Chapter 3 - The Local Doctor

The Local Doctor As she was about to enter the market, she felt someone tug at the edge of her skirt. She turned to see who it was, it was a poor boy who looked very dirty and unkempt. His hair was scraped in different places on his head as a result of lice, his bones were now becoming more visible on his thin, malnourished body. He looked so miserable. She felt compassionate towards him and felt bad that she didn't have much on her. But she had plucked some fruits earlier on her way, so she gave him all of the three oranges in her basket and decided to pluck another in an old man's compound that was a few metres away from the market. The little boy was very happy and she watched him run into the streets. Probably, he took it to his sick mother or sibling so they could feed. It wasn't the first time she had seen such cases, there were even far worse and that was the very sad case of her town that was located in the Northern Kingdom of the Isles. Their town was basically the smallest and most impoverished town in the Northern Kingdom and this was because it housed a lot of poor and hungry people. Oftentimes, they were seen as outcasts that didn't exist on the map of the Northern Kingdom of the Isles and this was because they had a greedy man as king. He basically paid no attention to them because they were too poor to pay him taxes. He cared less about his people and was only interested in imposing taxes on them, making even the rich complain and the sad thing was that there weren't even many rich people in their land in the first place. Their Kingdom was the least respected and least acknowledged amongst all four kingdoms that existed and her town, Northern Island, was the poorest one in the kingdom. She walked further in the market asking for directions to get to the store her stepmother had described. The Reaper's Store. One thing she noticed and she had no idea of was the weird stares she got from the few people she asked the location from. They seemed to have this quizzical look on their faces and she wondered why it was so. ' Did the store not exist in the market?' she asked herself. How then was she going to get the medicine for her dad? Other people who sold medicine too were there and they wouldn't sell it for her if she just walked up to them with no single cash telling them she was from Ava, they'd probably just beat her up and call her a fraudster. She had watched people get beaten up because of cases as little as in the market. Hunger had made a lot of people desperate. Marilyn knew that if she returned home empty handed with no medicine, her stepmother would skin her alive and she could not even think of the repercussions if she didn't get her father his medicine on time. ******* She finally found the store at the end of the market, it was a little building that looked kind of abandoned and she wondered if it was still in function. The place seemed to be like it has been desolate for quite some time now. A sign placed in front of the store read ' Dead man, revive, take away, lair, catch, bound'. There were weird words arranged together. " What does that even mean?" She asked no one in particular as she walked closer to the door. She didn't know why but she felt uncomfortable with the building, the whole place in general. It had this eerie aura. She lifted her hands to knock at the door and before it landed, the door was opened much to her surprise. " Oh! Look who we have here" the man whom she supposed was the doctor said as he walked out of the building to meet her. She was not sure but it felt as though she heard muffled voices coming from inside the building. He was staring at her, his eyes checking her out from top to bottom in a way that she was not comfortable with and the sinister grin he wore on his face only made her wary of him. " Are you the local doctor?" Marilyn asked him. He looked very huge and had spiky hair on his head, with a pierced right ear which made him look not much of a doctor to her. " Yes" " My stepmother sent me to get some medicines for my father from you. Can I have them now?" She asked him as she held the basket in her right hand close to her. " Come in" the man says to her scanning the area to ensure no one was coming that way. " No...thank you" She rejected his offer. " You can just go in and help me with the medicines so I can go home as fast as I can." It was getting dark already and dusk was fastly setting in. " My Stepmother already paid for it" she told him again. "Yes, she did," he said, a smile forming on his lips. "She paid even more than we bargained for," he said to a surprised Marilyn. She felt really glad that instant because her stepmother cared so much for her husband even though she acted bad to him most of the time. But the question running through her mind was how the woman had gotten the money to pay more than was bargained. " How much is it worth?" Marilyn asked for the price so she could save up to repay her stepmother later. " You don't wanna know," the huge man standing before her said, smiling. Suddenly, the man instead of giving her the medicine she came to get, grabbed her by the wrist and dragged her towards him. " What are you doing?" She asked, obviously shocked by his sudden act.