Plague Doctor

The birth of life cannot be separated from pain…

Gu Jun's head was spinning, he heard a song in foreign language, one that he was familiar with… An illusion flickered before his eyes. He walked through the mind's fog and the illusion embraced him. There was an imposing fountain, gushing with red water. It was unclear whether it was blood or just dyed water. The water had an unknown black sticky substance floating in them. The water squirted into the air before falling onto the statue in the middle of the fountain. The white marble of the statue was slowly dyed red and black. The statue was that of a beautiful female. The place looked so familiar and yet so foreign…

And then it dawned on Gu Jun, this was the fountain for the Goddess of Life. But in his previous vision, the water was still clear, the statue pure, radiating with life and peace. This was… Carlot Academy. When that truth dawned, Gu Jun's headache intensified. The song became louder. However, it was unlike the voices of the youth from last time, instead it was a chaotic mix of strange, fanatic, dark voices. Suddenly his vision widened. There were many people in dark robes surrounding the fountain. 

Flames erupted from the building in the background. The buildings, where Carlot students once studied and did their research, were being consumed by fire. The Carlot Academy had fallen, there were no more Carlot doctors. The foreign people around the fountain were all wearing a black goat's mask. Two twisted and thick ram's horns extended out from the mask. Eyes blinked from behind the mask. They spoke of fanaticism and awe. They were the ones singing, it was them who destroyed Carlot Academy. They… were summoning the real Goddess of Life. 

Gu Jun's wandering consciousness saw the dirty fountain water boiling. Horrible smelling bubbles broke on the surface. Dark malice permeated the air. He could hear the crying of babies, coming ever closer. A group of black-robed individuals approached from all sides. Each of them carried a crying young baby in their hands. 

The babies looked like newborns. They were naked and their bodies were dirty. They were still covered in the blood and filth from their mothers' bodies. Some were still wet, others had the dried blood stuck to their bodies. The black-robed individuals surrounded the fountain. As the people at the back chanted, the black-robed individuals bent over to lower the babies into the pool of the fountain. The disgusting waste immediately covered the babies' bodies. The babies cried harder. Their young souls understood the innate feeling of fear. The corrupted water soaked the babies but did not drown them. The water infused into their skin and blood. 

The filth seeped into the babies' blood stream. Their blood was no longer red but slowly turned black. These babies were being cleansed. They were mutating, changing and accepting new life. 

"The nightmare grows stronger day after day, waiting the day it is birth into the world. 

Mother, great mother is thinking day after day, whether her womb is housing a young creation of life or the dead seed of a zombie. 

Mother's thoughts of melancholy, 

The birth of life cannot be separated from pain;

Mother's thoughts of serenity, 

The birth of life cannot be separated from pain."

The song split Gu Jun's head. He could feel the mothers' pain and the babies' torment…

There was mutation happening to his body as well, as if he was one of the babies soaked in the fountain. He looked up and expected to see the giant statue. But the statue was no longer that of a beautiful female but a ball of black and red flesh that was shaped like a womb as well as a goat's head. Womb and goat's head, their images overlapped with each other. The fallopian tubes and ovaries formed the horns, the uterine canal was the goat's oral cavity, the cervix represented the goat's mouth… On its skin, there were many tentacles. This statue was a giant black goat's head but also a giant womb. Endless life burst forth from the fountain. A life of darkness? But didn't all life start from the dark?

'It was not the Goddess of Life who had abandoned us, but they, the arrogant Carlot Doctors, have fooled us by covering up the true appearance of the goddess. The false god, they have presented us with a false god. That was not the image of the real Goddess of Life.'

The babies cried harder. The black-robed individuals pushed the babies under the water. The newborns struggled with their small limbs. They choked on the polluted water. 'Children, this is how you will be spared from haemoptysis'.

After about 10 seconds under the water, the babies were hauled out. The water had turned their faces black, the small lives already looked different. They had received blessings from the real Goddess of Life. The black-robed individuals raised the babies high while they knelt down. They shouted in unison at the bloody statue, "Iä! Shub-Niggurath! The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young!"

The summon slammed into Gu Jun's head. Gu Jun groaned in pain and the illusion shattered instantly. The ruined Carlot Academy, the people in bad, the babies… they twisted together and faded away. However, the statue that looked like a goat's head and a womb stared at him in his mind. The thousand young focused their eyes on him… The young who were sacrificed, the young who were waiting to arrive in this world, the young who died in the womb…

Suddenly Gu Jun's heart wrenched and he collapsed to the ground. He convulsed involuntarily.

"Captain Gu!" There was a gasp of emergency. The nursery door was pushed open. Yu Chi burst in and shouted, "I need help stat!"

Wu Siyu jumped up from the chair, Feng Peiqian rushed into the nursery and pushed Yu Chi aside. She knelt before Gu Jun, "Does he need mouth-mouth breathing? Let me!" Just as Feng Peiqian's lips were about to fall, Gu Jun suddenly sucked in a deep breath and mumbled, "It's okay… I'm fine…"

Yu Chi broke into a smile and helped Gu Jun off the ground with Feng Peiqian. Feng Peiqian sighed silently in relief.