proud Kalosian – from the moment I became literate I sought out the papers, hungrily consuming news of the wider world, not out of desire to escape, but to better appreciate the world in which I lived. My mother, looking askance in her weary eye, often reminded me of my fortune—the travails of her generation had won a previously unknown respect for women, a willingness to allow us access to education necessary for success in avenues mercantile, educative, political—places women had henceforth never thrived, for a myriad of regrettable circumstances. For women to train as doctors, doctors above nurses, was a luxury afforded only to those admitted to the university a mere three years previous. My vocation was not one I would abandon in frolic and folly. The romances of foreign regions were mere fables upon my imagination. To be Kalosian was more than enough; virtue to one's region was paramount.)

Professor Hawthorne called us into his office individually on the day of judgement. The earliness of the hour had its effects upon my disposition, and having missed my morning espresso I sat waiting, foul in mood and expression. The line before thinned out rapidly over the course of half an hour. The noise of the hallway gradually dissipated; eventually it was just the clock, ticking portentously, and myself under it. Nerves and the anxious humours of the blood, them that so characterised the modern women, did not manifest upon my dignity, though I must admit I did not appreciate the stultifying process of waiting. Called out by name, I had regarded my peers before me with little interest, yet as our numbers dwindled, attempts at systemising the professor's process, ruminations regarding the logic of it all, why they had gone before me, having left so cheerfully, and I, despite my good works, had sat, squat on a wooden stool, so cold now to invoke stone, to wait. A test of patience was no precedent in the award of a prestigious foreign academy on a student—this I knew well, from my occasional writings to graduates that answered my pen. The université would herald a successful student, cast them upon a stage of admiration and throw every benefit their way; - influence is best cultivated early, the favour of the ascendant in society gathered in droves, in eagerness, at the earliest opportunity.

Sitting alone in the hall, I perceived panes of glass containing my vicissitudes, and suddenly I recalled an old penny dreadful I'd picked up on a long train journey some years past, articulating itself as a wholly historical account of the hunt and capture of a "leviathan jellyfish". A great horror of the deep, captured and held hostage in the aquarium of a cruel baron…a classic story that conflated monstrous horrors beneath the sea with the monstrous capabilities of human beings.

"The mute helplessness of that creature had noted a quiet unease upon an otherwise edifying display on 'New Discoveries of the Eastern Deep'." I understood the struggle of that strange, fictional creature all the more acutely as the professor opened his office door and beckoned me inside.

The comforts of campus living never came easy to me, even then – the professor's office, with its bookshelves, embraced with encyclopaediae and journals of medicine and contemporary scientific discovery, appeared to me forced and unnatural in their composition. The professor's mahogany desk, in its opulence, did little to flatter the timid restlessness of the man who coughed into his fist, shuffled miscellaneous papers, fingered small coins in his pockets and who, in his shaky smile and countenance, revealed himself to me as one who stood before his guillotine. The conversation was brief—the professor said that he'd other matters to attend to, that my scholarship abroad was not a concern of his as my name had been passed on to other, faceless names in the Department of Medicine. The reasoning behind the obfuscation of my circumstances was not intended as an insult or slight on my character, he told me, but his efforts to assuage my doubts regarding the peculiarity of the thing were poor. I was to go to Delaire, an antediluvian place; it was an island region to the west, a vassal beneath a Tagnish banner. The Tagnish Empire was a familiar name to the Kalosian reader and student of history; our regions were strongly defined by their antagonism, the annals littered with the names and dates of a hundred wars over the many centuries. To the average citizen, untraveled and ignorant, stories of Tagnish violence upon our ancestors struck one's regional pride. At present, our peoples co-existed in a separate peace, and were comparatively blossoming when remembering the past—yet it was obvious no self-respecting Kalosian medical student could hope to study in Tagnish territory and expect their homeland to welcome their return. The violence of the intelligentsia is subtly done—I was being ostracised. The professor's confidence grew exponentially as I retreated into silence and the mire of resentment; telling me that one Doctor Karl Mortimer would receive my apprenticeship at Delaire in a week's time, he bade me farewell.

Dazed, I left the professor's office, and the université. My future was no longer assured and safe, and had plunged into a deep sea that it could not palpably survive in. In the indignity of it all, I vowed never to return. The université would mourn my loss, be forever shamed into silence by snubbing such scientific promise. Though my education was well supported, such arrogant ideation was too bitter a pill. I have never claimed to be a genius; my pride in my work was earned from the graft of working itself. The world I was leaving would not miss me. I did not come to this realisation immediately—indeed, I raged and spat and swore, always inwardly, for I had no one to suffer my wroth, no one to hear my secret shame.

Maman et Papa lived in faraway Kiloude, and in my letters I could not bear to cause them grief, and so I represented my departure in only the most honourable and equivocal language at my disposal. They knew little of contemporary medical treatments—if Delaire seemed foreign and hopelessly distant to them, it must be to their daughter's merit that this was her destination. No, I could not admit that this event had troubled me deeply—humiliated, I reinforced my most regrettable, insidious characteristics. My last days in Lumiose and Kalos were therefore thoroughly unmemorable. Fool that I was, I refused to believe that they could be my last days, and I spent them in anchoritism, studying miscellaneous textbooks in a fevered, guilty propensity; alone in my room.

I did not think twice about the name 'Karl Mortimer', assuming him unimportant, an anonymous backwater physician. Maybe it would have made no difference if I tried to research his credentials. The most extraordinary of men have ways of making their greatest deeds seem humble; their uniqueness unremarkable; their resolute intensity of spirit, nobler and more enviable than the qualities of a thousand men, whisk away like sand dunes in a sudden intense wind – where in a second all is lost and no evidence of yesterday remains.

II

We Kalosians have always respected and encouraged acts of defiant dignity—my journey from Lumiose to Coumarine Harbour acted in spirit of that noble virtue. Truthfully, it lacked the panache of my revolutionary ancestors—there were no historians present to witness me—no records save my journaling—none to compliment the ascetic craft in gathering all my amenities for overseas adventure in a single suitcase—my sober disposition, foregoing makeup and wearing a simple white linen chemise—appearing not so much as a woman in mourning nor a flamboyant ne'er-do-well affecting mirth to counterpoint their ostracising—but as an independent, educated modern lady of means, travelling for the just cause of further edification. Yes, my manner went unnoticed, but our actions cannot hope to gain historical favour if we do not compose our most private occasions in grace and poise. This epigram remains a coda of mine many years after my youthful roving—one must be allowed their cosy turns of phrase. Though my manners were irreproachable, my journeying was not; indeed, I feel no trepidation in describing the quality of my sea voyage as truly barbarous.

My vessel: a small cargo frigate, built for expedience in the transportation of potatoes and citrus fruits, to whom the name La Botte Noire surely suggested a misguided luxury. For reasons forever mysterious to me, this frigate was now carrying human cargo, a task in which it was ruefully ill-equipped. The sea was not unkind to us—though clouds hung low and belligerently grey, to suggest I made my journey to Delaire through thick and thin, and terrible storms, would be wholly inappropriate. Nonetheless the voyage made me quite ill, and I remained a prisoner of my cabin for three tortuous days. To soothe my tired brain after long sessions in the library, the yellowed page of the cheap sea-romance became my unlikely comforter. Though I never accepted the tales of honourable pirates, shamanist savages with barbarism and nobility in equal measure, and sightings of monolithic beings lurking beneath the deep, as the unvarnished truth, I must confess an admiration and curiosity for the nautical that carries a childlike air. That I lacked the sea legs to experience the ocean in any avenue other than that of an invalid came as a dull, harsh blow. No more will be written of this ghastly affair, for my composure.

When the servants aboard La Botte Noire intruded upon my quarantine to inform me of our landing at Delaire, I steadied myself, took my suitcase and moved to greet the place of my exile. A cursory glance at my travel map declared several names unknown to me between the port and my destination, the village of Fico. Clarenton, Limebeck, Rinish, Coora… the names alone meant nothing to me. In my apathy I had not bothered to put research into the geography and climate of Delaire. I knew only that it was a small, rainy island situated between Tagné and the sea—my village destination was to be conducted by several hours' horse-drawn carriage, further inland. A vague and inhospitable place inside another vague and inhospitable region. Leaving the port and entering the carriage waiting my arrival, I sat in silence, studying my surroundings, during the long journey. My initial impressions of the Delairean cosmos did not assuage my beliefs that it was, to the cultured Kalosian, hell incarnate on the black earth.

I remember my first sighting of Lumiose well when arriving there when beginning my medical studies—the city was a locus, representative of my hope and happiness, alive with more people I had ever seen before—grand, ceremonious buildings, a fine strong character distilled in every alleyway and winding street over the many centuries they had lived and breathed, a testament to the achievement of man—its citizens in their individual bustle existing in a newly examinable harmony, where individuality was not sacrificed by the luxury of the city cloister, for everyone I saw moved with such a graceful sense of self I knew at once they had lived, loved and lost autonomously to any conception of being I had ever known, a perceivable fact in every man—the shabby young man in dungarees washing windows of a nine-story building with the purpose and pace of a an accomplished artist; the dandies in their affectations gathering for a midsummer wine and exchange of daily scandal; the policeman on his patrol walking with a relaxed and contented gait; the gamines by the corner shop, arguing amongst themselves over what flavour bonbons they wanted to buy—these people, in the brevity in which a passing glance can survey the sum and means of character and human existence—these people inhabited the city insomuch as they were the city's inhabitants, their vitality dared match the heavens themselves. It would be unfair of me, in my sentimental evaluation of a Lumiose long past the horizon, to deny it its faults—yet from the moment I entered the city I felt I was part of it. I belonged. Not so for Delaire, no: never did I survey such an alien world. 'Tis inappropriate, of course, to offer comparison between the charms and comforts of a city expanse in comparison to the countryside's rugged body and emerald heart—the pastoral idyll has snared poets since language was crafted to conceive of nature's beauties… Delaire did not evoke such emotional torque.

One must be dexterous in their usage of language to adequately describe Delaire's atmosphere. There are words that spring to mind, such as 'arid' or 'barren'—relating to its craggy land, with serpentine and narrow roads winding and billowing through fields—occasionally agriculturally serviceable, harbouring wheat or root vegetables such as parsnips, turnips, cauliflower—but mostly irredeemably craggy, rock and limestone embedded like layers of skin, flat or gently sloping into glaciated mountains that sit as shards of an absent earthen god. Between some of the grikes of limestone pavement, some flowers manage to grow, as they always do – but it unfathomable that any traces or foolish strands of humanity would see this land as fit for making a home. Those that I did see fit my initial feelings of the sorry nature of the Delairean citizen: vagrants and labourers all, dour in attire and countenance, mandated by the harsh stony landscape. Of course, one's preconceptions, however the individual senses dictate their formation, should not rely upon visual testimony alone, and having said no more than a perfunctory 'hello' since embarking, I sat upright in the carriage and decided to embark in conversation with the carriage driver.

'So what are the regular circumstances of life here in Delaire, sir? Is poverty a common concern?' The carriage driver, whose attire, in its shabby nature, implied respectability without earning it, burst into speech, joyous from the opportunity.

'I suppose things must look quite different to how it all was in Kalos, milady (not that I know such a place meself). Oh, 'tis proper hard going at times, for all of us, though you'd swear it was hell on earth for some, blaming all of it on the Tagnish and none on themselves. Oh, "the Tagnish have never been fair", they'd say. Any smart young man from the farms will be thinking of running off and joining the royal army at the first opportunity—sure, who would want a life like this? Breaking your back all day beating stones or trying to grow something where you can find any soil that'll let you, t'would sour your milk fairly lively… So they run off, and if they're lucky, never have to come back, because every man and woman from Onagarl to Fico would sooner spit on their grave than congratulate them for wanting something better. Country folk are a queer lot—I'm from Limebeck town originally myself, but I've been here long enough, don't I know it.'

He spoke with an automatic enthusiasm that suggested that his pro-Tagnish sentiments were not typically discussed—that my foreign nature had freed me from prior political indoctrination. Hearing I was to go among a bitter and credulous people, I sank into my seat, pensive. My carriage driver, noticing my languid response to his words, rose his voice again.

'Still, milady, 'tisn't right of me to start off badmouthing the people of the region you'll be residing here. We all love to complain, but I doubt there's one Delairean that would live anywhere else if they had the chance. There's a morbid sort of intensity to that pride, oh yes. Plenty of men and women who'd rather die Delairean than live Tagnish. I don't always understand it, but 'tis to be admired all the same.'

'I think I can relate to that kind of pride, as a Kalosian,' I said. 'I have heard countless tales of courage, all evoking regional pride and the desire to achieve something great for a people in my history lessons.'

'Oh right, you're an educated young lady, so. Had you copped for a governess for one of the landlords—they'd send for some girl that looked the part alright, but not one with enough brains to remark on her pay. You must be up to something else entirely. What brought you here?'

When I told him about my training to study medicine, his puckish exuberance faltered, if only for a moment, and I sensed that the conversation was moving to less travelled ground. 'Then it's the doctor you're here to see. How well I forgot about him. And I called the locals queer!'

'What do you mean?' I asked, with an aspect of impatience and of excitement, for the carriage driver's discomfort could only mean promise if his smirking attitude signalled my oncoming desolation.

'Dr. Mortimer only came to Fico recently, at least in the regional definition of "recent"—e's no native, got no blood here, nor any apparent motive for staying, especially not for the nine years it's been. No offense to you, milady, but educated ones such as yourself don't tend to come out in this direction for good reasons. As I said to you, people around here are hardy, and paranoid, for there's not one man in fine feather-and-coattails that doesn't appear to run from trouble or to cause it. Now you'll hear stories from anyone. They'll all tell you, and I can't say what's true and what's invention, but since that doctor's shown up, a dark little village has gotten a whole lot darker. Livestock's been dying unexpectedly; some farmers' best crops have gone to rot and—' Here the driver's voice faltered. With his eyes on the road ahead, I could only examine his side profile, yet immediately I noticed his still-young face furrow and wrinkle, as if he saw Death on the horizon.

'There's been howling at night, ringing across the valley. No-one will talk of it in the open air, but there's many a man whose sleep has been disturbed by it. It doesn't sound like any dog I've heard, and all the wolves here died long ago, by the rifles of Tagnish hunters. I don't like casting aspersions on any man without good reason; I'm not half as judgemental as some. I reckon that doctor knows what's happening. He's an intelligent man—a good doctor, from what little compliments have been wrung out of his patients, but not one for conversation. He speaks to no-one outside of his practice; shirks the public house and the church both, and can disappear from Fico for weeks at a time. He's not hiding something, that Dr. Mortimer, he's hiding his whole life, and a man with that much to hide typically has very good reason. The devil knows why you were sent to study with him, for 'twill curse you alongside of him and fester for the rest of your days.'

He paused. Fico was coming into view: the carriage driver's ominous words taking shape on the landscape: a community not where one is born into; rather an outpost where one is conscripted to reside in for a period, bleak and colourless, that can hardly be thought of as a 'life'. It seemed the land lacked water to quench one's thirst, lacked wood to burn and sate one's cold, and the skies lacked sunlight to assuage one's emotions and provide a fleeting sense of joy—for from my arrival in Delaire and my journey to Fico, the clouds never failed to obscure the sun from view—the very air tasted hardened and unfriendly to my lungs.

As the carriage came to a halt, the driver finally turned and looked at me, long in the eye. 'If I'd known you were off to work with Dr. Mortimer, I can't be sure I wouldn't ferry you on the boat back to Kalos. Now that's not a threat, milady, just a warning. I won't stop you from your work, but I'd get it done quick and begone.' All cheerful civility left his person, and I left the driver, who so resembled the grim village figure he insisted his individuation from.

If he wished to inspire horror in me, the driver only succeeded in provoking its opposite—awe and splendid curiosity. There is nothing so divine, so ichorous to her senses, than the veil of darkness and delinquency shrouding a stubborn woman's path—no man so openly reviled by the ignorant could be anything but edifying to study under. Fico, despite its surface unpleasantness, was my new home, and I did not dare shed a tear for what I had lost in my arrival here. Where the physicality of Delaire's earth and water failed to inspire or comfort at first, a curious and most invaluable personality in the townsfolk of Fico sustained my interest wherefore otherwise I risked despair. I moved immediately to rendezvous with Doctor Mortimer.

III

The doctor's practice seemed unassuming in architecture, but its distance from the village proper best indicated its inhabitant's inclinations. Fico was not a charming village; what coloured paints found themselves on its building walls did little to offset the atmosphere of muted, stony grey that was mandated by the cloudy heavens. The door to the clinic opened loosely on its hinge, and I stepped inside; nothing excited the eye. Behind the reception desk, a matronly woman sat absently stirring a cup of tea in one hand, the other propping up a thin newsletter: The Fico Gazette. She didn't look up upon my entrance—dropping my suitcase upon the floor broke her reverie.

'Can I help you?' the woman asked in such an intonation that implied helpfulness was a virtue disinclined with her interests. Not wanting my bearing of rudeness to influence my own decorum, I answered with utmost politeness.

'Bonjour, Madame. My name is Marcella Sagan, and I've arrived from Kalos to work with Dr. Mortimer as an apprentice. Is he in, at the moment?'

'Ah, of course. Miss Sagan—should've known it'd be today when you were coming. I'm Mrs Miller. The doctor's away at the moment on a house call, but you can sit in the waiting room till he returns. You'll be staying in the attic room above my home; the room's not quite ready for you, so leave your suitcase with me and I'll head off to get it sorted.' Mrs Miller turned her head slightly, as if awaiting questions, before wordlessly taking my suitcase, ushering me into the waiting room, and leaving the clinic in swift, successive motion.

The waiting room was shabby and cramped—not from lack of upkeep but by design. A clock above my head sounded off, the dull metronome of its rhythms in affected austerity. Without my suitcase, I fussed about with my hands in idleness, inspecting my nails, getting long now; tapping a syncopated beat on my knees, brushing sleep from my eyes, humming half-remembered baroque tunes from past visits to the Lumiose Symphony Orchestra, pulling the stresses from my fingers' joints and in every conceivable aspect in which one can sit in airs of patience and propriety, betraying my anxious and restless truer disposition. Without the clock, the silence of the waiting room would prove unbearable; with it, I sank deeper into doubt, and restlessness, and in feverish introspection I questioned my motives for coming here at all—for now I was at the mercy of these strange people and their veneer of civilisation, living lives so dreary and pointless that medicine did ill in prolonging their days. The waiting room clock instilled an impressive illusion upon me—it counted only minutes since my arrival, but the deeper vestiges of my consciousness felt the lock of imprisonment for hours, days, longer and longer still! How torturous is a wait when one cannot comprehend what it is they are even waiting for! Knowing the barest minimums, perceiving their future is, in understatement, not a bright one.

Then I heard the creak of a door opening, and a man walked in. The doctor—it could only be the doctor, for the features I had traced in my fleeting understanding of Delairean physiognomy lost all comparison in this man's demeanour. He was a tall man, with the movement of one losing height every passing winter, for he stooped, and stood bent, shoulders round, neck inclined towards his chest like a storybook miser, though this may have been due to his likelihood in bending to cross cramped doorways. He wore the grand bedraggled outfit of a man accustomed to poor weather; though his long, dark coat was not muddied nor soaked through in rain, it carried fusty odours, suggested unravelling at its seams, missing buttons due to age and usage, and sneered at fashionable ideologies. His black top hat reserved his status as a gentleman and honourable figure when the rest of his attire might have implied otherwise. His face was square, his forehead long, a blackboard for his handkerchief's duster, his brow furrowed and intelligent, but stern; his nose aquiline, his eyes hooded, with crow's feet at their edges, and with bushy grey militant sideburns—this Doctor Mortimer was a man whose late middle age had addled his features with the speed and totality of a winter sunset, disappeared in a moment, darkness in its wake. It was probable he was an ugly man even in his youth, but age had afforded him a hardness of complexion that amongst the accoutrements of a young man would have appeared pretentious folly. He was alive in his decay.

'Mademoiselle Sagan. Apologies for the wait. Come with me.'

His voice, despite the relative size of his person, was unusually weak and reedy; though when contrasted with his overall appearance, it alluded to previous experience; a fortuitous sense of shock. Indeed, his presence was imposing, but not in its conventional sense—the doctor moved and existed as the recipient of Experience; burdened with a weight, broken into shape. He did not impress so much as he inspired a minute disquiet; an incremental unease. I followed him into his office. It was a prim, compact room, with large windows and blinds attached, allowing any chance encounter with sunlight to adorn his workplace. Where old Professor Hawthorne's office was grandiose, implying status the man failed to inhabit, Dr. Mortimer preferred a minimalist approach. This assessment may seem like an endorsement of his aesthetic – let me refute that supposition. In examining the doctor's office I did not infer the quiet confidence of the most gifted individuals that encompass mankind – the men who work for the betterment of all in such casual elegance as to resemble the idle shadow-puppeteer creating amusement with no more than a flame, a blank surface, and his fingers; I did not see him for the man I could later discover him to be. His surroundings, in their eminence, suggested mediocrity – a man without any accomplishments, a falsely humble sort that play their obsequious games to garner sympathies for their sloth. Little hope had stood firm in my breast yet.

Dr. Mortimer, gesturing me towards a seat before taking his place behind his desk, began flicking through a battered moleskin notebook.

'Now then, Mademoiselle—I trust your travels do not leave you too exhausted to begin work under me.'

'They do not, Doctor. If 'tis your wish we shall commence immediately.'

The doctor did not smile—indeed, a flicker in his eyes recognised my politeness with an authoritative understanding, yet his lips curled into a slight grimace, irritated. 'That would be far too hasty, Mademoiselle—you do not mind a brief review of your academic records, as supplied by your professors? One must ensure you are not an impostor.' His sentence finished on an ironical note, but again he did not smile, and I trusted his demeanour too little to allow myself any reprieve in obeisance.

'Of course, doctor.'

He began to read: 'Among the undergraduate medical students of the Université Lumiose, Marcella Sagan is amongst the most distinctive. In the rigour and discipline of her studies she has regularly excelled – her entrance exams were top of the range, and in several aspects of her degree she has achieved perfect marks. Her academic diligence, coupled with abject professionalism during practicals and autopsies are every bit as respectable as her male colleagues. However, in her interpersonal behaviour observable throughout her time at the université, Sagan has betrayed the graces of her sex. Her confidence in her growing medical knowledge has resulted in several arrogant outbursts during lectures, directed at students and doctors alike. An unspoken agreement among deans and officials on permitting women to study medicine in Lumiose was to facilitate a growing need for educated, yet motherly assistants to doctors throughout Kalos. Mademoiselle Sagan's arrogant grasping at knowledge does her no favours as she will find no outlet for her education anywhere in which standards of morality are still are upheld in this region. Perhaps some rustics amongst the Tagnish will accept the insolence of women as necessary to treat their aches and ills. The Department has agreed that Marcella Sagan will take apprenticeship with one Dr. Karl Mortimer of Fico, Delaire, for the period of one year; it is hoped that the experience shall prove edifying in balancing the girl's disparate natures.

Signed, Professor Mathieu Hawthorne, Dean of Medicine, Université Lumiose.'

Dr. Mortimer read in even, unemotional tones, betraying nothing of himself; his stark disposition coupled with the harshness of my sentencing rankled—recalling the pangs of indignity that wracked my being on first hearing of my exile and amplifying them, inciting blind fury—I spoke hastily, abandoning my previous vestige.

'Any assessment of my character that might otherwise revise esteem owed to me by my achievements are words written in abject prejudice. You must read those notes to be as absurd and offensive as I find them. There is no rationality in the decrees of those old fools, and nothing worth listening to, for to discount my intellect and my zeal on the basis of my appearance is more than folly – it is tragedy. I went to Lumiose to study medicine so through my education I could understand what pains the common man – for, despite the ruminations of countless philosophers, real, tangible pain is more immediate and terrible than any weary woe—and I wish to combat it. Fight pain, fight disease, fight suffering. To impugn my femininity and my womanhood on my outlook in nurturing humanity is despicably ignorant.'

Any imagined eloquence in my impassioned defence should well be re-examined on noting my anxiety. I shook, and spat my words, and shed a tear, or three... and I did not mean what I said any less so for my rampant emotions. Any decent gentleman would offer me comfort if seeing my distress, and perhaps even discount my words as heated mistakes, and preserve my outward dignity while denying my righteousness. The doctor sat with me in silence, staring – his gaze neither imperious nor kind, but steady, open, acknowledging my argument. I steadied myself; the doctor stood up. Wordless, he took the université's letter before me, to see that their bile was no invention, and just as quickly tore the letter in two.

'I believe you will do well here, MademoiselleSagan. With that formality commenced with, it is time for you to see what exactly what it is I do here.'

Dr. Mortimer opened a drawer of his desk and pulled out a large notebook, strained and overstuffed by the addition of numerous loose manuscript pages. I read the title:

Pokédex, or The Aberrant Encyclopaedia

IV

The skies were darkening now – it was an autumnal evening, and without the luxury of a pretty sunset, the night was settling in Fico alongside a bitter cold. Dr. Mortimer had situated us leaning underneath a gaslamp streetlight, opposite Mahon's pub. As minutes passed, men were beginning to file in, and the doctor requested we watch them enter. Over the course of about twenty minutes, no less than fifty men walked into the pub, occasionally in bands of three or four, engaged in tired, inaudible conversation, their boots hitting the pavements synchronised, automatic, weary. The men that came alone walked with their heads low, eyes down, furtive; their relative ages blent in their exhaustion – for no man that looked younger than forty dressed differently from white-haired misers, and no younger man exhibited any of youth's composite airs – the vitality afforded to the young and strong seemed beyond their grasp, that their strength and confidence could be gripped and torn apart in the palm of their masters' hands. They were old by circumstance, the public house being the last spoke of the wheel on which their daily toil was spun.

'I was told Delaire produces hardy stock, men and women both, but these men seem more broken than steeled by the fruits of their labours,' I remarked to the doctor alongside me.

He nodded his assent. 'In some respects, Fico's people are lucky. Lake Inse provides a decent stock of herring and salmon, the Ragath river gives them good drinking water, there are a few more arable fields than Delaire typically offers a farmer, the air is clean and pleasant... there has been no famine recorded here in over sixty years, and only scattered, isolated outbreaks of disease. The elements have little to offer these people, but comfort can be found in the benign nature of the climate.'

'Then your medicine must not be in demand,' I said.

'That is true, but not for the reasons I have offered. Look again at the ways in which strong young men lumber through the street. And this, before any alcohol is imbibed. Their bodies are failing them. Medical science is not so great that it can restore broken bodies to their lost youth, but it has its balms. Their suffering is mostly in silence, the drink their primary relief. There is little we can do for these men, Mademoiselle Sagan, unless they come to us, yet we should not forget their need.'

I understand his words better in recollection; the effects of labour on men were not isolated upon the Delairean physique. Indeed, hard work was a unifier, for the peasants trudging to and from the fields near Kiloude and the labourers before me were predictably similar. If my mother had borne a son and not myself, these men would have been the types she and my father would have spoken of as examples of unfortunates that my education could delineate me above. I was lucky to avoid spending my life in the fields, and could not hope to understand that life acutely, but the manner and posture of these passing men painted a certain portrait. There are some scenes from everyday life that one thousand words would be too brief in describing acceptably. I was, in part, confused by Dr. Mortimer's assessment of their health, for their souls seemed so spent as to be fleeting, their fatigue ending their lives faster than any physical illness ever could. I have never been comfortable observing a potential patient and seeing, in their defined habits and lifestyle, and their character, no reprieve for what leaves them indisposed. To be powerless in aiding the powerless—there are few more portentous injustices amongst mankind. My impatience grew as I attempt to interpret the doctor's intentions.

'If no crisis afflicts this people, except the manner in which their works grind them down into nothing, what is it you do, Dr. Mortimer? Do you roam the moors and valleys to offset your idleness?'

Dr. Mortimer pulled his hat below his eyes, in brief annoyance. 'I do not appreciate rhetorical questions from one so naive, Mademoiselle.'

'I am not indulging in rhetoric alone, Sir – for there is real emotion underlying my questions.'

'Then disperse with your pretence entirely. I do not reside in Fico to play pasture.'

'And you do not remain here solely to serve a people that would not have you, Doctor. I am genuine in inquiring as to your intent. You strike me as a man in whom purpose presides.'

We began travelling further past Mahon's and down the country lanes of Fico's outer hamlets. Dr. Mortimer's disposition had lightened, though only in comparison to his earlier behaviour, in response to my brusque speech. 'I asked you to examine those men by the pub, not for their merit, but to inspect your own. You saw well enough the daily pains of labouring men, but for them there is little I can do. An eagle eye is a necessity in my branch of the field. To see beneath the surface; to infer, to explore and to discover—this is what I need you to do. Tell me: what remarks did you make of the wildlife in Delaire?'

The doctor's words seemed arbitrary—I still could not grasp his intent in combining vague promises with his questioning. 'I recall nothing remarkable. No animal made any lasting impression upon my imagination, only the landscape and its people.'

Rather than express annoyance, the doctor murmured an understanding. 'So you saw nothing remarkable, nothing... unusual, no cows a-grazing or crows circling overhead you, no insects crawling, no dogs barking or wolves howling, no natural signs of life beyond man himself?'

'It is as you say, though, as 'tis phrased, it all sounds quite unusual, Doctor. I would have noticed if I saw nothing, certainly. I saw cows and goats in passing fields, a scattering of birds in the sky, yes, no more than I would in Kalos or anything else.'

His silence wore away at the air. I wracked my brain further. 'Wildlife was not among my chief interest, and I noticed absolutely nothing out of the ordinary, though on my journeying here, I was told of a strange howling in the village at nightfall.'

The doctor stopped, turning to me, yet averting his gaze toward mine. His voice now was private and hushed. 'I did not expect you to sense the land's peculiarities so immediately, but I had not thought the villagers had known. Perhaps none would speak of it with me, only amongst themselves, in whispers…What they hear is real. It is no ordinary animal, nor beast of rumour and invention— though a monster it is. I call it an Aberrant. This Aberrant is not unique, and likely not alone. There is a separate subset of creature—bestial, yet uncompromisingly intelligent; capable of terraforming or otherwise shaping their environments to suit them, as humans do, but appearing altogether more monstrous, mimicking animals and humans alike in their bodies, but perhaps surpassing both...'

I could not grasp his words immediately—they seemed to me lifted from the yellowed pages of science fiction anthologies, written by romantics and poets who dream of something beyond the horizon and beneath the sea—pure fantasy, imagined in idleness, speculative without any firm basis in the material world. No doctor—not even one ensconced among an ignorant populace—would seriously entertain such talk, unless madness had taken them. Dr. Mortimer's eyes were a verdant green, vibrant despite his decay, and their sharp gaze did not reveal to me the internal machinations of a madman. Yet I knew little how to respond to him, and in substitution for a sceptical remark I had not prepared, I adopted a pretence of belief in his talk of monsters.

'What is your purpose in searching for this monster, then, Doctor? Why do you search when others would look away, certain in themselves that such things do not exist?'

'I would not tell you what I am telling you if I could not prove my claims, Mademoiselle. Studying these monsters is an enterprise still in its preliminary stage, and naturally, it is imperative for we chosen few who know of the creatures to keep knowledge of their existence a secret. Too much is still unknown—'tis best talk of them was left to rumour and fantasy. They are dangerous, but the risks they pose to the ordinary citizen are only amplified by public knowledge of their presence. They have lived alongside mankind for a long time, possibly since the beginning of time, yet their reluctance to consort openly with people is definitely a conscious decision.

'Delaire is not like Kalos, yet they have similarities you may be unaware of. The old stories – the myths that shape a regional culture and landscape—they refer to Aberrants by many different names, yet fundamentally, they speak of the very same creatures I study today! In faraway regions, they are called Pokémon, by those that have heard the stories and seen some themselves, but such a term does not cleanly translate in Delaire, or anywhere across the Tagnish Empire, thus I coined my own term. I am not the first to express a knowledge or understanding of these creatures, but I intend to extend the relationship between man and Aberrant through academic rigour, careful research and study.

'This region has a long, forgotten past—no, the whole world is shrouded, immersed in an immense history mankind cannot understand. We can only hope to interpret elements of our unknown past through myth, and trace shared elements of our nature. Human civilisation, as we understand it, has only existed for a few thousand years. We were not the first to roam the world—archaeologists make new discoveries discussed in the daily papers, discourses on dinosaurs and fossils and primitive ancestors to all creatures alive today. I consider my work, to some degree, similar to that of an archaeologist, to that of a natural historian, though my research is primarily to a medical end—that is, treating people suffering from attacks from these Aberrants, and studying the abilities of the Aberrants to best understand their use and complimentary attributes to mankind. I could not hope to undertake this journey alone, and this is where you come in.'

As Dr. Mortimer spoke, we walked down a hillside grassy lane to an old house. I had not expected a man of such taciturn presence as he to speak at such ease, such length; neither did I anticipate his words' content. It must be said at once that I am not a woman prone to flights of fancy, a trait that is so often the bane of our sex—I had studied the natural sciences, read my precursors who spoke of examining what is material on this world alone as to best uncover its secrets. Lumiose, and particularly the université, did not share my predilections for observing reality. Circles of influence (ones, gladly, outside my own) had embraced mysticism and baseless speculation in all its forms, abandoning reason and logic to pour over romantic notions of creatures stalking faraway jungles and rainforests resembling the beasts of fable—dragons, bull-headed men, giant cats and their nonsensical ilk. Perhaps fantasy had attracted the imaginations of my contemporaries due to the daily doses of dark horrors revealed in our newspapers; perhaps the sublime and ridiculous became fathomable and true to those weary sorts beaten down by the realities of their situation—perhaps, perhaps, yet these possibilities did not change what I believed true and false. Dr. Mortimer had yet to convince me of the existence of these Aberrants or Pokémon, but I could see no other future for my situation than to indulge his tale. The possibility that the man I was to study under as apprentice for a year was a crackpot obsessive of magical creatures was, in the moment, more unsettling than the possibility that he spoke the truth. Such a process might go against the rational nature I have described myself by, I admit, but such a conclusion was only wracked upon myself due to my own unease.

The house we stood before did little to soothe this unease, either. 'The estate of one Gregory J. Mahon, Esquire. Quite an enchanting old ruin, is it not?'

It was not. Framed between a dense thicket of ash trees, the house stood ceremonious and dilapidated—a ruin it was, but not the ruin formed over centuries of careful abandonment to nature, forgotten to all men and now existing in the space between. It was a dark place—the trees had shaded it almost from view—and ivy had grown all around the left side of its face like a leprosy. The house had a certain strange pallor about it; it suggested sickness, mortification, a kind of slow, lonely death. It had not received care from its owners or upon any visitor who chanced upon it. As we made our approach, an ill wind blew from the north, and I staggered briefly in its chill embrace.

'What happened in this place?' I asked the doctor.

'Happened? Why would you think that something happened here?' his tone was rhetorical; he knew my reason already, and he implored me to voice it.

The house of Mahon—dreary, dilapidated, suggestive of a great anger, a sorrowful passion of its residents' soul. It is a chief merit of mankind in how we shape our spaces to suit us, superior to all Nature, imperious above all, and seeing the house of Mahon I understood another perspective of this human Force; and realised a necessity for restraint. Passion unrestrained in a man destroys the world around him, and he lives in desolation—his rage is irrepressible and absolute – he creates his own dungeon, darkest, for the primitive man. I look upon the house of Mahon and my consciousness casts me backward—to Lumiose, to my apartment. I lived among books, sleeping among stacks shaped to an arch, the medical journal as my roof. It as much to my credit my wit and intelligence in my reading as to my having cloistered myself as I did. One who does not reside in libraries and sleep with their book cradled to their breast cannot live as a reader does—cannot be shaped by their education and thus, free herself above women. Mahon did not truly express whatever black grief existed within his heart until the vehicle of his manor could so be left to decay—and thus his world descended into the darkness he wished for.

'There's something in the air. I am aware that seems too facile or superstitious a thing to arouse suspicion, but it sprung to mind all the same. This was not the home of a happy family, or perhaps even a happy man…'tis likely the proprietor lived alone, as a miser. The manor itself is quite grand, built firm to house generations, perhaps of landed gentry, yet it lies in terrible disrepair. And it was not abandoned, either—I see candles, half burned through in an upstairs window. Whoever lived here did so purposefully, despite having the means to exist more favourably. A misanthrope, then – but what provokes such thought?'

Dr. Mortimer watched me, nodding slightly as I spoke, begging I continue.

'This is speculation, but one can imagine the man of the house experiencing a terrible loss, typically of a loved one—in the wealthiest of men there sits a hubris that drives their haughty manner, for they believe themselves entitled to a certain life that Providence inevitably plays a part in—for only a wealthy man could take the world for granted, and thus their lover with it, and when illness or misadventure enters the stage, he responds with such bile and loathing as to shape his environment appropriately with his hate. Thus, something happened, something always happens. Our lives are equations with these somethings, adding up and: this is your answer.'

Dr. Mortimer watched me all the while with unwavering eyes, bearing down upon me the condescension of a naturalist; gaze analytic, and in this brief moment, aesthetic: amused by a miniscule and curious thing.

'You are right, Mademoiselle Sagan, to think as you do; I appreciate your reasoning, and it is almost the truth. Let us step inside.'

Dr. Mortimer approached the huge door, seemingly ironclad in its forbidding degree, and from one of his many coat pockets took a small, thin device I quickly learnt was for lockpicking—I shall describe the tool no more as to avoid giving my accounts a sentimentalising of criminality that I would otherwise abhor. The doctor's hands were those of a model surgeon – long, dexterous, slender—his fingers were elegant, his fingers' work of great skill; gentle and efficiently firm. Physically, they were perhaps his most beautiful characteristic—another contradiction of this otherwise ugly man. Knowledge of the thief's arts was not something I found noble or attractive in any man or woman, for it is inevitably coupled with vice and dirty crime, but seeing the doctor's deft lockpicking was somehow admirable, a quirk of his experience.

'I assume you honed your skills in picking locks in wholly virtuous enterprise, Doctor,' I ventured to joke, but he did not respond.

The door was open – in we went. If it was 'Aberrants' the doctor sought, there was no likelier home than the abhorrent insides of this lonely beast. The architecture was impressive enough – an antechamber giving way to a grand staircase, a marbling effect upon the ceilings – evoking splendour when partnered with proper upkeep. Here any compliments ended. The flooring was concealed by two inches of detritus – moulding newspapers, dirty rags, a thickness of dust.

Every wall of the house was a battleground between black soot and greenish fungus. Wordlessly, the doctor pulled his cravat from 'round his neck to mask his mouth and nose, and I followed suit with a blue handkerchief, assaulted by an irrepressible stench. Something was rotting; something large, somewhere. The atmosphere did not lend itself to idle questions or good-humour. Dr. Mortimer began to walk upstairs, and I followed. The stairs beneath my feet creaked and wailed, threatening a decomposition aligned with its surroundings. We made our ascent urgently, making for the master bedroom. There was to be no grand surprise with what we were to find, yet in that fleeting rush I experienced the tiniest of enlightenments—an illumination, in movement, rankled in the cage of disease.

I had never seen a dead body before. It was one of the shortcomings of my medical education—a medical ethics investigation, to which the Université was embroiled in, had made regional headlines. Bodysnatching had become the latest fashion for Kalos' most enterprising and unscrupulous criminals—they say a client of one of our professors, one M. Hare, was only foiled for his brigandry when a student, anticipating to dissect the kidneys and learn of their processes, was confronted by the cadaver of his own dearly departed mother. The local fable was perhaps too clean on details to express the whole truth of the situation, but the result was the same: that all of the medical cadavers had to be abandoned until the investigation was concluded. It amused and relieved me in equal part; though I was loath to admit it, the prospect of dissection was a process of medicine that had aroused a palpable anxiety within my heart. I longed for a masculine, steely professionalism to foster inside me, but felt trepidation if such a hardness was a sentiment I was capable enough. Avoiding death, I made myself believe I had conquered it—and this now, was my retribution. Inside the master bedroom, a figure lay bloating, a fading representation of a man. The body of Mr Mahon.

How can one write, when one is confronted with such a sorry portrait of a human being? The language of the penny dreadful, grimly exultant in describing horrors, seems altogether too cruel when clashed with genuine experience—with reality. My breast was cleft with confused emotion – Mahon's body was a grotesque, to be sure, but I was not overcome my horror or revulsion. Is this what happened to us all? This carcass, flyeaten, decomposed and oozing death, mouth swollen, tongue lolling on a bloody lower lip, face green like the wall's fungus, lying in a suit creased, grey and littered with maggots, skin peeling, yellowed parchment, a monument to disintegration… was this Everyman? Everyman, in his darkest and truest hour? Was this what it really was? All that life, that vibrancy, happiness and melancholy in mixture, hurtling through our days—and then we were gone, leaving behind only the malodorous flesh that housed us so briefly. I gagged; my knees weak, body frail. I did not vomit. I did not faint.

V

Herein lies the last will and testament of Gregory Mahon, Esq.

Herein lies the last

My last will and deeds

The whole of my estate is now entrusted

No. I cannot go on like this—to trust in method where there is so much madness. Formality and its dictates have always held their solemnity, of that I have no doubt. The gravity of time forces itself upon situations in accordance with a wholly arcane will. There is no need for Mr Mahon, the professional, in these scribbles. He is dead—he died before he began writing this. These are the writings of a dead man.

My name commanded respect once. If it commands anything now, I know not to what sentiment it manifests. Indeed, my name will be spoken of once more shortly, but not by men.

The name Mahon will mean nothing to the noble citizen. I will become spectral—the ghoul of childish fancy. My very being shall be reduced to nonsense in the endeavour of instruction. Mothers will tell stories about me to scare their sons, so they may beware their end is not like mine. And though it should rightly rankle me that the sum total of my experience is so summarily manufactured, I feel a begrudged respect for those mothers, for they, in their lies, will tell the clearest truths of my sorry state—more succinct biographies than the coroners of the Crown and the vulture dread-journalists of the Tagnish attaché.

In rot and filth I seethe, and am defined. I owe it all to the commands of my ignoble heart. No fault greater than my own. No guilt more worthily revenged.

The birds have silenced their song. They will not sing for me again.

The quintessence of Mahon. The proud man, the exemplar of the wretched. An envoy of the damned. Gregory, son of Michael, son of Rua, son of Anthony, son of Gregory. And stretching further back, to the shadowy figures of ancestry, men undoubtedly no less contemptable. For the men of Mahon are a cursed lot! We are born into inequity, and in treachery we thrive! We stand at the lonely crossroads holding the destinies of unfortunate travellers in our arms—by these arms we reach for the sword! And I—and I—I squandered the opportunity of something more. It was not the consequence of my blood that led me to my crime, no… something more furious and sinister…

We have lived among the Delairean for two centuries, we Mahons, and not one of us have ever grovelled for the naming of becoming them.

—The family must stand remote. These villagers are a credulous lot; indeed, the family must stand remote. Our eye is on the horizon—on the sea between Tagne and Delaire, on prosperity and commerce and respectable venture. Look upon your fellow man, Gregory. See how he whittles his hours to dust breaking stone in our quarries, tilling our fields for meagre meals. See your fellow man drink his whiskey, his uisce beatha, 'the water of life' he calls it. That life-water that only pushes him faster down death's door, leaving nothing remaining. They are not your brothers—they have their lowly lot, you have your purpose. We will speak no further of this business.

Never have I more closely felt the bitter aftertaste of my prejudice. Swallowing the family line wholesale, and treating the people in whose community I traversed every day like cattle—no, worse, for cattle has value! What is the quintessence of Mahon, if not the quintessence of sin?

()

What was that? I hear...I hear a howling, but it is still day. The sun yet shines. No, no—it is too early for this! I have not yet confessed, please! My pen quickens and falters, slick with my sweating palm. Give me but one hour!

My crime is my own—I am not one who can claim to be traduced—but I must allow for my tale the slightest glimpse of reprieve. So my soul might be saved.

My name is Gregory Mahon; I am 71 years old, the last of my line, an intemperate miser whose fortune is the just reward of decades of abuses heaped upon the townsfolk of Fico by my forefathers and no less equally by myself. I have disgraced the name of disgraceful men. I had a brother. His name was Samuel. Two years my junior, he possessed all the heavenly virtues a man could want and therefore all the accoutrements of noblity that I lacked, and in every kindness in his deeds and sweet word he spoke, he earned the contempt of myself and out father. Our father died, as fathers do, and the family home was left to me, as the eldest son and rightful heir.

Samuel was given the finest education and apprenticeship in merchantile that was owed to him by our name—and on this bounty he was entitled, as per the sentiment of Michael Mahon's will, to stay by the side of his brother and work beneath him as executor of his estate and extention of my public countenance. He was to be my underling in the process of raising the family fortunes. I am a confessed fool and ignoramus to every aspect of the culture and humanity inherent in art, history, literature, but I knew how to run a business, and needed no advice—certainly not the advice of a younger brother implored by his father to remain my toady, subserviant, meek, silent! And Samuel spoke to me in ways no servant could dare to...in acts of wicked insouciance, my brother spoke to me as though we were equal men!

Now, now I can see my folly. Samuel was right. He had what was best in his heart, and by the laws of heaven I had no justice in observing him as my slave, as an extension of my power. Following the decrees and ethics of business, I cut every corner to manipulate and tyrannise my labourers. I observed the cruelties of my compatriots across the cyan seas who kidnapped and subjugated unfortunate men to serve as their slaves, and found their example edifying. I could not wrack the local men in bondage, so openly flouting Tagnish declarations denouncing such enterprise, so I began more clandestine machinations. A band of unsavouries were willing to smuggle chattel labourers into Limebeck Port following an injection of capital into their coffers. I wrote to express my assent, and before the ink had dried Samuel had snatched the evidence from my hands in righteous fervour. Confronted with proof of his own brother's slaver ambitions, I saw him weep. Crying for the devil! Seeing me, lost and damned by the consequence of my own immorality, and feeling his anger tempered by his pain and compassionate sentiment! The good man even attempted to reason me with the tears still staining his cheeks. And I gave him the retribution of the merciful. I found this confrontation, this open declaration of my shameful true self—exhilarating! The evil man revealed! The ectasy of anguish! I dropped to my knees in tortured wailing—'my brother, my brother, save me from myself! I am barbarous, I am an animal, I am nothing at all!'

Such horrific theatrics—and, when he turned his back to me for the briefest of moments, I took a letter-opener—a slender blade, sweet sword of sin!–and plunged it into my brother's back. He fell—I fell on him, stabbing and stabbing again, screaming to match his screams in an ecstatic horror. When he no longer moved, I smeared his blood across my face resembling a mask. My true face.

I started to hear the howling before I'd finished digging the grave.

A paucity of language descends upon me when I recollect the howling. I know of no methodology to explain such phenomena. It would be too simple to say I am going mad—that I hear nothing but the inner recesses of my own mind, my soul split beneath the burden of my evil. It is real. I feel its echoes upon the air, disrupting settled winds, tearing through branches of trees. A knife in sound, cutting, paring away at me and everything I thought I knew.

Money and muttered excuses were forced down the throats of any servants or inquirers seeking my brother. After his murder, the old indulgences of business and wealth meant next to nothing to me. I quietly abandoned my estate, sold my assets, pushed away my labourers, and eventually stopped leaving the manor altogether. I cannot claim to understand the processes of a good man—I do not know if the good man is a happy one. The evil man is happy indeed, happier than thought possible, when he abandons all to the excesses of his evil. Yet once he does so, his perspective shifts and is malformed—rapidly, immediately. Things lose their meaning. The evil man is happy once, and never again, and he goes to his grave knowing death will be no reprieve, for his punishment awaits. He knows this because he hears the howling.

VI

The semi-lucid prose of Gregory Mahon's death note is thus enclosed. Turning my sight from his bloated corpse, I retrieved it, yellowed but legible, on his bedside table. From the corner of my eye as I read, Doctor Mortimer examined the deceased without the slightest indication of disgust or discomfort, nor the unseemly gleam of fascination I have found in the faces of morbid and frivolous medical students in discussing the obscenities of the profession. He took two steps back from the body and exhaled, tenting his fingers and rubbing the bridge of his nose in contemplation. I passed the note to him silently, passing my eyes over the walls and roof of the bedroom as he began to read. To pass judgement on any man is an endeavour best tempered with caution, I am well aware. To speak ill of any man, alive or dead, is a trial in which the accuser must be willing to become the accused. How could I condemn the man, for his confessions? Writing this now, I know too well I am no saint, and that there are times and events past experienced that I would prefer concealed, for my thoughts and actions were so improper. Mahon had laid his grotesqueries bare in his writing, and any enmity I could place upon him for his deeds was exhausted merely by seeing his sad state. If this mass of flesh before me was indeed a human being, if he too once walked in the Sun's august gleaming…what was I? What was any of us? The words on the page could not possibly be ascribed, in my mind, to that oozing carcass. I felt something—not quite horror—not quite sympathy, something strange and morbid and viral within me, when looking at that body. Mahon was dead, and his corpse was alive in its filth. His deeds were his own, and now he was gone, and that decay his remains were host to was not a product of his sins—it would happen to me, too, and all I could find to console myself was the fact that I would not be aware of the greening of my insides until my ghost had already risen from its shell. I felt quietly, quickly, achingly frail. Then the doctor cleared his throat and disrupted my reverie.

'He lived in filth, but that didn't kill him. There are no signs of disease visible in his remains—no, in this state it is entirely impossible to establish a cause of death. One would think we were too late; but see how he mentions the howling.' His pen and notebook were already in his hands as he spoke in a tone of disinterest, briskly jotting notes and remarks in an apparent shorthand. 'One should think we were too late, sir. The man's dead; a doctor such as yourself should tend to the living,' I chided him with a sharpness admittedly not aware of itself. The doctor's eye glanced over to me, quizzical, through some invisible magnifier. 'Does this scene upset you, Mademoiselle? I must not appear overly brusque, but I must contradict you: 'tis better for us this man is dead than were he still to live.' 'Oh, is that it? We must be thankful for this noble corpse sprawled before us?' 'If that's how you wish to put it, yes. Were Mahon still living, he would but impede our true investigation.' Advancing upon the window, the doctor's note-taking grew ever more furious, while I remained silenced, speechless by his antics. Faced with such flagrant disregard for any normative medical coda or practice, I could not even find myself burning with indignation; such was my shock. The situation had eluded my grasp, and I knew little of the doctor's darker purpose. Like any woman of decent and proper wit, I have learned when to speak and when to be silent—not to hush in accordance with the orders of any so-called "gallant gentleman", though that is how it must sometimes appear to them. Despite the rhetoric and bluster of the superior rationality of the masculine mind, there are few men lacking a pride that manifests as anger and annoyance when their logic is questioned by a woman such as myself. Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent — and in silence, the eye can better elucidate what the mouth can miss in faltering speech. As quickly as the doctor made his rude proclamation, a convulsion of embarrassment washed over his face; a brief twitch, and he turned away, saying nothing.

Neither of us spoke for a long time. Nothing could be heard except the doctor's scribbling pen, and the gentlest of breezes pushing against the trees outside. If not for the dead body, it was almost tranquil.

Then, a howl. The howl. Mahon's howl. I had thought there were no wolves in Delaire, but what else could it be? So immediate and terrible it struck my soul—no, not mine alone, it struck the very soul of the room! My entire body turned arctic and frigid; I felt my teeth chatter, disembodied. Dr. Mortimer turned, brisk and alive, pulling me along by the crook of my arm — 'We have to move,' he said, as dispassionate as though he were reminding himself to get a haircut. Realising myself and the situation, I pulled my arm from his grasp as abruptly as he'd grabbed it, and we looked at each other. I can tell you that the howling I heard was quite frightful, for it was, and that I was afraid, for I was, but to tell such things in so summarily a manner, describing the circumstance only in the fashion of a frightened fool of a girl — that would not do. I was afraid, but I was not frightened: fear had entrusted me with resolve. I cannot be certain of the psychology of the thrill; there are forces within the Self that act and react as absolutely and inexplicably as chemical reactions—for danger was the catalyst that brought me to life. I looked at Doctor Mortimer, who looked at me, and in that instant we both smiled private smiles that in their privacy could be shared only in that most brief of instances. I did not know what it was we were working towards, but I was primed for any occasion. We burst into a jog down the dilapidated mansion steps, following the terrible cry of an aberrant beast.

For an aberrant beast it was—what I saw prowling the garden—a creature dark and terrible, and noble and vibrant from its haunches to its maw. A hound resembling the mythical Cerberus — a demon dog, an emissary of hell, defiant before us. Magnificent black creature, semblance of moonless night—I feel my heart beat louder again just recalling your presence. Reader, you are afraid of monsters, are you not? You are well aware that all manner of unknown terrors most certainly exist, outside of your eyeline or your base perceptions — you know the world you inhabit cannot possibly be all there is to it. You know that you do not know, that you may never know. Occasionally such ignorance is a comfort, but oftentimes more it is disturbing. My first glimpse of this beast was immediate in its implications. I was confronted by my ignorance, by something much greater and more ancient and truer than myself, something honestly alive and in possession of that joie de vivre one can only hope to experience for a second someday. I saw a monster and didn't; this was no monster. This was…something else.

The dark hound had a fiery crimson underbelly and muzzle, almost singed in its colouring. Two short fangs protruded from its jaw, and on its ankles there were white ringlets, covering the beast like manacles. Its ribs, if ribs they were, protruded from parts of its back as additional shell-like armour. Above its proud stalwart eyes sat an outer-skull plating covering its forehead. Doglike, it seemed just smaller than a wolfhound but seemingly bred for battle, with a curious armoury. It stood before us at the entrance of the manor, cautious, waiting for our next move.

'Sagan.'

'Doctor?'

'Do as I tell you and this will be fine. Understand?'

'Yes, sir.' Neither of us moved as we spoke—the aberrant hound was listening but did not seem to comprehend.

'See those pebbles beneath your feet? On a count of three, I want you to scream as a loud as you can, grab one of those stones, and strike the Aberrant with one.'

It seemed like madness; that he was determined to have me provoke the beast so that he could escape unscathed. That was what a man might do, but not Dr. Mortimer. He was made of stronger stuff than that.

'Alright,' I said to him, rapidly glancing at the ground. Small stones littered the ground, none of which seemed likely to cause the creature any more than the most temporary of annoyances. He had to be planning something, himself.

'One.

Two.

Three.'

Summoning the most horrific wail I could muster, I dropped to the ground, grabbed for a stone, and looked up at the beast before me — closer now than it was before, mouth open, jaws alight with flame, bounding towards me! I threw the stone, hoping to lodge it down the hound's throat, but my aim slipped — the stone bounced off its nose; it winced, paused for a fraction of a second, then began to howl as it charged forward—

By then, Dr. Mortimer was already intercepting it. He threw a small orb at the beast, that in mid-air collapsed open and threw a net outward, ensnaring the beast. His ingenuity in diverting the beast's attention was outmatched only by the peculiar brilliance of the net-ball itself. I had never seen such technology before. Was this the sort of equipment a man in his field of expertise relied upon? Nevertheless, the beast was caught, its jaws furiously champing at the net, unable to break free. It howled ineffectually all the while. Was the terrible hound of Mahon's nightmares truly so easily dispatched?

Dr. Mortimer stretched his arms back, wiping the beginnings of sweat from his brow. Already he had returned to his notebooks, studying and writing on his latest discovery. 'Have you ever seen a creature like this before?' I asked him, crouching down near him by the net, studying the Aberrant's frenzy with fascination. He shook his head. 'I had heard stories, read tales of a fire-breathing beast called "Houndoom". Compiled glimpses, tried to work out the rough sense of the Aberrant's shape and capabilities.' He began idly stroking a piece of the net's fabric with one finger. 'Accounts of its capabilities shifted wildly from story to story. Some said it was a fire-breathing hound that hunted the guilty and sent them straight to hell— others merely referenced a black dog that appears at the scenes of ruin and dilapidation. The truth can be difficult to discern between the alteration of these narratives, but one can't take too many risks if fire's a possibility, so I'm glad I brought the right gear with me.'

'That net is fire-resistant? How does such a thing work? I've never heard of such technology.'

'I know others who could explain it better than I can, but—'

Then, a distant howling. The hound beneath the net quit its attempts to free itself and went limp and still. The howling came from the manor. In silence, we entered the mansion once more, and rushed up the staircase. The smell of smoke was immediate as we arrived, and upon entering Mahon's room, we saw the beginnings of the fire. Three beasts had appeared before us, how? I did not know then and now can only guess. Two of the creatures resembled the one we'd subdued to an almost identical degree, but one stood above them, the leader of the pack. It stood at twice the height of its packmates, likely dwarfing the doctor and I both if it stood on two legs. Its body was slighter, in correspondence with its height, but no less muscular. Two manacles now adorned every ankle—its tail was now pointed and devilish. Around its neck lay, bone protruded and fashioned itself as a necklace, and a pair of curved grey horns ornamented its regal head. This was the true Houndoom of Mortimer's accounts. Red and blue flames emanated from its mouth and nostrils as it growled. The room was quickly filling up with smoke, Mahon's body the target of the attack. It had been set alight by all three of the beasts, and it was already near-reduced to ash.

'Doctor?'

'Yes, Sagan?'

'What do we do now?'

He didn't respond. We'd been outsmarted from the beginning. The creatures had us at their mercy now. Slowly, the Houndoom strode towards us, and began sniffing. Hunting for something. It shortly turned from me, but in its olfactory interrogation of the doctor, grew steadily intrigued. After a pause, it drew back, as if struck, and stared into Mortimer's eyes. A strange affinity had been reached between them, and as soon as they'd arrived, the three hounds leapt from the bedroom window to the grounds beneath. We did not stare from the window to watch them go, rushing down ourselves from the ongoing manor fire. Upon returning outside, our initial catch was gone, the net torn cleanly in two. Dr. Mortimer and I exchanged silent looks, and left.

By the time the rudimentary Delairean fire brigade arrived at Mahon's estate, nothing remained, aside for the brief will I had found near his corpse. Dr. Mortimer recommended I keep it and write a brief essay on the circumstances surrounding Mahon's death were questions to arise. Now I'm writing this 'casebook', as it were, from my notes, journals and memories back then. Time always seemed to prove him right. Our conversation following our arrival at the clinic was brief. Though the man as I know him now was never one to be free with his emotions, I felt him to be unusually taciturn; wound-up by our experience. He was sitting at his desk with his encyclopaedia, flicking through its many pages. Houndoom, as a name to the beast, preceded our discovery. In performative nonchalance, Dr. Mortimer suggested "Houndour" as a name for the beasts that made up Houndoom's pack. I agreed, feeling his basis on naming the creature relied upon an academic rigour I was not yet privy to. The only other note of interest in conversation was when I asked him if the situation we had experienced, where the Aberrants had the capacity to kill us, in accordance to their whims, was one he had experienced before. His jaw clenched in response to my question; he had anticipated it. I vividly recall his response:

'The Aberrants are natural; meaning they are of nature, and they are unnatural, because they are not. I can only speculate on their intelligence, though I have no doubts mental capacities fluctuate wildly between individual species. That is only one reason of many why they are so fascinating—we know so little, yet so much is possible. It is not in my capacity at this time to capture any Aberrant alive. I lack the resources, if such a thing were even possible. As a result, the bulk of my findings so far are but sketches of these creatures' capabilities. We saw that Houndoom breathe fire—but how could it do such a thing? All I can hope to do is warn others of that very talent those creatures have in my studies. A good friend once told me, "The Pokémon Professor walks on the blade's edge." That was the term used for an Aberrant researcher in his culture. Never minding how he said it, what he said was, I believe, truthful.'

I returned to Mrs. Miller's to become acquainted with my new lodgings. We exchanged small talk over dinner on my first day in Fico, and how curious it was that such a blaze would break out in an otherwise quiet village upon my arrival. Mrs Miller did not seem to drip any accusations into her words in that respect, though she half-muttered to herself that the Gregory house was one that was best torn down and forgotten about, anyway. The circumstances of the day had quite naturally exhausted me, and I collapsed into my new bed, as if closing my eyes and letting myself fall into a comfortable abyss. Despite my tiredness, I did not sleep well. I was thinking over what the doctor had told me. About the blade's edge; the path he walked. The path that was now my own, though it was never my intention. I have always thought free will a nebulous thing—fate was always more appealing. No matter how I looked at it, things just seemed to happen, intention and aspiration meaningless before the events and circumstances of my being. Perhaps I had no control over my life. Despite how it may sound, that was not an unappealing thought. I wasn't fully aware of it then, but I did not feel like the protagonist of my own life; simply a spectator, watching life happen, occasionally watching it happen to me…

On the outer fringes of my consciousness, neither waking nor dreaming, I thought I could hear a howling in the distance.