Walker fell to his knees, his head screaming. He couldn’t tell if his eyes were open or closed.

“Chet…” He whispered; his throat felt caked with dust.

He attempted to get on his feet, but his ankles were straw, and his balance was as useful as a lifeguard at the Olympics.

As such he was forced to limply wait and blink the light away. His peripheral vision returned soon enough; however dark patches sat in the center of his vision.

“-And made this just with material you found at the scrapyard?” Squeaked a man.

Walker tried to focus on the two conversing past the table Chet worked on.

“That’s right. Except for the shard of Stardust in the center. That cost me my left n-, significantly more.”

“I’m head of the engineering department, if you’re interested-”

Abandoning the conversation, Walker tentatively placed his feet beneath him. Vision still puckered with black pixels, he tried to focus on the two conversing but found their slight movements disconcerting.

Motion lag. If they gestured with their hands, afterimages followed. Familiar. Walker squeezed his eyes shut, counted three shaky seconds, then reopened them.

It was worse.

Waves, like the ones coming off asphalt on a hot summer’s day, irradiated off their bodies at certain times and frequencies. Almost like they moved into the waves.

He stood up, shaking his head.

“It's today’s generation, there’s just no innovation- hey is your friend, okay?” came the same nasally voice.

Chet turned, “You good dog?”

The room was uncomfortably warm. His clothes scratched at his sweaty skin.

“Peachy.” The pupils in his skull rolled like billiard balls. “Bathroom,” Walker commanded.

The man with the glasses from before spoke up, “Down the hall on the right.”

Walker stumbled toward the doors. The freshmen from before bore holes in the back of his head. The hinges screeched as the double doors slammed open.

“If you leave the building, you’ve gone too far!” yelled the man.

Something was wrong. It wasn’t the fact that his body was secreting buckets of saliva from his throat. Nor was it the nails of pain shooting from behind his eyes. It was the feeling that something was terribly, irreversibly, wrong.

“Whats happ-” He hacked up phlegm and spit it on the wall. Bloody mucus slid down the walls.

First door: locked.

Second door: electrical.

Third door: Men’s room.

It had a knob.

His fingers clumsily smacked against the door. He leaned against the door, “C'mon…” he breathed.

His movements were clunky, like he was controlling his body with a defunct controller, all the while looking through a mirror. His hand finally grasped the knob, twisted it, and pulled.

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Locked.

Tears filled his vision. Although not tears of sadness, or pain. A familiar feeling over these last few days.

One moment he was leaning against the door, the next his face sat slumped against the tile. Dirt rubbed against his face. Paper towels surrounded his body. Strength fleeting, Walker stumbled the last few feet and crashed into the handicapped stall.

The moment right before someone vomiting was the worst. It was the knowledge that something was coming followed by the excess excretion of salvia in his mouth. Then that moment, when his body squeezed rigid, his head straightened, and bile erupted from his throat and nose.

Twice more this happened.

Walker wiped his mouth the best he could with toilet paper.

“Shit.” Both the toilet contents and the toilet paper were bloody. Nausea was the worst. Breaking a bone hurt, but you didn’t always have to put pressure on it. Getting a cut stings, but it fades. But nausea lasts for hours, whether moving or not.

“You don’t look too good.”

Walker turned his head just enough to see Chet awkwardly standing behind him.

“Leave me alone Chet.”

Chet continued, “Praying to the porcelain shrine? That’s what my grandfather always said. Sorry I didn’t come earlier. I don’t know if you saw the guy I was talking to. Chief of engineering at the university. At first, he scolded me a bit-” Chet rose his voice by a few octaves, “’You could have blinded someone. You should’ve tested it first in small increments.’ Blah blah blah. You think Oppenheimer didn’t take risks? Fitz Haber? Dr. Joseph-Ignace Guillotin? Anyway, after that whole spiel, he invited me to this club. I think it’ll be pretty exclusive, and he didn’t exactly say what it will entail but I think he implied P.I.P might be involved-”

Walker ripped the toilet paper dispenser off the stall and threw it into the wall above the toilet. Plastic pieces flew in different directions as they clattered against the porcelain. Walker pushed his fingers into the jagged holes and smashed it brick again. The plastic disintegrated into his hands until the largest bits of plastic remaining were the brittle pieces embedded in his palms.

He spun around, panting. Chet had backed up to the sink. His mouth lay slightly agape, and his eyes had squinted.

“What’s wrong with you?”

Walker stepped forward, and for the briefest moment, he caught the slight flex of Chet leaning forward.

“What's wrong with me!? Last week I almost died!” Walker began to hyperventilate, inhaling between each word. “You know how that feels?”

Chet opened his mouth but Walker cut him off, “You don’t. You don’t know. What else? I’m living on the fucking street. Just like every other piece of scum.”

“You didn’t tell me you-”

“Why would I? Who’d want to tell someone that you’re…” Walker slid against the wall to the ground and stared at his hands. They were rough, like gravel, and blood. Pearly white pus seeped from the wounds to mix with the drying bright red blood.

They didn’t talk for a while.

“I’m going to say something to you because I respect you. When it comes to my life. I come first. If there’s an opportunity, I’m going to take it- even at the expense of others. Though,” Chet put his hand to his heart, “I swear I didn’t see you. I didn’t think it was that bad, you’ve been walking around like everything’s fine.”

“I wish I hit you harder in that cave.”

Chet stared at the metal in his hand. The Stardust flashlight from before. Walker didn’t notice him holding it before. The nausea was returning. That moment of anger had deflated, leaving him as empty as a popped balloon on the floor.

“Are you…”

Chet immediately turned to face the door, “No, you think I’m a little bitch?” He placed the device on the countertop, cupped water in his hands, and rubbed his face vigorously. Finally, he returned from the sink with a cocky smile.

“Must be the allergies. Pollen season.”

Walker frowned, “It’s fall.”

“Pollen's year-round bro.” Chet rubbed his biceps, flexing them as he did so. “Alright, I’m sorry. How about I lend you my shoulder, take you to Egor, and we can move on?”

Chet was smiling and lats were popped, but the slight tilt in his eyes couldn’t be hidden. It reminded him of his brother when they were kids. Usually, after a wrestling match gone wrong Walker would try to get George to stop crying before their dad returned home.

He ground his teeth, “Fine, though I’m gonna need to clean up first I can barely-” His voice shook. “I can barely… Barely.” Walker grabbed his throat. Only the gurgle of spit escaped his mouth.

“Shitshitshitshit,” Chet repeated as he lifted Walker off the ground and guided him to the toilet.

They didn’t make it to the toilet.

Walker’s belly turned, forcing him onto all fours. He heaved. Nothing came out, his throat had sealed shut.

Again, his body pushed. A tremendous pressure pressed on his eyeballs, turning his vision red before his throat opened, and the contents burst forth.

“Is that your fucking stomach!?”