Waking up to the calming sight of an older woman with a kitchen knife was the sign that one was experiencing visual hallucinations. In Troy’s experience, though, there was only so much detail the brain could point out. It was not too far fetched that the damned clump of flesh would think itself the most creative thing in the room, not even sparing a thought for the terrifying reality that space was the truest form of randomness.

Flashy colours, flying swallows, and the taste of blue bread could always be imagined, it all so absurd could easily be imagined by the mind. With a purely blurry background, it could even show it off to whoever was able to see, making their day an absolute nightmare of migraines.

And then… there were other scenarios that even the mind could not have begun to have taken credit for. It was those that were seated on a realistic look, yet were still close enough to the edge that it would require one too many seconds to understand. Troy knew himself to make himself have delusions, but nothing could amount to the sight before him now.

"Where did you even get the knife?" Troy said, his voice more baffled than anything else. He was still not understanding what was going, nor was he beginning to relax from the sight, as Dr Hale was still continuing her slow march over to the bed. She was mere meters from him, yet the distance was falling rapidly. The room was not that big, after all.

Her face betrayed nothing, and her movements were as methodical as ever. Her gaze was calculated, penetrating his body with intensity. If she was to state that Troy would die, he would fully believe without having a doubt inside himself. Dr Hale just looked that sure of herself, as if she had gone through everything that could possibly happen a million times over. The actions were not fluid. They were practised.

The fact of how the motions were described did nothing to preserve Troy’s collective sanity, however, as the knife plunged into his pillow, less than ten centimetres from his face. From the wide arm used for the stab, there were doubts if it had that precise to start with. While it was likely another delusion on top, the young man hoped that it was, as the knife was even closer to the ends of his hair than he felt comfortable being with his own hands. Those stalks were precious! They had been groomed for so long, so those hairs did not deserve such an unwanted fate.

"It might be hard for your thick head to grasp, but some people do activities other than lazing about," Dr Hale answered, pulling out the knife from the pillow. No feathers followed it. Not too much of a surprise, since the fabric was fully synthetic. "Do be something better than a sack of excrement, and remove yourself from the bed. I believe neither of us is comfortable with the current positions."

That was a mild way to say it. Troy was feeling legitimate fear from having sharp objects close to his eyes and hair, while Dr Hale was similarly getting to see the half-naked body of a younger person. Oh, how they both suffered and was going through so much- Who was she fucking kidding? She was wielding a knife. Troy was almost ready to shit himself in fear, and here she was, saying that they were having similar emotions running through them? Either she had a phobia of some kind, or she was just uncaring about how he felt about it all. Yeah, that was probably it. Empathy seemed to be a missing feature in the ongoing scenario. Troy decided to not tempt fate and hurried off his bedding.

It was a lucky thing that he slept in sweatpants, or it would have been a much more awkward situation. As the pressure fell on his body to hold up, a mild soreness could be felt on him. There was not enough to take notice of for long, as his mind adapted to it incredibly quickly, yet there were clearly still effects from the previous day of fitness. Charlie would likely need to know of that when they met up.

"There," Troy said the moment he got himself off the bed, feet have hit the floor. It was cold, and the toes were curling because of it. Whoever was in control of the floor temperature were clearly sadists. How had he not noticed that before? Did he just always wear socks? Such important questions were not allowed to be found reasonable answers to, as the movement of particularly sharp objects drew his eyes. "What now?"

There was a nod made towards the messy pile of clothes that Troy had made for himself. It was the set he always used, always wore no matter what. The fabric was self-cleaning, able to remove any odour from itself in the time it would take the young man to sleep. Most of all, though, they were also warm to have on. That was something very important for the man, seeing as he was ready to get frostbite from standing around in the open room. However, this nod that was supposed to express deep desperation was possibly taken as a nod that was inherently meaningless. The dead-end stare sent back most definitely told nothing about her ideas of him, other than a mild contempt.

"Seeing as you have indulged yourself into listening to your superiors," Dr Hale began off, sounding like it was torture to get those words out of her mouth. Not because of their content, but due to who it was being told to, as if he was too low in ranking to even be acknowledged by somebody as high up as her. If that was not method acting, Troy was not sure what he was supposed to call it. He could feel the hatred sent his way. "There might even be a chance of you having secured the device I wanted. Did you decide to not be a failure today, or do I need to use this hobby of mine to show just how encouraging I can be?"

Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

Oh, yeah. That device. Troy must have been still half-asleep or something, his mind not having registered just why Dr Hale would be visiting so early in the day. A glance at the alarm clock allowed him to see that he was still not supposed to wake up for another half hour. Very punctual that woman was, as she had come at the same time a day earlier.

With the early hour, he had only gotten himself six hours of sleep. Or it might have been five and a half, if one was to put in the half-hour where he had lied in bed, trying not to stress himself to death about the fact that he had a million-dollar device under his bed.

What else was he supposed to do with the bloody thing? Put it on his bedside table, so that he could look at it while going to sleep? Maybe in the bathroom, where it could get the privacy that something of that calibre deserved to have. Honestly, foreign governments would sell a literal ton of organs for a chance to have a look at the blasted thing, and here Troy was, hiding it under his bed as if he was some school child.

No, wait. How would Dr Hale fit into that analogy? He was fetching it for her, so what would she be, if he was the little kid hiding it? Perhaps a drug-addicted parent? A friend in a tough spot could technically fit better, but he had trouble accepting that as a mirror to reality. The parent idea was much easier to visualise, if not a little more disturbing from all possible sides.

"It's under the bed. Took more time than I had hoped, but I acquired it in the end," Troy said, getting down on his knees so he could pull it out gently. Dr Hale only watched, arms crossed in an impatient fashion and the knife still being in the right hand. He could see it was clenched hard enough to turn the skin pale.

With a hard pull, the machine was gotten out of the darkness of cover, revealing its metallic sheen to the two people in the room. Troy was mentally trying to ignore the intense gaze Dr Hale was putting on it, yet the atmosphere from it was hard to get out of.

"So… is this-" he tried to say but was cut off near-instantly.

"Shut up," Dr Hale said, throwing the knife on the bed as if it had not just been used as a very effective intimidation tool. Her eyes were on the device on the floor, and it took mere seconds before her hands were on it as well. Troy had held it himself as well, but the intense posture of the woman was more than enough for him to get a little distance started.

… Alright. Troy was not as fucked as he had otherwise thought. By the count of five, he began to think that Dr Hale might have forgotten he even existed, as she extensively analysed the circular disk. Her hands grazed around the engravings as if they had all the secrets in the world. To him, it was all just random points that were kinda symmetrical, but nothing else could have been gained from it. Those squares could only hold six dots each, so it was possibly just a more complex numbering system. Charlie was somebody who would do some stupid thing like that.

As there was no revulsion sent his way, Troy thought it a good idea to get himself out of his sleeping attire. Grabbing his clothes, he went out of his room and into the bathroom to change. No complaints were heard from it, fortunately, but he did nevertheless be as quick as he could. While the bear had not been hit with the stick, there was always a chance that the rock would fall.

Coming out again, he was met with the sight of Dr Hale holding the disk, watching the red button on the top with a sceptical eye. Her positioning allowed her to only barely move her eyes to look at Troy directly. Yet even that small motion looked to have caused her much revulsion.

"Am I to guess that you know how this works? The instructions to it are just a mumbling of rhymes. If that had any chance of being your handiwork, I would have applauded you for the major inconvenience. Yet, there is little chance you would ever be able to make such detail," Dr Hale stated, not looking happy by the long time spent having her fat mouth open. It had gotten to the point where Troy was feeling something similarly right back.

He did not really mean it, knowing that her attitude was an act, yet it was just so hard not to feel something at the moment. That had been his defining feature back in the day, not knowing when to keep his trap shut. Too many bosses had loved the moments where he talked back, congratulating him on their ability to then fire him on the spot without a paycheck to his name.

"You press the button on the top, and it will do what it is intended to do," Troy said, reciting the last thing Charlie had told him the night before. The instructions really were foolproof at that point, simple enough that any old idiot would be able to understand. And, seeing as Troy was the lowest on the IQ spectrum in a radius of ten kilometres, there was little doubt that Dr Hale would understand just as well.

"No secret codes?" Dr Hale asked, sounding as if it was more of a precaution than anything else. "No possibility of electrocution if one presses it too hard?"

"Not that I know of."

"... If you are so sure, I shall give you the premium offer of pressing the button for me."

"Are you sure-"

"You can also get the opportunity of getting the knife pressed into your skin."

Well, if she put it like that, Troy would have no choice but to do as she wished. And, it was not like there was any chance of it killing him the moment he pressed it. Charlie may have been an extravagant person, but he would at least mention any of the more extreme precautions that he had on him. Wait. That sounded like the exact opposite of the mental picture Troy had of the man. Not a good thing to realise, as his hand was already moving.

His palm hit firmly down, and the button sounded out with a loud click. So it began.