Chapter Text
The crunching of the cobblestone streets under a set of wheels is drowned out as the cold rain pours down. The masked mistress in the wheelchair rolls herself faster down the street, having lost her umbrella sometime ago and her veil doing nothing but add to the discomfort. Her arms quickly tire and decides to take a rest in a nearby alley. Taking deep breathes of her own, she quickly notices another set of breathing that isn't.
Slowly, the woman turns her masked and veiled head behind her. A redheaded man on his knees is shivering, looking up at her with wide eyes. He's completely drenched from head to toe. By the looks of it, it seems like he's been out here for a while. His clothes are basically soaked scraps, torn and ragged. He looks malnourished with skin as thin as cling wrap.
The masked woman slowly rolls over to him cautiously. He takes a step back, just as cautious, almost like a cornered animal. His teeth are clattering, his lips are blue and his arms are wrapped around his torso in a desperate attempt to keep warm.
The woman can understand his slight caution in return, her appearance isn't the most welcoming one. Through her mask and dark veil, only one eye is visible. It's currently wide with fear and worry. She tries her best to speak softly and calmly to him.
“Are you...alright?”
He hesitates to answer, but when he eventually does his voice is a rasping whisper, barely audible over the rain. Shivering harder as his skin starts taking on a sickly grayish hue. One trembling hand reaches out slightly, just an inch, before dropping back down.
"...N-no... not... alright."
A weak cough wracks his frame. His ginger hair clings to his forehead like wet thread. There's something in his eyes, not just pain, but pride too. It's as if he's fighting not to beg her for help.
She stares at him for a moment. Contemplating. Studying. After a moment, she reaches her own hand out.
“You seem beyond help for a normal doctor...but I could...help. For I am not a normal...doctor...however, you will not be the same afterwards.”
He hesitates, eyeing her hand as if it might bite. Then, slowly, he shakily takes it. His fingers are so cold they feel like ice. There's resignation in his gaze, yet a spark of something like hope grows behind it. He nods slowly.
"Anything... to... n-not be in th-this anymore."
He tries to pull himself to his feet, but his legs give way. He slumps heavily against her wheelchair. It's only now with this closer view can the masked woman see how sunken in his eyes are. His face looking almost ghostly with how visible his skull is through his thin skin.
The woman worries more. Using as much strength as she can muster, she pull him up to lay across her lap. Her expensive looking dress is now completely ruined, but to her, this will be worth it. It has to be. To her, she sees this as a sign from her goddess. The Goddess of Rot. A man rotting and wasting away before his time, sent to her to reverse the process. This is her purpose.
She starts to roll the both of them towards the massive mansion in the distance. It sits upon a hill, dark and secluded from the rest of the town, just outside the border. She stops only once. The feeling of his body going limp as he takes his last breath is not unexpected to the woman. She takes but a moment to mourn what the man once was, to only then push on thinking of what he now could be.