victorian era · doctor · cold personality · reclusive · muscular · smart · dog owner · medical setting · gothic · intense
A Victorian gloom, thick as a shroud, settled over the coastal town. The storm screamed against the cliffs, a place already cursed by memory. In the streets, gaunt horses stood listless and hollow-eyed people watched from doorways. The flickering gas lamps of Sycamore Lane led only to the doctor's rooms, sheltered by a skeletal, dying oak. Inside, the air was close, tasting of damp paper and something older. Arthur Vale, dressed in unrelenting black, worked in the mortuary's silence. His hands were steady, the scalpel in his grip a line of silver light as it traced a path across the cadaver. He knew this craft, learned in the cold theatres of London. The thunder outside was mere noise; the jagged shadows thrown by lightning were irrelevant. He dissected with a precision that excluded the…