The Theater of Souls

Prologue - 1851

People died because she tried.

Daphne Bennet's small, nimble fingers trembled ever so slightly as she applied soft pressure on the saw gripped tightly in her fingers, the faint sunlight from the stable's barred windows casting slashes of ivory moons across her shaking knuckles. Her father, a fleeting memory in her mind, guided those pale fingers through the art of surgery, the shadowed figure of his arms calming the shake that wrenched through her bones as she stood, blood dripping down the pale skin of her fingers as she cut into the ample body below her fingers in a makeshift table in the dimly lit farmhouse.

Her hair was braided, tucked beneath her tunic and her wrapped breast that carved away the very emphasis of her femininity, of her weakness. Her young heart was beating rapidly, burdened with the unrelenting ache from the blood that seeped down her skin and the sweat that suffocated her very breath. The room echoed with the rhythmic drip of blood on the creaking wooden tiles of the stable, each drop a testament of her desperate attempt to carve salvation from the shadows. To set out and do what she did best, to save a soul from the midst of the dawning darkness of death as shadows cried to claim him.

The air in the room bore witness to her struggle, the weight of lives hanging in the balance of her nightmares. The balance between life and death. The candlelights flickered as she heard the wails of the farmer's wife beside her whose slim hand grappled onto her husband's graying fingers and begged her, Dr Bennet, son of the late Mr Bennet as many saw her to be. Daphne's heart was lurching from her chest, ever still and yet she could feel the rush of blood beating through her. She tried to fight against the odds, her hands moving with a mixture of uncertainty and determination. The metallic tang of blood mixed with scent of sweat that burst from her pores, drifting above her skin and falling in droplets above Mr Taylor's breaches as she began to brush the saw backwards and forwards, hacking off his very leg.

The symphony of desperation heightened, the wails of the wind followed by Mrs Taylor's cries sounding through the wooden walls that caged her within as she placed a comforting hand on the young woman's shoulder, the blood on her fingers seeping into the tight corset wound around Mrs Taylor's waist. Saddened by the darkness that culminated her thoughts, Daphne, or rather David as many other knew her to be in this unjust society, made her way through the town, the case that held her bloodied sheets, scalpels and her sharpened saw a heavy weight upon her shoulders as she walked into the darkness of her home. She would do so again, and again, it seemed, save others but also draw death from its creeping shadows.

In the end, people died because she tried, and yet she persisted.

***

People lived from what he did.

Percy Law, a figure of authority as many saw him to be and skill through his many years of studying, surveyed the surgical theater with a composed gaze. His voice cut through the anticipation as he instructed his nurse to fix the patient with a heavy dose of ether. The curtains were drawn from the windows, opening up the surgical theater of St Bartholomew's Hospital.The wealthy businessmen in attendance shifted uncomfortably, their polished shoes tapping nervously on the pristine floor as they gazed upon Percy from their stands, the renowned surgeon of London, the son of the Mayor of London. Percy, unfazed by their unease, set upon the surgery, his sweaty fingers itching for the cold of the metal scalpel.

His fingers gripped onto the scalpel of his palms, the faint screaming he was so used to previously shadowed by the daunting effect of the ether that set his patients into a calm drowse. He stretched his hand, pulling up the long sleeves of his tunic before placing the scalpel precisely on the limb from which he would cut, a small laceration forming under his grip before the nurse handed him the saw at the side. Blood dripped from the surgical table, his fingers were slick with sweat, and yet he gripped the saw with sound certainty as the men's bellowing excitement thrummed through his heart and heated the blood that drew through his veins. His arrogance seeped into the very nerves of his being. The scent of sterilized instruments replaced the acrid notes of blood. The theater hummed with precision as the patient lay under the influence of ether, spared from the agony of consciousness.

There was one thing that Percy Law knew. He knew that in this well-equipped hospital, under the glow of clean gas lamps, he orchestrated life-saving endeavors. His arrogance and egotistical views were well-deserved after all. For People lived from what he did, and Percy Law was the maestro of this delicate dance between life and death, many knew that. 

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NOTE: If you are reading this, please note that I won't write and publish any chapters if this doesn't gain any popularity because it's an idea but I don't know if I have the motivations for it! If some of you like it I might continue but otherwise I hope you guys enjoyed the prologue!