Oh, hey, more writing.
But I don't know what about.
So I'm going to go watch TV instead.
Frankly, it makes me sick.
"Curses! Curses, I say! A thousand curses, and then another one for good measure!"
These were the words exclaimed by Sir Edward O. Skullivan as he vehemently stormed down the hallway of his pristine mansion. The corridor ran on for about a hundred and fifty feet, with ornate marble tiles - checkered black and white and polished until they shone, no less - and a veritable gallery of portraits along the walls, all depicted Skullivan himself in a variety of exaggerated poses. The simple reason for his anger was the recurring fact that, no matter how much effort he put into making his schemes fool-proof, idiot-proof and yes, even imbecile-proof, something invariably went wrong that sent his entire elaborate plot collapsing around his feet. To be perfectly honest, there was no real reason for his general villainy: he had simply been raised to believe that people of his social status were above everyone else. In truth, he had twisted this notion to suit his own selfish desires, but that was a fact he was quite willing to overlook.
"Don't be too hard on yourself, sir," said a ghostly butler with a neatly-trimmed moustache and skull for a head, who was trailing closely behind, "I'm sure that you'll triumph some time."
In the blink of an eye, Skullivan had whirled around and was glaring the sharpest of daggers at his butler. "You've said that every week for the past six months, Bubbles!"
The butler timidly interjected, "My name isn't Bubbles, sir..."
"I don't care!" cried Skullivan, on the verge of snapping his own head off in frustration, "I'm in charge of this mansion, and I'll bloody well call you whatever the bloody hell I bloody well feel like! Do you bloody well understand?"
"Yes, I bloody well...I mean, yes, sir."
"Good." Skullivan turned back on his heel and continued his irate march down the hallway, all the while cursing under his breath. "I tell you, Bubbles, it isn't easy being a villain around here. Especially with all that blasted competition."
"Competition, sir?"
"You know! What about Davy Jones, my "beloved" archrival? And that blonde buffoon...the one that throws the knives? Oh, and let's not forget Lord Blackmore." He forced out the name, speaking as if it was a dirty word. "That wretched bastard thinks he's better than all of us!"
"Well, he does have the most successful record out of all of us..."
"Shut up! I don't give two hoots if he's from the chaos realm or whatever the hell it is, he's still just a Chaotic Evil wannabe!"
The butler was going to say something, but thought better of it and decided to change the subject. "I don't really understand why being a villain is so important to you, sir. It's not like you don't have an obscene amount of wealth and a position at the peak of the social hierarchy."
"It's not the villain status that bothers me, Bubbles. It's the manner in which my schemes constantly crumble! No matter how well planned they are, it seems, those twice-damned goody-two-shoes goodies find some way to overcome it!"
Upon reaching a door two-thirds of the way down the hall, Skullivan proceeded to bitterly shove it open and enter. This room was his private study, an old-timey spectacle of a room, complete with wooden walls, a fancy rug on the floor, shelves of intellectual books and tomes and his personal desk, upon which sat all forms of knick-knacks: from pens to paper to assorted miscellanea that had no discernable place elsewhere. Skullivan sauntered over to his desk, kicked the chair out from under it and seated himself on it. He leaned forward on the table, steepling his long, narrow fingers contemplatively.
The butler, who had followed him in, spoke up. "Perhaps, sir, it is not their clever tricks that allow them to defeat you. Perhaps, somewhere in your mind, you hold a secret respect for those good fellows. Perhaps you subconciously want them to win, and so you unknowingly leave a chink in your armour for them to exploit."
Skullivan gave his butler a filthy look that suggested what he had said was the verbal equivalent of spitting on his master's shoes. "And why in the hell would I let them defeat me, Bubbles?"
"Well, perhaps you secretly know that, if they were to fall prey to one of your elaborate schemes to rid yourselves of them, you would have nothing left to do. With them out of the scene, global conquest would be a piece of the proverbial cake for you. Perhaps, somehow, you are aware that they give you a purpose in life, a goal to achieve, and so you always give them a sporting chance. Isn't that what your father taught you?"
Skullivan's look went from filthy to murderous. "That's the most ridiculous pile of tripe I've heard in years! I pay you to serve me, Bubbles, not give me an unrequested psychoanalasys!"
"But you don't pay me."
"Details, details," Skullivan dismissed the comment with a wave of his hand. "Now bugger off and fetch me my tea!"
The ghostly butler recoiled and nodded feverishly. "Y-yes, sir," he stuttered, and floated off to get the tea. With an idle murmur, Skullivan spun his chair around and fell to staring intently at his book-shelves.
"Some day, I will succeed," he said to himself. He plucked a small model globe from his desk and held it tightly in his bony fingers. "And then, everything will be mine!"
His wicked cackle rang all throughout the entire mansion.
Dr. Ivan Salvadore was once the top surgeon in St. Alban's Hospital. His surgical skills, charismatic charm, handsome looks and whimsical intellect made him the proverbial toast of the town: admired by women, respected by men, and confident enough to impress those higher than him. When he was in the operating theatre, everyone followed his command. He was strong enough to give orders to others, but gentle enough that they wouldn't feel forced. The theatre was the kingdom, and he was the king.
As he stepped out of the operating theatre, having successfullly performed a kidney transplant on a patient, he was immediately approached by throngs of his friends and co-workers. They were the ones who had given him the title of "The Cutting Genius", a moniker Salvadore held with great pride.
"Morning, Dr. Salvadore," an intern said as he passed, even though Salvadore had never spoken to him prior; his reputation was widespread throughout the hospital, and to not know him was to be an ignorant buffoon.
"Good morning," Salvadore replied in a manner most friendly. One of his close friends, a one Dr. McMannis, came over and gave his buddy a pat on the back.
"Hey, Ivan! How goes it in Surgeonland?"
"Hello to you too, Bill," smiled the surgeon, "Things are going fine, thanks for asking." He spoke in an exotic Eastern European accent, with a deep voice that was brusque yet warm, mysterious yet inviting.
"Cool, cool." McMannis was quiet for a moment as the two doctors strolled down the halls of St. Alban's. "Hey, you heard Tony's birthday's coming up in a few days?"
"Oh, really?" said Salvadore, deciding to humour his friend, though he had no intention of going.
"Yeah, this Wednesday. He's turning 28. He's inviting a bunch of the guys from work over to the bar for a party. It's gonna be wicked!"
Salvadore nodded. "I can bet it will be."
"So," Bill continued, moving slightly closer to Ivan's shoulders, "You thinking of coming?"
"I'm afraid I can't," replied Salvadore, perhaps a little too quickly. He quickly resumed his normal pace of speech and said, "It's just that my wife is going to a wine-tasting seminar with her friends that night, and I need to be at home to look after little Ivana."
"Oh, yeah, I forgot you have a daughter. So how old is she now?"
"She will be 6 in three months," Salvadore stated proudly, "To think it's been that long since she entered this world...it brings a tear to the eye."
"Mmm, I bet it does," murmured Bill, slightly dismissively. "So I'll just tell Tony you're not able to come?"
"If you would please," said Salvadore, "I would appreciate it."
"No problem, Ivan. Consider him told."
As Bill turned into a patient's room, he gave Ivan a high-five and wink. Salvadore just sighed and walked on.
"I think I'd go insane without people like him."
---
"Natasha, dear, I'm home!"
Ivan Salvadore stepped into the hall of his quaint surburban home, hung up his coat, loosened his belt and undid his top button. His wife, a Slovenian midwife by profession and loving mother-of-one, came to her husband and embraced him.
"How was work, Ivan?"
"I performed a kidney transplant earlier. Nothing difficult at all."
Salvadore looked down the hall and smiled when he saw his little daughter running towards him, beaming.
"Daddy! Daddy! You're home!" She threw her arms around her father, who chuckled and picked her up.
"My, Ivana, you're getting so big! Soon enough, you'll have to lift me up!"
Ivana giggled as her father let her back down. "I wanna be a doctor just like you, Daddy! I'll make people feel all better, just like you do!"
'Daddy' chuckled again and ruffled Ivana's hair. "And what a fine doctot you'll make someday! Now run along, your Mommy and I want to talk."
The little girl nodded and quickly scuttled off to watch television. Natasha glanced at her husband with a look somewhere between curiosity and suspicion. "Would Mommy and Daddy like to talk? About what?"
"Oh, nothing serious," Ivan assured his wife, leaning against the coatrack, "It's just that, Bill asked me if I'd like to come with him to Tony Guilder's birthday party this Wednesday."
Natasha cocked an eyebrow, her arms folded. "What did you tell him?"
"I said I couldn't. You have that, er, wine-tasting seminar, right?"
Mrs. Salvadore shook her head. "I'm afraid not. Sally and Judie had to cancel. Something came up."
To the trained eye, which Mrs. Salvadore indeed possessed, it could be observed that Salvadore's eyes lit up a little. "Oh! So...you will be able to look after Ivana, then?"
Natasha blinked. "Of course, dear. But...I know that crowd you hang out with all too well. They'll probably end up getting drunk, and you'll either join them, or have to drive them home. You'll be up all night, and lord knows what assignment might crop up the next morning."
"I can assure you, I will remain as sober as a statue," Ivan declared, as though his honour had been wounded, "And I'll come home early. Let someone else be designated driver for once."
His wife stared at him hesitantly, then at last sighed and shook her head slightly. "Alright, I suppose I don't mind." Her gaze took a sharper, sterner look. "But I'll take your word as a promise. Please, don't disappoint me."
Salvadore nodded. "I promise." His wife smiled, and the two shared a hug.
---
Tony Guilder's party, held at Finnigan's Bar & Grill, was a resounding success. Most of the male hospital staff had turned up, it seemed, and many had abandoned their worry regarding work and decided to live it up a little. In fact, it was Salvadore alone who kept his alcohol intake to the bare minimum; this was to the chagrin of his friends and co-workers, the man of the night in particular.
"C'mon, Salvie," Tony chirped joviously, struggling to keep his speech interpretable, "Lighten up! It's a party, after all."
"I assure you, I'm fine," 'Salvie' protested, taking a sip of his Manhattan cocktail.
"Suit yourself," Tony replied with a shrug, and downed the rest of his beer. The crowd cheered and another round was immediately ordered. Salvadore sighed and idly stirred his drink.
He glanced around at the other party-goers. They seemed to be having a grand old time...perhaps one beer? Yes, that would be fine. Surely one beer would do him no harm. And so he ordered a glass of premium Dutch lager, at a volume high enough to ensure the others heard. A few of them cheered in jest, taking Salvadore's order as a message saying: "I'm having a good time."
Salvadore shrugged and took a swig of his drink. With a smile, he raised his glass. The others followed suit, and they all clinked and took a drink.
And for Salvadore, something remarkable happened: he finally felt like he fit in. He was so often praised and admired at work that he almost forgot how to socialise, like he was on a pedestal far elevated above his co-workers. It felt good to be like this, to just be "one of the guys". It felt right.
Ivan Salvadore went home that night sober, as he had promised his wife. And yet, there was a certain tinge of melancholy to him: he knew that, tomorrow morning, he would go back to being "The Cutting Genius" again, and the night would just be a memory.
---
As it happened, the night before was something less than a memory. Salvadore awoke, dazed and confused, with little to no recollection of the party. He wearily gazed at his alarm clock. 6:30 AM. He had plenty of time to get to work. But as he got up and put on his work clothes, the question that lurked in the recesses of his mind was simply, "What did I do last night?" He remembered going to Tony Guilder's birthday party and ordering a drink. He was sober when he returned, he knew that much. But for whatever reason, he didn't feel great this morning. Maybe he was just what his colleagues might term a "lightweight"?
He entered St. Alban's Hospital, feeling slightly unwell, but nothing severe. The first thing he saw was Bill McMannis and a number of other medical staff rushing down the hallway, pushing a stretcher.
"There he is," McMannis called, detaching from the group pushing the stretcher and running over to Salvadore. "Ivan, get over here! This girl needs your help!"
This was one of the few moments McMannis called him by his first name. Perhaps there was a serious problem with this patient?
"I'm on it," Salvadore declared, hurriedly following McMannis and the other doctors into the operating theatre. There, the doctors threw the sheet off the stretcher and helped the patient onto the operating table: it was a little girl, no older than five. Her breath came in short, harsh wheezes, and she struggled to keep her eyes open.
"She has a severe lung infection," McMannis explained, "It's eating away at her lung, hampering her breathing. If we don't get that organ out and transplanted right away, she could asphyxiate." He looked at Salvadore, his face stern as stone. "Can you handle it?"
Salvadore hesitated, but nodded. "I'll do what I can, Bill." As he gathered his tools and donned his surgical mask, the other doctors stepped back, allowing he and his fellow surgeons to examine the little girl. She took a painful breath and looked up at Salvadore.
"Am I gonna be okay, Mister Doctor?"
Salvadore managed a small smile, brushing the girl's hair gently. "You'll be fine, my dear. Just fine."
"Doctor, we need to start the operation," another surgeon stated. Salvadore nodded. The surgeon placed the mask over the girl's mouth and administered the anaesthetic. The girl smiled weakly at Salvadore.
"Thank you," she wheezed, giving a little wave. Salvadore waved back, and she fell asleep. He took a deep breath and looked at the scalpel between his fingers. Once he had mustered up his courage, he started the operation to remove the infected lung.
As the operation dragged on, time seemed to slow to a crawl. Seconds seemed like minutes; minutes seemed like hours. Salvadore began to lose his nerve. Sweat dripped down his brow, his scalpel-holding hand shaking visibly. He didn't feel well; perhaps it was the alcohol kicking in. Whatever it was, he seemed to be losing his confidence. His usual deadpan determination was fading, to be replaced with the uneasy sluggishness of a young intern.
"Doctor," one of the surgeons said, "We need you to make the incision!"
Salvadore nodded. This was a delicate incision; one false twitch, and it could sever the child's windpipe. Unfortunately, that's just what happened: for Salvadore had made an uneasy jerk of his wrist, and the child's air supply was immediately cut off.
Beep. Beep. Beeeeeeeeep...
Her heartbeat flatlined. She was dead. Salvadore stood deathly still for a moment, then looked at the scalpel in his hand. He pulled his surgical mask down. In front of all the other doctors, he broke down and began to weep on the operating table. The Cutting Genius had made the fatal cut. McMannis hesitantly took a step towards him.
"Ivan?"
And Salvadore sobbed, "She looked like my daughter..."
---
Dr. Salvadore was unconsolable. He had to break the news to the parents that their precious little daughter had died on the operating table.
"You did what you could," the mother said, choking back tears. But it wasn't good enough. He had failed to help the little girl, and now she was dead. It was all his fault, or so he kept telling himself. Even his closest friend, Bill McMannis, couldn't make him feel any better.
"It's my fault," he kept saying, "Her life was in my hands, and I let her down! I'm not fit to call myself a doctor..."
"Ivan, we all make mistakes," McMannis assured him, "It's just part of being a doctor."
"She was only five years old, Bill! Just like...just like my little girl...if you were a father, Bill, maybe you'd understand."
And Ivan Salvadore left the building, never to be seen again. The Cutting Genius was gone.
---
After that incident, and despite constant reassurance that it happened to the best of them, Ivan Salvadore was overcome with crushing despair and sank into a deep depression. He refused to come to work, didn't eat, shave or sleep; he just sat on the couch all day, attempting to drown his sorrows with alcohol. He had gone from being a handsome, well-toned gentleman to a scrawny, dishevelled vagabond, his eyes bloodshot and sullen, his firm physique reduced to an emaciated mess. He couldn't muster the energy to move. The guilt was too much for him to bear. Once or twice, he had contemplated suicide, but he couldn't even bring himself to do it. There was the scalpel on the table beside him, but he ignored it. Instead, he decided to waste himself away, until he was nothing but a crushed heap that was once a man.
His wife had left him. She took his daughter with her. "A bad influence," she called him. "You're overreacting. You've gone insane, Ivan." Insane. That word kept pounding away in the dark corners of his shattered psyche, refusing to leave.
Insane.
Insane.
You've gone insane, Ivan.
He took a look at the picture on the table next to the couch. It showed himself, in his glory days, with his beloved wife and daughter. They had gone. His little daughter wouldn't see her daddy. Mommy took her away.
"Ivana," Salvadore wept, thinking of his precious little girl. She was named after him. He just wanted to hold her in his arms...but he couldn't. His wife would never think of coming back to him. He was barely human anymore. Cold, bitter tears trickling down his narrow face, he hung his head over, letting his greasy hair hang loosely; it used to be tidy and well-kept, but now it was dishevelled and unkempt. Just as he had become. All because of one little accident on the operating table.
But then he stopped weeping. He raised his head and glanced about. Was he hearing voices? There was definitely something there; something saying his name. "Ivan Salvadore..."
He swallowed a gulp and nervously spoke up. "Wh-who's there? How do you know my name?" He was surprised to see there was another person next to him: a tall, thin man, dressed entirely in black, with a wide-brimmed hat hiding his face. He sat smugly at the other side of the couch, head tipped forward.
"Hello, Ivan. Nice to see you."
Salvadore tried to speak, but no words came out. But for some reason, he wasn't afraid. He felt strangely comfortable around this mysterious man. He managed to whisper, "Who are you?"
"Who am I?" The man in the hat tipped the brim of his headwear down slightly. "Let's just say I'm a friend. I'm here to help you, Ivan."
"Help me?" Salvadore closed his sunken eyes, bending his parched lips into a frown. "I am beyond help. Please, leave me here so I may rot..."
The doctor slowly opened his eyes again, and saw the phantom figure raise the brim of his hat upwards: he revealed to him his face, a hideous, ivory-white mask that was somewhere between a skull and a demon's face. Pupils dilated in fear, Salvadore edged back and grabbed the scalpel next to him.
"Oh, put your little toy away," the phantom said in his hollow, devilish voice, "And listen to me. Your wife and daughter have left you, and your friends will think you're just a sick waste of a human being in this state. You know what you should do?"
The doctor lowered his scalpel and stared in awe at the phantom. "What should I do?"
Though he was wearing a mask, one could tell the phantom was smiling. "Kill them."
"Kill them?" Salvadore repeated in a hushed breath. Ordinarily, he would have deplored the idea of taking someone's life - but in his weary, addled state of mind, the thought of murder didn't seem like such a bad thing. "Kill them..."
"Exactly. Kill the ones who made you suffer."
"Made me suffer," he whispered. Who had made him suffer? It was the patients. If not for that little girl, he would never have lost his confidence. He had devoted his life to helping them. But why? What did they ever do for him? Nothing. They deserved to feel his pain. They were already ill - he would just be doing them a favour. He would kill the patients.
With his goal carved firmly into his debilitated mind, he painfully raised himself from the couch and lurched his way into the bathroom. He took a look at himself in the mirror, and was ashamed at what he saw. He looked at the scalpel in his hand. For the first time in what felt like an eternity, he shakily managed to pull his mouth into a deranged, sinister grin. He looked at himself in the mirror again, raised the blade, and swiped it across his face. He fought back the urge to scream; the pain was now his friend. The thin blade had left a long gash across his face, though it wasn't deep enough for their to be any blood. Raising the scalpel again, he continued to etch the gruesome pattern into his tormented face, until he was scarcely recognisable anymore. But even so, that would not do. He would need a proper disguise.
When Salvadore returned to his living room, the phantom man was gone. The man who had saved him from the depths of sorrow and personal oblivion; the man to whom he owed his very life. But he could be thanked later. There was business to attend to.
---
St. Alban's Hospital had to be closed down for good. A number of patients had been found dead, and their families sued for malpractice. None of the doctors had even treated them; but they all shared similar wounds, like that of a blade. It was a mystery.
"One of the surgeons must have gone mad and stabbed 'em," Bill McMannis said to Tony Guilder. Tony nodded in agreement.
"It's sad when someone just loses it like that. They call it 'going postal', I think," he said. "It's a pity ol' Salvadore isn't around anymore. Whatever happened to him?"
"Beats me," Bill said with a shrug, "I heard he went nuts and jumped off a bridge. They never found his body."
"Wow. Some folks, eh? It's a pity. He was a cool guy."
"You said it. C'mon, Tony, I'll buy you a drink."
Nobody ever knew what really happened. Nobody would have suspected that the one responsible for the murders was Ivan Salvadore himself: now wearing a crudely-stitched sack over his face, and kitchen knife in his hand, he had become a new person. Killing became his passion. He was no longer Ivan Salvadore, the renowned surgeon; he was Dr. Scarface, the St. Alban's Killer.
And they say that you should never go to St. Alban's Hospital. For they say, amongst its abandoned hallways, Dr. Scarface still lurks, waiting for his next victim...
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