(POV Dion)
22:00 GMT | London General Hospital – Intensive Care Unit
The sheets were spotless white—a nauseating contrast to the chaos inside my body.
The antiseptic smell stabbed like sterilized fear. The heart monitor beeped with monotonous precision, a machine pretending to understand the rhythm of a human being.
I was conscious, but I couldn't move. Only my eyes still obeyed. The world had become fragments—light, shadow, silhouettes.
Then came footsteps. Sharp. Too certain for a room this silent.
Daddy.
"What have you people been doing?" his voice was low, restrained with fury.
"My son is athletic, healthy, no medical history whatsoever—and in two weeks he ends up like this? His eyes... look at his eyes!"
The doctor stood beside the bed. I couldn't see his face, but his breathing gave him away—quick, anxious, afraid.
"We've run every test, Mr. Tan. CT scan, toxicology, full blood panel—everything came back normal."
"Physically, your son is stable. But from his neural response, this looks like catatonia or extreme dissociation. We can't yet determine whether the trauma came from a single event or prolonged exposure."
"Nonsense!" Daddy slammed the instrument table; the metal quivered.
"Do you take me for a fool? Look at his hands—there are marks, old scars!"
I wanted to say: Not from outside, Dad. From inside.
But air caught in my throat.
Mama leaned closer, brushing my hair with trembling fingers.
"Honey, open your eyes a little. Mama's here. You're safe, okay?"
I almost laughed. Safe?
No one is safe from something that already lives inside their own brain.
A nurse entered—soft steps, perfectly timed.
Night shift. Clara.
I knew the name before she spoke.
"Doctor, his blood pressure just rose slightly," she said, flatly.
"But the EKG is still within normal range."
"He's awake!" Daddy cut in. "He can hear us!"
He was right. I heard everything. But among their voices, another one threaded through—faint, like an echo vibrating in the marrow.
The Next Iteration.
The monitor's glow lit Mama's cheeks. Her tears fell onto my hand, but my skin didn't feel it.
I only saw her lips move.
"You'll recover, sweetheart. We'll leave this place—Switzerland, Milan, anywhere you want."
Words that once sounded like promises now dripped like nostalgia poisoned by time.
The doctor sighed.
"Mr. Tan, we'll continue neuro observation tomorrow. I've requested a psychiatric consult to evaluate for trauma-induced psychosis."
"For now, the safest option is to let him rest."
"Psychosis?" Daddy's voice cut sharp. "You're saying my son's insane?"
The doctor didn't answer. He only stared at the monitor— and for a moment, I saw my reflection there: two shadows sharing one body.
Clara replaced the IV. The drip's rhythm swallowed the room. Then she leaned in—too close to my ear.
"It's all right, Dion. Your body's already doing what it's meant to."
"You just need to stop resisting."
Daddy turned quickly.
"What did she just say?"
"Just checking the line, sir," Clara replied, smiling politely.
I wanted to scream, but my lungs were fog. In the reflection on the monitor, my face smiled back at me. The lips moved— but not under my control.
"London must be cleansed," it whispered.
The voice pulsed in time with the EKG machine.
A heartbeat—no longer mine.
***
(POV: Dr. Nicco)
I studied Dion's medical report.
The last page was still warm from the printer; the ink hadn't yet dried.
"Interesting," I murmured.
"No external trauma, yet the entire limbic system exhibits spontaneous reorganization."
I didn't smile.
My head tilted—not in curiosity, but in calculation,
measuring symmetry beneath despair.
"They call it psychosomatic," I whispered evenly.
"I call it adaptation—
proof of a new cognitive structure forming: Extreme Neuroplasticity. The organism chooses survival by discarding the burden of ethics, shedding the pathology of guilt."
My pen tapped the desk—three times.
Precise. Identical. Without emotion.
"Perfect," I muttered.
And then, softer, like a note written in a thesis I would never publish:
"So this is what empathy looks like— when it finally learns how to live without humanity."
—To be Continued—