Chapter 25

The last thing he remembered was being stuck with a needle after perhaps a minute of waiting patiently in the bed. He was still in the bed, a bandage over his arm where the woman had stuck him with the needle, and Sam and Tucker were asleep in chairs off to his side. The two other English-speakers had gone elsewhere, somewhere out of sight. He was sure there were cameras watching him though.

He sat up, his body lacking its full equilibrium. He wasn't so stupid as to not know they had done something to him while he was asleep. But his rings were certainly still there, all four of them. His throat was killing him but that was about the only thing they seemed to have tampered with. Why his throat, he didn't know, and he didn't really care. He did care about why Sam and Tucker would allow this to happen to him. Why hadn't either of them stepped in when he needed them? He was hurting because they didn't help him.

He attempted to get out of the bed but paused when he felt an uneasy sensation in his stomach. It almost felt like it was burning. Like mild ectoplasm was festering inside him.

Possibly by sheer chance, Sam roused from her sleep to find him with his arms wrapped around his abdomen. She seemed to ignore it and violently shook Tucker awake.

"Tucker, Tucker! He's up! Look!" she squealed.

One more shake was all Tucker could take before he swatted her away.

"That's great," he yawned. "How long's it been…? Couple hours maybe…?" He rubbed his eyes and fished a small device out of his pocket. "Sam, it's like 2:30 in the morning… He'll go back to sleep soon, just…let him rest for a few more minutes… Needs to rest… Start doing all, everything…all the stuff…his thing…tomorrow…"

"Tucker!" Sam hissed as he began to nod off again.

He turned away from her in his chair and yawned again, eyes already closed. "I'm…I'm just gonna be here…"

"Unbelievable!" she scoffed. "YOU'RE THE ONE WHO KEPT ME UP ALL NIGHT!"

"Saaammm…" Tucker groaned. "Go back to sleep…"

"Your parents are going to kill you just for telling them last minute that you're sleeping over at a my house for some dumb 'literature study session.'"

"Woman, let me sleep!"

She muttered something incomprehensible and walked over to him.

"How are you feeling?" she asked sweetly.

He held his stomach tighter. This was one English sentence he knew, being as she usually only asked it when he got hurt. So she probably knew he was hurting. And she just let it happen…? Why? It made no sense. She was Sam, she couldn't be like the other two. Something must've happened to her. Maybe the other two did something. Maybe she had no choice. When put that way, it kind of did make sense.

The burning in his stomach slowly moved up his throat—ow—and finally found its way out through his mouth as he suddenly curled forward. Sam jumped back and yelped in disgust while Tucker instantly woke up at the splattering sound not too far from him.

It felt like…slime. This was the same substance that had been on his skin and in his lungs and airway. Had it somehow been absorbed into his stomach? But if it had, why hadn't it burned the whole time? Maybe it had changed forms. Or maybe the burning simply stopped after being inside him for an amount of time. On the other hand maybe the two other English-speakers put it inside his stomach, making him swallow it when he was asleep.

He coughed and spit out whatever remained in his mouth. It tasted so tangy, like metal, but also very bitter and acidic.

Before he realized what was going on around him the two aforementioned English-speakers came running down the stairs. They didn't react to the mess like Sam and Tucker—in fact it almost looked like they had expected this. It was a possibility that for whatever reason, they wanted this…

But why? The floor was so messy now, and for what?

The woman fell to her knees right before the mess and stared in awe at it.

"Jack…" she whispered. "I think this is it…"

He heard Tucker start gagging and watched him run out of the room.

Why were they just leaving him here like this? Sam stayed at a distance but she wasn't making any moves to defend him in any way. He'd fought—or at least been willing to fight—a monster. He'd felt something click inside him. He could probably try to defend himself but whatever had clicked before was simply gone. He couldn't bring himself to do anything.

But Sam and Tucker could, if they wanted to. He wanted to believe they were being forced into just watching him. Truthfully, they didn't look like they were. They were freely making their own choices.

While the man and woman began cleaning the floor, he surveyed the room. No cameras. No sensors, as far as he could tell. No alarms. Sam and Tucker has obviously stayed with him while the other two were gone. They could've snuck him out while he was asleep. They hadn't been forced to stay, right…? That hardly made sense. Then again, they allowed these two new English-speakers to stick needles in him, tamper with his throat while he was unconscious, and now they weren't even trying to help him feel better.

The burning in his stomach and throat ceased within a minute or two, replaced by complete numbness. His vision and consciousness was immediately…shut down? It was the best way to describe nearly collapsing, being grabbed and held upright-ish at the last second, and not feeling or being aware of any of it. Yet somehow he knew.

All he felt was the hard ground. It was supposed to be covered in beautiful, soft herbaro—grass—but it was cold and barren. The intense heat of an explosion burned his back. He had returned to this time somehow.

He turned around to watch flaming bodies scramble around in searing agony. He could smell their charring flesh. They screamed and cried out for help, for mercy, and even the English-speakers spoke a language he had long understood. Despite the intense heat and the gravity of the situation, he drew satisfaction. They were dying the way he did every day and no amount of fire could tear him away from that relief.

But soon the fire began to lean away from him, the wind carrying its flames elsewhere, surrounding the woods and burning whatever unlucky herbaro patches that might be in its destructive path. Even though the fire was downwind, the smoke wafted over to him in a huge cloud. At first it was the smoke which suffocate him, but now his lungs were completely filled with whatever fluid he should've drowned in. And it burned more intensely than fire itself, more intensely than the embers that floated around in the smoke and singed his body.

He fell to all fours and tried to expel the substance in his lungs. No matter how much he heaved or coughed up, it never ended, and death never released him.

His luck with the explosion finally ran out and the fire spread his way, consuming even barren land, until it trapped him in a cyclone of flames that roared so loudly he couldn't possibly block out that noise. He would've taken his chances running straight through the wall of fire but he couldn't even breathe, let alone run. And the slime, the heat, the embers, it was all searing his skin to the point of crippling him.

Soon enough his eyes opened and he shot upright into a sitting position. He was sweating and somewhat disoriented. His throat was still aching terribly. His stomach was fine now so he supposed that was good. But what wasn't good was that he was on a bed with a thick and insanely warm cloth piece—a blanket, as Sam described—hugging his whole body.

He thrashed the blanket off and rolled out of bed. There was no carpet like Sam had. It was hard, cold, and undesirable. The bed had stuck out in the middle of a room smaller than Sam's. In fact, this room was nothing like hers. It wasn't remotely similar to hers. It also wasn't where he last remembered being and the fact that darkness had fallen meant plenty of time had passed for anyone to do anything with him—including forcing him into this abominable soft thing that anyone aside from himself would be somehow capable of sleeping on. Even Sam knew beds were taboo to him.

Despite having grown tolerant of the pillow and blanket in Sam's room, where he belonged, he wanted no part of it in this foreign place. He shook off the remaining edges of the blanket and made his way to a closed door, about the same size as Sam's room and therefore the only sense of familiarity he had with this place. He couldn't tell what was behind this door and quite frankly he was in no rush to find out. He learned that good things could wait in the Outside, but bad things would rush him with no warning whatsoever.

It was best if he simply stayed in the room and tried to sleep again. He was still tired and most likely only woke up from the discomfort of that forsaken torture device English-speakers loved to sleep on so much. Plus the pain in his throat only intensified with each passing minute and that in and of itself was something he would go out of his way to avoid. Sleep was sort of like a numbing mechanism. Nothing hurt when one was unconscious.

He sighed and settled into the corner nearest to the door. The floor was so different… He had forgotten how rough it felt when his rings scraped against solid flooring as opposed to the softness of Sam's floor. He missed that softness. He missed the little groove that had formed from his sleeping in the same spot. Hard floors never had grooves like that.

He left the blanket alone entirely. At least Sam had eased him into the one she gave him. These monsters forcibly wrapped him in a thick one that was way too hot. As if that wasn't bad enough they also threw him onto a bed. This was nothing at all like Sam's room. He still couldn't figure out why Sam and Tucker would allow this… They were the ones who took care of him when he was completely helpless and lost in the Outside. They knew him and his likes and dislikes. They knew how to treat him both emotionally and physically. So none of this made any sense.

But seeing as how this was technically still the Outside—probably—there had to be some explanation as to why Sam and Tucker were doing what they were doing. He had to trust their judgment, he hardly had any other choice. It was just…really hard to do that. They were, after all, letting everything repeat itself. It always started with a shot. Now the environment changed to something just as inhospitable as at his first residency. There was already a stinging, aching pain in his throat, of all places. And they had sat back and watched it all happen.

He had to stop asking why. Maybe the answer was better left unknown. Or perhaps it would forever be unknown. It wasn't really up to him either way.

He swore—he swore—a few minutes had passed before a rush of wind slapped him awake. The sun had come out at some point. He was still a bit drowsy despite a clearly possible twelve hours of sleep. Maybe it was grogginess but his worst fear was that the English-speakers were preparing him for a second attempt at Projekto Nivelo Up. The needle, the pain, the new environment, the tiredness…it added up pretty well, all things considered. History did suggest that these changes were for a very specific reason.

"Morni—" The younger English-speaker with the long red hair poked her head around the door to find him just standing up. "Oh, good, you're already up. Time for breakfast!"

And with that she departed. The door was left slightly ajar and he couldn't tell whether or not another English-speaker would be coming in soon, which meant he had to move around the door, open it fully, and see for himself. This nightmare was getting worse by the second…

A/N

So it's off hiatus but delayed this long. *laughs bitterly* Of course. This chapter was supposed to be longer, but I have way too much work piling up so I have to cut it short(er). You're probably tired of hearing this but I'm so sorry, I love writing this story but lately I just haven't been able to. This particular story is very challenging, which I normally love, but it's challenging to the point of taxing my brain, on top of which it's extremely time-consuming. You ever get that feeling when you're so exhausted your brain shuts down and you're just mentally done with everything? That's me most of the time now, even with fun stories. I'll hop on the next chapter now and hopefully I'll have it out in a few weeks.

Oh and on an unrelated note, please do NOT use AncestryDNA or 23andMe. Their privacy policies are wire mesh, you have no privacy at all. Read it if you don't believe me. You'll be surprised how many times they say third parties can and/or will receive your genetic information. Why is it important? If you're predisposed to health issues your

insurance company can pay to get that information. There are a lot of people who can get hold of that information, which is bad for you because you literally gave them your blueprints.