"First, do no harm." The words echoed in Luther Sight's ears as the first explosion ripped through the wall of his hospital. His hospital. He had spent the better portion of his life in dedication to ideals that never seemed to prevail. He had endured kidnappings, raids, being threatened and beaten at gunpoint before, but never had he been caught in the middle of a full scale war. Never did he anticipate that anyone, let alone his own government, the symbol of freedom and democracy around the world, would drop a bomb on a hospital; HIS hospital. He had been in surgery, yet another man's fluids pouring out of him like water, when the last symbols of hope and unity vaporized around him. The debris and the tangible force of the explosion threw him out of the room and into a void of thin air. The super-heated smoke tore at his lungs, the concussive effects forcing his eyes to watch the few seconds of horror while his brain screamed and writhed in disbelief. For a second he felt wieghtless, an unimaginably exhiliarating feeling of flying quickly dissapating into a plummeting free-fall. Crashing through what was left of floor after floor, his body no more than tatters, the world around him became darker and colder. His suicidal rate of descent is slowed on the last slab of concrete, forming the foundation of the building and the floor of the basement.
"First, do no harm." The first voice he heard was his own. There was no light, no tunnel, and certainly no afterlife. There was only the stench of blood, of smoke, and finally the searing prison of pain. Through it all he managed to detect a distincly sweet smell, but noxious like candy and ethanol. The sensation was enough to momentarily awaken in Luther an even deeper fear. He recognized it as the smell of the Fluid: an unstable chemical he had been experimenting with on lost causes. He had designed it to keep surgery cases alive when all else failed. Those he saved when he used it often labeled him a miracle worker. Men with head wounds the size of a fist had been saved before, but the Fluid was not without it's drawbacks. It reacted differently to everyone. In some it simply began to break down the bonds that it had repaired, causing the patient to decay in a matter of hours.
In others it had far more subtle and dangerous effects. He had used it to save a girl of about 11, and she was able to recover from 68% loss of blood. It was not until weeks later that he learned the girl had slowly developed such a single-minded psychosis that she had one night murdered her parents, grandparents, and her two younger brothers, using only her father's hammer. Such incidents had not stopped Luther from further developing his experiments. After all, were not the ones he had saved equal if not superior in gain despite the few who went awry?
"First, do no harm." The words again brought him back to the present, in which the sweet smell, that noxious perfume, was becoming intoxicating. Through the fog and the blackness and the pain, Luther managed to shift his left arm an inch, and froze. He had felt wet. Not blood, not water. He was lying in a pool of a substance he only administered a few drops at a time. As every open wound in his body drank in the substance with a primal greed, more voices, not his own, could be heard in the darkness. Sensations he was not accustomed to surged through his body. Uplifting strength coursed through his viens, making him feel as if God himself could not stand against his creation. Pain of all kinds, as if there were an eternity left to experience suffering. Each flared and died, leaving him with only the voices. The voices. The voices of his patients. Those he had saved, some he had not, all in pain. All crying out to him as if he had been their malefactor, as if he was the cause for their suffering. The screams reached a crescendo heard only in the choirs of hell. Blacking out was the only option.
"First, do no harm." The words were echoed on the lips of the gurney who was bearing his body through the dry air. The gentle rays of the sun caressed his broken body, the warmth being met with...equal warmth. The world around him was not dulled as it should be, the effects of shock should have still been in place. On the contrary, the vibrancy of the sounds around Luther were nearly enough to make him black out again. He managed to open his eyes just long enough to recoil at the sheer godly luminance cascading over and around and against every featured face, every distinct grain of sand. The 100 feet from the crater to the ambulance was a journey, Luther aware of every rauccous detail.
"First, do no harm." Luther rose quickly out of sleep. He could smell oil and gunpowder. The gurney had been speaking to himself again, this time because there was a gun in his face. The man who held the gun was of the very same military that had bombed his hospital. Why would they stop an ambulance? The soldier was ordering the gurney to leave the vehicle, the gurney ordering the soldier to do the same. Neither one was going to give up, and that fact was quickly becoming clear to the soldier. Luther watched his face shift incrementaly, a tightening of the muscles around the right eye, and then the contents of the gurney's head exploded outward behind him, his face frozen and vacant. The soldier now turned his gun on Luther, seeing that he was now awake. He gazed down the sights at Luther, his eye tightnening again. Feeling at the mercy of another force, his hand had locked on to the barrel in a vice grip. The gun was pushed slightly off target, and the soldier fired. Luther felt the hot gas explosion lick his face, the flesh instantly burning, the bullet following on a similar course and blow through the front of his jaw. He felt the bone give way and turn to mush, only the sensation of pain being overridden as he tore the gun out of the soldier's grasp. Any gun would have felt alien in his hands, but in the heat of this new sensation, this desparation, the gun might as well have been his own right hand. Swinging the weapon around to bear on his enemy, he and the soldier locked eyes. It was not the gun that terrified the now helpless human being in front of him, but the single-minded gaze of a predator. The hot gas explosion roared from the muzzle, now an unrestrained and unnatural force, the sound shaking the walls of the vehicle and drowning out the scream the man who had been in front of Luther. By now Luther was in the grip of something primal, pure, and deadly.
He lept out of the ambulance, onto the dirt road and into the baking sun. Confronted at last with the other soldiers, who had not had time to fully apreciate what had just happened, he brought the rifle up to bear once more. The weapon roared ferociously and with a lust matched only by his own predatory sense. Five bullets lept from the maw of man's terrifying tool, and five men in turn were silenced.
The silence that followed, however, was anything but peaceful. He could hear the screams of the men he had just executed, echoing in his mind and joining the unholy choir in his head. The gurney's too, his timid voice repeating that phrase of all sworn to "first, do no harm." His own voice, the loudest cried out in anguish for all the people he had sacrificed for his own gain, for all those he had inflicted suffering upon merely in the name of science...or was it good? Reeling back, staggering, unable to conrtol himself, Luther fell to his knees in the sand, seeing only the millions of tiny grains laid out before him. As he watched his own blood soak the ground, he became aware of the holes in his chest. A couple of the soldiers had managed to hit him before meeting their end, making wounds that should have finished him. Where there should have been pain, he felt only numb. Most likely severe shock and more than a gallon of adrenaline. Luther laid back, hoping that his now destroyed life could end. He lay there, feeling his muscles constrict and his blood quicken. Before he had time to realize what his own body was doing, the wounds of his chest had receded into nasty scars. The voices themselves had coalesced into a single chord: "First, do no harm." To be continued...
-First effort to write a bio, so it has it's obvious flaws. If you've taken the time to read this, feel free to post whatever critique you like, or contact me on Virtue for some good old rping.
thanks,
the shotgun surgeon
"First, do no harm." The words echoed in Luther Sight's ears as the first explosion ripped through the wall of his hospital. His hospital. He had spent the better portion of his life in dedication to ideals that never seemed to prevail. He had endured kidnappings, raids, being threatened and beaten at gunpoint before, but never had he been caught in the middle of a full scale war. Never did he anticipate that anyone, let alone his own government, the symbol of freedom and democracy around the world, would drop a bomb on a hospital; HIS hospital. He had been in surgery, yet another man's fluids pouring out of him like water, when the last symbols of hope and unity vaporized around him. The debris and the tangible force of the explosion threw him out of the room and into a void of thin air. The super-heated smoke tore at his lungs, the concussive effects forcing his eyes to watch the few seconds of horror while his brain screamed and writhed in disbelief. For a second he felt wieghtless, an unimaginably exhiliarating feeling of flying quickly dissapating into a plummeting free-fall. Crashing through what was left of floor after floor, his body no more than tatters, the world around him became darker and colder. His suicidal rate of descent is slowed on the last slab of concrete, forming the foundation of the building and the floor of the basement.
"First, do no harm." The first voice he heard was his own. There was no light, no tunnel, and certainly no afterlife. There was only the stench of blood, of smoke, and finally the searing prison of pain. Through it all he managed to detect a distincly sweet smell, but noxious like candy and ethanol. The sensation was enough to momentarily awaken in Luther an even deeper fear. He recognized it as the smell of the Fluid: an unstable chemical he had been experimenting with on lost causes. He had designed it to keep surgery cases alive when all else failed. Those he saved when he used it often labeled him a miracle worker. Men with head wounds the size of a fist had been saved before, but the Fluid was not without it's drawbacks. It reacted differently to everyone. In some it simply began to break down the bonds that it had repaired, causing the patient to decay in a matter of hours.
In others it had far more subtle and dangerous effects. He had used it to save a girl of about 11, and she was able to recover from 68% loss of blood. It was not until weeks later that he learned the girl had slowly developed such a single-minded psychosis that she had one night murdered her parents, grandparents, and her two younger brothers, using only her father's hammer. Such incidents had not stopped Luther from further developing his experiments. After all, were not the ones he had saved equal if not superior in gain despite the few who went awry?
"First, do no harm." The words again brought him back to the present, in which the sweet smell, that noxious perfume, was becoming intoxicating. Through the fog and the blackness and the pain, Luther managed to shift his left arm an inch, and froze. He had felt wet. Not blood, not water. He was lying in a pool of a substance he only administered a few drops at a time. As every open wound in his body drank in the substance with a primal greed, more voices, not his own, could be heard in the darkness. Sensations he was not accustomed to surged through his body. Uplifting strength coursed through his viens, making him feel as if God himself could not stand against his creation. Pain of all kinds, as if there were an eternity left to experience suffering. Each flared and died, leaving him with only the voices. The voices. The voices of his patients. Those he had saved, some he had not, all in pain. All crying out to him as if he had been their malefactor, as if he was the cause for their suffering. The screams reached a crescendo heard only in the choirs of hell. Blacking out was the only option.
"First, do no harm." The words were echoed on the lips of the gurney who was bearing his body through the dry air. The gentle rays of the sun caressed his broken body, the warmth being met with...equal warmth. The world around him was not dulled as it should be, the effects of shock should have still been in place. On the contrary, the vibrancy of the sounds around Luther were nearly enough to make him black out again. He managed to open his eyes just long enough to recoil at the sheer godly luminance cascading over and around and against every featured face, every distinct grain of sand. The 100 feet from the crater to the ambulance was a journey, Luther aware of every rauccous detail.
"First, do no harm." Luther rose quickly out of sleep. He could smell oil and gunpowder. The gurney had been speaking to himself again, this time because there was a gun in his face. The man who held the gun was of the very same military that had bombed his hospital. Why would they stop an ambulance? The soldier was ordering the gurney to leave the vehicle, the gurney ordering the soldier to do the same. Neither one was going to give up, and that fact was quickly becoming clear to the soldier. Luther watched his face shift incrementaly, a tightening of the muscles around the right eye, and then the contents of the gurney's head exploded outward behind him, his face frozen and vacant. The soldier now turned his gun on Luther, seeing that he was now awake. He gazed down the sights at Luther, his eye tightnening again. Feeling at the mercy of another force, his hand had locked on to the barrel in a vice grip. The gun was pushed slightly off target, and the soldier fired. Luther felt the hot gas explosion lick his face, the flesh instantly burning, the bullet following on a similar course and blow through the front of his jaw. He felt the bone give way and turn to mush, only the sensation of pain being overridden as he tore the gun out of the soldier's grasp. Any gun would have felt alien in his hands, but in the heat of this new sensation, this desparation, the gun might as well have been his own right hand. Swinging the weapon around to bear on his enemy, he and the soldier locked eyes. It was not the gun that terrified the now helpless human being in front of him, but the single-minded gaze of a predator. The hot gas explosion roared from the muzzle, now an unrestrained and unnatural force, the sound shaking the walls of the vehicle and drowning out the scream the man who had been in front of Luther. By now Luther was in the grip of something primal, pure, and deadly.
He lept out of the ambulance, onto the dirt road and into the baking sun. Confronted at last with the other soldiers, who had not had time to fully apreciate what had just happened, he brought the rifle up to bear once more. The weapon roared ferociously and with a lust matched only by his own predatory sense. Five bullets lept from the maw of man's terrifying tool, and five men in turn were silenced.
The silence that followed, however, was anything but peaceful. He could hear the screams of the men he had just executed, echoing in his mind and joining the unholy choir in his head. The gurney's too, his timid voice repeating that phrase of all sworn to "first, do no harm." His own voice, the loudest cried out in anguish for all the people he had sacrificed for his own gain, for all those he had inflicted suffering upon merely in the name of science...or was it good? Reeling back, staggering, unable to conrtol himself, Luther fell to his knees in the sand, seeing only the millions of tiny grains laid out before him. As he watched his own blood soak the ground, he became aware of the holes in his chest. A couple of the soldiers had managed to hit him before meeting their end, making wounds that should have finished him. Where there should have been pain, he felt only numb. Most likely severe shock and more than a gallon of adrenaline. Luther laid back, hoping that his now destroyed life could end. He lay there, feeling his muscles constrict and his blood quicken. Before he had time to realize what his own body was doing, the wounds of his chest had receded into nasty scars. The voices themselves had coalesced into a single chord: "First, do no harm." To be continued...
-First effort to write a bio, so it has it's obvious flaws. If you've taken the time to read this, feel free to post whatever critique you like, or contact me on Virtue for some good old rping.
thanks,
the shotgun surgeon