He cursed her existence and spat upon the ground whenever her name was mentioned. She was a creature of darkness that needed to be eradicated as any plague on the earth would. Lesser men called her a healer of discarded women and savior of the forgotten children. Those were platitudes paid to a wretched creature by those who needed her aid. It disgusted him that people would stoop so low, and he had attempted to end her existence.
The doctor had to cast her aside as the diseased ideas she was spreading about the cleaning of wounds and medicinal herbs were hurting his practice. The townsfolk were no longer seeking his leeches or to be bled. Their wounds were healed by witchcraft, and the church refused to provide aid. The thousands that died across the landscape of the cursed black death ravaged the world.
The sores covered his flesh as the curse he had paid a witch doctor to cast upon her struck him instead. He was vicious in his response, for in the dark of the night, he had struck a flint, and to set the man's house ablaze, he had burned the town. Monster and criminal, they had called out as they pelted him with stones, tearing at his flesh with hate. He cursed their every being as he darted between the trees.
Stumbling forward, grasping at his memories of the pain, he pushes on. He does his best to hold onto every ragged breath as he pushes through the thorns and needles littering the land. He falls and stumbles forward, barely able to keep on as he coughs violently, his lungs filled with the wretched smoke of the burned village.
He curses this creature for the pain she brought him and the suffering he endured. The people needed his leeches and cures; they needed him, and she robbed him of everything he had done and could have been. He curses her, and it all stumbles, crashing into a sign and pushing it across the ground. Looking at it, the language he wrote is foreign, having never had the chance to read the ancient scripts, the words foreign as he pushes on.
Slipping, he falls, biting his tongue as the sound of a Raven pierces the night. Cursing his luck he hates this witch, hates her whole kind. She is meant to be ignorant, in the bed being bred, desperately needing the assistance of a man to keep her alive. She lives beyond her station beyond the right of anyone of her kind. She deserves to be less than for she is less than he, less than a doctor. He hates and curses her existence and his need to find her. Pushing forward, his hand slips on the briar patch, slick with the wetness of blood.
Moving forward, he has no choice. He had no choice but to consult his worst enemy. To beg for her forgiveness as she deserves nothing. She deserves only the same pain and suffering she caused him. She should have been burnt at the stake, cast out into the pits of hell. Cursing under his breath, he pushes forward, every ounce of his being filled with hate as he tries to navigate in the dim moonlight.
Running forward, he despises the darkness and depth of the night. He runs fast as droplets of sweat bead down his neck, pushing in the coolness of the night air. The chill is freezing him to his bone as he runs faster. Blinded by the trees, he runs without thought, calling out to the witch Gabriella as he rushes into the darkness. The howling of nearby wolves terrifies him as he desperately calls her name. Begs the wind for mercy.
Running, gasping, he pushes forward, dashing towards a fire. As he enters the light of the burning embers, he screams in pain. A quick slice of a nail cuts his flesh as she grasps his arm in panic. Looking down, he sees the dark, sticky substance entering his wound. Gasping for air, he begs for mercy, asking for his sponges and saving grace. Turning he peers into the darkness of her eyes as she steps back from the light.
In the whisper of a single word of "feast," the wolves attack. Fangs tear into his flesh as tendons rip from the bone. Tattered flesh held loose as the horror began. He curses his fate and the witch that damned him. Cursing the choices he had made.
In the end, he is the creator of the forsaken, the broken women, and the hundreds of lost children. He knows the truth as he is torn to shreds before dozens of hidden eyes. Amid his blood-curdling screams, he is the monster, not the witch as it once seemed.