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Eldritch Horror? No, I'm A Doctor
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The clinic was quiet when Ren finally made it home. Seventeen blocks on foot, every step a reminder that his new body's knees were going to be purple by morning. He unlocked the front door, stepped inside, and immediately froze.
There was someone sitting in his waiting room.
Someone wearing his face.
His original face. The real Ren Hector face, not the Volker mask he was currently wearing. The person sat in one of the waiting room chairs, reading a medical journal, looking completely at ease.
Right. The main body. His original body that he'd left at the clinic while he went out to do the transfer.
Ren stood in the doorway in Volker's body, looking at himself. The sensation was strange but not uncomfortable. Two bodies. One mind. Shared memories flowing between them like water. Everything the Volker body had experienced was already integrated into his main body's awareness. The transfer, the screaming, the standoffs, Axel and Ralph's exhausted faces.
His main body looked up from the journal and set it aside. "That was a mess."
"Complete disaster," Ren agreed from the Volker body, closing the door behind him. "But the transfer worked perfectly. Just forgot about the whole 'walking around with a serial killer's face' issue."
"Twice."
"Twice," Ren confirmed with a wince.
The main body stood, and Ren walked the Volker body closer. They stood facing each other, two versions of the same person looking at each other from different perspectives. The shared memories made it less disorienting than it could have been. Both bodies knew everything. Both had access to the same thoughts, the same plans.
"We need a designation system," Ren said from his main body. "Can't keep thinking of you as 'the other one.'"
The Volker body nodded. "From now on, this body is the avatar. Avatar Volker."
"Avatar Volker," his main body repeated, cementing the designation. "You can function autonomously when I'm not directly controlling you."
"Already been doing that," the avatar replied. "Works smoothly. You focus on the main body, I handle secondary tasks, we share all the memories."
"Efficient."
"Very."
Ren let his primary consciousness settle more firmly into his main body. That felt right. The original vessel was home base. The avatar was the tool, the extension, the body that could take risks while the real Ren stayed safe.
His main body walked toward the back office, thinking. The avatar followed, moving on autopilot but ready to be directly controlled if needed.
"Tomorrow," Ren said from his main body, "the Children of the Mother Goat come to pick me up."
The avatar nodded, accessing their shared memories of Wilhelm's visit, the test, the vision of Shub-Niggurath. "They think I'm their prophet. The key to opening the gate."
"They think I'm desperate enough to play along," Ren's main body said. "That I'll just walk into their ritual like a good little sacrifice."
"But the military's waiting."
"Exactly." Ren smiled from his main body. An idea was forming, coalescing from thoughts shared between both vessels.
"Axel and Ralph are planning a full assault when the cult makes their move. Strike teams, demolitions, total elimination."
The avatar's face twisted into a matching smile. "And they're expecting compliant Doctor Nox to be bait."
"But why send the real me when I have a perfectly good avatar?" Ren's main body stopped walking, turning to look at the Volker body.
"The cult wants their chosen one. Let's give them a chosen one they'll never forget."
The shared consciousness between both bodies clicked with understanding. The avatar's smile widened. "Modifications."
"Extensive modifications," Ren's main body confirmed. "Built into the avatar body. Hidden from their scans. Ready to deploy when they least expect it."
"Turn the pickup into a massacre."
"Exactly." Ren's main body started walking again, heading deeper into the clinic.
"Let's make this mission go out with a bang."
"Hahahahahah," the avatar laughed, the sound coming out distorted through Volker's vocal cords.
"That laugh is deeply unsettling," Ren observed from his main body.
"Good. We're going for unsettling."
Both bodies moved through the clinic, passing the main examination room, the storage closet. Ren kept his primary consciousness in his main body, the avatar following smoothly on autonomous function.
They turned left into the main hallway. Ren's steps slowed.
The new hallway stretched ahead. At the far end, was a door. A deep crimson red door with mist curling beneath it.
They walked closer.
Ren's main body grasped the handle and pulled the door open.
White tile floor stretched forward, each tile perfectly square and uniform. The walls were painted a pale, institutional green, the kind of color that tried to be soothing but somehow made everything feel more clinical and cold. Fluorescent lights ran along the ceiling in parallel lines, their tubes casting harsh, sterile light that left no shadows.
Metal handrails ran along both walls at waist height, the kind designed for patients to hold while walking. Door frames lined the hallway at regular intervals, though most of the doors were closed. Medical equipment carts sat abandoned against the walls. An IV stand stood in one corner, its metal pole catching the light.
It looked normal. Professional. Like something from any hospital in the country.
Except for the blood.
The entire hallway was covered in it. Real blood. The walls were splashed with great arcing sprays that suggested violence. Arterial spray, impact splatter, cast-off patterns from something swinging repeatedly.
The blood had dried, turned dark brown in places, rust-red in others. Some areas were so thick it had dripped down the walls in long streaks, leaving trails that ended in dried pools on the floor. The green paint was barely visible under the layers of dried blood.
The white tiles were stained beyond recognition. Footprints tracked through old blood, creating paths deeper into the hallway. Some prints were boots. Others were bare feet. Some didn't look human at all.
Handprints smeared on the walls at chest height, as if someone had stumbled along, using the walls for support while bleeding out. The metal handrails were crusted with dried blood, fingerprints visible in the darker patches.
The fluorescent lights flickered occasionally, making the blood seem to move in the stuttering illumination. One light was broken, hanging by its wires, swaying slightly despite no breeze. The broken tube sparked occasionally, throwing strange shadows across the blood-covered walls.
Medical equipment carts were overturned, their contents scattered. Syringes, bandages, and surgical tools lay in dried pools of blood. An IV bag hung from its stand, the clear fluid inside turned pink with diluted blood.
The metallic tang of blood filled the air, so thick it coated the back of the throat. Copper and iron, mixed with something else. Something organic and off. The smell of a battlefield after the fighting ended.
Both bodies walked down the hallway, footsteps echoing off the walls.
But it was the middle of the hallway that drew the eye.
Right in the center, perhaps fifteen meters from the door, was a circle.
A summoning circle.
It was drawn on the floor in blood that was somehow more intensely red than everything else. Fresher, brighter, like it had been painted there moments ago. The circle was perfect, geometrically precise in a way that made it clear this wasn't accidental.
The outer ring was thick, perhaps ten centimeters wide, drawn with careful precision. Inside it were multiple rings, each one nested perfectly within the previous. Between the rings were symbols. Runes. Sigils. These were the kinds of markings you saw in forbidden texts.
The symbols seemed to pulse slightly in the flickering light. Each rune was complex, composed of multiple lines that intersected at precise angles. Some looked like writing. Others looked like diagrams of things that shouldn't exist.
At cardinal points around the circle were larger symbols, each one more intricate than the rest. North, south, east, west. Four points of power. Four anchors.
In the very center was an empty space. A space just large enough for a person to lie down. A space clearly meant for something. Or someone.
"Still the most horror movie thing I've ever paid for," Ren muttered from his main body.
"Still works perfectly," the avatar replied.
Both bodies walked down the blood-covered corridor. Their footsteps echoed off the walls, leaving new prints in the dried blood on the floor.
They reached the circle.
"Lie down," Ren directed from his main body, gesturing to the center of the summoning circle.
The avatar stepped into the circle. The moment Volker's foot crossed the outer ring, the symbols flared. Red light pulsed through the geometric patterns, traveling inward through each nested ring until it reached the center.
The avatar lay down in the empty space, positioned exactly in the middle of the circle. The four cardinal symbols flared brighter, creating pillars of red light that shot upward to the ceiling.
Ren's main body pulled out a syringe from his coat. The Awakening Anesthesia. Clear liquid that would numb the body while keeping the mind completely aware.
He stepped to the edge of the circle and knelt down, reaching across the outer ring to inject the avatar's neck. The needle went in smoothly, and he pressed the plunger.
"This is going to be interesting," Ren said from his main body.
The avatar felt the cold spread through Volker's veins almost immediately. Numbness crept outward from the injection site, racing through muscles and nerves. Within seconds, the body went limp, unable to move, unable to feel.
But the mind remained sharp. Aware. Conscious of everything.
"Can you move?" Ren asked from his main body.
The avatar tried to lift an arm. Nothing happened. "No. Completely paralyzed."
"Good. That means it's working."
Ren's main body stood and walked over to the medical equipment carts lining the walls. He began gathering materials. Bone fragments in jars. Neural grafts preserved in solution. Chemical compounds that bubbled slightly in their containers. And from the highest shelf, the special project. The thing they'd been saving.
He arranged everything on one of the overturned carts, creating a makeshift surgical tray just outside the circle's edge.
Then he opened the brass-clasped case containing the Outer God Surgical Set. Each black tool gleamed in the red light of the circle. The scalpel with the blade that curved in impossible ways. The spreaders with organic teeth. The grafting clamps that seemed to move on their own.
"Ready?" Ren asked from his main body, picking up the first tool.
The avatar stared up at the flickering fluorescent lights. Through their shared consciousness, both bodies knew what was coming. The modifications. The pain. The complete weaponization of Volker's stolen body.
"Ready," the avatar confirmed.
Ren's main body stepped to the edge of the circle, scalpel in hand. The runes pulsed faster, as if anticipating what was about to happen.
He positioned the blade over the avatar's chest.
And then he began.
The scalpel cut clean and deep, opening Volker's chest in one smooth motion. Blood welled up immediately, but the Awakening Anesthesia kept the avatar from feeling it physically.
What came through their shared consciousness was something else entirely.
Not pain. Not yet.
Just the awareness that the body was being opened. Cut. Violated.
The avatar's eyes went wide.
A moment of silence as Ren's main body made the second cut, deeper this time, parting muscle and tissue.
Then the screaming started.
"FUUUUUUCK!"
The Doctor of the Ruin Gospel was finally tasting his own medicine.