'Voices… I can hear… too soft… what are they… saying…?'
009 muttered as he began to come to. He barely cracked his eyes open, and pure, white light nearly blinded him. He recoiled, protecting his eyes with his arm. His eyes widened as he felt something tugging on his arm. His eyes traveled across his skin until he saw an IV tube sticking out.
"An IV tube!?"
Just as he expected, there was a pouch of liquid that hung upon a pole on a wheel.
009's eyes darted around wildly. What was he doing in the sick bay of the Dolphin? Panic rose inside him; why was he here? Did something happen? What if-
His panic rush was cut short by the door opening. Dr. Gilmore walked in, wearing that infamous face of worry and concentration.
"Dr. Gilmore! What am I doing here? How did I get here? Is something wrong?" 009 bombarded the old doctor as soon as he got within earshot, sitting straight up.
The doctor stood at 009's bedside, sighing deeply.
"009, I am deeply sorry… I feel horrible about this entire ordeal…" He began.
"What? Why are you sorry?" 009 inquired in a panicky voice.
"I might as well give it to you straight." Dr. Gilmore sighed yet again, and finally uttered those words that turned 009's life upside-down.
"I'm afraid that I have misdiagnosed you."
009 felt as though somebody had punched him in the stomach with an iron fist. He just sat there, wide-eyed and shaking as he struggled to absorb it all.
"B-but… I… I thought it was just a cold…" He said with an unstable voice. "I just fell asleep, and then I wound up… in here…"
"You did re-awake. In your room. You had lost your memory and you began to vomit, then you passed out. You barely knew who you were, and who any of us were." Dr. Gilmore explained, cringing at the awful site that had just reoccurred a couple of hours ago. "004 reported this to me when he and 002 had to carry you in here. And… we do not have a diagnosis."
009 was at loss of words. He just sat there, aghast. This couldn't be happening. This couldn't be real. He must have been dreaming. If being misdiagnosed was the case, then it'd mean working much, much harder to find the real diagnosis. How many more tests would there be, and how painful would all of them be? Flashes of critical medical equipment, blood, and other gruesome things flashed in his mind wildly, overwhelming him.
"009?" Dr. Gilmore said, trying to get 009's attention. "009! Snap out of it!"
As the wild, flashing images seemed to be getting bigger and even more realistic in 009's mind, his eyes widened as if the most horrifying thing was standing right in front of him. He clutched his head with both hands, falling back onto the bed.
"Oh God… no… this… this can't… no…" He murmured between gasps of air.
Suddenly, Dr. Gilmore heard the beeping of the heart rate monitor as it increased at insanely high speeds. 009 thrashed wildly from side to side as an awful sensation wracked his body. He didn't know what it was, but whatever it might have been, it felt as though it was killing him.
"Oh no, he's going into sinus tachycardia!" The doctor exclaimed as he studied the heart rate monitor.
009 screamed as he felt his body recede into a pain equal to that of the spinal tap. He clutched the sheets as he felt the searing agony pulsate through him in awful waves. All he could hear was Dr. Gilmore hollering at him to wake up as the old doctor rattled him by the shoulders, trying to snap him out of the spasm.
