My Patients Are All Mythical Monsters

0015 - The Stethoscope in the Foundation

Victor lay flat on the foyer floor, his cheek pressed against the newly fused mahogany. The wood was cold. It smelled of wax and the faint copper tang of dried blood.

He closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose to ward off the throbbing headache. He tried to ignore the hunger clawing at his stomach and focused entirely on the vibration traveling through the floorboards.

Thud... Thud... Grind~

It was a rhythmic, mechanical chewing sound. It vibrated in his teeth.

"Depth?" Victor asked, his voice a hoarse whisper.

The Gargoyle, fused into the floor like a swimmer frozen in a wooden lake, opened her glowing yellow eyes. She looked down, through the subfloor, into the earth.

"Six meters," she rasped. Her voice was grinding stones. "Vertical shaft. Approach vector is aggressive. They have breached the bedrock."

Victor squeezed his eyes shut. The headache didn't just hurt; it mapped the room. Stress fractures burned lines into his retina like afterimages of a flashbulb—the ancestral diagnosis kicking in. The floor became a topographic map of pain. He saw the vibration as concentric red rings rippling out from beneath the pantry.

Structural Integrity: 44%.

Vibration Source: Diamond-tipped auger. Industrial grade.

"They are persistent," Yggdrasil noted. The butler stood by the wall, brushing a speck of dust from his tailcoat with a lint roller. The roller made a sticky shrrrip sound. "And rude. Breaking in before tea is digested."

Victor pushed himself up, his joints popping. He wiped the floor dust from his cheek.

"Budget status?"

"Catastrophic," Yggdrasil replied without looking up. He peeled off a dirty sheet of adhesive paper. "The Dungeon Defense System requires 500 Gold to initialize. We have negative five thousand. The interest on the 'Soul Mortgage' just compounded."

"What interest rate?" Victor demanded. "I thought it was fixed."

"It is fixed," Yggdrasil corrected gently. "Fixed at a predatory ten percent per hour. Page 402, subsection C. 'In the event of structural compromise, the bank reserves the right to accelerate repayment.' Since they are drilling through the foundation, the bank considers the collateral at risk."

"So I'm paying for the privilege of being invaded," Victor muttered.

"Precisely. Capitalism is universal, sir."

"What about the passive defenses?" Victor asked. "The shifting corridors? The illusion traps?"

"Offline," Yggdrasil said. "The illusion generator runs on liquefied mana. We are out. I used the last drop to polish the silverware."

"You used the defense fuel for polish?"

"Presentation is everything, sir. Would you prefer to be murdered in a tarnished house?"

Victor rubbed his face. He felt dirty. He wasn't just broke; he was paying rent on a burning building. And he was paying for the matches.

"So no spikes," Victor listed. "No poison gas. No illusions. What about the Mimic Door?"

"Fed it yesterday. It's sleeping."

"The acid pit?"

"Clogged."

"So we have nothing," Victor concluded. "We are a fortress of wet cardboard."

"We could ask Fenrir to bark," Yggdrasil suggested dryly.

Victor looked at the giant wolf. Fenrir was sitting in the foyer, his tail thumping against the floor in time with the drilling. Thump~ Thump~. The wolf looked happy. He thought they were listening to music.

"If he barks," Victor said, "he'll blow the front door off its hinges. The sonic pressure would shatter every window in a three-mile radius. First the neighbors call the police. Then the Bureau shows up. End game? A tactical nuke on the porch."

He paced the foyer, his shoes clicking on the wood. He needed a plan. He dug his hands into his pockets and found a receipt for a ham sandwich.

He had a tree, a dog, and a floor. That was his entire arsenal.

Grind... CRACK...

The sound changed. The dull thud became a hollow echo.

"They hit the plumbing," Victor realized. "The main drain line."

He sprinted for the kitchen.

He grabbed the edge of the granite sink, leaning down to press his ear against the cold copper drainpipe. The metal hummed.

Voices. Distorted, tinny, echoing up through the sewer line.

"...yo, is the mic on?" A young man's voice. High energy. Too loud.

"We're good. Signal is five bars," a second voice replied. "Starlink is holding up."

"Okay," the first voice said. "Chat, we are literally under the Blackwood Estate right now. The haunted castle. The one the government erased from Google Maps. Can we get some Pogs in the chat? Drop the Pogs, boys!"

Victor froze. He stared at the dark hole of the drain.

"Pogs?" he whispered. "What is a Pog? Is that a summoning term?"

"I believe it is a form of currency," Yggdrasil said, appearing behind him. "Or perhaps a religious icon. They seem desperate for these 'Pogs'."

"Dude," the voice in the pipe continued, "it smells like... sulfur? And... ham? Why does it smell like ham down here? Chat, if we hit—whoa, 5k already? Okay, if we hit 10k, I lick the moss. I swear. Clip it."

"Bro, don't lick the moss," the second voice said. "That's how you get lung worms. Remember the Asylum?"

"Content, bro. It's for the content. Chat is spamming 'Lick It'. I have to respect the democratic process."

Victor stood up slowly, gripping the counter.

"They aren't assassins," he said. The realization was cold. "They're streamers."

"Streamers?" Yggdrasil tilted his head. "Like festive decorations?"

"Content creators," Victor corrected. He grabbed a rag and started scrubbing the soot off his hands. "Red Glove. Urban explorers. They break into abandoned places and live-stream it to millions of teenagers. They do 'challenges'. They lick moss."

He threw the rag into the sink.

"This is worse than assassins," Victor said. "Assassins work in the dark. Assassins have professional standards. They wear suits. They use silencers. They don't ask for 'likes' before they kill you. Assassins have dignity."

He gestured wildly at the sink.

"These people? They will turn my life into a meme. They will make me a t****k trend. 'Watch this weird guy get eaten by his own house #Fail'." Victor shuddered, a cold sweat breaking on his neck. "I can't deal with that. Death I can handle. But being a reaction GIF? That's digital hell."

"Then we must be boring," Yggdrasil suggested. "We could invite them in for tea. Discuss tax law. Explain the intricacies of estate zoning. They will leave out of sheer boredom."

"They're breaking through the wall! They want ghosts. They want demons. They promised their 'Chat' a monster. If they find a tax accountant, they'll just keep digging."

CRASH~

A heavy sound came from the basement stairwell. The door rattled. Dust drifted down.

"We're in!" the voice shouted from below. "Holy crap, chat! Look at this brickwork! This is 19th-century gothic!"

"Wait," the second voice said. "Do you hear breathing?"

Victor looked at the cellar door. It wouldn't hold for long.

Then he looked at Fenrir. The wolf was sniffing the doorframe, nose twitching. He let out a playful growl.

If those kids saw a ten-foot wolf with runes glowing on its fur, the masquerade would be shattered.

"We can't be boring," Victor muttered. "And we can't be monsters."

He looked around the kitchen. He needed a prop. A disguise. Something that screamed 'Human' but also 'Leave'.

His eyes landed on the counter. A grease-stained paper bag from the Smiling Pig Deli. Fenrir's 'Helm of Linear Perception', discarded after the last walk. It was crumpled, oily, and had a cartoon pig printed on the side. The pig was smiling too widely. It looked manic. The grease had turned the bottom translucent. It didn't just smell like ham; it smelled like yesterday's ham. Stale, salty, and suffocating.

He picked it up. It crinkled loudly. It smelled of stale ham and mustard.

"Perfect," he whispered.

He pulled open the utility drawer, rummaging until he found a pair of rusty kitchen scissors. The blades were stiff. He had to force them open.

Snip~~ Snip~~

He cut two holes in the bag. Crude. Jagged. He spun the bag around and stabbed a third hole for his mouth, tearing the paper slightly.

"Yggdrasil," Victor said, testing the visibility. "Cut the power."

"Sir?" Yggdrasil looked at the bag with polite horror. He adjusted his cuffs, clearly debating whether to resign immediately. "That is... an interesting choice of heraldry."

"Kill the lights. All of them. Even the emergency gas lamps."

Victor shoved the paper bag over his head. The smell of stale ham filled his nose. It was suffocating. It was perfect. The paper scratched his neck.

He turned to Fenrir. Through the jagged eye holes, the world was a tunnel. He saw the wolf tilt his head. Fenrir leaned in, sniffing the bag with intense interest. He licked the grease spot on Victor's left cheek.

"No eating the disguise," Victor hissed, pushing the wet nose away. "Fenrir. Do you want to play a game?"

Fenrir's ears perked up. His tail started to wag.

"It's called 'Hide and Seek'," Victor explained, crouching down. "But you have to be very quiet. You have to be a shadow. Can you be a shadow?"

Fenrir let out a soft woof.

"Good boy," Victor whispered. He picked up a heavy iron ladle. It felt like a bludgeon. "Yggdrasil. The lights."

"As you wish, sir."

The butler snapped his fingers.

The kitchen went pitch black. The hum of the refrigerator died. The blue glow from the greenhouse faded. The only light came from the faint, sickly yellow glow of the Gargoyle's eyes in the foyer.

Silence descended. Heavy. Absolute.

Then, from the basement door, came the sound of a handle turning.

Creak...

"Hello?" the streamer's voice called out, trembling. The bravado was gone. "Is anyone home? Chat, the lights just died. That's... that's just a coincidence, right?"

Victor stood in the darkness, the iron ladle in his hand, the ham-scented bag on his head.

"Showtime," he whispered.