Warning: Mentions of blood, injuries and pain in a slighlty explicit way , nothing outside of the fantasy-violence label

The next time Mortigus awoke, the pounding in his head had quieted, allowing him to recall his last encounter with Nostra. He gingerly peeked beneath the bandages on his arm, inspecting the wound left by the doctor’s knife. To his surprise, it was already closing, healing unnaturally fast given the depth of the cut. Despite this, his new body still felt foreign to him—standing and walking took the entire morning to manage. The day blurred by, moment after moment slipping past him.

Nostra appeared once or twice, flanked by other doctors, to collect samples from Mortigus' body. They restrained him while injections pierced his back, and his skin was frequently prodded with instruments. Though physical pain seemed muted in this strange new form, Mortigus felt an unsettling, icy sense that something was being taken from him. Yet that emotion was buried beneath the shock of his new reality and the presence of his caretakers. For now, Mortigus found himself slowly growing accustomed to the mere act of being kept alive.

  Days of experiments could go so slow yet so fast, the day became insufferable until the moment he realised he wasted it. Mortigus wasn’t unfamiliar with effort or hard days, but his parents let him play from time to time. Even though the details were hazy, Mortigus had once tasted freedom—the freedom to make choices, even in their repetition, that carried the bittersweet familiarity of life. He could do anything for an evening, though more often than not, he’d choose the same games with his siblings. Could this monotonous existence underground ever become like that? Could he learn to find comfort in it? Should he? The thought of surrendering to these testing tables and masked figures was a bitter pill. As he was escorted back to his cell, he moved mechanically, sitting at his table just like every other day, but this time with a more robotic detachment. He forced himself to eat, then collapsed onto the bed, his body rattled by exhaustion. Tomorrow, the routine would start again. For now, though, he could try to sleep or simply stare at the walls—or the ceiling. Of all his choices, his gaze fixed on the latter.

  Mortigus found himself once again locked in a staring contest with the ceiling, awaiting another night in the most "comfortable" cell of the plague doctor’s underground complex. The silence was broken only occasionally by the sound of footsteps echoing down the hall. He could tell apart the distinct deep steps that swung Nostra’s fluid silhouette, the rapid stride of assistants, the rolling crates, and the scurrying rodents. It had been two weeks since the operation—or at least two weeks as far as he managed to keep count. The mere thought of losing his memory, of being trapped in an endless loop as a living experiment, was so unsettling that he forced it deep into the recesses of his mind. The cell's thin mattress had grown almost more familiar than his bed at home. Isolation, imprisonment—what more could they do to someone who had been sick for so many weeks? Before, he couldn't walk due to his weakness; now his freedom was taken from him, yet he couldn’t quite tell which torment was worse. Perhaps captivity fuelled a sharper frustration and anger towards his captors, stirring a desire for revenge. Or perhaps his illness had nurtured a quiet resentment toward the world or his own ill fortune, the true sources of his and his family’s suffering. These small but powerful emotions simmered within him, making the ceiling nothing more than a backdrop for his brooding thoughts.

   Particles of dust started to fall, and a loud thud vibrated through the room, shaking for a second the entire ceiling and walls. Mortigus snapped from this trance, looking around chaotically while other weaker thud sounds continued to rumble. Rapid steps could be heard on the corridor's, accompanied by shouts: “Room breach!" and “The Oasis dragon escaped its cage." “Torches, bring torches!”. All the sounds moved to the right, swiftly fading from Mortigus' cell, except for the faint sound of uneven running that drew nearer to his door. An eerie chill seeped through the rocks’ cracks. Something bizarre was happening outside his room, he concluded.

 Suddenly, the door to Mortigus’ chamber opened, and a shadowy figure ran towards his cage, holding a torch. Their right shoulder was covered in thick, protruding ice spears, in which the torchlight would faintly reflect, yet the cloak around them kept the figure a mystery. They raised their hood, a head-like lump obscured by cloth directly facing Mortigus, who was staring in distress. Their legs ran to the cage door, grabbing with their left hand the rusty lock. Chaotically, they plunged their hand into every pocket they had, searching for a certain item, only to finally pull out a series of keys on a keychain. Putting the keychain under the cloak, seemingly grabbing it in their mouth, they then grasped a painted key in their hand. With a few bad attempts, the figure missed the keyhole of the lock, the key hitting the metal with nervous movements.  

  “Could you please hold the lock up, Mortigus? I can’t use the key properly with one hand,” whispered the figure to Mortigus. An adrenaline rush overtook Mortigus, as he frantically grabbed the lock and pointed it at the figure. Under the weak, green glow of Mortigus’ eye, he could see a bit of the face under the hood, recognising a certain pattern on the mask worn by the figure. Rhit was indeed the frozen intruder, and the one now opening the unlocked door and pulling Mortigus out and up, hurrying him towards a staircase. Mortigus could only look at Rhit in shock, as corridors were left behind.
“Put all the strength you have in you into moving forward. This is your, our only chance,” said Rhit, a pained desperation unmistakably residing in his tone. What were Rhit’s intentions? Mortigus saw them as much of a traitor, a liar, a monster, like any of the other doctors, perhaps even worse, for Rhit earned Mortigus’ trust, only to carry him, cut him, and wound him harder than any before. Yet, in this moment, with the faintest hope of escape, Mortigus brought back that lost trust, giving his all into climbing the staircase, step by step, together with the wounded Rhit. 

  Near the middle of the long staircase, Rhit and Mortigus were beginning to lose steam, their feet making deeper and deeper steps. At the bottom of the stairs, a terrifying echo was approaching, and a figure slammed itself lightly on the wall adjacent to the stairs.  

 “What are you doing—Mortigus?! Why are you out—did the dragon cause this?” the figure’s voice boomed through the staircase. The runaways took a glance backwards, only to see a disgruntled towering shadow, Nostra, his furious eyes radiating behind his mask. His mere presence briefly extinguished the flames that were lighting the way down. Rhit could not help but feel their feet sinking into the stairs, their eyes locking onto Nostra’s body.

 “Rhit, is that you?” exclaimed the doctor while beginning to climb the stairs at an alarming pace. Rhit and Mortigus as well picked up their pace towards the top, but they let Nostra too much time to accelerate, as his hands were inches away from grabbing Mortigus’ leg. In a swift, desperate move, Rhit turned to Nostra, pulling out a flask out of their coat, a light blue liquid sparkling inside. Rhit threw the flask at the doctor’s feet, and in a flash of white light, the doctor had his right leg frozen in a spiky pile of ice. The doctor pulled back his body, fighting to regain balance. 

 “You were the one to set the Oasis dragon free! How dare you!?” Nostra shouted; this time, however, most of his words were left unintelligible by sheer anger.

  Rhit firmly grabbed Mortigus’ arm and pulled him to the top of the staircase, gaining pace once again. Nostra raised his cane with brutal determination, his lips moving in a low murmur as his hand glided slowly along the cane's length. As his fingers traced the intricate carvings etched deep into the wood, the symbols began to glow faintly, casting a soft light that soon grew more intense. Sparks crackled to life around the handle, flickering in the dimness. By the time his hand reached the top, a torrent of flames burst violently from the cane, roaring to life and engulfing the staircase in a brilliant, savage red that bathed the entire space in its fierce glow. Nostra pointed the cane towards the ice, melting it in seconds, but Rhit already slammed the door that connected the basement to the ground floor. Rhit threw a second azure flask at the door, freezing the handle, in the hopes of buying them just a few more seconds. In their hurry and fear, Mortigus slammed himself into a nearby shelf of items, flasks, and metal tools slamming onto the floor. The sound of broken glass and steel ricocheting from the stone must have surely woken up anyone who was left on the top floor of the inn, triggering a commotion upstairs. The air on the ground floor was changing colour, gaining a slight amber tint, slowly rising from the floor boards. With a few torches illuminating the entrance of the Plague doctors’ inn and the main door unguarded, Rhit hurried to the lock, opening it with the help of Mortigus. Every turn of the key and its sound fidgeting inside the lock felt like an eternity, like a rock falling into a canyon and waiting for the almost unreachable impact of the bottom. But it finally did, unlocking the door, which Mortigus pushed open with all his force. Despite the front door now breached, Mortigus’ head turned back to Rhit, who released their grasp. The wounded assistant was looking worried back to the basement door, words nervously escaping their lips. 

  “Mortigus, get out, run out of here, sprint to the left, towards the forest, and don’t stop for as long as you can. I’ll follow you, I just have to convince them not to leave us alone. Now go!” 

 Rhit then pushed the boy forward, their half-fallen mask revealing determined eyes, which Mortigus could not refuse. Mortigus left the threshold of the inn, disappearing into the dark field to the east of the building. A few seconds later, two masked people ran inside the inn with torches, most likely two watchmen returning from an errand and coming back to the mayhem taking place inside the doctors’ office. Rhit ignored his remorse and aimed a flask at them, which froze the watchmen's torsos together, snuffing out even their torches. The two struggled and grunted but were left immobile.

 “Rhit, you harmed your own brothers-in-work just to run away?! Stealing our medical breakthrough? What has gotten into you?! Answer, but know this, no apology can make up for these acts!" Nostra’s voice reverberated through the frozen basement door, like a beast stuck between growling and grunting from behind shabby cage bars.  

 ‘No apologies can make up for what Mortigus went through either!” replied Rhit, throwing more flasks and plant pots onto the ground. As the pounding on the basement door grew louder, Rhit firmly planted their feet, bracing for what was to come. With a strong push, the basement door was slammed open into the wall by none other than Nostra. The ghoulish doctor invaded the room, panting, his whole body shaking, and his leg still wet. His eyes locked almost instantly onto Rhit, and he raised his scorched arm, holding a smouldering cane. Both Rhit and Nostra began chanting cryptic, short phrases, akin to incantations. Flames were yet again brewing around the doctor’s cane, while air was getting visibly denser in front of Rhit. The fierce fire had already surged forward by the time Nostra grasped the full extent of the wrecked room and shattered glass. It was too late to change the outcome—Rhit's spell had condensed the flammable gas that spread in the room, fueling the flames into a sudden, blinding flash of devilish white. A deafening, rapid sound—like a woodpecker hammering the inside of one’s own eardrums—announced the explosion of the ground floor, sending flames roaring upward to consume also the inn's upper levels. Amidst the fiery lines dancing on the walls, several structures stood briefly upright before collapsing in unison.

   The night had gotten mute as fast as it burst into noise at the beginning, the lights fading in the distance. Mortigus was throwing himself forward, just to get further from that place. Everything slowly began vanishing into the night, and the only glow left through the night was his eye.The grass was rustling, the moon was barely shining from behind the clouds, the wind was blowing, but he perceived nothing. Moving forward was all he could do now, no matter the dark, no matter who could be behind or in front of him. There could exist only the path to the forest.

   At this moment, Fate blinked, letting time pass until Its eyes would open to let reality unfold again.