“I’m sorry to bother you. I think I’m dropping again.” That’s an understatement. He feels terrible. He’s shaky and his ears are ringing. He shivers. Oh good, he also has the chills. Which means he probably has a fever, too. It just doesn’t seem fair to feel like he’s freezing to death while burning up from the inside out.

“Okay. Can you get to medical or should we send transport?”

He thinks about getting off the floor. “I’ll make it,” he says, because of course he can. It’s in the building, for crying out loud. He just needs to stumble there. How hard can it be? How pathetic is he if he can’t make it a few dozen feet?

Okay, it’s farther than that, but he’s a soldier, an elite warrior, and he can practically hear his father telling him to get up and be a man. So, he will do that.

Until he can’t. Until the day comes when he drops so hard and so far that he just doesn’t wake up again. That’s the future that’s coming for him. Everyone knows it, but they’re all just pretending he’s somehow going to live a semi-normal life one of these days and be able to serve his country.

“Okay. I’ll meet you there in fifteen minutes and I’ll make sure they’re expecting you.”

“Thank you. I’m sorry,” he whispers.

“It’s fine, Daniel. Don’t fixate on it,” he says, voice firm.

Not fixate. Ha! That’s easier said than done.

He manages to shove to his knees and then uses the porcelain throne for support to stand, but the room spins so much Daniel has to lean against the counter for long moments before he can walk to the bedroom. Pants. Shirt. Shoes. Medical.

Pants. Shirt. Shoes. Medical.

Easy.

He makes it to his bedroom and gets a pair of sweats on. He’s overcome with dizziness in the living room and tries to collapse onto his couch. He hears the glass of the coffee table shattering, feels it all along his side and his face as glass gouges into him. Hot and sharp, then wetness as he bleeds.

I forgot a shirt, he thinks. Because the pain hasn’t quite set in yet.

Get up. 

Daniel can’t stay on the ground. He needs to get to medical. He can’t move. He whimpers. His side is on fire where the glass is cutting him to ribbons, and there’s blood under his hand and his side.

It’s spreading. Daniel can see it creeping along the floor in an ever-widening circle. How odd. Maybe his body wants to die. Maybe this isn’t actually about him at all. Maybe it’s just the end of this terrible experiment and his body has decided that death is the only way out.

Okay.