Fear raced through her as she made her way through the living area, where the doctor was standing by a table with a vase in his hand. He held it up to the dimly lit window with a hand under his mask, as if he was appraising it.  The light from the window dulled the sheen on the porcelain and reflected the both of them, stretched and distorted along the curvature of the piece.

“There doesn’t appear to be anything odd in here,” the doctor noted.  The vase was just a decorative piece with nothing inside of it.  

Her house, in general, was normal for the most part.  The only strange feature in it was a wall that had several drawings of beaked doctors, crosses and children on them.  Some of them pictured morbid scenes, and others were simply frantically scribbled text. What exactly was it that this girl did, day after day?  

Roana folded her arms across her chest and wore a perturbed expression. “Could you keep your hands off of others' possessions? We aren’t here to molest people’s personal items. Besides, I have to be getting home soon.”

She didn’t want him dropping that vase and leaving evidence. Nothing good could happen due to meddling and curiosity. Encased in darkness with only a faint light source, Roana felt unseen eyes upon them.  It was so dark in there that they could barely see. Who was to say that someone had not been watching them, waiting to strike? Even though this feeling of being watched was burning into her psyche, she had not lied about needing to go home soon. The day was draining away and her mother was probably worried sick if she wasn’t out treating patients.

“Ah, I see,” the doctor put the vase down and turned to her. “It should be about time to visit my patient.”

He had seen all there was to see at that moment.  There was nothing left to examine and going into the other rooms would be futile at this moment. He gained what he needed to and was able to view the drawings that littered the walls.  It was proof enough that the girl knew more than she had even spoken to Roana.

“Give them my regards.”

“Of course,” the beaked man replied as the two of them walked out of the house, with Roana shutting the door behind them.

They advanced towards Roana’s house and she could feel that anxiety leave her body.  She took a deep breath and slowly released it, trying to get rid of all of the negative energy that she had gained from that moment.  The cool air felt like a blessing against her hot skin and the sight of other people walking around in town put her at ease.  Soon, she and the doctor stood outside of her door and turned to face each other.

“This is where we part ways,” Roana was the first to speak after a long period of silence between them.

“I will see you in the morning. Be up early.” If she wanted to practice medicine then she needed to be an early riser for any patients that may need her help with their early morning suffering.

“I will. Goodnight, doctor,” Roana closed her eyes and smiled before she turned and walked back inside of the comfort of her home.  As she opened the door, she could hear the doctor’s footsteps recede into the fog and like a specter he vanished.

The wavy-haired girl leaned up against the door upon shutting it. The rough texture of the wood rustled her hair and felt harsh against her skin. She removed her plague mask and took a deep breath of warm air. Her mother turned from her nightly preparations to greet her.

“Roana, you’re home later than usual,” Rosalind’s sweet voice filled her senses.  Despite noting this fact, she wasn’t angry with her daughter at all.  Roana was a good girl, so when she showed up late she knew that there was a reason behind it.

“I was helping a beaked doctor assess patients. He asked me to be his understudy,” Roana gave her explanation for her late arrival.

“Did he?” Rosalind’s voice piqued with curiosity. “Is that something you want to do?”

She knew that Roana had taken an interest in her profession, and the two would talk about how Rosalind went out to care for patients and what herbs she used for different illnesses and symptoms. Roana had a good heart, and she always put people’s needs above her own.  She longed to help people who were ill and dying, just as many people in her family had done. Rosalind regarded it as ‘the purpose of the Progmarter bloodline’. 

It wasn’t a shock to her that she would one day seek out tutelage from someone proficient in the field.  She was just a little sad that she wasn’t someone that Roana had sought it out in.

“I told him I would.”

“You did?” Rosalind walked over to her.

“Yes, and I’m going to see him again tomorrow. We both have a mystery to solve,” Roana’s voice started out happy, but slowly transformed into a tone of sorrow.

“Huh?” Mystery? What did her daughter mean by that?  Rosalind had a feeling that she wasn’t going to like where this was going.

Before her mother could question her further, Roana told her that she was going to bed and that it had been a long day.  She bid her goodnight and retreated to her room, leaving Rosalind to think on her words.  Roana didn’t feel like explaining anything at the moment.  She would eventually tell her mother, as she usually confided in her but the happenings of that day left her feeling tired and heavy-hearted.  She had run herself into the ground with the doctor, Josephine, her purgatory of a nightmare and everything. It had completely drained her of energy, emotionally and physically.

“Goodnight,” Rosalind’s voice was uncertain as she watched her daughter’s form disappear into the depths of the house. 

‘I’ll have to ask her about this in the morning.’

----

The sky was dark and void of stars.  The fog rolled through the streets and obscured the houses and trees. It had transformed them into ominous shadows more than the comforting, inoffensive surroundings that were viewed by day.  The air was frosty, nearly like that in the winter time. It bit any skin that was exposed to it.  The town was empty, like a ghost town but among the sights there were two teenage boys walking the streets. They didn’t have a reason to be out this late at night, while the rest of the town slept other than to get into trouble.  They had snuck out of their homes to meet up under the starless skies.

One of them was standing in the cross-section of a couple of roads.  He wore clothes of green and white and had his blonde hair pulled back into a ponytail with a green ribbon.  He wore a jacket with deep cuffs, tight sleeves and a tight collar. It had rows of buttons like a double breasted article of clothing. The jerkin, as it was called, was lined in white and looked to belong to someone of upper class lineage. He wore knee-length pants with white tights beneath it and black buckled shoes.

His friend soon walked up, wearing similar clothes but in shades of olive.  He was a slightly shorter boy with longer hair that was pulled back in the same style of his friend’s.  He greeted the blonde with a nervous smile, and knew that his friend would be agitated with him for showing up as late as he had.

“I’ve been waiting for you for eons,” the blonde’s youthful voice scolded.

The olive-clad boy shrugged and threw his arms out. “I had some stuff to get done, but hey I made it, didn’t I?”

By ‘stuff’ he meant that he had to wait until his parents headed off to bed so that he could sneak out without being caught.  The two of them were on a time limit and they risked not getting any sleep to go out and get up to mischief.

The other shoved him, which caused him to stumble back a few paces to keep his footing. “Stop making excuses.”

“So, what do you want to do?” The auburn-haired boy questioned.

“Let’s go looking at tombstones,” the green-clad boy clenched his fists and wore an expression of glee.  He had always wanted to go into the graveyard, but his parents advised him against it.  This would have been the perfect time to defy them and quench his curiosity.

“Okay,” the other boy agreed and they began to make their way to the cobblestone road in the center of town.  That was the path that led to the memorial building and the graveyard.

They walked for a while, through houses and past shrubs and trees that were shadowed in the night.  They came to the center of town where the auburn-haired boy was caught off guard by a figure that was standing off in the horizon, silhouetted like the background around him. Whoever it was, they wore long robes and carried some kind of staff that curved and had several lanterns hanging from it.  Despite there being a source of light, his features could not be made out.

There were few people out at this time of night, and most that were had to be up to no good or homeless.  Was this man one of the homeless who wandered the streets in search of scraps of food that had been thrown out? If that was so, then how did he get that many lanterns? The figure acted very odd and stood still with no readable mannerisms.  It was as if he were more doll-like than human.

“Hey,” the olive-clad boy set a hand on his friend’s shoulder to gain his attention and pointed to the figure in the distance. “Look at that guy, standing over there.”

“Man, that guy’s acting weird,” the blonde watched the figure stand stock-still against the midnight purple of the sky.

“He’s just standing there,” the other boy stopped walking and squinted to try and make out his form through the fog. “He isn’t moving.”

“Hey!” The blonde shouted in order to attempt to get his attention, but the figure made no movement. It was as if he existed in another dimension and showed them no reaction or regard.

“Let’s just go,” the dark-haired boy tried to convince his friend to take an alternate route.  There was something sinister about this figure and it was honestly giving him the creeps.

“What’s he doing?” The blonde was curious. He wanted to know why this man was out so late and what exactly he would do if they decided to approach him.

Before he could even make another comment on the situation, the figure turned suddenly and locked eyes with them.  It sent a wave of chills through the auburn-haired boy’s body and he grabbed his friend’s hand out of instinct and took off running.

“I said let’s go,” the boy’s voice was rushed and he ran with terror soaked into his flesh.  They darted off down the main road and ran until the figure was out of sight.  They managed to advance a good two blocks away from the figure and stopped in front of an occupied house, out of breath and bent over.  

They were finally away from the threat and the auburn-haired boy felt more at ease with their situation.  He was beginning to think that they never should have gone out against their parent’s wishes. That figure was creepy as hell, and he didn’t want to see him again.

The blonde flopped onto the ground dramatically and his friend laughed at his actions.  The two of them talked for a while, in order to chip off the fright that they had acquired prior.  It seemed as if the figure was gone and they could finally just be boys and have fun exploring the town at night.  They were unsure if they wanted to go to the graveyard after that, but decided to not mention those plans again and stick around where the occasional street lamp would keep them illuminated.

The blonde sat on a large rock and chuckled a bit at one of the conversations before he felt the chill air bite him in the back and heard a far-off jingle.  Stopping mid-laugh, he turned to see the figure walking towards them down a side road.  Fear illuminated in his being and he launched himself off of the rock and put a good distance between them.

What in the hell was he doing here? How did he find them?  Was he stalking them or did he just so happen to come upon them? The town was small, so it wasn’t as if they could avoid each other forever, especially if the figure was homeless.

“What is that?” The lime-clad boy looked scared out of his mind.

“Is that?” The auburn-haired boy couldn’t finish his question and cut himself off as the figure came into the light.  His shoes clacked against the cobblestone and there was a small jingle that accompanied each step.  Slowly, the light revealed his once obscured features to them.  

He was a plague doctor, with robes dark as night and red lenses that eerily reflected the light of the street lamps.  The lanterns glowed softly from his staff as he approached them.  Pale orange illuminated their forms as the doctor wordlessly walked towards them.

“It’s that plague doctor that we saw earlier,” the blonde made a connection between him and the figure that looked at them in the distance.  When it turned its head, he saw the outline of a beak. That put him at ease.  Surely, the doctor would not hurt them. He might have wanted to ask them about the plagued or even if they would take him in, since many doctors were turned away from being housed.

 “Hey! What’s up?” He walked up to him.  He still put distance between them, but he felt a little braver than before.

“Let’s-“ The olive-clad boy began to speak before cutting himself off at his friend’s brazen actions. Doctor or not, why would he just walk up to him as if he were an old friend? What was he thinking?

“Oh man, look at him,” the blonde was intrigued by the doctor and how creepy he looked.

“Throw a rock at him or something,” the auburn-haired boy tried to advise him. The doctor wasn’t getting the hint that they didn’t want him around them, so they needed to get their words across through action.

“What the hell?” The blonde retorted as the doctor’s steps quickened.

“Shit! Run!” The auburn-haired boy yelled and they took off running into the distance and left the doctor behind yet again.  They darted through houses this time and made sure that the doctor could not see the path that they had taken. This time, they weren’t going to be followed again.

The two stopped in a dark portion of the street, as if to not draw attention to themselves this time. If they concealed themselves in the darkness they wouldn’t be spotted. They also obscured themselves by standing behind some shrubs.  The auburn-haired boy just wanted to go home, but he wanted to make sure that weird doctor didn’t follow him back to his house.  

A night of fun turned into a night of terror, and now the both of them were running for their lives from some weird doctor on the street.  He wished he had never agreed to go outside with his friend.  More than anything, he wanted to live to see the sun rise again.  If he did, he swore that he wouldn’t do this ever again.

“Did you see his face?” The blonde  got close to the doctor, but he couldn’t make out his eyes behind the mask due to the glare of the street lamp.  He was curious if his friend had gotten a peek.

“Of course not! He’s wearing a mask!” Honestly, he was farther away than the other boy. How did he expect him to see the doctor’s face?

“I don’t understand,” the blonde looked uneasy.  He didn’t know why a doctor would want to come after them and stalk them like this.