The Healer

My one hour mental theater inspired a story. I had feedback from my IR and it inspired a different story with some of the same themes I used in my one hour mental theater. The idea came to me in a flash and I have written a few chapters now. I want to share my polished prologue with you with the hope of getting some honest feed back when compared to my one hour mental theater story. I have become so involved in this story that my discussion boards have suffered a bit for it. No matter, I am taking a short break from my story to reinvest in the DB. Thank you all for your time and attention.

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The Healer
Prologue
Breaking a Vow


The dying woman lay in her hospital bed adrift in morphine induced sleep as Dominick approached her bedside. The room was dark with the exception of the ambient light given off by the television above the foot of the dying woman's bed. The television was tuned to CNN and one of their anchors was rattling off tips on how to survive a natural disaster which meant it was a slow news day. The dying woman had the grace and privacy of occupying a single bed room which made it easier for Dominick to remain a shadow. There was a photo album on the hospital tray next to the dying woman's bed, Dominick took time to gently page through it. The photos were of the dying woman when she was younger, the woman looked to be approaching middle age but her illness had aged her prematurely and she looked to be a woman in her late forties with graying hair and deepening age lines on her forehead, crows feet around her eyes, and distinct laugh lines around the corners of her mouth. The photo album also had many pictures of what Dominick assumed was her son and husband spanning what was most likely the past eight years or so. Dominick was surprised they were absent with this woman being so close to death. Dominick finished his little game and prepared to Bond with the woman. When possible, he liked to use the personal effects around a person to see how much he could learn of the nature and past of the person before he Bonded to them. There was no real need for this as the Bonding would lay the person's soul bare to him, Dominick simply felt it helped keep his powers of observation and reasoning sharp and attuned., more importantly he felt it helped to keep him grounded. Dominick would use the Bonding to learn the accuracy of his conclusions based on the information available If he could learn to be at least 75% correct when assessing information without using his gift he would still be a very effective judge of character. He never wanted total reliance on his abilities, he felt to do so would make him lazy and dependent on a gift which could be taken away if he were to ever be judged no longer worthy. No healer had ever been stripped of his or her blessing although the council made it clear that it was not an impossibility.
Dominick intertwined his hand with the dying woman's and opened his heart to hers. The familiar feeling of disorientation washed over him as the woman's life spilled into his conciseness. Her name was Beth, she was 38 years old and dying of breast cancer. The cancer had metastasized and spread to her lungs, pancreas, and bones and as a result she was in near ceaseless agony which modern medicine was near powerless to control. Beth was on comfort measures and the doctors told her she had a week at best. Dominick absorbed Beth's life in what for anyone observing the Bonding would have seemed only moments, but for Dominick he absorbed an entire life of memories and emotions. Beth's childhood of beatings and molestations by her often drunk and abusive father who blamed her for her mother dying while giving birth to her. The ridicule and humiliations she received at school because her father pissed away most of the money he earned as a factory worker on beer and never could afford to buy Beth decent clothes. How Beth would walk to school early so she could shower in the girls locker room because their water and utilities were off more than they were on. Memories of how her mother's parents rescued her from her father when she was 14 and showed her the first real love she had ever known. Her vow that her children would never know the pain she had suffered, her denial of how much her past affected her and the confusion and heartache it would lead to later in life. Her first years in college where she fell in love for the first time with a girl named Lisa and how much her first heart break devastated her when Lisa left her for another girl her sophomore year. How she stayed single afterward until graduation before meeting Dennis and falling in love for a second time. How much she loved Dennis and how Dennis had loved her, how kind and gentile he was and how terrified Beth was that he would leave her if he ever found out she had dated a woman. Dominick absorbed the self-loathing and blame Beth held for herself both from her memories of abuse and her relationship with Lisa. Beth's life with Dennis went from happy to perfect, at least for a short time, when her son Jacob. Arriving with Jacob was a love and devotion for her new born son which was so strong she had nothing to compare it to. Her chance to give her child the love her mother denied her, a mother's love. Then the depression set in a few months later and the happiness rapidly faded. Dennis changed after Jacob's birth and she found out that he was sleeping with her friend Sarah. Beth didn't have the strength or confidence to take Jacob and leave him, even after Dennis punched her in the face when she confronted him and asked him to end the affair for the sake of their family, he continued to hit her for the next five years after. The love had died and Beth was once again trapped in an abusive life. She felt she deserved it, as long as she had Jacob to love and care for she did not care what happened to herself. Beth went to a function sponsored by her old college on a weekend Dennis was out of town on “business” and Jacob was staying with Dennis's parents. Lisa was there, they reconnected and ended up back at Beth's place. After some conversation Lisa had sensed something was wrong and prodded Beth in to telling her everything. Beth told Lisa about Dennis cheating and hitting her when she confronted him about it. How she had nothing and no one to run to because her grandparents were now dead and she had no other family. What started and empathy and sympathy from Lisa quickly re-lit old fires and they ended up in bed. Dennis's parents arrived early to drop off Jacob and caught them which led to a nasty divorce. Beth lost custody despite the fact that she had a stable, well paying job with benefits and Dennis had cheated repeatedly, a fact Beth's lawyer was able to prove in court thanks to two jilted mistresses who were happy to testify on Beth's behalf. The Judge was more concerned than anything on Beth's apparent “deviant” life style and it's potential negative effect on her son. When all was said and done all Beth had was her job at R.E.I. and a ratty apartment in downtown Minneapolis. It wasn't long after she moved in that Beth noticed the lump in her breast and chose to ignore it. She worked and lead a miserable existence of self loathing and borderline suicide until the pain set in and finally became unbearable. By then it was too late. The doctors had originally given her six months but that estimate quickly dwindled once they found out the cancer had spread. Surgery wasn't an option and Beth welcomed death, she longed for it. She had no one, her mother's parents were dead, her father had died as a result of his drinking years ago and Dennis promised her she would never see him or Jacob again. He told Beth that her deadly cancer was icing on his cake.
Dominick broke contact and backed away to collect himself. By doctrine she was an adulterer and a homosexual and therefore deserving of her fate regardless of any strife suffered. Dominick stared at Beth and considered her pathetic and tragic form. After a moment he stepped to her bedside again and knelt over her. He hesitated for a moment considering the consequences again before continuing with what he felt in every fiber of his being to be the just and only course of action. He moved his mouth to her ear and whispered to her.
“I take your pain, your death, your confusion, and self-doubt in the name of Jesus Christ who died for you. Who, despite the pain both physical and emotional inflicted upon you, loves you.”
Dominick moved to Beth's neck and opened his mouth, he lowered his fangs and sank them into Beth's jugular. At once her eyes opened wide and she tugged at his head and began thrashing. She tried to scream but her voice had left her. Dominick waved his hand toward the door while drinking and it locked firmly as though he had walked over and done it himself. After a few seconds her strength left her and she lay motionless as Dominick drank. Her hair regained it's former color, her prematurely aged skin smoothed and regained a look closer to that of her actual age. Her breathing became normal and her muscles grew from their atrophy and became as they should be for a healthy 38 year old woman who has taken care of herself. With an eerie precision Dominick ended his feeding with less than a pint of blood taken from Beth. Beth would be paralyzed for close to 30 minutes, this was normal, but her cancer was gone as was her pain, mental as well as physical. The fang marks also healed themselves instantly leaving no evidence of his presence. Dominick did not realize there was a single tear slowly descending his cheek below his right eye as he moved his face to lock eyes with hers, he used his favorite modified quote from William Makepeace Thackeray.
“Mother is the name for God on the lips and hearts of all children.” He said unable to nor caring to hide the love he felt for her. “You are not at fault for what your father did to you, you did nothing to deserve it. God called your Mother home because that was his will, your father was a weak and wicked man who has received his comeuppance. Dennis shall receive his if he does not shed his wickedness, no one is beyond saving but Dennis cannot be saved by you, Jacob however can. Be the mother you were born to be, go to him, reclaim him, give him his mother back, this is God's will.” Dominick got up to leave only to stop, turn back to her, and slowly sit back down and look again into Beth's eyes.. “Love is love, regardless of gender, if the love is pure, it is love all the same and all love is an extension of God.”
With that Dominick kissed her forehead and left her room. He left the hospital, he was spent, Beth was the last of seventeen he had healed in past month. Dominick's pilgrimage was nearing it's end and a century of pilgrimage had exhausted him long ago. He would return to Rome soon for his five years of study and cleansing. He felt good dispute the fact that for the first time in over 500 years he had broken one of his vows. Dominick had never broken any of his vows, no matter how he felt personally. Who was he to question God's will? As time went on, particularly the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and with it the opening of minds, so did his increasing doubt in the infallibility of his bible. It was after all written by men, true these were men who had been blessed personally by the savior but they were men just the same. The swelling tide of questions and doubts in Dominick's heart had finally rolled over the breaking wall and now he feared he was no longer a healer.

He feared he was damned.