We found both of them in the barn, barely alive. It looked like Vince stopped breathing for a minute, his tongue was swollen, but he was okay. Randall wasn't too worse off. The wounds on their chests weren't deep, but they were covered in some sort of... fluid. The nutjob we have down at the station keeps calling it medicine.

You think he has anything to do with the waitress and Corey?

Probably tested the stuff on the girl and made his perfect batch during that week in Rotenburg. Poor Corey was just victim numero uno. Looks like the stuff got weaker as it aged throughout the next few days.

Probably didn't have a good way of storing it.

Wait, he's waking up.

"Randy!"

"Charlie? Where am I?"

"Toten's very own Mother's. We got you and Vince here as soon as we found you up at the Sanderson Place,"

"Vince?" Randy looked around. He saw his fellow officer watching some wrestling jargon on TV.

"Heya Randy," Vince waved.

"Charlie, tell me what happened,"

"You wanna talk to the doctor first?" the officer still in uniform pointed at the physician next to him.

"Later. What happened to that man? I thought he killed both of us,"

"Nah, you're too hard-headed to die like that," Charlie peeked over his shoulder at the doctor, who showed himself out. "He's just some quack, lost his medical license or something,"

"So is he down at the station?"

Charlie nodded.

"Take me there. Now."

"So let me get this straight, you worked at a mental ward in upstate New York, kept losing faith in the system, and went out on your own to heal everyone around you?"

"That's right Mr. Cumberfield,"

"Larry is fine,"

"Alright, Larry,"

Vince's deputy leaned back into his chair, watching the handcuffed 'doctor' like a hawk. They were separated by a typical metal office table. No one else was at the station besides Levi, who had just gotten back from a 36-hour shift and needed a nap. So far, Larry hadn't needed to use the whole 'good cop, bad cop' schtick. The man seemed eager to answer any and all questions, albeit in a strangely robotic fashion.

"So what's in that concoction that you used to paralyze two sheriffs I work with and kill a coworker of mine?"

"Various chemical compounds common to hospital environments, as well as other materials I made myself when the accumulation became too difficult,"

"Various meaning..."

"Any number of local anesthetics to provide a numbing agent to the injection points, for there are many. Pre-mixed cefazolin compounds for antiseptic and antibacterial usage. Decadron steroids to keep the body from inflaming and causing harm to itself. They are common drugs,"

"And the paralytic?"

"Succinylcholine, possibly the most dangerous but necessary for the paralysis to take effect. It is very strong,"

"And this cocktail, how much do you think is inside just one shot?"

"Enough to kill a man, especially the succinylcholine. The muscles inside the chest collapse and go into a state of complete paralysis - including those in the diaphragm and lungs. That is how surgery is done, sometimes. It is highly dangerous. But it is necessary for drawing out the devils,"

"You keep mentioning these... devils. What are they again? Are you some kind of religious fanatic?"

At this point, the 'doctor' laughs.

"No no, we make our own gods to follow. But what is real are the devils we conjure inside of ourselves too. Sickness, famine, hate, lust, war, every negative emotion ever conceived by mankind manifests as a spirit that dwells underneath the skin. I see you are no stranger to them," he points at Larry's arm. "I see them even now,"

"I don't see anything,"

"That is because you are still sick, my friend,"

"Listen, I'm not sick and I'm not your friend. You killed a buddy of mine in Rotenburg and almost killed two more at the Sanderson Place. What I want to know is how many more you were willing to kill just to play your insane game,"

The 'doctor' stopped smiling.

"I am no killer,"

"Sure seem like one to me,"

"That is simple filler,"

"You're not taking this seriously, so I'll just get someone else for you to talk to, you've heard of this right - good cop bad cop?"

The 'doctor' started chewing on something in his mouth as Larry came over around the table, fixing to leave. He saw his guest spit something onto the handcuffs.

"What are you doing - you took a metahuman screening, you don't have acidic spit,"

Without saying anything, the 'doctor' managed to muscle through the floor shackles, breaking them with contemptuous ease. He forced his way behind Larry and dragged himself and his prisoner to the floor, handcuffs at the throat. The chain between them cut deeper and deeper into Larry's airway, both suffocating and butchering him.

Where, oh where, in the dark city there

Do you see a single blade of grass?

I find them crawling, from a back-alley mauling

Like fingers beyond the looking glass

Embraced by a film, as the lights now grow dim

It is time, now, for evening mass

Larry tried gasping for air, clawing at the 'doctor' and his terrifyingly strong hands. Hands used to hold down much larger patients, used to wrestle psychotic men and women back to their beds, hands that did all of that and administered paralytic drugs at the same time.

Levi was still asleep, completely unaware in the opposite side of the station where the cots were. The shackles were meant to hold people weighing more than 600 pounds of pure muscle, but the 'doctor' obviously had different plans. No matter the distance, no matter the outcome to himself, he would be there for his patients.

Including Larry.

And so it is here, that the grass doth grow

Against the glass painted red, a broken window

The alleys of death, of misery and woe

Reflected back upon you, a sickly new patient

Of Doctor Tobias Monroe

When Charlie and Randall got to the station, all they saw was a massacre, with Levi standing over Larry trying to keep the blood from pumping out, trying to keep a pulse on him. The deep gash in his throat, however, didn't seem like enough to kill him. After all, he did manage to crawl over to the desk and hit the alarm button. Levi had gotten up immediately when that happened, and here they were.

While en route to the emergency room, Randall couldn't stop staring at Larry.

Charlie patted his shoulder. "He's gonna be okay."

Randall didn't believe what he was seeing, moving under Larry's skin like that. Like faces, screaming before being burned away.

"Yeah..."

Calling all units, this is Officer Bighorse, reported hostage situation on the edge of Toten - abandoned farmstead, I repeat: hostage situation in the old barn outside Toten.

This is Officer Newmaker, en route.

Be advised, suspect is likely still on the premises and is to be considered armed and dangerous.

Affirmative.

The Sanderson Place.

Randall hated passing it on patrol. He always made his rounds by Toten close to nightfall, and the way the sunset crested over the old barn made it seem unnatural. He had good reason. Everybody did. There was a case in '83. Sanderson family built it in the sixties, maintained it, never touched base with the outside world. An anonymous phone call from a concerned man driving by on the highway came through sometime in August. Randall was a deputy at the time, so he was sent to investigate.

No one answered the door.

He ended up finding the wife and three children in the barn, boarded up from the outside, all done in with a shovel. Out in the pasture, before the groves of wheat, stood an oak tree. And down from its eaves stretched a long rope, ending with the family's patriarch swinging by his neck - framed by the red sunset.

Bodies were removed and the property went up for auction, but no one wanted to purchase it considering its recent dark history. City ended up taking it, but due to a loophole in the 'historical landmarks' clause of the recreational building code, it couldn't be demolished until the city of Toten actually expanded out that far. So it just became empty and condemned.

Pulling up into the driveway, this close to dusk, brought back that chill in his spine.

"Anyone go in yet, Vince?"

"No sir," Officer Bighorse responded.

"Thinking it's the same guy from Rotenburg?"

"Probably,"

Randall got quiet, and Vince backtracked mentally.

"It ain't your fault,"

"Not the time, Vince. Exits?"

"Just the front door and some boarded up windows,"

Randall took out his gun, black six-shooter, ivory grip. Vince, the same, but silver finish and varnished oak handle. "Watch for anyone leaving. Tell backup to keep the area on lock-down,"

"Backup," Vince chuckled, lowering his face.

Officer Newmaker pushed the door open with his shoulder slowly, clicking on a flashlight and holding it parallel to the barrel. His old eyes were still sharp. Rats shot out from the darkness into the floorboards, under decayed hay bales. It still smelled like that day in '83. Hot. Bloated. He had to put his nose into the crux of his elbow, flashlight aimed to where he needed to look next.

The barn itself stood as an imposing two-story structure, yawning even higher into the rafters by virtue of the angled tin roof. The top deck had nothing but more hay bales, long since broken apart and rotting. Why Sanderson did what he did could never be figured out. Randall even found himself glancing behind him once or twice, almost feeling the sensation of a blunt object coming towards him - or, rather, barely missing.

He angled his torch quietly towards the top deck again, but stopped and clicked it off. There, behind a nest of old farming tools, flickered another light. He almost crawled, hunched over, to the ladder and began to ascend. He flicked the lamp back on and aimed the pistol down the way, making sure there were no surprises he couldn't yet see. Nothing.

The tool nest encircled itself, dimming the light substantially. Any first glance would pass it over entirely. Randall followed the curve of the racks, his torch extinguished, revolver at the ready.

Is he even in there?

He couldn't sense anyone, not in the vague foreboding dread of someone else in the room. Rounding the corner, he leveled his gun at a person, but...

This doesn't... how?

Vince was curled up next to the lamp, his clothes stolen down to the underwear. He couldn't speak or make any noise, and Randall assumed it was the wound in his chest. It didn't seem deep, but when he went to inspect it Vince shook his head - violently.

"Bullets - floor," an unfamiliar voice came from behind Randall.

He turned to look, but felt a silencer in the small of his back. I didn't even hear him behind me.

Randall did as he was told. Six clattering bounces and he tossed down his sidearm. He was instructed to move forward by a tap from the gun behind him.

"Turn around, let me see your face,"

"You're not going to get away with this," Randall spat, keeping in tandem with the demands.

"Get away with?" the stranger asked, removing Vince's cap from his head and letting down hair that dangled into a bowl cut. "What am I getting away with?"

"Holding police hostage, having killed one in Rotenburg and injured another here,"

"Rotenburg? Do you know Mr. Sheffield?" he asked, smiling. "He was a good patient,"

Randall's grimace deepened, and he began to get red in the face.

"Very sick, however. The devils were too deep inside of him. Much like your friend, Mr. Bighorse, here. The gap is too wide for him to leap,"

Vince couldn't move, or say anything, but his eyes were full of panic. Randall could see that.

"What do you want?" he hissed.

"I want to make you better, Mr. Newmaker," he kept the gun leveled with his chest. "You, too, are very sick,"

"You're the sick one," Randall replied with venom. "You need help or, failing that, an electric chair,"

"Please, calm down sir,"

Randy peered into his captor's face, trying to get a good look. "Damn light," he muttered.

"You always assumed you were in control of the situation,"

"I still am,"

"Backup, right?" the stranger replied, holding up a radio and tossing it down to ground level.

Randall went silent.

"How did you like my impression?" he continued, his voice flat and monotone. He was just met with a glare.

"Tell me about yourself,"

Nothing. The stranger took a seat on a nearby barrel, keeping his gun level with Randall's chest.

"I just want to help you,"

"What did you do to Vince? To Corey?"

"Medicine. Large dose, just enough to purge what was inside of them. They died of natural causes,"

"They died?"

The strange motioned towards Vince. He had stopped breathing entirely, his eyes glazed over.

"His skin is not crawling anymore. The devils are gone,"

Randall looked at him, grief-stricken and enraged. "What the hell is wrong with you?!"

He just angled his head at Officer Newmaker.

"You're murdering people and saying it's healing them?" Randall had no options left. Out here, in the middle of nowhere, they would only get backup when they weren't responding to dispatch asking for their location. Even then it would be thirty minutes to an hour ignoring speed limits.

"A doctor does not murder. The spirit is willing but the flesh was weak, that is why they died,"

"You're insane,"

A facial twinge. Must have struck a nerve.

"What do you want?" Randall asked again, trying to ease the sudden tension.

"What do you want, Mr. Newmaker?" the stranger replied stoically, not changing in the temperature of his voice. "I had thought you wanted to better, away from your cankers, here in the dark. When did you lose that spark?"

"Wha-"

"You've been complaining of chest pain and headaches, especially when its rains and your car quakes. Maybe you need new brakes? Or should stop eating your daily pancakes,"

"How did you-"

"I am your doctor, Randall. No killer or vandal. Upon further inspection,"

Officer Newmaker watched as he properly aimed the silenced rifle at his beating heart.

"It is time for your injection."

Sunset at the Sanderson Place... just brings back bad memories.

[POLICE REPORT]

Case No. 010004; Date:

__________

Reporting Officer: Randall Newmaker; Prepared By: __________

Incident: waitress falling unconscious at a local diner, blood samples indicate similar chemicals present to Case No. _________ and __________.

Detail of Event:

Candace Ryder, age 26, was working her normal shift at Tabby's Diner on Interstate 30. She collapsed after complaining of lightheadedness and upset stomach. When dispatched, Officer Randall Newmaker and Deputy Corey Sheffield found evidence connecting to previously cataloged casework. Ms. Ryder had a small puncture wound on her hand, assumedly from a handshake or other form of contact. As of writing, Ms. Ryder is still under hospital observation. Considering the previous evidence, a round-the-clock watch has been posted alongside her stay in __________.

"Randy, you sure?"

"Just enough, Corey,"

The sheriff and his deputy had an anonymous tip from the diner where Candace was drugged that they saw a man in black leave around the same time. It was a stretch, but it was worth investigating considering just who they were told about.

Thick wooden boards built the strong walls of the Paramount Hotel, arguably the largest building in Rotenburg. Nails neatly trimmed, panelling polished, it seemed sturdy. At least enough to last this long without incident. Rotenburg owed a lot to the Paramount Hotel, including its existence in the first place.

Randy and Corey both got their own rooms, lock and key, and settled in for the night.

Breakfast under a tin roof had a certain quality. Greasy eggs and bacon, buttered toast, biscuits and gravy. With the coffee, it would be a long week.

Corey started by poking around the local hospital, seeing if he could find any substantial evidence of an intruder. Knowing the suspect, any sick ward would be a prime target. The largest gap in security was the back dock, the staging area called MRD. Technicians there told him that the oxygen tank delivery truck came late that previous day, with a new guy. Tall, looked like he got burned once or twice. Once he pieced it to the same truck parked on the side of the road just outside of sight distance of the hospital, it itched the back of his mind.

Besides that, no signs of a break-in. No medications missing from the nurse stations, pharmacy was clean. Anesthesia carts untouched, the closests untampered with.

He must have figured we'd look for that first.

Three days went by without any incident, and without report than a man fitting the description had ever left Rotenburg. Informants started breaking away from the case, thinking he might have gone either north to Toten or into the desert to try and cut through to Hampton. Officers staged in those towns were put on alert as the week started to drag on into its final day - and then into its final night.

Corey pushed open his door and locked it behind him in a fit of pressured anger. He went to turn his lamp off -

- and stopped.

Two legs jutted out from the darkness, above them the silenced barrel of a rifle.

"Come sit down, Mr. Sheffield," someone rumbled from within the crawling shadows. The figure stood, and gestured towards the chair he had once inhabited. "I do believe this is your favorite seat after all,"

Corey had no choice, following the gun with his eyes as they traded spots in the room - and sat down again. The stranger crossed his legs, and got comfortable.

"How are you?" he asked sharply, but with an odd twinge of empathy.

Corey didn't respond.

"Eating the same thing seven mornings in a row... so high in cholesterol. Addles the heart's capability to pump blood through to your brain. It is arguably the strongest organ, you know. You get sluggish and irritable. Things start to feel colder than normal,"

Again, no response. Corey found it odd that he was giving a prognosis like this. "You a doctor or something?"

A sudden crane of the neck - pride?

"Of course. You're a sharp one. Can you guess what my practice is?"

Corey kept as still as he could. There was a pistol in his boot, six-shooter.

"Psychology?"

"Very good,"

The man adjusted the gun in his lap. It was aimed right for Corey's chest.

"You have something in your coat, take it out, bullets - floor,"

The deputy did as he was told and unloaded the second revolver in his jacket. Six bullets hit the panelling. Gun, the bed.

"Smart man. Tell me about yourself,"

Corey hesitated.

"That's fine. I can read. You're a deputy," he smirked. "Are you feeling alright?"

When he received silence again, he dropped the smile. "I'm just trying to help you. Can you tell me what's wrong?"

An idea. "Well, my foot hurts," Corey started reaching down towards the back of his calf, towards the second gun. He was halfway. "And it - "

But he looked up. If he had made any sudden moves the man would have blown his face off before he sat back up to aim. He leaned back into the pit of the chair.

"We will get to that later. I'm talking... in general. Cough, chest pain, migraines. Do you see things that aren't there?"

Corey had no options left. Randy was in another part of the hotel, already asleep. Two-way radio was on the dresser, opposite side of the bed.

"C-Can we just address something," he started. The man nodded slowly. "What do you want?"

"I want to make you better. There's a sickness inside of you, Mr. Sheffield. I can see it under your jacket - moving under your skin,"

"Do you have any idea how crazy you are?"

All formality seemed to drop on that word. The man opposite Corey almost... understood something. Like a key turning in his mind.

"If you want to leave against medical advice, then we must administer immediately - and roll the dice,"

An uncomfortable silence passed. Corey, in his heart of hearts, decided that it would be now or never. He reached down as fast as he could, knowing the man saw him. The revolver found his hand naturally, hugging the flesh of his fingers tightly, and he prayed that its steel would deliver him from this nightmare.

...

He woke up after the initial impact, his chest burning - on fire! He had been shot, but he did not die. He took this opportunity to try and scream, force the air out of his lungs so that someone could find him - end this suffering.

But Corey Sheffield did not make a sound.

"How do you like it?" the man asked, watching Corey writhe in the chair like a trapped animal.

Corey didn't respond - he couldn't. Nothing came out, not even a wheeze.

"You are my patient, Corey, and I haven't yet heard your story. Maybe if you live, a story you shall give, for you have been rather rude,"

The deputy looked down, and saw that his chest had been torn to shreds not by bullets but by weaponized needles and other sharp implements. They were coated in something, from what he could see.

"Just one of those may alter your mood, but a point-blank shot? You're now as limp as your cot,"

He walked up and put his head close to Corey's mouth so he could hear.

"I'm curious now, do you still doubt me?"

The deputy mumbled something, and the man stepped back and laughed.

"Then I'll give you everything you need."

[POLICE REPORT]

Case No. 010004; Date: __________

Reporting Officer: Randall Newmaker; Prepared By: __________

Status: Incomplete under the mysterious circumstances of Deputy Corey Sheffield's death, Expunged until further evidence is brought forward

It is raining now, drizzling pouring seething

In the dark city where they have stopped breathing

The banks are flooded, choked and rising

In the dark city where there are only grim tidings

Buildings like fingers that twist so high

In the dark city where they have come to die

Through the door which dark things crawl

Into the dark city where the rain doth fall

It has been brisk without you my dear, though I do not frisk I do not cheer.

It has been icy here in the grasp of nightly chill, where the water is rock when it should be up to the gills.

I do not think I will last on this stomach I have not filled;

Oh please, my darling, I have yet much more to fear.

Clouds are rolling outside, inky dreary grey; a great skyward tide blotting out the day.

The stains do not wash out.

I cannot survive, not like this.

I am scrubbing away the gout, yet it crawls back over from a spot that I missed.

It does not work, that I can plainly see. Everything around me is a harbinger of disease. Sickness and decay, the great reaper is lurking. If I am to save anyone, I must continue working.

He is without a plan, home or name. The downpour and flood has driven him insane. This man I have found on the banks of the river - surely he is another lost soul to deliver.

Bringing him to safety, unconscious and bloodied, the rocks must have been sharp according to the wounds I have studied. He remained quiet in the delirium of sleep. A cold day in Hell, when I allow him pneumonia to keep.

His waking screams told me of horrific dreams, as he struggled against the leathery seams. He had to be restrained, for the good of his brain, the mind having to be retrained. The elixirs I have made had to be poured with a spade, if his life were to be saved.

Though, he was already too far lost, the disease wreaking too heavy a cost. All did not end in grief and in tears - for at the end, I dispelled all of his fears.

The devil inside flew away screaming, and at last the man's skin had stopped teeming. Underneath were a myriad of worms, but they vanished once he came to terms. When he passed away, tears in his eyes, he muttered something that I assume was goodbyes.

Another noble soul, lost to the pox, if only his skull wasn't shattered by the rocks.

Robert Adder walked into his wife Rebecca's room, third floor seventh on the left, and surprised her with a bouquet of white daffodils - her favorite. They didn't talk much about the room, but more about each other and what they were going to do once Rebecca was out. Going on vacation, maybe to a film festival being hosted next month. The extended stay had drained a bit of their funds, but they were still willing to try and live their life together.

Rebecca twisted the blanket Robert had brought her from home in her hands. He could see that something was wrong, plain as day.

She wouldn't tell him at first, warning him that she would sound insane, but at length she confessed to something that has been happening daily. Every time the sun would set, when the nurses changed shifts and the night would roll in, it started when she got there, and it became progressively worse. She told Robert everything.

She thought she was being watched.

Robert told her that it was the nursing staff's job, but she protested completely. She had known each member of the staff until now, but there was a third party somewhere and her fears began to surmount logic. The hospital staff were informed and stayed posted, but in the morning she would be told there was nothing throughout the night. Yet even then she felt a presence in the room beside her own and that of the unit technician or nurse that sat in with her.

Robert agreed that she should be kept at ease, and so went home to sleep so he could stay up to watch over her. That night came and he stood around bored, having already exhausted all potential outlets for entertainment in the deep darkness. Hospitals at night were uneasily quiet. Especially here, on the third floor seventh door on the left, for next to an array of windows it opened to the city all gleaming and bustling. Even at midnight, he could assume that lives were being lived and destroyed despite him not seeing them.

That is when his wife ripped the blankets from her sleeping form, took off from the room screaming for mercy. She ran as if she hadn't been safe before, sprinting and leaping, a gazelle in rabid panic.

This had been the first time she ever ran like this, shouting and pleading for the lights to come back on. Nurses and techs all rushed to defend her from herself, but poor Robert understood all too well. His vision blurred between light and dark, but he took his wife away despite all of the noise. Something had happened in that room over the course of time she had spent there.

It was no longer safe, and upon leaving the dreadful place for an hour she returned to a normal mental state. Robert did not understand, it was chalked up to anxiety. She was allowed to go home - that was all that mattered.

The secrets of the third floor, seventh room on the left by the window were never discovered. Nurses and even building inspectors found nothing in the bedroom proper. However, upon inspection of the vent closest to the bed, it looked as though food and water somehow was moved into the air duct. Empty vials of unmarked fluid were taken as evidence, though no fingerprints were found. A bizarre case of localized gas administration? Perhaps. Robert had not stayed on the couch like the nurses and techs did to monitor the patient. His restlessness made him walk and breathe normally, and that is what he believes to this day.

A person was up there, watching his wife, possibly drugging her for some insane reason.

The door is opened, where the dark things go

Leaping behind the shattered glass

Eyes to a building, rising as a gravestone

Flooded and spilling, the water still flows

Beyond the reach of the towering mast

Into the lungs of they who always row

In the dark city, where the lamps still glow

You have realized you need healing at last

By the hand of Doctor Tobias Monroe

Where, oh where, in the dark city there

Do you see a single blade of grass?

I find them crawling, from a back-alley mauling

Like fingers beyond the looking glass

Embraced by a film, as the lights now grow dim

It is time, now, for evening mass

We were to come here, don't you remember my dear? Through all the rain and all the tears, a sunny spot down by the pier.

I remember your smile, the best I've seen for a while, when we embraced the shore we held so dear.

Do you still go there?

Do you still know where?

I don't remember at all, my dear, the spot by the pier - and that is my greatest fear.

Tobias Monroe was born to a family of doctors, and so had automatic expectations set of him. What to read, what to say, what to eat or drink, all came down to the social status of those in his immediate vicinity, as their judging eyes always lurked from every corner. His mother died when he was very young, and he remembers it vividly. His father had given up - her illness was untreatable. Tobias secretly tried to help her, by making a potent concoction of medications that would have served as a revolutionary anesthetic.

Yet the end result was the same, and she passed away in a comatose slumber.

Ever since then, there was a nagging, gnawing sensation in the back of Tobias' mind. He would never be good enough, he would always fail. But he continued despite all of that. He earned his doctorate and joined with the St. Mary's Catholic Hospital in upstate New York. There, he would take up the most difficult cases in order to prove to himself and others that he could accomplish anything he set his mind to. St. Mary's, however, also housed a psychiatric ward. The patients there were almost inmates due to their rampant psychotic behavior, dementia eating away at the brains of men and women as young as sixteen.

It would have broken Tobias, if he were not granted leniency to try anything to help these patients by the headmistress herself. She saw in Tobias the capacity to do great good with the patients, and so he would work tirelessly in the pursuit of such an ideal.

Weeks turned to months, months to years. Dr. Monroe had successfully helped several of the patients who were on the lower end of instability. Yet those prone to actual violence persisted. He could not heal them, no matter what he tried to do. The headmistress told him to not worry, but the gnawing came back into his mind. The nagging, pulsating echo of failure.

You could not do it after all. You wasted all that time, and now look where it has gotten you.

Dr. Monroe began experimenting, using his accumulated knowledge of medications and diseases to develop... cures. Miracles of science, potions that would only be found on the pages of alchemical books or mystical tomes. The very idea of these elixirs was either genius or insane, but at this point Dr. Monroe had long ago blurred the line between the two. Administering these drugs to the violent patients worked, all according to his specifications and hypotheses. The parts of their brains affected by the degeneration of time and sickness gradually healed, and they began to speak in complete sentences.

They could interact with other people, play games, read books, and watch television with no change in temperament.

However, before each discharge date, a bizarre and unsettling pattern began to occur.

Dr. Monroe's miracle cures would begin to cause other parts of the body to deteriorate, most commonly the motor functions of the brain. Dementia would return in cacophonous triumph, paranoia and schizophrenia erupted in symptom rate. The patients very often died of overexertion, self-induced stroke or aneurysm, or simply found hard surfaces to smash their own bodies upon.

The coverup operation by the hospital was simple: blame it all on Dr. Monroe, and label him a completely psychotic man. Yet, the gnawing sensation returned - and this time he could hear his own voice within it. He had wasted his time and effort here, his cures simply needed refining. They were in the wrong.

Before his final departure from the hospital, Dr. Monroe took everything he could get his hands on. Yet the matter of the headmistress still scratched at his mind. Before she could leave her office, he crept up to her wearing a burlap sack on his head. She, herself, was sick, and needed to be healed. He forced medication of his own design into her face, spraying her with a mixture of chemicals that he knew would bring her mind back to a normal state of being. He always knew that she was wearing a mask.

The devil inside her screamed, as it left only a withered husk of a shell once it passed beyond.

He was later arrested for 'murder', how typical. The people of the world needed to be treated. They were all sick - and he was the only one with the cure.

Finding a home in Carter Penitentiary proved easier than one would think. Dr. Monroe fit in perfectly with the kitchen staff, as he grew quieter by the day. They removed everything from his pockets, as was to be expected, and he felt alone without the means to protect himself. The diseases were growing here in multitudinous polyps, hiding in the corners of the room, under the skin of the men he stood next to.

They were all sick.

Conspiring against him were several guards who thought, and with good reason, that he was trying to cook up some form of medicine or drug. They assumed it to be his form of currency in the environment. Though when they went to investigate during one of his secret mixing sessions, Dr. Monroe managed to cleanse them of their foul blight.

They're all diseased.

Spraying them all in the face with handmade concoctions, he did not have the time or creative energy to waste on watching them degenerate into savage beasts and maul each other to death. They were sick, their demons are gone now.

He had even stitched together a new costume out of sheets and various linens, one that would be the merest of prototypes to his future design. The commotion with the guards fighting each other - as well as any who came to help - turned out for the best of his interests, as their psychotically-increased strength required several men to hold down only one. His escape, therefore, became illogically simple, and he vanished into the night, never to be seen within the doors of the penitentiary again.

And so it is here, that the grass doth grow

Against the glass painted red, a broken window

The alleys of death, of misery and woe

Reflected back upon you, a sickly new patient

Of Doctor Tobias Monroe