The Manhunt/Chapter 14

“Motion sensor,” Airmid said, their voice echoing through the large room they had been assigned. “Nice.”

The Fanfarinet Villa was just as grand as Airmid envisioned, yet they had not hexpected the presence of motion sensor lights. It was seemingly odd for a family so entrenched in tradition to install something so modern.

As soon as they settled into this assigned room, they dug the journal out of their bag, and swung into the desk chair.

This was a delicate operation. Too delicate for the carriage car ride here, too delicate to investigate with scrutinising, curious eyes watching.

Godfather Death had missed a solid piece of evidence containing Asclepius Hemlock. What a miraculous stroke of luck. Of course, Airmid Valerian had to savour this serendipity. A physician, once more, outwitting Death.

It was beautiful irony.

They ripped off the soft cloth wrapping, exposing the leather bound journal underneath. Airmid ran a hand over the edges. It was worn, years of lying buried in the ground, only now released into the light. This book was representative of beautiful, untouched truth.

The physician held it up into the light, but only briefly, so that its cover would not be too damaged. They couldn’t bear to open it yet, couldn’t bear to look into its contents and start recording everything. This was a moment to be savoured.

First, the front cover would be open, revealing the second entry. Then, the back cover open, revealing blank pages at the back.

Airmid heaved out a sigh.

This was all too much.

This would have been far, far more information than any other physician has found.

To soon reach some sense of knowledge about their predecessor was taunting. At the same time, it was frightening. There were so many possibilities, and Airmid Valerian felt utterly unprepared for them all. Yet, those with the ability to adapt survive, and Airmid was ready to mould their mind into a new understanding of what their destiny once contained. If their idealistic bubble of the previous physicians burst, then so be it.

Back to the front cover did they turn, running their hands ever so lightly over the surfaces. Airmid quickly chided themself for this, one was far too likely to cause damage like this, until their fingers ran over a bump.

Something was wrapped inside the inner front cover. Airmid frowned, and softly pressed around that bump, realising that it formed the edge of a perfect rectangle. They pulled the desk-light, shining it forcefully down, and saw the undeniable skeleton of an envelope.

Grabbing an hexacto knife, Airmid sliced open the inner cover, pulling out the envelope. Strange. For something so old, the envelope looked so new. It was clean and white, and on the front, in neat, loopy cursive, were the words, “Love, Hemlock.”

Clearly, he had written his princess a note, and she had buried it inside her diary, hoping to preserve it. Sneaky.

But not sneaky enough.

Airmid placed the journal to one side, and the envelope in the centre of the desk. Carefully, carefully, they pried open the sticky seal with the hexacto knife, and pulled a piece of clean paper out.

The paper was small, enough for a few decent paragraphs. Airmid unfolded it, finding one side completely empty, except for a small message printed in comic sans.

Jokes on you, said the message. I was planted.

Mind blank, hands shaking, they turned the paper around, seeing the spiral writing that was clearly too indicative of their dear, dear Godfather.

And as if that paper had been made from leaden bricks, Airmid’s hands fell, and crashed onto the table. Disappointment curled in their chest, their heavy breathing intensified. Their hands left the edges of the paper as if it were spilling ink, and their fingers curled up, crumpled in distaste.

Everything in this letter – this whole journal–…

False. Deceptive. Inaccurate. Wrong.

Airmid thought of all the effort Bastion went into for this – the messy papers, the way he enunciated his words and his argument so clearly. They thought of the thrill when the lawyers came, journal in hand. The hope that Asclepius Hemlock and the previous physicians might be remembered in history, that Airmid’s name would be passed on.

That confidence, that positivity, had fuelled them.

Now, there was none of that.

The letter had been planted.

Everything they did was all for naught.

Their head swirled. Everything seemed to hurt. There was nothing but a repetitive noise inside their mind. Useless, purposeless, helpless.

There was no one around, no one who could understand. The physician simply buried their head in their arms, and wrapped themselves up in shocked silence.

"Ugh," Bastion had said, reading some news site on his laptop. "White men infuriate me."

"I'm a white guy."

"This isn't about you, Airmid."

They inched back. Of course, Airmid Valerian was ignoring the point of Bastion Fanfarinet's statement completely. Of course, not everything was about them. They thought of other doctors who thought themself centre of the world, realised that they all succumbed to the laws of their fairytale, and perished anticlimactically due to that. They were becoming just like the previous physicians, and had it not been for the letter – they might have gone too far.

Bastion, without noticing much of Airmid’s body cues, started explaining. Something about privilege, something about new legislations, something about a ridiculous amount of control over something or another. Airmid tried to work out what he was saying, tried to translate the jargon he was using, but it was all too much.

Especially when their thoughts was preoccupied with something else.

A few nods managed to convince Bastion that Airmid knew what he was talking about, and the tense atmosphere sort of dissipated. Until–

"I have a question," Airmid said. "Do I mansplain?"

Bastion stared. Quite directly, in fact, at the wall behind Airmid, and pondered what good concise answer he could give, without much success. Instead, he simply stood up, turned around his chair, and sat, his back to Airmid.

It was the only correct answer.

Behind them, the clock ticked.

It ticked again.

The electric kettle whistled.

“I asked a question," Airmid coughed.

Bastion stood up, and paced quite carefully over to the electric kettle. He took it off the heating element, and poured the contents into a mug. “Do you think you mansplain?” he asked.

“I… I just like talking. A lot. Is that so wrong?”

"Not at all," he said, pouring steaming water in Airmid's mug now. "When people like hearing what you say."

The awkward silence that followed pained Airmid.

“Look, I apologise, I shouldn’t have brought this up,”

They were always too much. Too loud, too energetic. They talked too much, rambled too much. Everything was simply too much. They acted like they were more, much much more than they actually were.

Perhaps that's why it was so hard to hold a conversation, to capture people's interests, to do anything really. There was not much Airmid could give to the world, yet they acted as if they were the world. No wonder why people were bored of them.

They were an embarrassment to the Godfather Death story.

Or rather, they were not an embarrassment, but yet another physician. Cocky. Arrogant. Ignorant. Thinking they could change the world or fix themselves or fight the system. Always succumbing to it.

Airmid's thoughts wondered to all their statements - "world's greatest physician", "I am Airmid Valerian, after all".

So were the rest.

And they were all forgotten.

The realisation was fresh to Airmid Valerian. It was a reopened wound, a loud reminder that the life and legacy they dreamed of leaving would not be fulfilled. Their brain screamed again, this time a defined word.

The word hit Airmid Valerian like a well-thrown brick.

Failure.

In their mind, failure was a word associated with the previous physicians. Those had failed to comply within the rules of the Reapers and Death, those physicians had failed to restrain themselves and their dicks. Moreover, they failed to defy what destiny had in store.

Airmid Valerian was going to rest amongst them.

There was literally nothing to do until the morning, when Bastion would finally talk to his mother and Airmid could spend their time in the library.

It wasn’t as if Airmid could put their mind to anything – all they could think about was the heaviness in their gut and the gravity of their problem.

After pacing around their room for straight minutes, with heavy metal blasting from their MirrorPhone because it was the only thing that could block out any thoughts, Airmid thought to give themself a break.

And so the physician flung themselves on the bed, and just lay there.

There was no energy to do anything right now, not even cry.

They were, after all, a failure.