He looked at the ceiling, on which shadows created hieroglyphs and infinite geometric patterns. They linked together like DNA, spiraling endlessly, forming a mirror on the ceiling. The rain outside thundered mercilessly, although the lightning wasn't really visible through the small window in Zach Addy's cell. It wasn't a jail cell, just a small room of the asylum's infirmary, but it felt equally confining. He tried to lift one of his arms. The pain was incredible, but he tried to ignore it. Zach could tell he'd been given a sizable amount of painkillers, everything seemed blurry and just slightly out of proportion.
He looked at his hands, or rather, at where his hands had been. They were so heavily bandaged the young anthropologist couldn't tell what was left. He wondered what he'd do now, without them. Spend the rest of his life in this institution? He'd never get to go back to the lab. Hodgins would come to visit him here, sometimes. But Zach knew his memory would start to seem more distant over time, especially to his colleagues at the Jeffersonian. He'd never be King of the Lab ever again, and would never again bring a killer to justice with the help of his friends.
He hadn't tried to face that actuality when he'd made the deal with the master. Zach had been too convinced by what had been said he never questioned what hadn't been mentioned. It had all been so fast, moved so quickly that he'd never had time to react. Even now it felt like a blur, in which he had only been able to accept logic from the master, and discount the opinions of his friends entirely. They'd probably never really trust him again, either. He'd betrayed them, and knew that most people didn't forgive betrayal often. He wasn't a nostalgic person, by nature, but still- in thinking about everything that he'd enjoyed at the Jeffersonian, Zach began to feel almost….homesick.
He rested his arm at his side now, too tired to continue to hold it up. The storm continued to rage outside. Zach returned to staring at, rather than through, the small window. There was hardly anything to see outside, just a high, grey fence. It was the same grey was the sky, and made it seem all the more certain that Zach would never be free again in his life.
Gradually, he noticed the rainwater dripping into the room through a crack beside the window. It started trickling down through, slowly at first. The drips fell the several feet from the high, narrow window to the floor without any rhythm at first. Eventually, they fell on a more regular basis, and more quickly, until they had covered the floor entirely. As more time passed, the crack in the wall seemed to get larger, and even more water began to gush in. Zach was already dazed, from the painkillers and simply from exhaustion, did not react to what he saw. He just lay still and watched the water level rise.
He contemplated doing something about it, but knew he could not control the weather, so it wasn't a feat that seemed terribly logical to attempt. So he remained on the hospital bed as the water crept up gradually. Slowly but surely, the water crept up, and as it reached the edge of the hospital bed thunder clapped, as though to shake Earth entirely off its axis.
Zach sat bolt upright, jolted awake suddenly. He glanced around, startled by the unexpected noise. There was no water anywhere. In fact, the weather was sunnier than it'd been in days. A gentle breeze blew outside, and the bright light from outside streamed in and gave the cold, informal room a pleasant glow. In Zach's opinion, it couldn't have been more unfitting.