Ferocious Blood

I was feeling extremely sick, indeed. My wife, Chumki, took me to the specialist City Hospital to have a thorough medical review.

It was an early summer evening. I could not have moved during the daytime! My skin couldn’t bear the sunlight.

Dr Pranj Gagan, a Senior Doctor, advised me for various investigations. Later, armed with the reports, he called my wife and me inside his chamber.

My reports were lying on his table, and he had a concerned look on his face. “Mr Hemendra, I have seen your reports.” He tapped on the papers vigorously, a bit unnecessarily I thought. “You have symptoms of a very rare disease…”

He moved along to explain the complication of that malady.

I was listening to the Doctor intently but getting an inkling that he was mentioning some other disease and not really mine. I was suffering from a disease I already knew about and didn’t need the Doctor’s wrong diagnosis.

The thought in my mind was that this was a nightmare and would soon pass away, but my hands got cold; my heart started palpitating; I felt sicker than when I had entered the Doctor's room.

 “What should I do now, Doctor?“ I just managed to speak out, even as my throat was dry.

“Please get admitted to the hospital, right away.” He picked up the intercom and gave instructions for my admission.

I was not going to tell him, yet, about his error in diagnosis, after all, he was the specialist, and my information about my disease could be totally wrong. 

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Chumki held my hand when I was put on the bed in the hospital room. She was in tears now. ”What will happen to you? Why is this Doctor saying all this? How will we manage...?” Her voice trailed off.

A junior doctor came in, checked my pulse, took my blood pressure and did his other routine health assessments. He frowned, muttering, “I am a bit surprised! How Dr Pranj is diagnosing you like this….? Anyway, I am not to question my senior.” He shrugged and left the room.

I exchanged glances with Chumki.

Dr Pranj Gagan walked in. Again, checked me, glanced through the reports and looked at me, a bit sternly, I thought. “I shall take you to the private ward of this Hospital as your disease is very infectious, I don’t want to put other patients in danger.” He stared at me for some moments, “I shall have to start a separate line of treatment for you. I will come to you sometime later in the night." 

He looked at Chumki, “Ma’am, you don't have to be here for this, please go home, you can come back tomorrow. Meanwhile, I will take care of your husband."

 A faint smile played on his lips. 

There was nothing that we could say. I was his patient, after all. My only thought was how to get cured. 

Chumki unwillingly left. 

I was then wheeled again to a remote corner of the Hospital and settled in a smaller room, dimly lit, having only one window covered by a heavy curtain. There was only one single bulb hanging from the ceiling, throwing the entire room in light and shadows. There were no other rooms in the vicinity. Neither were any hospital staffs around.

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Dr Pranj came in. It was quite late in the night around 11.15 p.m. I was feeling dizzy, what with the events of the evening and some medicine the junior doctor had injected me, and also made me swallow.

With some difficulty, I opened my eyes to look at the Doctor.

What I saw jerked me out of the dizziness!

On closing the door, he had turned to stare at me for long moments, his expression was a vicious mask; his lips were open - exposing his teeth, which appeared sharp and directed fangs! Frothing saliva was dripping down from his mouth, copiously, dampening his white coat; he came near me with slow, deliberate steps, then with a sudden ferocious movement, he shot out his right hand and held my forehead back on the pillow with an iron grip, whereafter he yanked my head sideways and tried to expose the right side of my neck. It was not possible, since my long hair was covering my neck, which he pulled up, painfully, and with a medical scissor lying on a metallic tray at the side table of the bed, he proceeded to cleanly shear away my hair with great haste, and at that point he laughed, mirthlessly and soundlessly.

All these took a minute or two perhaps, meanwhile I wanted to shout out, but putting his left palm on my mouth to shut any noise, his face came down towards my neck, his mouth was open, teeth exposed; a nasty odour was coming out making me want to throw out; he was about to touch me!

At that moment, my mind flashed with one thought, "Oh my God... this Doctor is a human Vampire… he wants to drink my blood!”

My body reacted instantly. I knew these symptoms very well! With a sudden surge of strength, I swung up my left arm and hit him on his face with open palm, threw him off me, and I got up swiftly.  

Not expecting this reaction, he fell on the floor as a heap, his alarmed face was looking up, eyes glazed, and tried to scramble to his feet, shaking his head and trying to block, with the back of his palm, the blood coming out of his injured nose and split upper lip. Meanwhile, I quickly alighted from the bed, kneeled down next to him, and pinned him down on the ground; my right hand was on his forehead, and I shifted it mercilessly towards left, exposing HIS neck!.

By then, a rapid change had begun to come over me, a strange desire to taste blood! I wanted to drink the blood of that Doctor, very badly!

I knew that this was my disease!

This Doctor had wrongly diagnosed, I would not know how, since he was a victim of this disease and knew the symptoms! 

Both of us were human Vampires!

A rare inherited blood disorder characterized by anaemia with extreme sensitivity to light, red coloured urine … retraction of gum that exposed the teeth; perhaps driving the sufferer to drink blood!

These were classic human Vampire traits, although much debated by medical scientists all over the world!

A friend, earlier during the day, had warned of my possible suffering from this ailment, which was initially hard to believe as he was no doctor.

In his chamber, Dr Pranj should have explained that to me, instead, he led me astray with a diagnosis of another illness. Why? Obviously, because he wanted to confuse me and take me to an isolated ward of the hospital during night-time to attack me and satisfy his blood lust.

Strangely he wanted to drink my blood- a patient who himself was suffering from this rare disease!

Was it an error of judgement on the Doctor’s part due to his greed to drink my blood, and he never anticipated that I could retaliate?  

Anyhow, the whole episode would remain an enigma to me! 

Meanwhile seeing his prostrate figure, stunned by my counterattack, I controlled my urge to get down to his exposed neck and suck his blood, and instead pressed my fingers somewhat hard on his throat; he coughed twice and drifted into unconsciousness! Thankfully, he wouldn’t die.

I needed to leave this Hospital immediately and seek medical help elsewhere.

Let some normal doctor treat me - an abnormal patient!