Author's note: I want to point out that this will definitely turn out to be something similar to an AU fanfic, in the sense that if the events depicted here were actually to happen, some of the plotline of Trauma Center: New Blood would definitely change drastically.

As the night closed in around my half of the world, I sat with my mother within a desolately empty waiting room. They had finally figured out that whatever was going on would take surgery, and it was scheduled for 7:00… That was about 10 minutes before now.

The one thing the retards could get right…

The operating room had to be nearby… and I had to see how the poor fools were getting along.

"Mom?" I said calmly. "I'm gonna go to the bathroom, alright?"

"Alright," nodded my mother.

So I got up and walked out of the waiting room, but instead of walking to the east to head to the restrooms… I headed west. West, toward the long hallway that was divided in half by gray doors. From the map that was framed on the wall behind me, that door was the wall between me and discovery.

It was a thought that had bugged me all night.

Emily's situation was very similar to that which would come out of whatever this Stigma was… but what if it was just… appendicitis or something? That was possible. I could have been getting myself all worked up, or even killed, over something that wasn't what I thought.

But another flashback whisked my mind…

("The infectivity will be huge, despite its one drawback," that paper in the sewer had read. "Which is that it feeds only off of a material known as Culurium. Therefore, it will only attack people with artificial mechanisms or fluids within them, such as artificial blood, organs, pacemakers… the whole lot.")

Emily had been involved in a disgustingly horrible accident about 5 years prior to this, which was around 2 years before we had even met. Just a year before we knew of each other's existence. She was in a carpentry class, when she went to tie her shoe and bumped a running blade saw off of a table and onto her hand, where her right index finger was chopped off. Her passion was art, and she was right-handed, so she was broken-hearted and was determined to do anything possible to either get a fake finger or have a finger transplant done.

Her wish was granted. Therefore, something artificial coincided with her body.

But did it have Culurium?

When I stepped up to one of the gray doors, I readily put my hand on it. Doctors just burst through these doors when an emergency was taking place, right? Was there a chance that a civilian would get caught in the same act?

I decided to try that question by pushing and opening that door.

Nothing. Not a sound but the distant murmurs of calm patients getting themselves through the day with idle chat.

I carefully stepped through the door and held it as it closed.

Here, the were labeled with the patient's name. I tiptoed down the hallway, scanning the whiteboard that hung upon each door.

Ryan Poynter… Caitlyn Yoquelet…

Third door was the charm. This was Emily's room. I carefully stepped over to the door and put my ear up against it. Wow! It was almost like a single headphone. I could hear every futile word… every mundane beep… every bout of chilling silence.

"I reckon it's just a case of appendicitis," said a surgeon. "Which is an emergency, though!"

"The patient's out cold," sighed a nurse. "Open her up."

Impatiently, I grimaced, waiting for the next word to be spoken. Every second of the silence jabbed at my stomach. Maybe I really was in over my head.

I was about to detach my ear from the door… when panic finally erupted from behind it.

"Woah… hang on… what the hell is this thing?!"

"What the hell are those things?!"

"They're like arrowheads of some sort… some with a pinkish core, another with a blue one. I-I don't understand!"

"I-It has to be a worm of some sort! Something synthetic, maybe? It's just swimming around in her liver like… like it's a public pool or something!"

"I can't grab it! Something won't let me!"

"Is it right under the skin of her liver? Maybe you have to cut to it with the scalpel!"

"…It worked for the blue core, but not for the pink one… Agh! The blue one just burrowed back into her liver!"

"What the hell are we dealing with here?!"

("There are 6 strains of it," that paper had stated. "They are all very mobile in some way. Three of them swim around… One acts like an earthworm, burrowing in and out of the organ… Another has arms that clench down on the organ and withdraw when attacked…")

Sounded like the surgeon's struggles. The connection screamed within my mind.

I had to be right, then. What I didn't know is that it'd take me places.

If my calculations were correct… Emily had at least one strain of Stigma.