I’m so sick, so very sick… ugh, I won’t be at school tomorrow, so I can begin my 5 days of 5000 words per day. Why do I have to write 5000 words per day for the next 5 days? Because I am 8333 words behind schedule. Therefore, to catch up I am going to go the normal 3333 words + 1667 words extra to make up for words lost. 3333 + 1667 = 5000. Four days of doing 5000 words catches me up two days of lost words. I’m two and a half days behind, therefore I do five days of 5000 words.

G’night, folks. I need the rest.

Oh, by the way: Hemmings won’t be in Pharand for long. So if you’re thinking Pharand is kind of boring, it’s because something is about to happen…

Word Count: 51,782

I followed Dr. Afalsi and two other men through the bleach-white hallways and into an off-white room. In the room was a table and a chair, a stool for me, and nothing for the other two men to sit on. We sat down (the other two men stood – I wasn’t entirely sure what they were there for). Light from above made the room feel like an interrogation chamber, and I was the terrorist. The friendly atmosphere I had known not long ago dissolved in that flash of light. Afalsi sat across the table from me. “Sing for me,” he was thinking. “Sing for me, my puppet – all the songs of your knowledge let me hear.”

But what he actually said was, “So, how are you?”

“Doctor, let me tell you that I am perfectly fine. In fact, I’m happy. I’m happy to be here and work under you. I’m happy that there are two completely random people also standing in this room, and I’m happy that, of all the places I could have ended up in life, it was in a company called Pharand – because really, it’s the only place I’ve ever wanted to work in.” I wonder if he caught my bad mood, brought on by the atmosphere of the room. I was volatile at that moment – I had had a rough sleep the night before, and had a headache. But Afalsi just laughed. He thought that I was really joking!

“Dr. Hemmings, you’re a funny one alright. Keep that up and you’ll be at my level in no time. But please, tell me a little more about your experience with Athan’s Disease. I need to get a feel for how much you truly know so that I can teach you the rest.”

I spilled it all out to him – the four patients, the strange symptoms, the autopsies, the plasma, the spider web of bacteria choking each and every organ in the human body. He heard every gruesome word, and didn’t once flinch or comment. He was the perfect listener – he simply absorbed and spat out. He did not process the information. I could see that my tales were actually boring him. Had so many already been sick with Athan’s that this was nothing new to him? “Dr. Afalsi,” I said, “are you listening?”

“Of course, lad. I never stop listening; it’s one of the abilities I pride myself on having. Do you think I didn’t hear something you said?”

“I think you heard it; I just don’t think you listened. But that’s alright, it probably wasn’t important anyway. You can live without listening to it.” The rest of the conversation went on in this manner, and by the hour’s end he knew everything I knew. Now I could learn from him.

“After,” he said, “our lunch break.”

“A lunch break?” I questioned. “Surely this can’t wait for our lunch, Dr. Afalsi.”

“Oh, surely it can. My boy, everything waits for lunch in this building. You’ll see why soon – follow me to the cafeteria.”

We both got up and went down several flights of to stairs to the cafeteria, which was a complete madhouse. In this room, you did precisely what Dr. Afalsi described – waited for lunch. Even the people had to wait for lunch in this strange place. Everything stood still in this cafeteria, even though everybody was moving and there was a lot of hustle and bustle. I waited on line as well for my lunch, but not beside Afalsi. I waited in a place far removed from where he was, and did not meet up at any cafeteria table to eat with him. I saw him eating with many of his cohorts in the bleach-white cafeteria, while I ate alone in a more atmospheric area: outside. There I could get the comfort of eating under a painting coupled with the lack of urgency of the rural area. I ate in peace, until Dr. Afalsi came looking for me. At that time I knew that things were returning to normal and even he wouldn’t wait for my lunch. Perhaps that’s the curse of eating with a backdrop – people are interested in the backdrop, and eventually find you in front of it, blocking the way. They’re so tempted to move you. So they make you busy, and you go away.

In the lab, room 202, he showed me his cultures. He had grown them in strange patterns, and commanded how they behaved. I saw endless examples of how the Athan’s could be manipulated through what that man showed me. But it wasn’t my job to look at his cultures – he just wanted me to get a feel for the building and working in Pharand from that point forward. What I would really be doing is working with those two men who had been standing in the “interrogation room” with us. That’s why they had come – to find out how much their new partner knew. And I knew that they were already mere inches away from a cure, although I didn’t know how the cure worked.

Later that day I was introduced to those two men as my partners, and we began work. They told me that there wasn’t much I had to do – that I should “stay put” and “stick to holding the rats down.” They didn’t want me near any of the equipment, lest I break something in two. But I assured them that I knew what I was doing. Even then, they still didn’t let me handle much. It took days before they allowed me to do anything, and by that time it was almost the weekly morning meeting. Every week, once a week, the chemists and biomedical engineers would gather and state their progress on whatever they were researching – and we had to sit through it. Afalsi whispered to me that I’d only need to hear a few of these before I could opt out of them. They weren’t relevant to me, but I didn’t know what he meant by “opt out” of the morning meetings. I assumed, foolishly, that I would be able to do normal work during the meetings.

I was given a dorm-style place to live in while I worked at Pharand. I lived with my two coworkers, and Afalsi was in the building next to us. These apartments were a far drive away from Pharand’s building itself, but everything was far away from each other in that area. It felt as though you were in space, travelling from star to star. Being in the Pharand-owned dormitories, however, felt nice. It was a bit nostalgic for me, because I hadn’t lived the dormitory lifestyle since graduating from college so many, many years previous. However, unlike college, my roommates were actually doing work most of the time. I wanted desperately to join in, but they never allowed me to do so. I was completely powerless – and was told that if I argued too much with my coworkers that I could be reassigned to work somewhere else against my will. I didn’t feel like losing my job so quickly, but I did find out that Pharand had more in store for me than I originally thought.

It took a few days to find out that those two people were not who I would be working with for the duration of my stay at Pharand. I would be, as Afalsi had so eloquently put it, be “hopping around” Pharand, doing all sorts of things. My knowledge of Athan’s was greater than most people’s in the building, and so I was of use everywhere to help people understand what they were doing. Not surprisingly, not everybody understood what the disease did or why they were being told to work with it. I was never told how the cure would work, but I assumed that in time I would find out everything I needed to know. I had begun to switch to different research teams every day, aiding their projects that in some way related to Athan’s Disease – but it was the original two people that had rejected me that I knew were working on what would eventually become the widely distribute cure for Athan’s Disease. I coerced them, once night, to allow me to develop what I knew was a horrible mistake they were making with their serum. If somebody had taken this formula, the strangest side effects might have ensued – or, even worse, the bacteria might have fed off of it. I made sure to avoid sugar at all times while developing the serum.

I brought it back to the team the next day. I had kept it away in my bedroom with me, using my own chemicals and supplies to tweak it, and cultures that I’d been keeping with me from the labs in ice pack-filled boxes. I had spread some of the solution onto the bacteria the night before, and was hoping that the next day several of them might be dead. Unfortunately, they were far from it – it looked like the antibiotic had done little to kill the bacteria, although making it slightly acidic had destroyed a few of them. I began to think back to the plasma I’d used to over the bacteria away. Could they really be defeated by any conventional means? I doubted it. And then, the night that I had returned my failed antibiotic to my two coworkers, I knew how to kill Athan’s Disease. My coworkers were already grateful for my work on their antibiotic serum, but they were about to worship the ground at my feet. It would only take a few days to prepare, but I knew it would work.