A Doctor’s Promise in a Cursed World

Morning came far too quickly.
A pale, grayish light filtered through the warped wooden planks, revealing just how pathetic our “refuge” looked in daylight. I’d barely slept; my mind refused to shut off, running on an endless loop despite my exhaustion.

I carefully slipped out from between the twins, trying not to wake them. Pururun was already up, trembling faintly as if trying to get my attention.

“What is it this time?” I muttered under my breath.

She pointed a pseudopod toward the twins. I frowned and examined them more closely. Their skin had taken on a worrying grayish tinge, and their breathing was shallow, irregular.

“Shit.”

I placed a hand on the nearest forehead. Hot. Too hot. Her pulse was rapid and weak. The other one showed the same symptoms.

“Wake up,” I ordered softly, shaking them gently.

They slowly blinked open, their eyes glazed and confused.

“W… where are we?” Lyra whispered.

“In our five-star luxury palace. How do you feel?”

“Tired… so tired…”

I helped them sit up, my medical instincts on full alert. Something was wrong. This wasn’t just exhaustion from the escape. It was deeper. More insidious.

“How long have you been feeling like this?”

“Always,” Mira answered weakly. “Since we were little. It keeps getting worse.”

“Show me your arms.”

They obeyed, rolling up the sleeves of their tattered clothes. What I saw made my stomach drop.

Dark markings snaked beneath their skin, forming unnatural, vein-like patterns. Black lines pulsed faintly, as if something was eating away at them from the inside.

“Holy… crap,” I breathed.

I’d seen infections, parasites, rare diseases — but this? This wasn’t like anything I’d encountered before. The markings weren’t biological. They were… magical.

“It’s our curse,” Lyra murmured. “We know. We’re going to die. We should never have been born from that forbidden union.”

“Shut up. Nobody’s dying today.”

But my voice lacked its usual bite. I examined them methodically: swollen lymph nodes, wheezing, extreme pallor, intermittent tremors. My brain raced through differential diagnoses, but every path hit a wall. No bacteria. No virus. No parasite I knew.

It was this damn world’s magic.
The kind of problem that laughed in the face of antibiotics and surgery.

“Pururun, help me.”

My slime bounced closer, focused. I dug into my satchel, pulling out the medicinal herbs I’d gathered in the forest — natural anti-inflammatories, fever reducers, fortifying roots. I brewed a decoction over the dying fire, stirring the mixture as steam rose into the cold air. The twins watched me with half-lidded eyes.

“Drink this. Slowly.”

They obeyed, grimacing at the bitter taste. I observed carefully. Their breathing stabilized slightly. Their fever dropped a little.
But the black markings didn’t retreat. Not an inch.

“Damn it. Damn it, damn it!”

I raked a hand through my hair in frustration. I was a doctor, for crying out loud. I healed people. But faced with this… curse, I felt powerless like never before.

“Will it go away?” Mira asked timidly.

“I… don’t know.”

The words burned my throat. Admitting helplessness — that was the worst thing for any doctor. Especially when lives hung in the balance.

I continued my examination, but the truth was undeniable: this wasn’t something my earthly medicine could cure.
It was a real curse. Not the kind you treat with pills and scalpels.

“This world and its bullshit rules,” I growled.

I prepared a second, more concentrated concoction, throwing in everything I’d learned about herbal medicine from every culture I’d studied — anti-toxins, purifying barks, strengthening roots. The twins drank, faces twisting at the bitterness.

Their fever lowered a bit more. Their breathing became more regular.
But the black veins remained. Silent. Pulsating. Eating away inside them.

“It hurts less,” Lyra whispered softly.

“Good. Keep resting.”

I slumped down beside them, mentally drained. Pururun nestled against me, vibrating gently as if to comfort me.

“I can stabilize them,” I muttered to myself. “Slow the progression. But I can’t cure it. Not yet.”

The twins had fallen back asleep, their faces less contorted by pain. I watched them, and a cold determination settled in my chest.

“I’ll find a way,” I whispered. “I don’t know how. I don’t know when. But I’ll cure you. That’s a doctor’s promise.”

Pururun vibrated approvingly, her pseudopods gently touching my hands. I noticed she’d evolved again — her reactions were more complex, almost human. She understood my frustration. My resolve.
And since when could she manifest pseudopods like that?

“You’re getting attached to these kids too, huh?”

She pulsed and briefly formed a heart shape on her surface. I couldn’t help but smile.

“Yeah. Me too.”

***

The hours that followed were a blur of mixing, testing, and adjusting herbal remedies. Each preparation offered a slight improvement but nothing definitive. The curse was dug in deep, stubborn and relentless.

When the twins finally woke again, they looked marginally better — not healed, not even close, but stable.

“You saved us,” Mira murmured.

“Not yet. I just bought you time. But I will find a solution. Even if I have to turn this damn world upside down to do it.”

They looked at me with a trust that punched me right in the chest.
Me — the cynical doctor who swore at his patients. Me — the godless bastard who mocked heaven to its face. Somehow, I’d become their only hope.

“We need to leave,” I finally said. “Staying here is too dangerous. And in the capital, I might have access to better resources.”

“The capital?” Lyra repeated, worried.

“Yeah. A giant labyrinth where we can disappear into the crowd. I’ll search for information about your curse. And maybe, if I’m lucky, open a little underground clinic just to piss off the Temple.”

I helped them to their feet, making sure they could stand. They looked fragile but… alive. Pururun darted around, making sure we hadn’t left anything behind in the decrepit shack.

Before leaving, I cast one last glance at the cold fireplace, the cracked walls, the place that had sheltered us for two nights.

“Let’s go. We’ve got a world to piss off.”

The twins followed, unsteady but determined. Pururun hopped ahead, taking her usual role as scout. The sun was already high, promising a long, grueling day of walking.

But at least we were alive. And I had a mission now:
Save these two cursed girls. No matter what it took.

I looked up at the sky and shouted,
“Hey, Being X! You see this? I’m going to save these kids your messed-up world condemned. And I’ll do it without praying, without kneeling, without acknowledging your damn existence. Just pure, stubborn human will!”

No thunder this time. Just the forest’s quiet and birdsong.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. You already know you’ve lost.”

I smiled — bitter, but resolute.
Ahead of us lay the road to the capital. Toward more trouble, almost certainly. Toward danger, without a doubt.

But also toward the one thing that still motivated me: proving that real medicine — the kind that doesn’t need gods or miracles — could triumph even in this rotten world.

“Come on, girls. We’ve got a long road ahead.”

And so we set off again: one grumpy doctor, two cursed dhampirs, and a slime that was starting to act a little too human.
A fine team of outcasts.

“What the hell did I do to deserve this?” I muttered.