PREPARE your mistress! I must bleed her…

Even before your eyes begin to flutter open, slowly exposing you to the soft candlelight in the room, you can hear a man’s voice. His confusing words repeat several times in your mind as you begin willing yourself to come to. The room is warm, your body damp and there is a pressing thirst in your mouth, but you are not terribly uncomfortable. As you open your eyes, you start to recognize the situation which continues to be ever more bizarre. You are lying in the bed of your hotel room and it is immediately clear that you have not woken from this inexplicable situation; you appear to be living and breathing in another century. Asking for water at a whisper, you snatch the notice of the lady who caught you in a faint. Startlingly, she is standing close to the door next to the figure of a tall man with the face of a white beaked bird. If you hadn’t recognized this beastly vision, you may have been worse frightened, but it quickly registers. It is only the unmistakable mask of a Venetian doctor, who afraid of contracting a deadly pathogen wore a long beaked mask stuffed with spices and herbs in the hopes that it would prevent contagion. Having clenched the distance, the ghoulish surgeon reaches out with one hand and places it tenaciously on her arm. Though he appears to be looking directly at you from beneath his disguise, he addresses the maid by entreating her to waste no more time. The release of blood will be the only way. In that moment, you sense that he would bleed you for his evil pleasure rather than as an honest cure…