This took a long while to get out. I take accidental breaks from Scratch that can last months. I apologise for any inconvenience. This is likely to continue. Disclaimer: Any relations to real-world events/people (names, characters, etc.) are almost entirely coincidental, if at all. THIS IS THE SECOND PART OF CHAPTER 3. I ADVISE AGAINST READING IT BEFORE/WITHOUT PREVIOUS CHAPTERS. Chapter 1: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/885353288/ Chapter 2: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/885702071/ Chapter 3-1: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/889989721 Book is in notes and credits I had to make this a second part so that it would actually fit in the Notes and Credits section - there is a character limit that I wasn't aware of. #all #book #story
"I was wondering how that face moved... Can you move them yourself?" Mum asked. "I honestly have no clue. But apparently the visor can open in order to access my face - for eating and stuff like that." I replied. "Well," Dr. Berhert interjected, "You are making an amount of sense that adds up to exactly zero, but that seems normal for you at this point, so I'd just like to see that open to see if what you're saying is at least sensibly nonsensical." "I can try..." I said, wondering how that could even be done. All I ended up doing was making awkward effort noises and weird faces. "That doesn't seem to be working, you know," Mum told me. "I can tell." "Do you know anything else to try?" "If I did, I wouldn't be making silly faces." "Well, what are you going to do?" "Probably nothing until I get hungry." "Fair enough. If you don't feel any hunger or thirst, what about anything else? Fatigue? Pain, maybe?" Before I could answer, Dr. Berhert decided the conversation had gone on without him for long enough - which was only about ten seconds. "I should be asking those questions, Ms. Menken." "So should I. I'm his mother. And you know my first name; why don't you use it?" "Well, I thought it would be more formal..." "Leo, please answer the question, anyway," Mum said, "I prefer your voice over this doctor's, especially when you need to say something important." I told her truthfully, "I feel nothing wrong. In fact, I feel less wrong than I have before. Which is quite odd, as you might expect, because there was nothing wrong before and nothing felt wrong. Since nothing felt wrong, it seems impossible for anything less than that, but here I am, feeling this. Does that make any sense to either of you?" "Unfortunately, no," The two said in unison. Dr. Berhert continued: "This is not a description that I have heard before, in my many years of medical education and experience." He tapped some keys on a computer that seemed to be attached to the wall. After a second, he said, "And neither have the rest of the hospitals this side of Britain, and that's all I have access to. Huh." I nodded. "So, nobody else has ever had this? Hmm," I said, before jokingly adding, "They probably should, I think; you at least get built-in armour." "Should they indeed?" Mum said, "I wonder what actually happened to you... Surely someone else has had this at some point?" Dr. Berhert leaned in. "I am not allowed to say any patient information because it's private and all that, but what I can say is that there is no person who has the same thing. I have already told you this." "Then why say anything at all?" "Because I have nothing else to say. And I don't think you do either." "So we just sit in silence now then until I get hungry?" "Yes, I suppose." And so we did just that. After a while, there was a knock on the door. "Who could that be?" Mum asked. "I don't know," Dr. Berhert replied, before standing up and opening the door. "Who are you?" "I'm an apprentice, so I have no 'doctor' in front of my title - you get to call me by my first name: I'm Bethany. And I have some news for you," said a voice from the other side of the door. "What kind of news?" "Well, I wouldn't say it's bad news - not in this context, at least. There is another patient with the same condition as young Mr. Menken here. She's just woken up."
