Who Heals The Healer?

In Hathian these days it feels like there is ever present violence from all sides. Who ‘got’ theirs? Who served up another plate of violence? How many are in HGH recovering from their latest trauma?

It is less often that we see doctors implicated in graphic violence. Especially doctors where we can’t seem to find much in the way of past misdeeds and not much other than a long career of service to HGH.

You may recall an article by one of our new reporters Alia. She was witness to a shootout at a pier and it can now be confirmed that the man in her photos (and as shown in our headline) is Simon LeMarchand, a doctor with HGH.

A few days after this report an individual related to this case approached the Observer and asked us to warn Hathian citizens that Simon, the great HGH doctor was a rapist.

“I’d like to make sure he never practices medicine in Hathian again. No slander, just the truth… He’s dangerous. A predator. He’s been using his role as doctor..to hide. For a long time. I want to fix that. So no one else gets hurt. He went out to that Backwater clinic… so he could continue using his medical position to harm women. He raped someone close to me and um…he’s addicted to Drip.”
Tip-off to the Observer

The Observer doesn’t report things with no factual basis. We are not here to assassinate someone’s character, so carefully built up in Hathian. Considering that good deeds and good hearts are hard to find, we must be sure when someone new to the spotlight is brought to our attention.

After some careful discussion with our new reporter Alia as well as inquiries with the HPD and others we were able to ascertain that Simon had been in the company of Tabitha Adair (Hopper) a known delinquent in the city that this newspaper has captured performing unspeakable acts on others as well as the usual damage to property and so forth. In the article linked, they were assaulting someone together, the possible rape referred to above.

The question is, why was Simon in with Tabitha? It doesn’t seem like him… read on and see what we found…

Simon? He Wouldn’t Do That!

The Observer caught up with a number of colleagues and friends of Simon. We wanted to build out a picture of this man, pictured (as our lead image shows) beaten, bloody and bruised. What had happened? What had made him crack, or had he always been this way and something snapped to make it happen in public?

Our first witness to Simon’s character had the following to say when asked what she felt about Simon, even after hearing what he was accused of:

“As for when he saved my life, that was some years ago. A very lethal and contagious virus was going around. It had a high body count. I unfortunately caught it and myself, along with other infected, were put into quarantine. It felt like something out of a horror movie, to be honest. I became so sick I nearly died. But Simon was there as a physician. I had begun seizing and unable to breathe but he stayed with me and was able to get me breathing again. After that, he managed to get me stable. If he hadn’t been there, watching over me, I don’t think I would have survived. He’s a good man. Or at least a lot better than most in Hathian!”
Anonymous Interviewee

We found an archive copy of a magazine from the time that showed Simon leading the response to the contagious virus that our witness spoke about. His piercing blue eyes were clear in all our photos, yet something had changed in him…

Our next step was that we asked some of the senior colleagues he has been known to work with at HGH what they thought:

“I would be extremely surprised if Simon has been a villain in plain sight. He is a hard working member of HGH who does will go above and beyond for his patients. I have known him as a colleague for several years and in that time he has been nothing but polite and professional. And on a personal level he has been a wonderful ear for me to vent my own issues to. Never once had he given the impression of being predatory or villainous.”
A senior member of HGH staff

It was clear, along with other interviews from business owners in Hathian, including one where Simon had helped deliver her children that he was well known and as far as most would say, extremely unlikely to do bad things with no reason.

The Man With The Flowers

“He mentioned something about the “man with the flowers” who had “woken him up”. I don’t know what that means. But he doesn’t seem to remember people that were even really close to him.”
Anonymous Interviewee

The Observer, despite a fractious relationship with HPD still requires information from time to time. We have reproduced the dispatch notes below illustrating when Simon was found in the street, inside a coffin, prior to his assault in our earlier article. Thank you anonymous source for responding to our ask.

Despite obvious damage, including unknown staining, it is clear that Simon was dumped outside Lou’s and witnesses confirm this was in a coffin. It appears two or possibly three officers attended the scene and made contemporaneous notes that Simon had suffered from prolonged capacity and there was a ‘sense’ of cloves and flowers about his body (and the coffin). We think you can also read for yourself what was written in blood across Simon’s chest.

So reader, now we have a man caught in the act of criminality, some time after he was found in a coffin having suffered what we can only understand as extensive abuse. See where we’re going on this? You know who we’re talking about right?

Now the question is… (because this is Hathian), did Simon go loopy before, or after, something was done to him by ‘the man with the flowers’. If after, then we cannot excuse him for what he has done, but we must try to understand it (and here’s the kicker) and if he really did rape one of the family members of the man with flowers, then… (because this is Hathian) the circle completes. ‘Take what is mine and I will take back thrice in return‘; Because.This.Is.Hathian.

“Guy got tortured. Would you be the same if someone fucked you over and shoved you in a coffin alive? Knowing you could be buried and left to die from oxygen depravation? If people want this to stop then start focussing on the gangs instead of the HPD and let us do our goddamn job without questioning everything that happens. Haithan is a war zone. We’re soldiers. We do what we need to do to make this town better so unless people want to turn into that doctor, a former shell of himself sucking his thumb in an asylum and trying to murder anyone he loves because his brain can’t cope with the trauma anymore then you need us.”
Anonymous HPD Officer

So… A Few Thoughts

Reader, thanks for staying with me here. So we started with an attack on the pier. We continued with an individual bringing accusations against Simon to the Observer for exposure. We then investigated and found that it was highly likely that Simon had been taken prisoner and tortured, tortured extensively. It appears (unless there were assaults before the pier that didn’t make it to HPD or the Press) that the torture came first.

Perhaps underneath Simon’s façade there was a predator waiting to come out, perhaps like most in Hathian he is not squeaky clean. But what does appear to be the case is that while he is dangerous NOW (and the Observer would not recommend you seek him out) the cause of that danger can be for our anonymous tipster be attributed, much closer to home. Sometimes when you create a monster, the monster comes home. We doubt a lesson will be learned and we caution you against approaching Simon, but if you can help him, please do so. He’s not his own man at the moment and perhaps we all must take care against the ‘Man with Flowers‘.