The Doctor's Heart

Unknown Assailant

"What are shades?" Riza wondered aloud. "Pretty poetic for a tavern owner, huh?"

"Not a clue." Benn murmured back, not looking  at the doctor but to the bar over her shoulder where everyone else sat and drank. "Maybe, the mayor's house has some documents or records about these shades."

"Maybe, we can check the bookshop or doctor's office?" Riza suggested also not paying attention to the first mate but the book. She kept fingering through the book for more information until she flicked to a blank and bloodied page. She frowned. She didn't get the answers she wanted. "I'm gonna go to the doctor's office. If these shades are animals then the town's doctor must have info." Riza would trust another doctor's word over a politician.

Benn murmured again in agreement. Riza glanced over to Stormy at the bar and back to Beckman. Rolling her eyes, she headed out of the building to search for the doctor's office. Shades sounded ominous, not quite good or evil from what she's read so far. Nothing to have an opinion of it. Not yet.

Riza kept the silver fan to keep a nice breeze across her face. Even as the sun was setting from noon, it seemed to only grow hotter on the island. The town's doctor turned out to be right next to the bar. Smart planning for the founders. The doctor's office was pristine and empty. Small and no signs of blood or disruptions. Only that the doctor moved on. Only old patient's files documenting sickness or broken bones. Pregnancy and deaths. No medical supplies besides stainless steel medical tools and expired antibiotics.

Where did the doctor go? He'd abandoned his town with no replacement to take over his practice? That didn't make sense. Riza didn't leave her position at the hospital with the crew until she had found an acceptable replacement to take over as head of trauma. If she wasn't willing to leave a hospital full of doctors and surgeons to pursue being a pirate, how could a doctor of a tiny island could leave without replacing himself. Probably the only doctor for this island.

The book shop wasn't close to the bar or doctor's office. More on the other side of the Main Street of the unnamed town. There was nothing about Shades. Riza found books on recent history, gems, and precious stones. Volcano patterns and activity. On the clerk counter, she found a book about the Island's geography which she took to read at the bar. No real answers, she followed Benn's advice for the mayor's house. The tallest and grandest house in the dusty town. White marble pillars sat on a black marble porch. Both colors were dulled to grey due to dust.

A gravel rock garden sat in front of the porch and another tree sat on the right side. Small spheres grew from bare branches. One had fallen on the ground and was cracked and glittering red shined from within the geode. The tree grew rocks and crystals... Riza stared in awe but she had a self appointed mission to complete.

Riza hurried down the sand path and up to the porch. A black front door with a glittering window of brilliant red and it was unlocked. So, she let herself in. She was a pirate, after all.

Riza found her way through stark white hallways with displays evenly spaced between. Pedestals holding colorful glass shapes of nature that the island lacked. Lime green leaves of various shapes, rich emerald trees, flowers of every color and even a massive snowflake of an aquamarine and diamond.

She found the mayor's office. Large and grand as the outside. She found small disturbances throughout the manor. A turned over chair or a broken pedestal. In the office, there was old rust colored stains. Unmistakably, it was blood and ancient bloody trail that led behind the jade green desk. That halted Riza in her tracks and she stood barely past the threshold to the office. She wasn't sure if she wanted to see where that trail lead. Riza's want to know what shade was out weighed her desire to not know what was at the end of the trail.

Riza crept around the corner and a shrill cry of surprise escaped her at the sight. The man, mayor was shriveled and mummified. His skull split open in half in between his dried up eyes. Clumps of matted red hair caused Riza's stomach to rebel. Grey matter of the brain that lacked water for years and a sticky spiderweb black stretching out past his head and on his polished floors. Riza spun around for a breath and force her breakfast down again. She jolted and shrieked when two men that weren't there a second ago, stood at the doorway.

"Hey, Riz'! It's me."

Riza hissed a strangled gasp. She leaned against the desk and settled a hand against her frantic heart. Just fucking Shanks and Benn. "Fucking Hell!" She snarled. Golden eyes closed and focused on slowing her breathing. Shanks didn't have a care for avoiding a pissed off Riza and got a little too close.

A hand fell on her shoulder and she reached to grab it hard. Riza lost her aggression at the touch and just held the hand. Rough with small lines of scars she could feel form years of swordplay and working on a ship. Shanks. She slid her hand down to grip his wrist, and felt his heartbeat beneath her palm. Strong and steady and very much alive. He was an anchor to her to ground herself. Firm and reassuring. In and Out, In and Out.

"Hell." Shanks breathed and Benn echoed his agreement.

"Can you tell what happened to the guy?"

"Damnit, Benn. I am a surgeon, not a mortician."

"Surgeon and mortician, same thing?" She could see the smirk in his voice. Riza jabbed a black coated hand at Benn's ribs. There was a huge difference between working on a corpse and working on a living soul to save a life.

"Not the same thing."

"Can you do it, Riz'?" Shanks asked. A gentle squeeze settled her discomfort and she opened her eyes to briefly meet his own. Worry lingered in his eyes and if she dug deeper, something else. Riza broke the eye contact, first. Not wanting to dig or jump to conclusions again.

"Sure, Captain." Riza muttered, recalling what she learned in school and grumbling that it had not been applied since school. "It's been awhile since gross anatomy and I have taken a couple of forensics class to piss my mother off. I can get an idea, sure."

Benn knew why Riza went there and started to riffle through the drawers and papers. Riza moved to the corpse and pulled a set of gloves out of her pack and a mask. She ignored the head injury to focus on the mess of his body. The rib cage was diced open, very clean. Bits of rib stuck out of gore and viscera. She didn't fancy reaching in to pull it out so turned her attention to the intact rib cage. An extremely clean cut, cleaner than an orthopedic bone saw or the folded steel of a katana. The leg had been severed at the femur, another clean cut. The flesh.. Riza stuck her face in her elbow and heaved. The flesh was too decomposed to see the difference. Small puncture holes riddled the bones that used to be his forearm like he blocked an animal. Riza knew of no animal that could sever bones like that.

Riza stood and retreated out of the room as quickly as she trusted herself too. She darted out of the manor without a word to either men. She heaved and threw up her breakfast in the gravel garden bed. A hand pulled and held her hair out of the way. Another rubbed her back like Mira and Lucy had done after the almost wedding. Riza didn't trust herself to speak her thanks and kept bent low. After Riza felt safe from anything else coming up, she sank her knees. Shanks leaned on the pillar, looming over her like a angelic guardian.

"Thanks." She mumbled. Shanks shoved a lid free canteen in Riza's trembling hands. Riza swatted his hands away when he attempted to guide the canteen to her lips. She wasn't a child.

"Are you okay?"

"Mmh."

"One of the weirder islands I've been too but not the weirdest." Shanks said, conversationally. "I have been to one with soda hot springs. Very sticky."

The suggestive very sticky in his tone triggered a startled laugh from Riza. Water shot the wrong way up her nose and Riza choked. "Hate you." She wheezed, still coughing.

"You love me." He murmured. "Another place in the East Blue had the oddest animals. Tiny giraffes and-."

"This island isn't weird, Captain... This place is wrong. There is something bad here, Shanks. We need to get out of here as soon as possible."

"I know and we will."

Riza watched Benn left the manor with a folder full of papers. "I think I found what we need."

"Fantastic." Riza pulled herself up and tossed her gloves and mask into a disposal bag. "Let's see if it matches what killed the mayor, yeah?"