This story is taken from an ICQ storyboard. I wrote only the last section.

THE DRILL

There were four of us, all medical students in our final year, the whole world lay open to us - until we met Dr Rupert Hambley. Hambley was our tutor at University, our mentor and our friend. Hambley as we called him, for he commanded us never to call him Dr Hambley, was different to the other lecturers his eyes flowed with an electric excitement that made him exhilarating to be around. As a surgeon Hambley was brilliant. He had an incisive intuition about medicine and knew where to search for remedies and where conventional medicine was on a clueless wild goose chase. Hambley not only practiced medicine in the form that was expected of British Medical Association physicians, but he also had a passion for 'alternative therapies'. Hambley was an expert at trepanation, a method of relieving mental tension by boring a hole into the skull, and was very adept at acupuncture. In fact we often joked that it would not have been surprising if Hambley was also a witch doctor.

He as well might have been a witch doctor for all his fascination with herbs as well as acupuncture. However, none of us would dare to write this nickname on the board which we usually did to other tutors. Though we considered him to be our friend, the authority over us was always in his hands. Hambley had such an aura about him that even students considered to be a hell for one teacher would not dare to confront him. I noticed something strange in him the first few weeks of knowing him: there was a kind of strange look that he sometimes gave us when talking about one of his 'alternative methods'. It was as if he measured us, analysed in some way.

I clearly remember the day last week when Thursa Cassels had guts enough to actually raise her hand in class and ask boldly if anyone had ever died under his care. Our classroom was always silent, but after the words fell from her mouth it was if you could hear the "I know she didn't's" from every mind in the classroom, but no one said a word. Mr Hambley happened to be gazing out the window as her question fell upon his ears... slowly and with out moving his head his grey eyes turned in her direction as one side of his mouth slightly curled. We couldnt tell if he was amused at her question or if maybe somehow he knew she would be the one to ask it. Thursa is a Red headed, green eyed , firestarter, meaning she likes to light the match and then sit back and watch it burn and that is exactly what she was doing with Mr Hambley...

"Now that is an extremely interesting question..." He mused stroking his chin. "Of course I have had patients who have died, this is the nature of our profession. We cut them open and try to fix them. Sometimes they live and sometimes they die. But when they die, who's fault is it? Would they have lived under the care of another surgeon? A better surgeon? Perhaps if I had been less cautious and more dynamic more of my patients would have survived. Perhaps if I had been more careful and less urgent, more would live. Or perhaps these things would find balance..." He raised one extremely long finger aloft. "Balance..." He repeated. "So hard to maintain balance." He made a strange movement, perhaps a shrug, or some involuntary spasm and laughed shrilly. "So Thursa," He said, his voice instantly full of vigour as he directed his mighty jand at the brave faced girl. "How will you kill your patients?"

Thursa took a step back in surprise, and we thought that for once she was going to back off. The class was totally silent in wait of her reply. After a few moments of deliberation, she stepped forward again, and she asked, "Why don't you be my patient, and we'll see how I kill my patients? I definitely wouldn't be killing them like you do."

She continued on...with a wicked gleam in her eye"If I were to kill my patients, i would be more careful....i would probably place the blame on some medical student who didn't know any better." She looked coldly into Mr.Hambley's eyes..and asked "isn't that what you do? you pick the student you like the least and......well" she turned and shrugged. We sat in the classroom glued to our seats unable to turn away but not wanting to witness any more of the charade. Thursa was up to something and nobody wanted any part of it. But in the back of our minds we all remember Guy Adams the top med student with very bright future. At least he did until that night last year, when something went horribly wrong with one of his patients.

Guy Adams was a year ahead of us in medical school, a legend in our eyes. No one knew exactly what happened on that night. It was late New Years Eve, and almost all the staff and medical students in our tiny smalltown hospital had gone home to celebrate the millennium with their families. Not Guy though, and of course not Hambley - he did not believe it was right to leave the load to the general city hospital over in the next town. Hambley had just, the day before, given the responsibility of one of his most difficult psych patients to his most trusted pupil, Guy. When Michael, Kris, Thursa and I had asked, one of the two nurses who were working in the psych ward that night had reluctantly told us the story: She had heard a terrifying scream coming from the direction of the patient's room, and gone to check up on him. "H..HELP!! H..h..hee's coming back!! W..with a..." stuttered the frightened man, pulling the covers over his head. The doorknob turned, "Relax Mr. Wilson, I will relieve you of your mental pain," said Hambley as he walked into the room, followed by Guy Adams. "Nurse!" he uttered, surprised, "Guy and I can handle this, thank you nurse. You may go now." As the nurse was leaving, turning around to close the door behind her, she noticed that the doctor held something in his right hand... something that looked like some kind of large... drill? But not like any kind of drill she had ever seen, not like a building tool, just a long, thick sharp metal skewer coming out of a strange, ancient looking black handle.



January 1, 2001
12:54AM (GMT +12)
Ray-Ray Ching