Ever since I was a young man, I was interested in the arts of medicine. Always fascinated by the concept of it, I began to read books upon books in my free time. My father had connections, yet he was not around often. On one of the few times he arrived home and stayed for some days, I began to express my interest in the arts of medicine to him. Uninterested he remained, yet throughout his stay I continued to pester and insist that this was MY passion. Eventually, a little before he left again on another journey east, he told me he would return with someone who could show me what I was so driven to learn. He then handed me a book. It was unassuming, and he told me he had gotten it from a friend.

  Time passed, and I continued indulging myself in books and began to close myself off for my studies. However, I had entirely forgotten about the book my father gave me, for I was so engrossed in learning varieties of medicine. By this time, my mother began to worry, yet I did my best to reassure her this truly was my calling.

  Days turned into weeks. Weeks turned into months. Months turned into years.

  By this point, I had become very knowledgeable in the art of medicine, for I was now a young man, no longer a boy as when I started.

  One day, it was an evening like any other. I had run out of new books. However, it was too late to go buy some at that hour. I went and scoured through the attic, looking for perhaps anything interesting I could indulge in.

  Then I saw a book with a grey cover, yet there was no title. I picked it up, and that was when it clicked. This was the book my father had given me many years ago. It was just as unassuming as the day he gifted it to me, but I was curious.

  At last, I decided to open the book my father had given me. It was a book about bloodletting.

  Time passed, and whilst I researched the concept of bloodletting from within that book, I heard a voice whisper through to me from the pages, yet I could not understand what it was saying. I ignored it, closed the book, and attempted to go to bed for that night.

  As I lay in my bed, my body felt heavy. There was a pressure, something that felt unfinished that I had yet to uncover. I stood up from my bed and began to open the book that I had closed earlier that day. I read it front to back, uncovering new concepts of the art of bloodletting, yet I could not manage to hear the familiar whisper again.

  I stayed up many days. I refused to eat, and I barely drank. I was engrossed in hearing that voice again, for it felt as if it were something I WAS MEANT to uncover.

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  I passed out from exhaustion and malnutrition.

  When I awoke, drenched in a puddle of my own sweat, it was night. The moonlight was shining through my room, illuminating the book I had spent days trying to unravel. I opened the book once more, and I finally began to hear those whispers again. I leaned closer into the book, and the whisper turned into a voice. It began to tell me things. It showed me arts of bloodletting that were not written in the book.

  I was engrossed in the voice. It bestowed so much knowledge to me, and once it stopped, I frantically opened my drawers and began to write down all I could remember into notes for myself. I then collapsed from the fatigue of all the days combined.

  Once I awoke, I was greeted by my mother outside my room. She told me father would be returning after years of his venture in a few weeks.

  After I had nourished myself, I began to try to hear more from the book, yet there was nothing.

  I looked at my notes, revising them endlessly, but I was confused. This did not look like my handwriting at all. It was neat, organized, and very precise.

  My original handwriting is anything but that. There was so much written on these notes that I began to revise them, and something pulled me to keep doing so, as if whatever was calling me in that book had moved into these notes.

  For weeks, I only revised these notes, trying to find new meaning in already written words, yet to no avail.

  "Am I going mad?" I thought to myself.

  But that thought was interrupted.

  My father had arrived home, and he had brought with him a very well respected medicine practitioner. My father did remember my passion, and it seems he did believe me. I greeted the practitioner, his name was Jonathan.

  Whilst my father and mother reunited and sat down to talk, I urged Jonathan to follow me unto my room and began to show him my studies, whilst concealing the notes I had written, as if something unconsciously was urging me to do so.

  Jonathan was vastly impressed. He told me I was very knowledgeable about medicine, especially with the limited resources I had.

  Jonathan offered me something. He asked me if I would like to come with him to the capital and go under his wing as a student practitioner of medicine.

  Without hesitation, I agreed.

  I packed my luggage, and that same night I traveled with Jonathan to the capital.

  Once we had reached the capital, I was amazed. It was nothing like our rural town, yet nothing as I had expected. I expected livelihood, perhaps children running around and playing, merchants eagerly waiting to sell things, bustling diners and taverns.

  Yet while originally in awe, I soon was dismayed.

  Bodies.

  Bodies upon bodies.

  Stacked on one another, ready to be burnt.

  The streets were devoid of life, nothing besides the lingering essence and smell of death that exuded from them.

  Shops had been run down.

  I must have had such an expression that Jonathan interrupted my train of thought, and he told me.

  "The capital has been undergoing a plague for the last 5 years."

  "Do you still wish to help me?"