Facts & Fables

A.R. Khan

Contents

Introduction............................................................... 4

The Journal of Dr. J. Augustine................................... 7

Behind The Story: The Great Plague of London..................... 25

Glow, Baby, Glow!.................................................... 28

Behind The Story: The Radium Girls................................. 51

A Fog Job................................................................. 54

Behind The Story: The Great Smog of London...................... 78

Descending to Perfection.......................................... 81

Behind The Story: The “Mad-Hatter” Phenomenon.............. 112

The Grave Becomes Her......................................... 115

Behind The Story: The Mercy Brown Incident...................... 137

About the Author

Sahibzada Muhammad Ali Raza Khan is a sciences student from Lahore, Pakistan, and has recently completed his O Levels. He grew up reading Goosebumps, which is what first pulled him into the world of storytelling and writing. Inspired by R.L. Stine, he started experimenting with his own ideas, and writing slowly became more than just a hobby. Ali is determined, hard-working, and always looking to improve, be it in academics or creative work. When he’s not writing or studying, you’ll probably find him watching movies or playing video games, both of which give him even more ideas on what to write about.

 ***

To my family, my friends, and myself

Introduction

For millennia, myth and superstition have tried to explain the unexplainable faster than science and facts could. During periods of mass illness, psychological instability, or inexplicable death, societies have often relied on fear-driven narratives to interpret the world around them. This section examines why rational thought is so often abandoned in times of crisis, and how science is displaced by folklore, moral judgment, or just simply, collective panic.

Historically, human beings have sought explanations for suffering, particularly when said explanations could not be formed through logic. This tendency is not merely a symptom of ignorance, but a reflection of how the human mind actually functions. Research in cognitive psychology confirms that humans are strongly predisposed to pattern recognition and causal reasoning; abilities that, while evolutionarily advantageous, also make us susceptible to forming incorrect or superstitious conclusions.

Humans are more likely to accept emotionally fulfilling justifications when faced with uncertainty, particularly when it poses a threat to their lives. These justifications often involve supernatural intervention, conspiratorial schemes, or religious punishment, as they provide simple answers to complex problems. Even though they are illogical, these beliefs give people direction and a temporary sense of security in situations where science is unable to provide definitive answers.

Social and political structures also shape how a society interprets crisis. In deeply religious communities, disease may be interpreted as a sudden punishment from God. In industrial cultures, unexplained illness may be blamed on emerging technologies or modern lifestyles. In rural societies, folklore surrounding spirits, vampires, or witches often fills the explanatory gap. These cultural narratives serve a psychological function: they provide meaning, assign blame, and offer rituals for control.

Philosophers from Aristotle to Foucault have argued that knowledge is socially constructed, and that when prevailing systems of understanding are disrupted, societies often revert to older, more familiar modes of explanation. The reemergence of outdated beliefs during crises is not simply a failure of logic but a survival mechanism. It is an instinctive attempt to restore coherence when faced with conundrums.

This book dives into five historical moments in which such dynamics were especially visible. Each fictionalized narrative is inspired by real events and serves to illustrate how myth can overpower fact, how silence and stigma can delay progress, and how easily fear can distort both public and private responses to catastrophe.

Following each story is a research-based section that explores the actual historical and scientific context behind the event, clarifying what was misunderstood at the time and how those misunderstandings shaped actual consequences. These post-story essays are intended not only to impart knowledge, but to show how long it can take for scientific truth to replace myth once a narrative has taken hold.

Ultimately, this book is a study in the psychology of belief under pressure. It investigates why, even in the presence of evidence, societies choose explanations that comfort rather than clarify. And it asks the critical question: how do we prevent fear from becoming the loudest voice in the room?

The Journal of Dr. J. Augustine
(Based on the 17th-century bubonic plague outbreak in Europe)

Day 1

I couldn’t shake the feeling out of my head. It made my days feel gloomier than usual, not that London wasn’t already a child of dull, thunderous clouds and freezing water. It was as though I were living inside a monochrome newspaper: plain, stiff, and somehow all over the place.

Suddenly, someone barged through my office door, catching me off guard. I hadn’t been paying attention to the creaking of my grimy oak flooring; lost as I was in my thoughts.

It was Mr. Crowthorne — the town’s most feared detective, known for his knee-high leather boots, silver grassy hair, and of course, his brilliance.

“What brings you here, Thorne?” I inquired, trying to maintain my composure. His tilted brows and sharp hazel eyes made me feel naked, as though even the hidden was visible to him.

He said he’d come for a routine checkup, also complaining about a sore throat that wasn’t going away. I examined him carefully, diagnosing silently inside my mind. Everything seemed ordinary — until I felt a bump on the back of his neck. Subtle, but definitely growing.

“It’s important I’m in perfect shape. The killer of Emily Stone is almost in my hands—” he said with his raspy voice, quickly interrupted by a nasally cough.

I handed him some throat reliever and gave him the clear signal, saying nothing of the bump.

I had to stay silent.

Perhaps it was his entitled persona. Or perhaps it was the case he was working on. But a part of me — dark and buried — had wanted Mr. Thorne to perish for a long time. And now, it seemed God had silently answered that prayer.

Then again, maybe I was wrong. Maybe it wasn’t the plague. But even if it was…

There was no cure.

And all I had to do was wait.

Day 7

Crowthorne died.

His name was everywhere: on pamphlets, across headlines, whispered from one flabbergasted mouth to another. They didn’t even bother to soften the news. Detective Found Dead. Cheapside’s Brightest Falls. The autopsy confirmed what I had feared, though no one said it aloud: the plague had returned, stronger than ever.

In the back of my mind, I had once thought life might become easier. I told myself that with Crowthorne gone, so too would my guilt, but no. That fantasy was washed away by the stream of patients flooding my doorstep. They came in coughing, shivering, moaning about headaches and dry throats. Some still walked in on their own, looking like they just needed a warm broth. Others collapsed at the door, blackened lumps blooming under their skin. I didn’t have time to regret about the past. The present was now a harbinger of a future, with no future.

To the untrained eye, it looked like nothing more than a nasty fever — one of London’s many illnesses that passed through with the fog, but I knew better. The swellings, the stink of sickness rising from their pores, the darkness in their sunken eyes. This was no ordinary affliction. This was a clawing, gruesome death that gave you just enough time to feel your end coming.

We weren’t allowed to tell them. Not yet. The guild had ordered silence until a cure was found. Alas, fear already flooded up the streets worse than the Thames. I kept my head down. Gave out rosewater. Told people to rest and pray. But inside, I knew what was coming. I’d seen the signs before. And this time, I wasn’t just a witness. I was part of the rot.

Day 14

The news had inevitably broken out… The Black Death Has Returned!

We doctors were told this was miasma, bad air from the sewers and corpses — typical. We got to work fast, scrambling to do something, anything, to stop the spread, but truth be told, it was already too late. Too many already coughing up blood. Too many homes marked with chalk.

Still, they gave us uniforms. Sticky waxed robes that humid with sweat, stiff leather gloves that made even writing a prescription feel like surgery. And the mask. Lord, the mask. All black, with a long, curved beak like some demented raven. They said it served a purpose: fill it with sweet-smelling herbs: lavender, thyme, mint, to block out the foul air.

And the staff. Always the staff. For keeping our distance, they said. To poke the infected like livestock.
It all made sense on paper. But paper doesn’t smell like rotting lungs.

The mask reminded me too much of one I had worn before. Not for medicine. For something else. Something darker than this plague itself. A memory I had locked and buried beneath layers of duty and denial. I felt it crawling back, the image of that night. My hands. The moon. The silence.

I slapped myself. Hard.

“This is no time to ponder, James. You need to concentrate…”

I stepped out into the street, cane tapping the mossy cobblestone like some twisted metronome. The road to Clerkenwell was nearly empty. Strange for this hour. Usually, the vendors would be hollering, children running through the alleys, but today, the silence was thick. Smoke rose in lazy spirals from chimneys, mixing with the stink of sewage and boiled cabbage. And under it all, that rotting sweetness — the scent of bodies left too long in the same bedsheets.

A woman passed by on the opposite side, crossing herself the second her eyes met my mask.
“Plague doctor,” she murmured, almost like it was a curse.

I could barely breathe. Not just because of the mask, but because I believed it too. Maybe it was the air. Maybe this city had just breathed in too much filth, and this was its punishment. Not divine. Just human filth.

My destination was a few houses down. A narrow townhouse with its windows boarded shut and a white ribbon tied to the knocker. I knocked twice, adjusted the beak, and stepped inside.

Day 17

I had forgotten the concept of time. Every day felt like a rewrite of the last: the scent of lavender clawing up my nose, the grotesque, scrawny bodies drooping off mattresses like wilted flowers, the constant wailing that no longer pierced but dulled the air. It was all engraved inside me now. Routine. Repetitive. Rotting.

Except, last night was different.

I had a dream. Everything felt real…except me. I was shorter. My arms were lighter in colour. I had ginger hair. I was walking along the pier, barefoot, cold, and confused. The wood groaned under me. The air stung my skin. Then it blurred. Fast. I was pinned to the ground, hands pressing into my throat. I kicked, I scratched, I sobbed, but it was no use. My vision started to blacken at the corners, and the last thing I saw was the mask: long beak, dark eyes, a silhouette I’d worn before.

A plague doctor was strangling me.

I woke up with a gasp before death could finish me.

I sat by the window for air, wiping the sweat off my collarbone, when I noticed a rat trotting along the sill like it owned the damn place. Its whiskers twitched. It paused. Stared at me. I shooed it away with the back of my hand, not that it cared.

Then I looked out.

My backyard. Overgrown, brown, and devoid of any soul. Where the yew tree stood.

Flies. Buzzing above the patch of dirt near the tree’s base. Lazy, spiralling in slow circles like they were watching something rise.

I froze.

I told myself it was nothing. A carcass maybe. A dead bird. But even I didn’t believe that. Something about that soil made the air… colder. Quieter.

“I’ll… I’ll deal with it tomorrow,” I mumbled. But even my voice was unconvinced.

Just then, a sharp sting pierced my ankle. I slapped it without thinking. A flea. Fat and blood hungry.

The buzzing outside stopped. Just for a second.

I blinked. And turned away.

Day 19

Everything was practically dead now. People had fled the town, and those who couldn’t were counting their days. Still, a family had called for a checkup. 120 Anderson Lane.

The name stuck out. It tugged at something sharp in my head. With a dull headache brewing in my temples, I made my way through the misty roads where I realized something terrifying.

I had to pass through the pier.

My heart stopped.

The same chocolate-stained wood. The same silvery fog skimming the river’s edge. The same creaking sounds beneath my boots. It was all identical. From the dream.

I stopped walking. My lungs were shrinking. I didn’t want to relive it again.

“This can’t be happening,” I muttered, frozen in place.

And then, I felt it.

A hand on my shoulder.

It was over. My time had come. This was it.

I braced for death.

…

“Sir, you dropped your staff… are you— never mind,” a child said softly, eyes wide with concern. His small fingers clutched the wooden cane I hadn’t even realized had slipped from my grasp.

I nodded, muttered something incoherent, and walked away in embarrassment.

…

The house at Anderson Lane was modest, but in appalling condition. Cracked windows. A crooked door. A once-white sheet draped over the balcony railing, now stiff with dirt and dust.

I knocked. No answer. I knocked again.

An old maid opened it. Her skin loose, dripping ever so slowly like slime.

“You the physician?” she asked, squinting. I nodded.

“She’s upstairs. Second door. Oh, and be careful. She’s gone mad.”

As I entered the dim room, the smell hit me first; an odour you never forget once you’ve smelt it enough.

Then I saw her.

Skin pale as candle wax. Lips darkened like ink. Teeth chattering in fevered speech. But it was her words that made my blood drain.

“I’ll finally be with her… My sweet, sweet child… She’s waiting for me,” the woman rasped, eyes unfocused, yet glowing with a sick joy.

I checked her pulse. Weak. Her breathing, wet and shallow. She was beyond help. Beyond return.

“She didn’t deserve it,” she croaked, clutching at the air. “My baby… My Emily... Curse the man who did it. May he rot in this world or the next!”

Her voice broke into sobs. Then laughter. Then silence.

My hand trembled as I reached for her wrist.

Stone.

That was the name written on the brass plaque outside the house. I hadn’t seen it. Or maybe I had, and chose to ignore it.

My mouth was dry. I couldn’t speak. My mask began to feel tighter. My heart thumped so loud it blurred the woman’s sobs.

I couldn’t stay.

I stumbled out of the room, down the stairs, past the maid who was asking something — I don’t know what — and into the street.

I didn’t reply. I couldn’t.

My face, usually numb and unreadable, had crumpled. The corners of my lips twitched as I gritted my teeth to hold something back.

But it burst out anyway. My jaw clenched, my eyes burned.

“I can’t do this anymore,” I muttered under my breath.

And I walked. Not home. Not to another patient. Just walked.

Day 22

The plague had reached me. I don’t know how — or maybe I do — but I kept denying it. I wore the gloves. I didn’t touch her skin. I didn’t breathe the same air. My nose was practically made of herbs now, a walking bouquet of flowers. I kept telling myself, it couldn’t be the air.

But none of that mattered now.