Troy did not feel normal. It was not a pain that went through his body. No, it was something else. What it was, he was not totally sure. It was not a sensation he had gotten often. It was akin to what was felt during times of sickness, the muscles not up to the task of working. Even his eyelids felt tired, not wanting to move themselves up. With much effort, he struggled. Yet, the battle was one of attrition, and one of the sides had enough to spare.

His body was weak. It was weaker than anything it had been for a long time. Even the lack of food for several days had never made him stoop to this level. His stomach did not groan in pain, as it was not empty. On the contrary, Troy could find nothing that his flesh craved. There was no thirst to be had, no organ in his body needing to be sated. If not for the omnipresent dose of weakness inside of him, he would have been fine.

Was he even getting close to opening his eyes? Troy was struggling harder than before, putting his mind to it. Yet, there was no indication if he was making progress or not. No light was beginning to show through the eye-lids. Was he going the right way? Had he been pressing them down, instead of letting them go up?

Where was he even? From the softness under his body, he could only assume to be on a bed? Though, was this his own? It did not feel like it, his slumped arms not pressing against a hard edge. Could he still have been back at Charlie’s place, then? The laboratory could have had a pull-out bed for all he knew. Though if there was one, he could not remember getting on it.

Troy needed to see. The young man was growing agitated, not knowing what was going on. What was the last thing he remembered? Charlie and Dr Hale had been screaming at each other. Troy had not been able to take it, shouting at them to be quiet. Charlie had accepted it, yet that woman… she had… what had she done again?

They had all been silent, getting to leave at a normal time. Charlie had done nothing to stop it, just waving goodbye to them. Troy still thought it weird. That did not matter, though. There was no chance that had anything to do with it.

What had they done when they left? The two had begun walking towards the testing room. There had been no talking between them. Troy had liked that, not wanting her to be angry at him about the-

…

Oh, yeah. That. She had been angry at him from the start, as he had broken a promise. That was why she diverged from the path, not going to the testing chambers. Where had they gone? It hadn't been her room. Neither had it been the older parts of the facility. No, she had led him straight to the place furthest away from anything else. It had just been a random place, but it made Troy queasy to think about it. Why was that so?

Dr Hale had talked to him. She had not been happy, demanding to know why he had not been there at the designated point in time. Troy had not been able to give a worthwhile excuse. She had not been happy. She had been… what had she done again. The young man had trouble visualising it in his head.

She had put her head against the wall, saying something about him not knowing things. How he did not understand how much he had messed up. Then… then she had come at him. She had stabbed him lightning quick. Nothing happened after that. Nothing that he could remember. So… putting all the pieces together, Troy needed to understand it. Stabbed with a small syringe, injected with who-knew-what, unable to remember anything after the fact, and now in a bed while not able to move his body much. Had she? No, she couldn't have. There was no meaning for it! Yet… there was nothing else to point to.

…

"That fucking bitch," Troy muttered, not able to think anything else at that point. Here he was, strapped to a bed he did not know the location of, not able to see anything around him. What else could go wrong? Was the rain going to turn into acid? Was gas coming around to brain-wash the masses? Or even worse, was there going to be-

"Great Scott! He is awake!" Dr Fidelis exclaimed close to Troy’s right ear. From the position, the doctor might just have been sitting on a chair right next to him. How lucky the young man was, the flinch causing his body to move automatically. It was more than he had managed before. If only his eyes would move as well. "Talking in his sleep, my ass. That right there is the sound of somebody waking up."

Troy could only sluggishly move his right arm up to his head, letting his hand flow against his eye-lids. They were indeed still closed, alluding to the fact that he was still not blind. And as the doctor was talking in such a clear voice, there was little chance that the room itself was dark as well. Therefore, the only barrier of seeing was that he could not move his eye-lids easily.

Not seeing any other way forward, the still raised hand was used to gently push the left eye-lid up to a functional level. By putting in serious work, Troy was able to keep it up without the continued support, allowing him to raise the other one as well. It was hard work, but it let him see just what was around him.

Though, that did not mean there was a lot to see. To his left was a white wall with nothing on it, a meter away from his feet was the room to the room. Finally, there was a meter or two of room to his right, before it had a wall as well. This did allow several people to congregate in the area. This meant that both doctors were here, Dr Fidelis sitting on the chair intended for visitors, and Dr Hale standing as far away as she could, looking to be noting down the times he spent asleep. She would of course know both the times, the woman being responsible for both of them appearing in the first place.

"Where am I exactly?" Troy asked, getting up in a sitting position after a great deal of struggling. Even if his eyes were open, his body still felt terribly weak. There were serious doubts about his capability to walk comfortably. Trying to stand up in the current moment would bring a face-crushing defeat, as the minimum.

While he might have looked around, the young man truly did not know where the hell he was. It seemed like a limited, miniaturized personal room, with just enough room for a bed and pretty much nothing else. Even the chair was stretching it, the wrong position allowing Troy to be hit in the face with a shoe. Whatever reason there might have been for him being here, he needed to know it.

"Do lie down again, buddy," Dr Fidelis encouraged the young man. The request was initially taken with a grain of salt, yet the arms seemed to find nothing wrong with it, leaving their position of support the moment they got the chance. Troy could only hate that part of his body for betraying him at his weakest moment. "You are currently in the hospital wing. It might not look like much, but this place had everything you would ever need."

"What? Why?" Troy had to ask, not understanding just why he was here. He had been drugged by a specific person in the room. He should have been somewhere else than a bed. Maybe at a legal institution, discussing with a lawyer how to best press charges. He should not have been lying in a bed, as his co-workers sat and stared at him sleeping.

"Well… to that, I have some good news, and I have some bad news. The good news is… actually, I am not sure how to say the good news without giving away the bad news," Dr Fidlies explained as if that was actually important. Troy did not give a single bit of care for the doctor’s love for dramatics. He just wanted an answer now. "The good news is that you will have something named after you. The bad news is that what will be named after you is a serious allergic reaction caused by an unknown mixture made between two biological enhancers. It wasn't supposed to happen yet it did. That was apparently rare enough that you got your name on it for being the first to discover it. I believe a small round of applause is in order."

Dr Fidelis did the first few claps, trying to make Dr Hale join in. This attempt was in failure, leaving the doctor to awkwardly stop after a couple of seconds.

"Anyways… Do you have any questions you want to ask?"

"Uh, yeah. When you say that I had a serious allergic reaction, do you mean that-"

"You could have died within minutes of it starting, yes. Your skin was not adapting to the mixture in your blood, and there were a few spots where it had begun to self-destruct. Most of them have been patched up, but there might be a few new scars on your back now… Of course, there should not be any more negative effects of it. The weakness you are currently feeling is just because the medics had to load you up with sedatives so that you wouldn't scream in agony the moment you woke up. There were a few complications in the healing process, so a few parts of your skin had to be re-torn. Everything is still alright. Just… don't stretch out too much in the next few days."

There was a slightly reduced desire to get moving about again, Troy being extra sensitive about the voids of sensation felt on his body. The man had just attributed it to being him having slept the wrong way, yet the truth was beginning to be a little grim.

"... So it's not going to be long before I get to go back to working?" Troy asked, just to be sure. While Dr Hale might not have been looking directly at him by a long stretch, he could still feel the woman’s eyes watching him carefully.

"'Long` is a relative term. In my own words, we are forever going to be seven steps behind as a minimum. In pretty much anybody else involved with this project, waiting a day to continue working will do almost nothing for us. I expect to be talking a little to Adam, but that is just about it. Nothing lost, nothing gained. And, I guess it is for the best. Having you collapse fully inside the puzzle room would be too much of a hassle. Do you have any more questions inside that head of yours?"

"Not really, no," Troy answered, looking at the door close to him. Here he was going to be for the foreseeable future, getting to see everything white and grey. It would be a boring day indeed.

"Perfect," Dr Fidelis said, getting up from the chair. "I do have matters to attend to. Your friend, Charlie, passed me by during lunch-hours. The man was apparently stalking the area close to the entrance into the testing-room while looking for you. It's only because I already have enough to deal with that the man isn't getting a write-up of that. Though, it does still force me to spend the day signing a few discreet papers. Now I would love to attend to your needs during this precious time, but I honestly don't have the time for it. Therefore, you will be spending the day with Dr Hale. Isn't that exciting? Anyway, if you have any problems, ask her for help. I will see both of you tomorrow."

Dr Fidelis talked until the very moment that he got out of the door, letting it fall back into place as he left Troy’s peripheral. It was laughable, how little he liked being in his current position. Getting up into a sitting stance for the second time was hard enough. Having to spend the entire day with-

Wait. Did he say that he met Charlie at lunch? Just… just how much time did he spend unconscious?