Peter and Ian, as always, were working since dawn to help people in the village and the surrounding area with various health problems, starting with broken knees of brave kids, or treating colds, flu and fevers, headaches, giving advice, but also tiring themselves out while searching for a cure for the awful disease, Hemasitus. Nobody knows exactly where it came from, it is estimated that it appeared for the first time about one thousand two hundred years ago, although many scientists keep disagreeing about the date. The truth is that it is a magically created parasite. Many great magicians have devoted their entire lives to finding a solution, but none succeeded. There were some substances that relieved the patients’ pain, but they could never cure anyone. Peter and Ian were just like these scientists, they did everything they could to find a cure for it. Three years they fought for permission to treat such people, and after countless hours of study and practice in various institutes they finally succeeded. They still continue to learn and test various medicines and methods to cure their patients. However, although they have finally invented something groundbreaking that relieves pain for a long while and slows down the parasite from eating its host, they still cannot prevent the worst.

Just like today.

They both were standing over a patient. They were protected to not get infected, although they still had to be careful. It was a patient who had been with them for a long time, and he was moved to a separate room some time ago. He was all bandaged up, and lacked an arm - they amputated it as parasites led to its necrosis.

“You’re in the terminal phase.” Ian said sadly.

“Well...” the patient moaned. “I knew it would happen long ago...”

“I'm sorry...” Peter said. “I'm sorry for what I'm about to do... I'm sorry for not being able to cure you...”

“Kid, listen, well...” he coughed up blood. “Keep fighting. I will be alright, I think you have something you can put me to sleep with.”

“We can’t do that this way.” Ian said. “A parasite would neutralize the poison. So we have to... do it differently...”

“...Excuse me? You won’t euthanize me…?” he asked with a weak voice. Magic scrolls entangled around him, which pressed on his body. He could not move. After a while, one of the scrolls also pulled his head backwards to make his neck visible. The patient was not even frightened anymore. He was calm since his torments would soon be over. Ian gave him a morphine injection so that he would not feel any pain, but they had to hurry, because the parasite would neutralize it very quickly.

Peter put a special material and spell on his hands, and then took the knife. There were tears on his cheeks.

“Peter... I will do it.” Ian said.

“No... I have to do it... It's my punishment that I couldn't cure him...” The gold–haired answered while weeping. He put a knife to the dying man's neck and pulled it quickly, once, then a second time. It was all over. “Forgive me, please, forgive me...”

After the whole "procedure", his body was cremated, and the ashes were collected. Ian wrote down all the needed details, so that he could send the urn back to his hometown, where the patient wished to be buried. Peter was sitting in the next room, yet he could still hear him cry. When he had finished writing down the information, he went to him. The golden–haired kept his hands on his head, sat curled up, and couldn’t stop crying. He was shaking at the thought of what he had done. And he did it for the third time in his life.

“I'm useless... I’m a murderer...” he mumbled to himself.

“No, Peter...” Ian said softly, and squatted in front of him. “Hang in there, we'll find something soon for sure...”

“Never...! It's never going to work...” He moaned. “I can't help them... I can't even euthanize them in a humane way... I have to make them suffer in one way so I can spare them another… I'm disgusting...”

“Peter, you know it’s not true. You do it, so they don't need suffer, it's not torture.”

“I can't do a damn thing!” he shouted. “So many tries, and nothing came out of it...”

“So...” Ian straightened up. “I will do everything in my power to finish it.”

Peter looked at him. His eyes were bloodshot and his face was red. Ian smiled a slightly. “I will do it! Just give me... some time. I will do succeed, I promise you. You will never have to go through it anymore.”

“Ian...?”

“You'll see... everything will work out.” Ian said, and then left. Peter didn’t understand, he couldn’t think clearly. He couldn’t make sense of anything.