This time, Ghost was left alone, at times thinking he could hear Roach screaming down the hall. When he wasn't awake, he was in a world worse than the waking one, things hidden and forgotten bubbling up to the surface. He more often woke up in a panic than not, heart racing and confusion settled so deeply he wasn't sure of the time that had passed, or if time had passed at all. When he stayed up, his mind would dive back into the old memories, things he had learned about himself coming to the surface and slightly shifting his outlook on things to come. Ghost oftentimes found himself staring at the wall blankly, a weird sense of anger roiling under the surface. He was visited once, by Gonzalo, who had taken in the haggard expression with a sick glee.

"I see isolation does not suit either of you. Gary has been calling for you when it seems he is more lucid than not. Or the other way. It does not matter, I feel like these past few days have done a wonder on his mental health. The new compound has achieved great lengths, but we do need your help one day soon." Ghost had glared until he had left, knowing that no response from him would make Gonzalo angrier than usual.

A few days after the visit, the door opened to Jorge, who without preamble grabbed Ghost by the upper arm and hauled him out, Ghost grumbling threats in Spanish all the while. This only earned small chuckles from the larger man before Ghost was shoved through another doorway, falling haphazardly into a chair. In a whirlwind of movement, Jorge and Juan had managed to strap him down, ignoring the louder swears Ghost threw their way.

"Chinga tu madre." Ghost snarled out as Jorge laughed, a second later a fist colliding with the side of Ghost's head.

"Do you kiss your mother with that mouth? Oh, wait. I am sorry Simon." Gonzalo laughed from behind him. Ghost growled out in anger, tugging at his restraints. "You will only be let out when I allow it. Stop pulling, you will only injure yourself."

"Piss off."

"Simon, please. I brought you here so you could see Gary. He has been asking for you lately, I figured now would be a great time for you to see each other." Gonzalo placed a hand on Ghost's shoulder, who tried to shake it off. Gonzalo only tsked in a light manner, the other hand waving towards Juan. He left the room as Gonzalo stood in front of Ghost, leaning into his face to make eye contact. "I think the change in the past week speaks wonders for itself when you see Gary next. When you two are alone I am more able to...break him." Ghost's anger flared, allowing the small temptation of spitting into Gonzalo's face to win. He gave a smug grin as Gonzalo leaned back in shock, wiping his cheek. "I see you still have some fight in you. I would sedate you, but I want you to witness this." The door reopened, Juan tugging a stumbling Roach behind him.

"Roach!" Roach flinched, eyes looking up to make a semblance of eye contact. The look Ghost received had his heart sink to the bottom of his stomach. Roach looked awful. New cuts and bruises covered most of his entire upper body, and what looked like burns covered the rest. Various points on his arms and legs, and a large angry red line across his chest suggested he was tied down either too tightly, or he struggled that hard in attempts to break free. Decently sized gashes crossed over his legs, still slowly weeping blood. What got to Ghost more was the wild panic in Roach's eyes. "What did you do to him?!"

"We have had an interesting few days. But we did not do this to him." Gonzalo motioned to Juan, who jerked Roach into another chair. Ghost could see the little flinches and shakes Roach tried to hide, breathing deeply to calm himself down. "He did this to himself."

"What a load of bollocks." The fear in Roach's eyes grew sharper at the words.

"I do not lie, Simon. You know this." Gonzalo could barely contain his exhilaration at the thought, looking between the two. "We could show you, if you do not believe me Simon." Roach let out a barely audible whimper.

"Fuck you." Ghost spat out. He was seething, tugging at his bonds as Roach shrank into his chair. Gonzalo gave a short laugh, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a covered syringe. Roach tried to shrink back further as he let out a choked sob, eyes widening immensely the closer Gonzalo got. He removed the cover, the tip of the needle placed just barely on the skin.

"Unless you wanted to try this first, Simon? Feel it first-hand?" Before Ghost could answer, he watched the needle pierce skin, the plunger slowly sinking down. Gonzalo grinned. "You did not speak up fast enough." Roach began hyperventilating, gasping out "No, not again please, please!" The abrupt silence in the room as Roach's head dropped onto his chest left Ghost gutted. Roach had pleaded for it to stop. Just how bad was this?

"What's going on, what did you give 'im?" Ghost was trying to watch for anything as Roach kept his head down, breathing evening out slowly.

"This is an improvement to the drug we had given you before. Specially formulated for Gary. It suppresses him, letting us give orders he follows without question." Gonzalo explained, still smiling. "A drawback for him, however, is that he is clearly able to recall every order we give. He cannot fight it off, he has tried. Each burn is when he was trying to resist. You can see there are several."

"You're mental." Ghost could just barely talk, sinking back into his chair in shock. He watched Roach closely as Juan undid the restraints, looking for anything that would prove Gonzalo wrong. He found none.

"Stand up, Gary, we should have you demonstrate." With no hesitation, Roach stood up fully, a vacant look on his face. Gonzalo offered Roach a small pocket knife, watching Ghost.

"Wipe that shite look off your face." Ghost grumbled, eyes not leaving Roach.

"Ready for a demonstration?" When he got no answer, Gonzalo huffed out before turning back to Roach. "Cut one line shallow on the back of your left hand, Gary, to show Simon." Roach flicked open the knife, blade resting on the back of his hand in an instant. With a slight amount of pressure, Roach pushed down, letting blood slowly seep out before dragging it back. There was no trace of pain on his features as he stopped, the line going just below his knuckles.

Ghost couldn't do anything in shock, barely hearing Gonzalo speak up as he watched Roach. This was a completely different level than before. The level of compliance was significantly higher than the previous method.

"...I did tell Roba that his method came up with more dead bodies than minds." Ghost finally muttered out.

"Yes, and I did tell him the same. The only drawback to this method is their muteness. I am sure we can make changes and avoid that hindrance, but I like Gary to be silent for now." Gonzalo waved a hand. "Kevin and Marcus were the last two failures of that particular method." He walked over to Roach, placing an arm over his shoulders. "This is the development that I had sought out before you killed my father. But since this is the result I have now, why push it forward more?"

"Wish I could have stopped to find you to kill you myself." Ghost muttered darkly. "Would have solved a lot of my current problems."

"And to miss out on opportunities like this? Simon we are advancing medicine here." Gonzalo lifted his arms up in excitement. "Look at this, Gary was once terrified but now he can do anything I tell him without the slightest hesitation." He turned to Roach, looking at the knife with a sudden thought. "This could break him even more. Make him more compliant." Gonzalo looked to Ghost, an unnerving smile on his face that had Ghost trying hard to suppress the sudden shudder.

"You are such a sick bastard." Ghost spat out, glaring as he tried once more to tug on his bonds.

"Gary, stab that knife into Simon's right thigh please." Gonzalo spoke with glee, Roach walking slowly forward. He stopped short, moving the knife to a reverse grip before swinging down, striking Ghost's leg and managing to hit bone. Ghost couldn't help the shout of pain, feeling some of the muscle tear as blood poured down his leg. He felt the knife pull out slowly, breathing heavily through his nose to stifle any noises.

"You absolute wanker-!" Ghost didn't hear when Gonzalo had told Roach to pierce his left shoulder, their faces mere inches apart. Ghost tried to make eye contact, but the lifeless eyes in front of him had him look away with guilt. "I'll fuckin' kill you you piece of shite." he hissed out angrily.

"Gary I know you are resisting. Place the knife on Simon's left side, lower torso over his old scar." Gonzalo watched with predatory eyes, sitting in another chair that Ghost didn't know where it came from. "For each time you have resisted an order, press in two centimeters." Ghost wasn't surprised when the knife pressed in or shocked when it was almost to the hilt. He was able to hold back the groan of pain, taking smaller breaths so his ribs wouldn't expand as much and make it worse. "Hm. Not as far as I thought. Possibly eight centimeters. I wonder why that is." Gonzalo gave a hum of thought before telling Roach to sit down. Juan proceeded to strap him back down, Gonzalo standing up and moving the chair to the side. "The dosage I had given Gary was only for a few moments, he should be fully back with us in a moment."

"Bastard." Ghost grumbled out. He could hear Roach let out a groan before letting his head fall forward, breathing speeding up slightly. "So what now. You've perfected your psychotic bullshite."

"Well my plans have changed with this development. We could accelerate the process. But where would the fun in that be?" Gonzalo shrugged. "I feel like the anticipation is more worth it to the end result. I have to rethink how these next twenty five days will proceed." Ghost paled at the days. Had it been over a week since Toad and Meat had shown up? "Did you not realize what day it was? Oh this is interesting. Isolation left you unable to tell of time passing. Not unexpected, but I am willing to bet that you thought at most four days had passed." Roach let out a small whimper as he lifted his head up, shying away from Gonzalo. "Are you finally with us?" Roach gave a jerky nod after several moments of silence.

"So where does that leave us?" Ghost asked, flicking his eyes between Gonzalo and Roach.

"You and me? I feel like you could do with some more time alone. I have more planned for later, but I feel as if I am...giving you too much space lately." If it was possible, Ghost paled more. "Ah, you do remember."

"Like I'll le-" Ghost winced, a needle in his arm. He hadn't realized Jorge approach from behind, syringe in hand before the silent command was given. Ghost could hear Roach gasp as he was also injected with possibly the same thing. They made slight eye contact, Ghost trying to fight it off long enough to give Roach some kind of assurance before the fog returned. All of the fear and nervousness swept away swiftly, leaving him feeling empty. The man standing in front of him was watching him. Why was he watching him. Was that a box where did it come from? There was a weird feeling in his chest but he wasn't sure why that was there. Someone moved the straps off his arms or he thinks its his arms he wasn't really sure.

"Stand up." Ok standing up, he can do that it wasn't an issue. That was easy what els-

"Go to the box and get in Simon." Get in the box got it that wasn't so hard but that weird feeling in his chest wasn't going away. But this was easy what else did the man want him to do? He could do something else if the man wanted but that weird feeling got worse. Oh they closed the box that feeling is bad wh-

Ghost felt pain worse than agony for a few moments as the drug had left his system, curling in on himself as his voice gave out from yelling. At least this time he wasn't thrashing against bonds, just the four walls of the box he was in. His heart was racing still after it wore off, instead from the full blown panic attack he was going through. He was breathing too shallowly to attempt to calm himself, instead shaking and curling up tighter. He wasn't sure if he heard Roach screaming his name, or at all. All his brain could process in his panic was that he was in a box.

And now there were things crawling in the box with him.

So. It's been a while. How's everyone's quarantine? I've been working this whole time and so far we've been fine. But that's with taking every precaution available to me while I'm at work. Lots of hand sanitizer and hand washing. Make sure you all stay healthy.

And let me know how bad this is