Unless you’re not one of the lucky 85% who get off easy. If you’re in that narrow group, you’re in for some fun. It’ll start small.

“We have some questions about something we found in your blood results. Are you currently on any medication?”
“Oh, dear. I guess we didn’t see this one when we were in there.”
“You were just shot three times, right? Not five, six, maybe?”
“I think you should sit down before I tell you this.”

Your test results get doctored, so to speak. And all of your illnesses appear to the medical professionals as one degree worse, or more upsetting. This promotes fear. Fear, distrust of the doctors, and it will be getting worse.

“I’m afraid will be needing more tests.”
“It’s malignant.”
“You’re either pregnant, or you’re a medical miracle, Bob.”
“You may wish to speak with your local clergyman. It’s these test results; they’re not good.”

And then it gets worse. Your billing codes now match the worst patient on the ward. What they need, financially, will now equal your new and improved needs. Why?

He or she has one, too.

And they’re racing to see who gets who’s host dead, kicked out, or insane.

Want to cut the ordeal short?
You can do the following:
A.) Leave the hospital, and avoid all medical care.
B.) Leave the hospital, and stake a legal claim.
C.) Kill the damned thing, and in a hurry.

A and B require little beyond a good story, and/or a clever lawyer. C, though, will take some work.

The survivors of encounters with them describe it as a being made of the pain and suffering of everyone who’s been admitted prior to the character’s arrival, on that floor, since the creation of the hospital in question. It’s big, nasty, and mean; and it wants nothing to do with recovery, easy billing, or anyone in ‘stable and recovering’ condition. Quite frankly, it’s an evil, mean and petty thing.

In olden times, they were a benevolent force; the Hippocratian Edge, they are referred to as, in esoteric medical ledgermain. Nowadays, with the advent of placeo drugs stealing the thunder of the clerical orders of surgeons, malpractice insurance fraud, double/triple/cross-billing, and the malaise felt by the displaced injured parties left to rot by uncaring families and friends, they have a new name, and they are here to stay.

They are the H-M-O.

Want to make one manifest? Tear up an EEG printout with the words ‘LIES’ on one side, and ‘BROKE’ on the other, while chanting the name of your insurance provider backwards. The first nurse to enter will be it’s emissary. It will want you to:
“..lay down and try to relax.” — so it’ll kill you easier.
“.. stop making so much racket.” — so it’ll stop hurting.
“.. put down that knife.” — actually, that’s probably just the nurse talking, but you get the point.

They have the stats of the strongest of the nurses, which means in a mental hospital, they’re probably an orderly named ‘Big Eddy’, and carry mace and a nightstick. If you want to do the Emissary damage, it works like melee combat; save it only takes half of the sum of the damage, as the other half is *instantly* transferred to the nearest suffering patient, other than you. Entire group wards have been found beaten and bloody with the combat attempts of a single H-M-O.

Should one be taken to 10 wound points, it’s going to cut a deal; put someone into the hospital in the next 24 hours, and it’ll never touch you again, ever. You’re free from it’s power, for a year. But, you’re cursing someone else to take your pain.

A double-edged sword. Theoretically, they can be destroyed. Perhaps if one were taken out, the Hippocratic Edge inside would re-emerge, and reinvent the healing process in commercial medicine.

But, who the fuck would want to do that, anyways?

I mean — it’s a free mystic hitman, who leaves no trace and has no pity.

Unless it *really* wanted you, and lets the guy you sent in, right back out, to go get your pale ass in traction.

My advice?
Don’t get sick, hurt, or sent to the hospital.

-=-=-=-
“Pain shared is pain lessened one degree.”