Warning: Mentions of blood, injuries and pain, nothing outside of the fantasy-violence label. This applies for all following chapters of No One's Tower.

Suddenly, from the room's deepest shadow, a figure emerged—a doctor dressed in a short-sleeved uniform, more suited for manual labour than what Mortigus had seen before. The unknown doctor inspected the side of the table, using gloved hands to scrub away the runes, then stretched the cables, testing their strength. One by one, from the silent voids of the room, other doctors and assistants appeared, all clad in similar uniforms. Tool cabinets were rolled closer as Rhit guided Mortigus toward the centre. Mortigus began to notice that Rhit's grip had tightened—his body locked in a vice formed by the assistant’s arms. His squirming attempts or heavy breaths went unnoticed as his body was lowered onto the central table. Cables coiled around his wrists and ankles like snakes, forcing him to lie flat on his back. A needle pricked his arm, attaching him to a tube he couldn’t trace from his position. The doctors began examining his legs and torso, gauging the spread of his illness, but Mortigus could hardly feel the chill of their gloves—his body was beginning to shut down again. His skin and limbs felt distant, disconnected from him, and his throat refused to form sounds. A bright light was thrust above his face, and his eyes strained to stay open as his sense of touch faded. His ears became the last bridge to reality, and amidst the sea of muffled voices muttering through thick mask fabric, he managed to single out one voice, nobler than the rest.

 “The anaesthetics are showing their effect. Prepare the preservation solution and bring samples numbers 3, 4, 8, 9, and 10 for the moment. Just in case, bring a spare jar of artificial blood.” 

 “Shall we proceed with the incision on the abdomen?”

 “Thankfully, patient is within expected conditions; you may indeed proceed to the next step. Now, if you-”, the blur of sounds and lights overtook Mortigus, sweeping his sense of self. Even his viceral fear dissolved as his consciousness slipped away.

Slow streams of pigments flowed endlessly in a cascade, with no beginning nor end—an unfitting display of mismatched light within a void. There was only one perspective, yet it felt as though everything was simultaneously in focus. Movements were sensed, not seen nor heard, but instinctively felt. Then came a sharp crack, like lightning striking a young tree, tearing away its bark and leaving a smouldering scar. Instead of destruction, the cascading, vibrant colours bathed the tree, blessing its life. Short, twisted branches began to grow wildly, reaching toward the sky as if inviting another merciless strike. Within the trunk, a green spark ignited, drawing the void closer, threatening to envelop the tree from its roots. Another bolt of lightning hit, driving back the encroaching void, protecting the tree from being swallowed whole.

  A pair of eyes opened abruptly, and Mortigus winced as the dream threw out violently back into reality. His scattered brain could not collect itself from the overwhelming feeling of vomiting and lack of balance, and the nightmarish sleep had left him resourceless. After his body had been forced to shut down so many times, one might assume it was something one could grow accustomed to. But for Mortigus, each time felt like a brutal awakening—perhaps even worse than anything he had ever endured before. In an attempt to get reconnected to reality, Mortigus rubbed his eyes, his arm rising slowly to the nasal bone. Or so he thought, as a strange, wide hand came into view, with segmented dark fingers with white, elastic-looking bands in the place of joints. The texture was alien to human skin, with lines mimicking the bark of a sprouting tree. The hand would be attached to an arm just as strange, continuing with even deeper bark lines on the inside and a greenish outerside.  Another oddity was the angle of this massive arm, as it was directed above Mortigus’ nose yet it was in the focus point of his eyes. Looking to the ground, the boy barely now noticed the slight tint of green covering his vision and the wild manner in which his eyes would adapt to the poor lighting in the room. Mortigus tried again to reach his nosebone, but the weird fingers came dangerously close to the underside of his eyes. The boy realised he was indeed in control of the hand, more or less, as he sluggishly moved each finger individually. He then moved the whole hand, testing his field of vision, however, something was out of order. He allowed his fingers to get closer and made contact with the eye, despite his body edging to recoil, yet once touched, the eye gave no reaction. Wait, the eye? The boy frantically started feeling his face, searching for his eyes, but he could only find one lone sphere, way larger than an orange, now resting in the nose’s place. His mouth disappeared as well, its vacant spot having only deep lines like the texture on the arm. While in the past he would often be blinking rapidly overcome with fear, Mortigus came to realise his new cyclop-like eye lacked any eyelids or eyelashes, keeping itself moisturised with a weird layer of thin slime. Too terrified to try to push more against his new eye, his breathing got sporadic, leaving him with his hands clutching his throat. Indeed, the bizarre arm from before was also now his, bark arms, tow of them to be exact, connecting to his shoulders covered in red protrusions, reminiscent of toadstool mushrooms. 

 “Slowly inhale, wait, then slowly exhale, just like auntie taught me,.” the boy told himself, attempting a breathing exercise. His blood was already pumping in his fingers and head like a river’s stream, making it hard to focus on anything but panic. His chest would rise and collapse rhythmically as he slowly took back control of his breathing. The rush of blood would diminish, and his hands no longer grasped so tightly around his own neck. Mortigus stared forward, the outlines of dark, thin, and long marks in front of him concentrating into clear bars of metal. A poorly lit room could be made out through the bars, with a wooden door sticking out in a far corner. No windows, but a few sewer mouths were letting air in the room. The gloomy room was filled with scattered crates of various sizes. Mortigus observed his immediate surroundings—what would be inside the three walls and metal bars imprisoning him. A simple, greyish mattress with a rather soft feel, a beige quilt thrown to the side by his sudden awakening, Mortigus was surprised that the coldness of the rocky floor did not bother him at all. In the right corner, a small table was holding a plate of food, but Mortigus couldn’t tell the ingredients apart too well, except for the carrots and cucumbers. A rather small demijohn, filled with a clear liquid, was resting next to a table leg. Mortigus grabbed the wall, raising one of his knees, attempting to stand up. In the same second, the sound of an unlocked door reached his ear. In the opposite end of the room, from the entrance emerged a familiar face, or rather, mask. 

  “Mortigus, or better said, Cured One! Oh, it’s such a pleasure to see you awake again. I apologise, I wasn’t here when you woke up. Confusion, fear, maybe disdain, I understand what you might feel.” The doctor was moving towards the bars, casually speaking as if catching up with a regular patient, the monstrous state of Mortigus being all too familiar for him. Mortigus scurried to the back wall of the cell. He tried to throw out a few words, but his throat felt like a musical instrument he’d never played before.

 “Oh, that movement around your larynx—you must still be unable to speak. Despite waking up several times already, you seem unable to let out a word. Do not worry; yours truly, doctor Nostra, is here to simply check your health. Please eat from the plate near you, it should cover most nutritional needs of your new body. And, well, you enjoyed it the last times you’ve tried it. “

  Mortigus didn’t know what to make of the doctor’s intention. He could recognise that Nostra was indeed the plague doctor that took him from his parents, but the memories stopped at the store-like ground floor of the doctors’ office. If he woke up in this cell before, he couldn’t remember much outside of trance-like states of staring at shadows. His empty stomach started to make itself noticed, but was it safe to eat from the plate? Did he do it before? Did that cause him to lose his memories again and again? Why were these barskeeping him caged in the first place? While the boy was lost in his manic storm of thoughts, the doctor took a spoon from his own pocket and plunged it into the plate of food. With a small part of the vegetable dish in his spoon, Nostra pulled it sneakily under his mask. 

 “Look, it’s still at the right temperature. Try it when you get the courage to do so. If you would please let me, I will examine you now. Though seeing our glorious work, you seem perfectly healthy!” 

  Mortigus was stunned by Nostra's cheerful tone, bewildered that the doctor could so casually chat with him after transforming his body into a surreal experiment, far removed from anything human. The unsettling atmosphere created by the doctor’s nonchalant demeanour left Mortigus questioning the reality of the situation, as if he had misread everything—like nothing truly terrible had happened at all. Was this normal in some hellish way? In his unfleged mind, the boy was dangerously close to justifying Nostra, for he was the adult, one of the doctors, someone trusted by his parents. Was this body with no more mouth or nose, what was needed to save him from the plague, a cyclop with wood for skin? Did his parents knowingly agree to this? They must have; after all, they know better than Mortigus, they know more than him. 

 Yet the doctor had locked him in this cage. That couldn’t be a good sign—why else would he be confined? He was too weak to run, after all. Despite his limited understanding of the world, Mortigus couldn't shake his unease. The doctor had transformed his body without warning, and if this was the cure, Mortigus wasn’t sure how to reject it. His thoughts swirled in a tangled mess as he struggled to piece together a decision—whether to trust these doctors or not, torn between fear and hope.

 While the boy’s body was paralysed by indecision, the doctor tilted his head, beholding his subject with a bit of confusion. Nostra let out a sigh, with a hint of regret and tiredness, as he opened his coat and brought out a few metal utensils, between which a thin, short, yet seemingly threatening knife, wielded graciously by his index finger and thumb. The doctor approached the cell door and made a hand sign, asking Mortigus to come closer to him.

 “The world is full of unavoidable evil, my boy. But it also has goodness in it, even when we can’t recognise it. Now please, follow my instructions, for your own good.“ Nostra’s voice had reverberated with solemn authority and sincerity. The tone was truly intimidating and commanding, igniting whatever scraps of obedience left inside Mortigus, who took a few steps to the doctor.

  Swiftly, Nostra grabbed his forearm and pulled a bit closer, his right hand hovering prepared with the knife. The sharp knife quickly sliced a part of Mortigus forearm, leaving slight signs of blueish black like a vivid ink drop on his cut. Nostra slid the cut part into a jar and closed it, while keeping an eye on Motigus’ fresh surface wound.

 “A yellow cap reaction, perhaps? Interesting, it may have merged with your skin layer.” muttered Nostra, as if there was someone who was supposed to take notes next to him. With another slick move of the wrist, the doctor also cut a few small fruiting bodies of oyster mushrooms, letting them fall into a separate container. These didn’t leave much of a trace or gashing wound, as if superficially attached to the shoulders way before developing properly. The knife was covered in dots, spores released through pores as if they were sweat. Nostra shook the knife before taking out a water flask and pouring it over the contaminated knife. He then put away those instruments with his left hand, while his right reached deep within a lateral pocket. A couple of injections followed on the unharmed arm, Mortigus barely recoiling from the needles intruding his new body, hardly any nerve endings being active. After the injections, Nostra wrapped a clean-looking cloth around the wound he created on Mortigus’ arm. Then, with the same air of nonchalance of coming in, Nostra exited the cage, closing and locking the door. The shoes hitting the cell floor felt like mockery, walking on Mortigus’ disoriented heart. Nostra raised his hat as a salute while the room’s door was slowly opened, yet the hallway behind remained masked in darkness. The doctor stepped outside, closing the room’s door and leaving Mortigus in the cold solitude of four rock walls. 

 For the remainder of the day, Mortigus wrestled with the decision of whether to risk eating the food, torn between his deep mistrust of the doctors and the undeniable necessity for food. After a dreadfully long hour, Mortigus grabbed the utensil on the table and took a filled spoon to his mouth, or where it used to be. From pure instinct, the chin suddenly started to detach from the upper jaw area, fleshy columns forming in the place of the mouth, trying to make space for the spoon to enter. As he dropped the food almost directly into his throat, his chin shivered. The food’s taste and texture were almost impossible to perceive beyond the strange feeling of eating with no teeth or tongue, his sense of taste being dreadfully dead. Though, in all honesty, he preferred not having to feel much the food from the doctor, being able to treat it as simply sustenance. Mortigus reluctantly finished the meal, unable to distinguish much of the food’s properties beyond its appearance. He never imagined the impact behind the texture of meat, the squishiness of boiled vegetables, or how lacking any tongue or even teeth would detract from the enjoyment of eating. The only evidence of him eating was the empty wooden bowl on the table and the feeling of his stomach now half full. Mortigus stared at the table, expecting something to happen for some reason, for any reason. For a proper thought to form in his head, for a proper reaction or emotion to come forth, but his mind was already less human than when he entered the doctors’ inn. He sat back in the simple bed he was given, feeling a slight familiarity with letting another plague ravage his body and mind. Unable to blink nor close his eye, Mortigus simply picked a spot to gaze at, hoping to fall asleep like he usually did.