Kneel! The Fallen Hero Has Returned!

Chapter 5: The Doctor Who Called Me A Cripple

"Your body will never recover. You should accept your condition instead of wasting everyone's time."

Dr. Silas Vane's words from three years ago still echoed in Ronan's memory, cold and flat and sure of themselves.

Now Old Bram pushed the wheelchair through the same clinic door, and the man behind the desk gave the same arrogant look.

"Why are you here, Ronan?" Silas leaned back and steepled his fingers. "Have you come to beg me for another miracle?"

"Good afternoon, Doctor," Ronan said, and his voice wavered. "I'm sorry to come without an appointment."

"I can see why you did." Silas's gaze slid over his ruined coat and his pale, thin face. "You look worse than last time. The pain is getting worse, isn't it? The corrosion has reached your lungs, perhaps?"

"It... it hurts every night, Doctor." Ronan blinked, and his eyes grew wet. "I can't sleep. I can't eat. Please, I just want to know if there's anything left to try."

"Ah." Silas sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "I told you three years ago, and I told your family, and I told that lovely fiancée of yours. A shattered Abyss Core can't be repaired. You should have accepted it."

"I know. I know you're right. But I, I was hoping..."

"Hope is a luxury for the healthy." Silas waved a hand lazily. "Come here. Let me at least check your pulse so I can tell the family I did my duty."

Bram bristled. "Doctor, that's no way to talk to the Young Master!"

"Bram, it's all right," Ronan whispered. "He's only telling the truth."

Silas gave a tiny, satisfied smile and held out his hand. Ronan stretched out a trembling arm, and his fingers closed around the doctor's wrist.

"Thank you," he said, and his voice dropped. "For being honest."

Silas rolled his eyes. "Yes, yes. Now let me see..."

Ronan reached inward and found the place in his chest where the Abyss Core slept. It stirred at his touch. He drew one thin thread of its corrosive poison up through his arm, the same poison that had eaten him alive for three years, and let a single drop slip into the doctor's skin.

Silas froze. "What..." His eyes widened. "It's cold. Why is it so cold?"

"D-Doctor?" Ronan gasped, widening his own eyes in alarm. "What's wrong?"

"Let go of me!" Silas yanked backward, but Ronan's grip clung like a drowning man's. "Something's moving under my skin!"

The skin on the back of his hand began to darken. Gray shadow crept across the knuckles, then black veins crawled up the wrist, and the flesh puckered and split. A sour smell filled the room like rotting fruit. The doctor stared at his own hand, and his face lost every drop of color.

"Abyss rot," he whispered. "No, no, that's... it's leaking from you! Your corrosion is leaking!"

"I-I didn't do anything!" Ronan cried, putting on a wail of terror. "I swear, Doctor, I don't know what's happening! Please, I'm sorry!"

Then the pain hit, and Silas screamed. He threw himself backward, knocking over his chair, and clawed at his own arm with his free hand.

"Aaaah! Take it off! Take it off me!"

"I'm trying!" Ronan sobbed, while inside he counted slowly to ten. *Is this what you told me I'd suffer from forever?* he thought, watching the doctor thrash. *Now you know a drop of what I carried.*

Bram dropped to his knees beside the chair, begging. "Young Master, let go! You're hurting him!"

"I c-can't!" Ronan stammered. "My hand won't open!"

On ten, he drew the poison back. The black veins shrank and faded and in a few heartbeats the doctor's hand looked as it had before. Ronan let go and slumped in his chair, panting, as if the effort had nearly killed him.

Silas collapsed against the wall, gasping, and clutched his hand to his chest like a wounded bird. His glasses hung crooked from one ear. He turned his fingers over and over, flexing them one at a time.

"Gone," he whispered. "It's gone. There isn't even a scar."

"I'm so sorry," Ronan wept. "I didn't mean to. I don't know how it happened. My body is rotting, isn't it? I'm poisoning people now."

"No, no, it's..." Silas stopped, and his eyes narrowed. For a moment the mask of the frightened victim slid, and something sharper looked out. "Corrosion doesn't leak like that. It doesn't move on its own, and it doesn't retreat when it feels like it."

Ronan's heart skipped, but his face stayed pitiful. "I... I don't understand."

"Neither do I." Silas pushed himself up and wiped his face with a shaking sleeve. "Bram, get him out. Get him out right now. I need to think."

"Come, Young Master," Bram whispered, wiping his own tears. He gripped the chair and swung it toward the door.

"Wait."

Ronan stopped.

The doctor's voice had changed. The arrogance had drained out of it, and what was left sounded small and sick. He was staring at Ronan's chest, right over the place where the core slept, the way a man looks at a sleeping tiger.

"There's something I should have told you three years ago," Silas said hoarsely. "I thought it didn't matter then."

"What is it?" Ronan asked, keeping his voice thin and frightened.

"Your fiancée came to my clinic every month. She brought a black vial, and she told me it was a family tonic to ease your pain." Silas wet his lips. "I tested it once, out of curiosity."

Ronan's fingers tightened on his armrests.

"It wasn't a tonic. It was Abyss crystal dissolved in alcohol," Silas whispered. "Someone has been feeding you the corrosion all along."