Gabrio saw a memory of the past. His teacher stood over a man’s body, with his scalpel held between the index and the forefinger. He traced a line around the jugular, opened it up, and gestured for him to come.

He told Gabrio what the throat was. He then traced the scalpel down the collarbone, on the chest, where he opened up the chest. His teacher explained how the lungs worked, the heart, but somehow he knew what they did.

“You are knowledgeable, better than the fools I have taught.”

Praise from the Butcher of Fort Rava was rare. Gabrio examined the face of the person who his teacher was opening up. It was the man who tried to beat a guard to death. Now he had become a corpse for the butcher to open up, and present to his student for studies.

“Teacher, is this right?”

“What do you think?” his teacher revealed nothing but that same stoic disposition he always had. “This is a man who had murdered all his life, a common bandit, a fool who had done the worst he could have done. Do you feel sorry for him?”

“No.”

“Then why do you ask?”

“The dead shouldn’t be mutilated, Teacher.”

He rested the scalpel on the surface of the skin. He looked at Gabrio in the eye.

“I wanted to become a craftsman.”

“Huh?”

“I wanted to become a carver, create figures, and work on carpentry, creating furniture. But do you know much you can earn in creating wood? There is money to be made, but it is not enough unless you have decent buyers. It doesn’t help that in my days, such was impossible because of the constant warring. I learned how to become a surgeon, when they brought me to the war. I was told to open up people who had arrows stuck in their bodies, and by the end of the war. I got good at doing what I do. It was a shame to throw away what I learned to go back to carpentry, there was no demand so I thought of continuing it. I got good at what I do. Then years passed and…I don’t even know how to make one good carving now. I was good at it, but now I don’t know if I can do it any longer.”

He watched the organs of the corpse. There was a ripple on Teacher’s face, for a moment, Gabrio didn’t understand why he was talking about his past aspiration.

“You asked if this was right. To mutilate a man who has died. But his body will be useful for us, it will nurture someone, creating a person that might save lives. I am an old man, youngling, I have taught enough, know enough, that my body will soon wither.”

He covered the chest of the man. “I know what you people call me. You call me butcher, defiler, and a man who is hung before God. Do you know what’s funny about it? The church funds the fort, they gave me the contract, they the non-praying sinners to me, as offering, hoping that their lives can have meaning. They are black lambs that are meant for slaughter, to be used for the ‘greater good’ of all that is good.”

Teacher seemed like he wanted to laugh, but instead a frown was placed on his face. He held his head, then his chest, he started coughing, like he wanted to scratch something out of his throat. He tottered to the pitcher, pouring water in a wooden cup, before swallowing a mouthful of water.

“For now, don’t think of what’s right or wrong. Think of what you need and have to do. Right now, you need to learn, and you have to focus on what I am teaching you. Youngling, you are the type that exhausts himself just by teaching. What you need to do is to learn, keep your other thoughts away, place them in the back of your head and focus on what’s in front of you.”

“I understand, Teacher.”

“If you understood, then you wouldn’t have asked this. Boy, you need to learn to numb the pain, I teach you like a Surgeon, but I want you to be a Doctor. You must learn how to be both sometimes.”

Teacher started instructing again. He pointed out an organ, taught how each one works, and what medicine he should use to heal it. Of course, most of the medicine that is involved in drinking medicine is based on the effects that are visible to the human eye.

There are days where he would find himself feeding medicine to a person. When that person dies of the medicine or gets healed, it doesn't matter. They would snuff the life out of that person, open him from the chest to the pelvis, and observe the insides. He would compare the man to another who was on the next table. What differed when one took the medicine, while the others didn’t?

Every session was recorded, and documented for further use. Gabrio learned to numb himself. To be a professional. As he grew older, he became learned, and with that he assisted his Teacher in what he would do. The learning did not stop, and it didn’t bother him. He got used to the dissection, experimentation, and the stench of the work.

The teacher wasn’t the one who concocted the medicine mostly. Each medicine came from different laboratories who wanted the medicine to be tested, graded, and priced. But testing the medicine on cold bodies didn’t work. To rid this issue, the Teacher made use of a technique by inserting an icepick through the eye socket, behind the eyelids, and thrust on something inside of the head that turns them into quiet, compliant, and emotionless dolls. When sometimes that didn’t work, he would make an incision to the brain through the skull, half a finger in length, cutting brain tissue until the subject became incoherent and unfeeling. Later on, the teacher opted to use thin cylindrical rods that are inserted through the nose.

When the subject becomes a doll. They would funnel the medicine through the mouth, and watch as the medicine does it work. Gabrio believed that it was for the good of the people. He wanted to believe that it was for the good of the people who would benefit from it.

*****

Then the memory faded as the smell of grass entered his nostrils. Blood sprinkled in ankle-length grass. The cool icy wind on his back. The lapping of water. The stench of gunpowder coming out of a barrel. His bloodied hand wetted by a wound pouring blood on his knuckles.

Gunpowder, stab, defend, heal, check for Mana, where is Mana? Is she alive? Need to stand, body aching, need to somehow get on my feet again?

He plucked his fingers from the spear tip he was holding on a monster’s throat.

Gun, the great equalizer, when even a little boy would not fear a monster when he comes closing. Oh mighty gun, the flash of light, the bang that saves.

“You save me again,” he pushed himself off the ground. He stood up and forced his heavy body. He spat blood from his mouth, wiped it with his sleeve, and turned to where the sled was.

He tottered to where Mana was. He looked at her, from head to toe, then sat on his bottom, head lowered. He pulled out his breech loading pistol, reloaded them. He looked at his bag where he placed most of his bullet, then widened his eyes, face crumbling, and teeth grinning.

“Need to be stealthy, need to change clothes, blood probably stinks, not good, might be infected, wounds need closing, needling, need some patching up.”

He took off his coat to the side, lifted his shirt, and rummaged his hand on the doctor’s bag he had been holding. He bit on a string, inserted the tip of the string in the needle hole, and then placed it on the pan. He took out the niter spirits, drank on it, then wiped his wounds, pressed a ripped cloth, wiped the blood, and then took the needle on the pan, suturing the opened tissues, then closing it.

“Doesn’t close, needs cauterizing,” he reached for one of the bullets, he tore the cartridge, placed the gunpowder on the finger-length gash, and took a flint. He rubbed a knife and flint together, hoping for a spark, and then when a spark flashed, the burning feeling burned his wounds, closing the wound.

With his lower jaw shaking, he looked at the cauterized wound, and looked around him. He found a pond not far from their location. The scenery was empty, just green leaves on his feet, and the trees that were bare.

The water must have come from that pond. It was a close-off pond, if he washes his clothes there, then it would mean that he’d contaminate it.

He had killed some of the monsters, harvested their leather, and made extra storage for water by using the extra canvas to hold the water around the leather.

He scooped water from the pond, then took out the pan, and decided to drink it. The rest of the water went to washing his clothes. He crawled for a moment, then searched the area for fallen branches, and dried sticks he could use. He made use of the dried tree bark as kindling, and upon lighting a fire. He gathered more water for boiling, then rested without moving, watching his clothes dry, the water boil.

He reached into his bags, looked out for food, then started mashing it so that she could drink it for sustenance. Feeding her, and then wiping her pale cherry lips. Gabrio stared at the pan, then to the fire.

His stomach growled. He searched for any rations and found that it was dwindling. He turned his attention to the monster he felled. This boat-like beast that stands in both legs. With thin long arms, and tusks growing under the jaw.

He took out his knife, traced the meaty area of the beast, and started to cut open, separating what he could from the beast. He used another leather bag, carried the meat inside using this bag and dragged himself back to the bonfire.

Taking water from the pond, he washed the meat off the blood, used the remaining salt that he had to cure the meat, and prepare it. Roasting the meat, he waited, watching it slowly get cooked. By the time the meat was prepared, he took a bite, and then his face crumpled at the bitter itchy taste of the meat. Still, his stomach was empty, and he ate until he had his fill. He looked at the meat he gathered, and decided to smoke the rest of the meat.

He rested his back on the sled. His wound hurt him. The recent beating was giving him seizures, cough, and shaky hands.

“I am no fighter, I am a healer,” Gabrio had to vocalize himself. Lost in a jungle, alone, hunted by creatures who only fear the boom of a gun, and with a burden to carry. “I save lives, not take, not hurt. Lord of Mercy, please let me carry her to safety.”

He pleaded to whatever God could hear him. Gabrio had stopped counting the days, and all he could think was how to keep moving forward.

But he was exhausted to his core. How easy it was to point the barrel of his gun to his head, but he found out how hard it was to give up.

He had been dreaming of his teacher lately. How he wished to see some of the people he knew. He had left them with only a letter and though he doesn’t know if they would care.

Gabrio unconsciously looked to his side. Miss Mana was sleeping soundly, unwary, and unknowing of hardship. For the days that had passed, possibly weeks. He had gotten too close in losing her from the beasts of this forest.

He had been repeating the same thoughts. He didn’t know many times he had been doing this to himself. He looked at her collarbone, and then to her fine figure. He swallowed and then moved closer. Her pale skin, her plump breasts, and feminine curves was so tempting.

“Stop it,” he said to himself. “Have some dignity, don’t be like this.”

He felt shame. He felt guilt.

Gabrio wanted to dig a hole and put his head inside it.

Then a rather bland and hollow laugh got out of his throat. He held his fist in front of his face and sobbed, quietly, hiding his face.