[h3]Back room, Hunter's Clinic, somewhere in Yharnam[/h3]
Torquil did not react to the cry of the beast with more than a slightly raised eyebrow and a curious look around. He realized that something that made that sound was probably very dangerous, even more so than most of the scourge, but it sounded like it was a fair distance away. It was unlikely that this monster would come here and seek him out, and he was sure that he, as a fresh novice Hunter, would not be expected to contend with such things. He did send a sympathetic thought to whatever unfortunate Hunters [I]would[/I] have to fight it, but for most part he was just happy that it was someone else and not him.

In sharp contrast to his restrained reaction to the wail, Torquil actually recoiled strongly enough to stumble into the cot behind him, knocking it over and sending the sleeping almost-Hunter sprawling on the floor when Ophelia announced her findings. He felt his heart sink, his face turned pale and he gripped the handle of his axe so tightly that the wood creaked under his fingers.
“Arh?!” he vocalized, trying to exclaim an incredulous “What?!” but failing due to the state of his jaw. He looked around with a haunted expression, eyes darting from sleeping form to sleeping form, as if expecting any of them to spontaneously wake up and assault him. “Eachth?!” was his miserable attempt at saying “Beast?!”
Ophelia's words were, of course, deeply shocking to him. The almost-Hunter was [I]turning into a beast[/I]? What madness was that? Who had ever heard of a person [I]turning into[/I] a beast? And a Hunter, of all things? And for Ophelia to conclude that was what had been happening... had she seen something like this before, a person turning into a beast? How frequent an occurrence was that? And the way she mentioned having to pay attention to “things like that now”? What did she [I]mean[/I]?!
There were a lot of things that Torquil wanted to know about what Ophelia had just said – it was far from common knowledge that the scourge of beasts was a plague, after all, nor that many beasts used to be human – but not only could he not speak well enough to formulate the questions, he was also soon distracted by her harvesting an eye from the corpse.
This time there was no time for him to fight back the bile; as the eyeball wetly and noisily was dislodged from its socket, revealing the optical nerve dangling from behind it, Torquil turned away, doubled over and promptly vomited on the floor.

Outside, the sound of the voices continued to get louder as they approached.