The townsfolk bolted their doors and cast out the sick as the evening stillness was filled with the bright ting of the Doctor's bell. It was the kind of iron-clad-sharp sound that stung your ears to hear, not that you flinched. Humans didn't flinch at the sound of iron and you were definitely a human.
Just like all the other humans you had checked your family for any signs of illness, the slightest things that the Doctor might sense. He was something totally-human like you but older, so very old that the dirt itself remembered him as a dear friend and the forest can't remember a time before he roamed among them, treating the sick and casting out the weak for the betterment of the whole.
The land knows he's always been a Doctor but lately he's become more... trenchant and less forgiving. The slightest ailments send him into a fury of "that cough will turn worse on a day or two so take this, eat that, your death will be much quicker this way" etcetera etcetera to the point where even the totally-human folk like me fear that he'll see some condition inside us and reason us willingly to our deaths.
As frowned upon as it is for us to kill our own, the technicality of the persuaded willingness would be enough to see him walk free. With this in mind we do just as our fellow humanfolk do, we ensure we are all perfect and in our perfection we are safe. At least we hope so, he's killed others for yawning and other harmless activities.
Tonight he's stopped at the house beside mine - an elderly couple who are fit and full of life but I can hear him mentioning their creaking joints and stooped backs. Such a pity, they were good people... for humans at least. With any luck they'll put up a decent resistance and their deaths will be enough for him to feel satisfied that enough of the weak have been culled tonight.
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