Starling Knight- Failure

There was a migraine building behind Starling’s left eye. It started in the twelfth hour without sleep and had been slowly growing since then. The Doctor imagined it like a slowly fattening worm, growing bigger as it slowly chewed through their bone and flesh, sucking up the capillaries and arteries, slowly digesting everything it could reach. Even now, as Starling struggled to enjoy the last two minutes and twenty seconds, more chewing on their cigarette than smoking it, all the while craving something with a hazier effect, they were imagining the worm’s stupid mouth nudging against the back of their eyeball, gearing up to start eating, despite it’s skin bulging against its fat. 

They could leave now. Go back home, have a tea, and sit still for half an hour, just letting their tense limbs relax. Go to bed. Maybe smoke their preferred sin until the world becomes soaked in watercolors and their feelings exhaled with each puff. 

But no. It would needle at them. Ruin their time off. So they dropped the mostly smoked cigarette into the snow, enjoying the hiss of heat hitting ice, and slipped their mask from their pocket. They wanted to make sure it was secure before they slipped back into the hallways, cluttered with patients unable to get a bed, and the sound of pained groans echoing down. 

Consumption had found its way to South Hollow. What started as a few people, tucked into hospital beds, claiming that it was just a cough that lasted too long, or a fever that just wouldn’t go down. Then it was dozens. Then they had run out of beds. The administrator of the hospital (and Starling’s direct supervisor), Doctor Nott had started ordering carriages for the poorest, to ship them out to the sanatorium for isolation, ones who couldn’t pay for a bed, or a home visit. Starling already did too many of those. 

To the opera house, Arturo Blossom hot on their heels as they checked on a chorus girl that had collapsed backstage, but that was just exhaustion. News that made Arturo cry out in relief and bless the poor woman, kissing the top of her head and shaking Starling’s hand, near tears. 

To Dacre House, where a relation of the De Winters had come to stay and was now confined to bed. Neither of the De Winters seemed that worried, one demanding Starling to take the poor man to the hospital, as the other ignored them completely, absentmindedly picking at their nails. Starling had no idea what happened to him but they doubted anyone died. 

They had been to Miss Beale’s house, Grandma Buckley shelled out enough money for a home visit, to manors and poor houses, but they tended to blur together. The only visit that stuck out for the Doctor, was the one that started with a carriage right outside of the hospital, a scarred man flatly asking for “Grey Bird”. They only found out later that it was what they had been calling them for a while. Handed over a pouch of money and then waited for Starling to get their things and get in. No words spoken. Just the sound of the wheels and the creak of the wood from inside. The scenery slowly drifted from the sluggish, wheezing bustle of the town, to the sloping planes of green and gray, following the path out to, what Starling could piece together, the faint house on the horizon. You could see it on clear days, early in the morning, when the sun was rising behind it, from the edge of town. It sat there, as if it was staring right back at the town. 

The dark house grew with every minute they got closer, until it rivaled the size of the hospital, and seemed twice as old. Older than anything Starling had seen in town at all. Gargoyles sat, staring down, their maws open and eyes bulging. Hedges obscured the sights at first, overgrown, but the closer they got, the more it seemed to come alive.The windows were stained, but scuffed, with the curtains all closed, shut off. There were people milling around, men half undressed, in open shirts and no jackets, and women loose skirts and loose waistcoats, children playing in the dirt, masks covering most of their small faces, with adults walking to and fro, carrying boxes or just on their way elsewhere. They noticed an old sign, almost overgrown with vines, spelling out “Plas Wyddfa” and they made a note to crack open a dictionary in their office. The others at the hospital had just been calling it “Murtaugh House” in their tales of being children and dared to walk across the endless stretch of land between the last house in town and the manor, only to get scared halfway and run all the way back. Stories that the moores swallowed up everything but the house out of fear, and would one day swallow the town, leaving just a fuzzy black dot on the horizon for all to see which was left alone. 

Riley, the one who drove Starling, said nothing as he opened the front doors for the doctor, watching with his half burnt face until they stepped inside. It was warm, which they didn’t expect. And full of chatter, which hushed as they followed the towering figure through the house. The Doctor had been well respected, even if a bit feared, someone to be wary of, but there was derision in the eyes of the people they passed, stretching all the way to weariness and hostility. 

There was a young man sitting on the stairs, his hair a soft brown and eyes a cold blue and he stared as Starling ascended, Riley leaning down to squeeze his shoulder before taking them up a few more flights. Outside of one door, someone vaguely familiar to Starling sat in a chair, tilting on its back legs, hair a mop of unruly curls. 

“Hey, pup.” Riley grunted and ruffed their hair, E batting away his large hand. “Rawlins still in there?”

“I’m also a Rawlins, Shaw.” The younger sibling muttered but waved the bigger man in. “Still in there.” 

They didn’t spare a glance for Starling, going back to the dog eared book resting in their hand. Riley opened the door for the doctor, and they stepped in. The room was nearly all dark, with only a few candles lit. The smell of incense was strong, the lavender scent clinging to Starling’s nose instantly. A large bed took up most of the room, with thick curtains obscuring-

“Doctor Knight?” A husky voice asked and they nearly jumped out of their skin. They hadn’t even noticed the looming figure right beside the door. Bedraggled hair, kept back, tired blue eyes with bags under them. They know who this was. The eldest Rawlins, the one bad mouthed behind their back and the one who owned almost all of the land South Hollow was built on. Now, staring right at them, arms folded. 

“Dearest, you frighten the poor thing.” Came a hoarse voice from the bed, stealing Starling’s attention. “You know birds have small hearts.” 

Rawlins grumbled and stepped away from their spot against the wall, no doubt having been waiting for them for a while, and walked towards the bed. Starling followed after them, allowing the curtains to be pulled back slowly around the bed. 

They had been expecting far worse. The patient that lay there, the Spouse, was bright-cheeked and eyed, a sheen of sweat pebbling their brow, but otherwise looked well. Trying their best to ignore the steady stare of Rawlins as they checked up the patient, who was far more agreeable, despite being so breathless and somewhat dazed. Maybe, for the third time in their entire life, Starling’s heart was thudding loudly in their chest, anxiety building as the head of the manor refused to stop their unblinking scowl. It did nothing but hurry up, deciding against any blood letting, to check back at the hospital. They were sure that if they brought out a scalpel, they’d be thrown out the window and left to drag themself home. 

Their nerves were made of steel and hardly shaken. They would take a thousand patients over returning to the house. They didn’t even bring themselves to look up the name they saw by the door. 

Hour fourteen had Starling aware that the worm had eaten most of what remained of their retina, if proven by the fact they were starting to see discolored spots every time they blinked. Hells, they didn’t even notice when there was a sudden silence from the nurses, only for one of them to tug at their sleeve, whispering that the Rawlins family was looking for them. 

They had barely even gotten to the room when Rawlins stood in front of them, teeth gritted and eyes bright. 

“You said they just needed rest.” The husky voice that had haunted a nightmare or two hissed at them, only for their younger sibling to tug them away. 

It became blurry. Their temple throbbed with pain, practically blinding them as they tried to work. Panic had soaked into the parts of their brain that the worm had gnawed through, and their hands shook as they finally bled the patient. The patient who looked at them but couldn’t see them. Their lips speckled with blood, and dripped down their chin when they coughed. A Blood Worker was sent for at once, but who knows how long it would take them to finally arrive to test the vial in depth. All the while the suffocating presence of the others had Starling’s pulse thrumming quicker than it should. 

That night, Starling sat at their deck, staring, blurry eyed at the wallpaper, that seemed to squirm under their hazy gaze. They pulled several times at their pipe, hoping each lungful would make the evening fade into nothingness. They hoped that the worm was dead, lying against the base of their skull, too fat and smoked out to be of any use. But they also wished it had eaten the rest of their brain, so that they could wander around in a mummified manner, no brain, no heart, to lungs, nothing more except a slow shuffle. 

Anything to take away the sight of blood dripping thickly from their hand. A soft lock of brown hair, stiff with sweat and blood, trapped against a wet lip, forever open. Unfocused eyes stilled into nothing. 

The… The horrifying cry of the immovable, stoic, Rawlins. The way they sank to their knees, gripping the cooling face of… And. their son crumpling and… And… 

No more. Starling took another deep lungful, letting their eyes roll back in their head. Nothing more. Just watercolors on the walls and blood sinking in under their nails.