>>25 >>26 Well, it's nice to see that I at least have a couple of enthusiastic readers. I have a lot more typed, but, for the moment I'll just post this short segment. _______________________ Fleischer hadn't eaten – had refused to eat – for nearly three days. He felt all of the unpleasant effects of it, too; the painful gnawing in his stomach, the near-constant feeling of lethargy, headaches. He wondered, sometimes, if hunger was the cause of it all, or if some of it was being caused by internal changes to his anatomy. The former Medic's outward appearance, at least, had not changed any further – not that he could see, at least. It was the thought of unseen changes to his organs that worried him the most. His captors must have been worried, or curious, as well, judging by the faint scent of something in the air. Fleischer tracked it to one of the vents, and given the slightly bitter smell in the air pouring out he knew exactly what was happening. He quickly moved away from the vent – retreated to the bathroom and locked the door behind. It would only delay the inevitable, he knew, but, it was something. It was some small defiance, as much as, in the end, it would fail. Fleischer remained where he was, curled up in a bath tub, shivering despite the warm water, as he waited for the sedative gas to reach him. It didn't take long for that slightly bitter scent to reach him – and then to grow stronger. It was childish, he knew, but, he tried to hold his breath. He couldn't do it forever, though, and his first desperate gasp for air doomed him. His lips and fingers started to go numb, and a tingling sensation washed over his skin. "Nein," he murmured, curling up into as tight a ball as he could manage. "Nein, nein, nein." His voice grew weaker with each word until it trailed off completely. He didn't have the strength to speak. His entire body felt heavy – loose, in a word. He tried to catch himself as he fell back, and he only just felt his fingers brush over the edge of the tub before everything went black. There were still things happening, though. Occasionally, Fleischer would hear, or smell, or feel, or even see something; brief flashes of tiles passing overhead, a light, entirely too bright, shining down on him. There were visions – rhythmic beeping, and the bright light, and the smell of antiseptic. There was a sharp pain, and the brief flash of an unfamiliar face. They were over so quickly that Fleischer couldn't even tell whether or not they were real. They didn't seem like dreams, though – those brief flashes. They seemed far too real; that face, the beeping, the lights, the feeling of the skin on his abdomen being slowly, carefully parted. They all faded in and out. Fleischer felt like he was in a dark room with a single light, and someone kept turning it on and off, and it was never quite bright enough to get a view of his surroundings. That didn't last, though. Eventually the light in Fleischer's head turned back on – albeit dimly. It stayed on, though. It was enough for him to see the bright lights overhead, and to realize, slowly, that he was back on an operating table. He felt like he was in one piece. That was when the pain started. It was a deep, dull ache, at first. Fleischer's awareness sharpened as the pain did. He could make out the blurry image of the operating room, and the white blobs of lab coats, and the beeping of the EKG growing more and more erratic. He could feel his chest heaving, and something was stuck down his throat, and he tried futilely to cough it out. There were voices – quick, and sharp, and nervous. Fleischer saw and felt the beam of a Medigun being trained on him. There was an immediate reaction – a sharp twisting pain in his belly. There was something else very wrong, as well; it felt like things were moving, as though his guts were full of lethargic snakes. He couldn't piece any sentences together, but, Fleischer did keep hearing the words, "too fast," sometimes by familiar voices, and sometimes by people unknown. The pain was rapidly getting worse, and Fleischer, despite the futility of his situation, at least tried to thrash and fight against his restraints in an agonized panic. "…too fast." They were the last words, the last anything, that he heard before everything faded away, soft, and calm, and white.