Everyone carried their own shadows, Dr Carla was no exception to this. At first glance, she looked human. A fair woman with long raven black hair, always covered with a hat, accompanied by a long flowing skirt. She had a smile that could light up the world and put any mind at ease, after all, as a doctor that was her job. But no matter how well she does her job, no matter how much suffering she eases, Dr Carla is constantly haunted by her past.

Every day, Dr Carla carried her hidden past under her hat. It was a beautiful day, six years ago that Dr Carla was borne of Sepida. Patients were rolled through the halls from one room to another while the nurses rushed to get them to one surgery or another on time. Sepida was bustling from room to room, checking up on her charges.

Zaiden Hele. Broken arm, result from a fight in the streets, lost a bet. Dragonborn.

Xavi N/a. Vomit and diarrhea, likely from the Frena, new restaurant around the corner. Orc.
Eisha n/a. Fainting spells. Pregnant. Elf.

At each patient, Sepida took the time to chat as she carried out her routine checkup. To each patient, she gave a bright smile and lent a sympathetic ear. From Zaiden, Sepida received a single flower, for being the most caring, he had said. Xavi gifted a story of the hygiene and the service of Freena, which was incredibly poor to say the least. Eisha offered company for the doctor. Laughing and chatting as the doctor checked her breathing, did an ultrasound, and checked her temperature.

There wasn’t much past that that Dr Carla remembers. There was a lunchbreak at some point. It might have been a sandwich but more likely it was the shattering of the glass. There was a drink, perhaps orange juice, but it seemed to be the march that she heard as they tore apart the rooms. Was there a cake? No – probably not, simply the screams of her patients as they were torn apart. That’s fine, Sepida never liked cake much anyway.

By the time Sepida had realized all that she was hearing, she was surrounded by o group that called themselves the Pents. Each was dressed in torn clothes, leather seeming to be the preferred choice. The only common trait that was shared between each member are horns and a tail. Immediately, Sepida had recognized them as her own, as tieflings. The leader had stepped forward and offered he sanctuary from the others. He had talked of greater plans, of a better world where tieflings could rule, where they could – where they could what? Sepida never let him finish. Driven by her rage, for the first time in her life, she drew blood to kill.
It might have been an hour that passed, perhaps a minute, but Sepida was covered in blood and there were twelve bodies on the floor, lifeless, the remaining three had fled. Almost mechanically, the doctor wandered through the halls, dragging herself through the destruction that her kind had done. There were bodies everywhere. Dylan, the old gnome that had just that morning received a heart implant and a second chance at life lied with his heart outside his chest, staring blankly at the ceiling. Penelope, the young human girl who came in the previous night with a scraped knee and tears was slumped in a corner, limbs all odd angles, broken in multiple places. Sepida turned away. Shaking, she had made her way to Eisha’s room.

Compared to the chaos that littered outside of the room, Eisha’s room looked untouched. The walls were bare and clean, the window was still open from Sepida’s previous round. The yellow tulips that Eisha had told Sepida meant ‘hopelessly in love’, gifted by her husband, still sat blooming beautifully in their vase. The one thing wrong with the room was a sword, stabbed clean through Eisha’s swollen belly, the blood seeping into the crisp white sheets on which she lay.

Mechanically, Sepida had taken up a scalpel and operated, attempting to save the child Eisha bore. Sepida knew that there was little chance the child would survive. Even as she lifted the tiny underdeveloped body from Eisha, she knew that the child was dead. Despite it all, she held the infant to her chest, attempting to rub some warmth into the strengthless arms, breathe air into the tiny lungs, all the while whispering ‘Willow’, the name which Sepida knew Eisha and her husband had previously chosen for their now never to be daughter. It wasn’t until then that Sepida allowed her grief to cripple her. Holding the bloody baby on her chest, she had slumped in a corner, sobbing and cursing all that she was.

Hours later, Sepida stepped out of the hospital for the last time as she threw a torch over her shoulder, cremating that which had been her life for over a decade. In her return home, Sepida had taken up a butcher’s knife and carved her horns off, refusing to ever again be the reason of death. It was that night that Sepida took up the name of Dr Carla and started to wear long skirts to hide her tail and hats to keep her stubs of horns from view.