A Spoonfull of Surger. To Force Health- To Force Sanity

Nimdok left the shop counter with a measured calm that belied the storm brewing in his chest. His head throbbed, each step up the stairs to his room echoing with the same gnawing question: Why don’t I remember?

The memory was just out of reach, a shadow slipping through his grasp every time he tried to clutch it. He rubbed his temples, muttering to himself. “What do they do? What did they do?”

Before he could spiral further, Darcia’s voice floated up to him, gentle but firm. “Nimdok, you’ve worked yourself into a state again. Go and rest, dear brother. Please.”

He stopped on the landing, looking down at her. She was leaning casually against the counter, her golden eyes warm and steady, as if she hadn’t just tucked away a secret that felt far heavier than a single bottle of pills.

Nimdok sighed and nodded. “Alright,” he said softly. “I’ll... I’ll rest.”

Darcia’s smile widened, but there was a flicker of something else in her gaze—relief, perhaps, or guilt. “Good. That’s good.”

He turned and disappeared into his room, the door clicking shut behind him. Darcia stood still for a moment, her ears twitching as she listened to his footsteps fade.

Then, with a deep breath, she turned back to the scattered contents of the fallen box.

Her movements were precise as she gathered the bottles, her fingers curling tightly around the glass. She set them on the counter one by one, her expression hardening with each clink.

Her tail stilled as she pulled a mortar and pestle from beneath the counter. One by one, the pills were ground to dust under her firm, deliberate pressure.

Darcia’s face was unreadable, her golden eyes fixed on the task as if it required her full concentration. The fine powder gathered in the mortar, and she poured it out with no ceremony into the waste bin, the soft hiss of falling dust the only sound in the quiet shop.

“These things,” she muttered under her breath, her voice low and bitter. “What a lie. Healthy? No.” Her lip curled slightly as she set the mortar down. “No one will force him to be ‘better.’ Not them. Not anyone.”

Her tail swished once, sharply, as if to punctuate her resolve. She swept the remaining glass shards into the bin and wiped her hands clean.

Darcia glanced toward the stairs, her expression softening as her thoughts turned to Nimdok. A sad, almost wistful smile curved her lips.

He didn’t need to change. Not for anyone. Not while she was here to protect him.

And with that, she turned away, her movements quiet but purposeful, as the shop sank back into stillness.
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The memory clawed its way back into Darcia’s mind as she sat in the quiet of the shop, the mortar and pestle still heavy in her hands. It wasn’t the soft, wistful kind of recollection—it was the kind that scraped and tore, leaving wounds that never fully healed.

They had grown up in a mansion that loomed like a mausoleum, its grandeur hiding the rot inside. To outsiders, their family was enviable: noble, disciplined, poised. But behind closed doors, discipline turned to cruelty, and poise gave way to tyranny.

Darcia’s father was a man of precision, and in his world, Nimdok was always wrong. Too weak, too slow, too sensitive. The lessons he doled out were not words but fists, canes, and the sharp edge of his belt.

“Stand up straight, boy!”
Crack.
“Don’t cry. Only cowards cry!”
Thud.
“You’ll thank me for this someday.”
Crack. Thud. Crack.

Darcia’s small frame would tremble as she watched from the shadows, her hands clenched into fists so tight her nails dug into her palms. She wanted to scream, to run to Nimdok’s side, to shield him. But her mother’s iron grip always held her back.

“It’s not your place,” her mother would say coldly, dragging her away as Nimdok lay crumpled on the floor.

Her mother’s cruelty was quieter, more insidious, but no less damaging. She had a way of twisting words into daggers, slicing away at Nimdok’s spirit with precision. She dismissed his dreams, mocked his fears, and when the bruises became too visible to ignore, she justified them with a smile.

“He needs to be a man,” she’d say. “This is how boys learn strength.”

Darcia hated them both.

But the worst came later.

One night, after an especially brutal punishment, Nimdok didn’t get up. Darcia found him in his room, curled on the floor, his breaths shallow and ragged. His eyes were distant, unfocused, as though his spirit had left his body behind.

She shook him, called his name, begged him to come back to her. But Nimdok didn’t answer. He just stared at the wall, silent tears streaming down his face.

Their parents didn’t come. When Darcia finally screamed loud enough to summon them, her father barely glanced at his son.

“He’s fine,” he said dismissively, though even he seemed unnerved by the sight.

Her mother was less composed. She acted swiftly, not out of love or concern, but to maintain appearances. A doctor was called, then another, and finally a man in a gray suit from the asylum.

Darcia wasn’t allowed to go with him. She remembered clutching the bannister as they led Nimdok away, his limp body draped between two strangers.

He was gone for two years.

When he returned, he was a shadow of the boy she had known. His eyes, once bright with curiosity, were dulled. His voice was hesitant, fragmented, as though every word had to fight its way out.

Her mother insisted the asylum had helped him. She even had the audacity to praise the pills they sent back with him. “They keep him calm,” she said with a satisfied smile, as though sedation was the same as healing.

But Darcia knew better. She could see it in the way Nimdok flinched at shadows, in the way he clung to her presence like a lifeline. The asylum hadn’t helped him—it had hollowed him out, filled the cracks with something cold and mechanical.

And the pills... Darcia hated the pills most of all. She’d seen how they dulled Nimdok’s edges, smoothing over the pain but taking his light with it. He wasn’t meant to be like this, a ghost of himself.

Her father called it progress. Her mother called it necessary. Darcia called it cruelty.

In the dead of night, she started hiding the pills. At first, it was a selfish act, a desperate attempt to reclaim the brother she’d lost. But over time, it became a mission.

She wouldn’t let them break him again.

Her tail swished behind her as she ground the pills to dust in her shop, the motion mechanical, detached. Her golden eyes stared into the fine powder, but her mind was elsewhere—back in that mansion, in the rooms where she’d failed to protect him.

They were gone now, her parents, taken by time and their own bitterness. But their damage lingered, etched into the fabric of who Nimdok was.

Darcia wouldn’t let anyone—or anything—force him to change again. Not society, not medicine, not even himself.

“He doesn’t need to be ‘fixed,’” she muttered under her breath, her voice sharp and resolute. “Not for them. Not for anyone.”

And with that, she swept the remnants of the past into the waste bin and turned her thoughts back to her brother—the one person in the world she refused to let slip away.