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Cassie Jenkins was, admittedly, a bit of a superstitious sort, more willing to believe in the paranormal than the average person. She tried to keep it a secret for the most part, at least in the workplace--most of the fellow medical professionals she knew prided themselves in their belief in science and reason, and would turn up their noses at any supernatural explanation offered for a patient’s condition--but sometimes... sometimes, enough was enough.
If it had been just the two missing ribs on the chest X-ray, that would have been one thing. It was strange, admittedly, but much as people liked to think that the human body came in a single general mold (or two molds, perhaps), there were in fact any number of variations to be found on the same general theme, individuals who happened to have body part arrangements that differed significantly from the norm, often without even realizing it, let alone showing symptoms. Perhaps this patient was one of those, having two less ribs than the human average for all his life...
...except his medical records, which were extensive, showed no reference to the missing ribs, even though this certainly wouldn’t have been the first test run on him to reveal them if they’d been present since birth. And there were no records of any surgery that would have involved their removal--it had reminded her of some old rumors about celebrities getting ribs removed to make them looked skinnier, but the patient didn’t look to be a vain man, grubby and scar-covered as he was, and he certainly didn’t need surgical help to looking skinny, as he was practically skin and bones already.
Cassie had asked about it in passing, admittedly as motivated by personal curiosity as she was by medical necessity, as she was doubtful that the missing ribs could be connected to the bad cough that had actually brought the patient into the clinic.
His answer?
A nonchalant “Oh yeah, that’s on purpose.”
That probably should have been the end of it. If she were smarter, more focused, less prone to meandering curiosity, Cassie would have accepted that response, strange as it was, and proceeded with assisting the patient with his actual medical concern. (The array of tests that had been ordered the first time he’d come in, chest X-ray included, confirmed that he had a relatively mild case of bronchitis: uncomfortable in the short-term, sure, but easy enough to treat, and it was starting to clear up already, with no sign of complications and unlikely to have any long-term consequences.)
Maybe he was vainer than she thought, and had done some at-home surgery to remove two of his ribs, managing to pull it off without having to consult actual medical professionals in the process.
Maybe the records she had access to were incomplete or inaccurate, and he had been missing the ribs all his life, and his response was... oh, some sort of sick humor, perhaps? Wouldn’t be the first time patients had tried to mess with her...
But neither of those explanations rang quite true for Cassie, and as the patient appeared irregularly for further appointments and she did a bit of extracurricular digging through his records, things just got stranger and stranger.
The pockmark scars across his body had a clear enough explanation in the records, at least. His workplace had suffered from a severe worm infestation a couple years back, apparently, and an ambulance had been called out during the worst of it; he’d even been briefly quarantined before the ambulance workers had determined that his wounds, while significant, weren’t life-threatening or otherwise in need of extended medical supervision. That was a bit odd, sure, but reasonable enough, though that must have been some infestation, to leave him with marks everywhere like that...
But the scar on his neck, the straight line that looked disconcertingly like somebody had tried to slit his throat? The patient had stammered through an explanation that had something to do with slipping while using power tools, but even he seemed to have trouble keeping up with the details of his own claim, and there was no record of him being treated for any wounds that might have left such a scar.
The scar of his shoulder was similar--it looked suspicious, looked like he’d been stabbed, and his claim that he’d fallen onto a stray kitchen knife reminded Cassie uncomfortably of how patients liked to claim that they just “fell” onto things that had gotten lodged in... certain bodily orifices... it wasn’t the same, of course, but the tone was the same, the desperate attempt to find an innocent-sounding explanation for an injury that had a much more awkward true source. No medical records for that one, either.
Oh, and the hand that looked like he’d stuck it in lava, hard to forget that! When she’d asked the patient about that one, he’d just gone flushed and muttered something about touching a hot pan, but she knew better. Touching a hot pan was one thing; having a hand that looked like it’d been set entirely ablaze was quite another. And, gee, no medical records regarding treatment for that one either, who’d’ve thunk it! Though he’d claimed that he would have gone to the hospital for that one, except that he’d been wrongly accused of murder and was on the run at the time, which she had assumed was a joke or another bizarre lie until she’d actually looked into it, and sure enough...
And the roundabout way he always seemed to ask things, the way that even when he wasn’t dodging questions about his collection of scars he never quite seemed to give a straight answer, seeming very concerned about exactly how he phrased whatever he had to say, even during the most mundane bits of conversation...
And there was the time he’d asked to see an optometrist--completely out of the blue, too, no complaints about his vision or anything like that to go with the request--and the optometrist found that his vision was significantly better than the last time he’d had it checked a few years back, and he didn’t seem the least bit surprised when he found out...
And the way Cassie kept finding old-fashioned tape recorders in her office every time he left, though she never remembered seeing him bring them in...
One or two of these things, okay, maybe she could have dismissed them as mere coincidence. But all of them at once... well...
Cassie didn’t have an explanation in mind, admittedly, natural or supernatural in origin, but just the same, she was very sure that there was something wrong about this Jonathan Sims.
And when a news article she’d been perusing in her downtime happened to make mention of the Magnus Institute, it felt like... like a sign. Maybe that was ridiculous, her superstitious tendencies at their worst, but she knew the moment she read about the Institute that she had to go there.
This sort of thing was what they did, after all, wasn’t it? Look into the weird goings-on that the public brought to their attention, let people come in and make statements and then took on the burden of research for them? Sure, its reputation was... iffy, but she wanted to talk to somebody about this, and the Institute seemed like as good a place to go as any.
She wasn’t going to be stupid about it, though. She knew that patient confidentiality was still something she’d have to consider, especially since--hadn’t the Institute’s files been leaked once, back in the 90s maybe? Jonathan Sims might be weird, potentially even touched by the supernatural, but he was still a patient of hers just the same, and she wasn’t going to risk her job giving away personal information about him just to ease her conscience. As she made her way to the Magnus Institute, Cassie thought about giving a false name for herself, or for her patient, or both, perhaps fudging a few of the dates and details so the connection couldn’t be easily made, while still making it clear that something was off about this patient of hers...
The Institute itself looked rather like she’d expected it to--books and file cabinets lining the walls, haggard-looking employees in business casual running here and there with notepads and pens. The front desk employee, a woman with a kind smile, directed Cassie to the archives when she mentioned making a statement, said the Head Archivist was in and would likely be able to hear her statement himself.
The archives were a bit less hectic and a bit more cramped than the first floor had been. It didn’t take too long for Cassie to find the door labeled “HEAD ARCHIVIST”, a muffled voice from within welcoming her inside as she first raised her hand to knock on the door.
The head archivist’s office was crowded and messy, covered in papers and pens and... and old-fashioned tape recorders...
And the man sitting behind the desk was the very patient that Cassie had come to make a statement about, his scar-covered, unhealthily thin visage recognizable enough to her even without the “JONATHAN SIMS: HEAD ARCHIVIST” nameplate on the desk.
Cassie gasped audibly, heard the click of a tape recorder starting though Jonathan hadn’t moved to turn any on. Her head swam with confidentiality rules and half-formed explanations for how the strange patient she thought was fodder for the Magnus Institute and that same Institute’s head archivist could be one and the same.
Jonathan Sims was the one to break the silence. “Dr. Jenkins?”
Cassie closed the door behind her--it wasn’t breaking confidentiality if it was just the two of them listening, after all, although there was still the matter of those tape recorders. “Jonathan? Jonathan Sims?”
“Just Jon, if you don’t mind. And please, take a seat.”
Cassie did as she was told. The chair was more comfortable than she had expected at a glance, given how worn and threadbare it had looked. She took a deep breath, slowly let it out, and realized after she was done that clearing her mind that small bit had not done anything to help her mind reconcile the strangeness of what was in front of her.
“Rosie told me somebody was coming down to make a statement. Is that--I mean, I assume she meant you.”
“Well, yes...” Cassie’s voice sounded weak and choked, and somehow that was what impressed within her that no matter how the rest of this meeting played out, her professional relationship with Jonathan Sims was certainly going to be... different afterwards.
Maybe he’d refuse to see her anymore. She couldn’t say she’d blame him.
“I’m not sure I should anymore, though. Make a statement, that is.”
“Why?”
Cassie really didn’t want to admit why, didn’t want to admit what had brought her to the Institute in the first place, but much as she wanted to dodge Jon’s question as he had dodged so many of her own, the truth just sort of... slipped out of her.
“Because I came here to make a statement about you.”
Cassie cringed a little, when she realized what she’d just said, what she’d just confessed to, and she anticipated any number of possible negative responses from the man in front of her...
...what she hadn’t expected, however, was for him to start laughing.
She must have been staring, must have looked at him like he’d grown another head, because he calmed his laughter soon enough. “Oh, don’t worry, Dr. Jenkins, I- I completely understand.”
“Really?”
“Really.” Jonathan Sims let out another sharp laugh before adding, “You’re not wrong, either. My medical history is quite connected to the paranormal these days...”