"Eureka!!!" a man in his late 20s shouted in joy. His blue eyes shone brightly, and his messy, unwashed hair waved as he shook his head like a maniac. "Finally! The cure for the Krono Virus Disease! I have perfected it."
The man was dressed in a long white lab coat. In his hand was a test tube that contained a clear blue liquid. It was no ordinary liquid; it had the potential to cure the onslaught of the most dangerous virus to have engulfed the planet in a terrible pandemic for the last ten years.
A large portion of humanity had already been infected. Doctors and scientists from all over the world, sponsored by governments, were trying to find a cure, only to fail repeatedly.
But Dr. Xenon was different. He was the best biologist that ever was—according to himself, of course.
This underground lab was funded by his own fortune, as he hadn't received any sponsorship. He was a billionaire, so it didn't really matter.
After years of experiments, of reading the papers of others, of treating people illegally by bribing them, the cure was finally here. Developed by none other than him.
"Ha-ha-haha..." A wild laugh escaped him. He was genuinely, ecstatically happy. Not because humanity would be saved from extinction or because human suffering would be reduced. No, not that.
He was more interested in the fame it would bring him. He was already infamous in the scientific world; his theories were dismissed as conspiracy theories, his papers read like comic books for entertainment. He was called a product of nepotism, a man with unchecked mental conditions.
They were all wrong. Now, he'd show them.
He immediately went to his computer and reported his achievement to the agencies.
No one believed his words, but the virus was so dangerous that they didn't shrug it off either. They called him to come to the headquarters and have it verified.
That was better treatment than he had expected. The agency had previously blocked all his numbers, forcing him to continuously buy new ones. They had soon abandoned all formalities and given him a piece of their minds in raw, unfiltered language when his calls became too frequent to avoid.
"Those smug bastards. They think I'm joking, don't they? No problem. They will believe it when I show them in person," his eyes glinted with confidence as he swirled the test tube.
However, just as he brought the tube close to his eyes to see the brilliant blue color once again, his gaze was drawn to a shadow drifting into the lab from the dark corridor. Footsteps followed.
Step... step... step...
"Who... who's there...?" he stammered, startled. How did someone enter his underground lab? Was it some lab rat? No, the footsteps sounded human.
Step... step... step...
The shadow finally reached the lab and opened the door slowly. Xenon, feeling a surge of panic, grabbed the nearest object he could for self-defense: a beaker full of hard acid.
"Stop right there! Who are you, a burglar? Stop right there or I'll throw this at you."
The figure finally came into view. It was a woman wearing a leather jacket and high boots. She was beautiful but dressed messily; she wasn't wearing any makeup, her hair was disheveled, and thick-framed black spectacles rested on her nose.
However, in her right hand was a gun.
"Erika? You... you dare... How did you enter the lab? Ah, wait, I never took the keys from you, did I? Wait, that's not important right now. Why are you pointing that gun at me?"
Erika chuckled, a manic sound. "Why, you ask, Professor? Try taking a guess. Why would your assistant for four years, your admirer for six—whom you fired just last week so you wouldn't have to share the credit—point a gun at your head?"
"Share credit?" Xenon scoffed, a bubble of arrogant disbelief forming in his chest. He lowered the beaker of acid, his fear momentarily eclipsed by his indignation. "Erika, be reasonable. You pipette solutions. You clean the centrifuges. You run errands. I do the thinking. The genius part."
Erika's face, already pale under the harsh fluorescent lights, seemed to drain of all remaining color, leaving only a mask of cold fury. "The thinking?" she hissed, her voice dangerously low. "I calibrated the gene sequencer every single morning because your 'genius' hands were too shaky from last night's brandy. I ran the protein folding simulations on my own rig at home because you thought it was a waste of lab resources. My algorithm, the one you dismissed as 'a woman's intuition,' is what identified the virus's primary binding site! This cure is as much mine as it is yours, you parasitic egomaniac!"
The gun in her hand trembled, a metallic extension of her rage. Xenon's confidence evaporated. He saw no admiration in her eyes now, only a desolate, burning void. He clutched the test tube to his chest—his singular ticket to immortality, to finally shutting up all his critics.
"Now," Erika said, taking a step forward, the click of her boot echoing in the sterile silence. "You are going to hand me that vial. We are going to announce this discovery together. My name will be on that paper."
Xenon's mind raced faster than any of his simulations. Share the credit? Share the Nobel? Share the history books with his assistant? Never. In a flash of desperate, cowardly brilliance, he acted. With a wild cry, he flung the beaker of acid not at her, but at the server rack to her left.
There was a sizzle, a pop, and a shower of sparks as the corrosive liquid ate through the wiring. The main lab lights flickered and died, plunging them into the eerie semi-darkness of emergency backup power. The automated security doors whirred, beginning their lockdown sequence. It was the distraction he needed.
He bolted.
Ignoring the main exit, which would be sealed in seconds, he scrambled towards a reinforced door at the back of the lab—his private sanctuary. Erika cursed, blinded for a moment by the sparks, but she recovered quickly. The thud of her heavy boots on the concrete floor pursued him down the sterile white corridor.
Xenon fumbled with the keypad on the door, his sweaty fingers slipping on the numbers. He could hear her getting closer, her breathing ragged and furious. "You can't run, Professor Xenon!"
The lock clicked open just as she rounded the corner. He threw himself through the doorway and slammed it shut, twisting the heavy deadbolt. A fraction of a second later, a deafening BANG echoed through the metal as a bullet slammed into the other side, leaving a small, puckered crater. He didn't wait for a second shot. He ran.
He was no longer in the cold, clinical world of his lab, but in a chaotic riot of life. This was his private greenhouse, a massive, glass-domed structure connected to his underground facility. Humid, cloying air filled his lungs, thick with the scent of damp earth and exotic blossoms. Towering ferns, rare orchids hanging from the ceiling on hooks, and thick, twisting vines created a dense, treacherous jungle.
He stumbled through the maze of plant life, his lab coat snagging on thorns, his dress shoes slipping on the damp stone path. He still clutched the precious test tube, the blue liquid sloshing, a tiny ocean of hope and fame in a fragile glass prison.
CRACK!
Glass exploded somewhere behind him. She had shot out a pane in the door and was climbing through. Panic gave his legs a fresh burst of energy. He pushed past a giant Bird of Paradise, its vibrant flowers looking like mocking, alien faces. He needed to find the emergency exit at the far end of the dome.
He could hear her crashing through the foliage behind him, a relentless hunter in his own private Eden. "It's over, Professor! There's nowhere to go!"
He risked a glance over his shoulder and, in that moment, his foot caught on a thick, looping root of an ancient-looking Banyan tree he'd had imported at great expense. He pitched forward with a cry of alarm, his arms windmilling. He managed to keep his grip on the test tube, but his trajectory was wild. He crashed headlong into a tall, rickety metal shelving unit laden with dozens of potted plants.
The structure groaned, swayed, and then began to topple. Pots of cacti, succulents, and small ficus trees rained down around him, terracotta shattering on the stone floor. Xenon scrambled to his knees, dazed, a cut bleeding freely on his forehead. He looked up, his eyes wide with terror.
Erika had just broken through the last line of foliage, her gun raised, her face set.
But she was too late.
From the very top shelf, a heavy, ornate terracotta pot, home to a large and spiky agave, tipped over the edge. It plummeted downwards, turning end over end in the humid air. For a fleeting, eternal moment, Dr. Xenon, the man who was about to save the world and claim eternal glory, could only stare up at his impending, ridiculous doom.
The sound was not a heroic boom or a dramatic crash, but a sickening, wet thump-crack.
Xenon collapsed sideways without a sound, his head striking the stone path at an unnatural angle. The blue test tube slipped from his lifeless fingers, rolled a few inches, and then shattered against his face.
Erika stood frozen, the gun lowering slowly. The world's cure, the brilliant blue liquid, seeped silently and uselessly into the rich soil at the base of a Black Orchid. The most important scientific discovery in human history was gone, nourishing the roots of a flower in a dead man's garden, its secret lost forever in the dark, damp earth.
Dark.
It's too dark. Even closed eyes don't feel this dark. Where am I?
Not a single thing is visible.
I try to move.
Hey. What is that? My limbs... my muscles... my head.
Nothing is moving. Nothing is there.
Let's calm down for a second. I need to take deep breaths... huh?
Yes, right. No lungs either.
My, my, isn't this quite the mystery? The last thing I remember is pain, dying in that wretched greenhouse of mine, in such a humiliatingly mundane accident for a genius like me.
Erika, that bitch.
While I was dying, I was paying attention to my heartbeat. It was slowing down until it went flatline.
Meaning I should be dead.
Did I perhaps survive? Could I be in a coma?
That's highly likely. If true, it will be even worse than death. Staying like this for years—no sight, no movement, no experiments. I will go mad.
Really this time.
Fuck. Fuck this shit. Please don't let it be a coma.
That would be hell. What did I even do to deserve this? Firing that assistant? Was that it?
Shit. Why am I giving in to that karma nonsense now? That's all superstition. I only believe in science.
Oh, dear me. How good my life was going to be. I'd be awarded a Nobel Prize. My name would be spoken alongside Newton and Pythagoras. I'd have fame and status and what not...
[System Initialising » Successful]
[Host: ???]
[Class: Omni Tree Seed (SSS)]
[Level: 0]
[XP: 0/10]
[MP: 0/10]
[HP: 8/10]
[Skills: locked]
[Traits: locked]
Oh... so it was like this. Now this is... unscientific. Well, better than being in a coma.