Tybalt was born in 1892 in a poorer section of London. At the age of 14 Tybalt's parents were killed by an outbreak of Rabies. Having no living relatives left in London, and with the orphanages being full, he was sent to America in the belly of a steamship to his only living relative.
He landed at last in a small city just outside of Arkham. He was to spend the next few years growing up in a sanitarium, surrounded by countless horrors a child, indeed no one, should ever see. He was raised by a cousin of his late father, a so-called Doctor Richard Abrams Fauler. To call Fauler a doctor was to use the term in the loosest definition possible. This man, if you could call him that, was closer related to a raving mad scientist. Fauler performed forbidden rites on his patients in the guise of attempting to cure them of their ills. Little did the staff know that were they to remove the patients clothing, several would reveal markings of an occult nature, on what may have been their chest, back, legs, arms, sometimes genitals. Alas this sparsely lit sanitarium created more shadows than not. The screams of the inmates revealed more about the halls than the light ever would.
Disease spreading like mad would give this so called doctor an endless supply of new patients when he had worn out the old. A convenient excuse to hide the horror of his occult etchings and carvings, hidden on their flesh, just below the surface of their clothing.
For three years Tybalt viewed the horror that was the preparations to these supposed sessions. Seeing what the staff would not. He was not so much raised, as he was sustained, like a rat in a cage fed food and nothing more. Hidden in a shadowed corner, masked by the combination of lighting that was gaslight, electricity, and an occasional sliver of sunlight. His eyes had become accustomed to the dark that was the cell his father's cousin gave him to stay in. His skin began to become sensitive to the light, burning easily on those few occasions he managed to escape to the outside. More often than not what light did creep in showed sights Tybalt should never have seen; the glint off a scalpel or foresepts, the smudging of dark chalk, pages of ancient texts whose names were not spoken.
One bright summer during his 16 th year a new nurse came to the sanitarium. Tybalt became enthralled and fascinated by her. He would listen to her in the night as she talked to the patients, her voice echoing as softly as the shadows of the clouds that crept across the cold stone floor. Their screams had been replaced by the gentle words of this woman he called an angel. He heard her say the word many times, but never understood it's meaning in those times. "I am a psychotherapist", she would whisper quietly to them in the night, moving close to the cells that were their home, "fear not, for tonight you will feel no pain." For a year and a half Tybalt and the patients knew a peace the sanitarium had never known. The screams were replaced with quiet crying and eventual peaceful sleep.
That is until one dreadful stormy day. Fauler had been working especially late, unbeknown to the staff, preparing one of his patients. Such a delicate procedure of scalpel and its sealant of hot wax would require the subjects' silence. A tough leather strap and full hood did well to muffle the gasps for air that were all the poor sod could take in to barely keep alive. That was when he heard it. The nurses voice, calming a patient, trying to understand and relieve their pain any way she could. What she was doing by not keeping to herself secured in her observation room was unthinkable.
The rage Fauler felt would match the rage of a demon unbound. He grabbed the lantern off the wall and stormed down the halls to where she was. "You can never save them!" he shouted, "haven't you learned that yet!" Every lantern he passed, he overturned, his boots echoing along the cold stone beneath, the hay between catching easily and quickly. As the fire built and raged, so did Fauler's anger. Young Tybalt stayed to the shadows that were his room, dousing the lantern, he disappeared into them for comfort. The lightning of the storm would never reveal him, only the mad doctor, his face twisted into that of the devil himself. As he stormed down the steps the last thing Tybalt recalled hearing that night was the panicked shout of the nurse, the fear in her voice matching that of the sun as it nears setting; "Run Tybalt, for the love of whatever gods may hear us, RUN!"
It was weeks before he would realize he made it out alive, in fact, the only one to live that night. The constables presumed most of the inmates died right in their cells, unable to move due to the chain restraints. Some had let their hands and feet burn to ashes in the vain attempt to crawl on stumps towards the door, to what end the constables did not know. The staff, burned alive in their quarters, locked in from the outside, for Fauler had the only keys.
Tybalt was appearing before an executor to the estate of the nurse. It seems she had named him sole heir in the event of her death, and she had no family to contest. With this newfound wealth, at the age of 18, Tybalt was free.
The next 12 years he devoted his life to pursuing what he had heard the nurse utter so many times, to master for himself what this thing was, psychotherapy.
Upon graduation Tybalt was called to London, his original home. The years of training had nearly banished the nightmares of his youth, but return to a sanitarium began a war with the barrier his training had allowed him to build.
He had done well his first three months there. He was having much progress, the understanding and respect of his patients, fellow doctors, and staff.
It was on one particular night in late November it all went to hell. The constables had brought in a raving lunatic. Struggling, fighting, clawing at anyone he could, no one could tell what delusions this mad creature suffered. This thing, which was recently a man, had filed his teeth to points, his ears shaped as if he were a dog, probably from some early childhood abuse. Quite a horrific visage indeed. All this beast could manage to utter was "blood". A single word repeated over and over. For hours this beast would utter these words, seeming totally oblivious to his surroundings, only the people seemed to exist.
The staff managed to put this monster in restraints, and get him down on a bed to further restrict him. Suddenly there were three sharp snapping sounds. It seems one was the creatures arm, the others his feet, come free from the straps. Two nurses quickly clamored to pin him down, Tybalt grabbed for the freed arm. In a flash Tybalt found himself thrown against the wall, one nurse had become completely severed in twain at her waist, and the second nurse was now firmly in the grasp of the creatures jaw, sagging like a ragdoll from the neck where he was biting her. Blood now covered all the walls, the bed, the nurse, and Tybalt. The constables who were still there pried what was left of the second nurse from it's grasp, the now corpse clinging to the monsters shirt, ripping it free of his body. Revealed beneath were occult markings and scars. To Tybalt, the world slowly spun, as he sank quietly to the ground. He never noticed that a great deal of the blood on him was not just from the bite and clawing the creature did to him, but from the creature itself.
No one really knew what happened to Tybalt that night. He is rumored to have faded into the night, like a shadow, disappearing without a trace, driven mad by the horrific visage that was the monster reminding him of the nightmare that was his youth.
Copyright Eric Stryker 2000, 2001, 2008