"Sir, you have to free the room."
"Luther hates !"
"Sir, please, it’s been an hour. We have other patients. This is not the psychology wing. If you need a therapist, you need to go to the lobby and a nurse will show you the way."
"He thinks I want to steal his inheritance!"
"Sir!"
Another nurse entered the room.She was older—gray hair tied back in a no-nonsense bun, deep lines etched into her face like permanent reminders of long shifts and too many sunrises. She paused just past the threshold, nostrils flaring slightly.
The room still slled raw—tallic, not even sterile, wrong.. She didn’t flinch. Just scanned the ss with calm, practiced eyes, the kind that had seen far worse and stopped bothering with dramatics. One gloved hand reached for the cart behind her.
"This room should have been cleaned an hour ago. What is happening?"
"It’s either psychosis or he just has a massive nervous breakdown. Should we give him sothing to calm himself down? Should we admit him? He’s been rambling nonsense about a step-brother’s love for an hour.", another nurse explained.
The old woman nodded and ca closer.
I didn’t even see it coming.
One second she was glaring at —eyes sharp, mouth tight—the next, her hand cracked across my face like a thunderclap. The sound was louder than I expected, embarrassingly loud in the quiet room. My head snapped to the side, cheek stinging, skin already buzzing with heat.
I just stood there, blinking.
I turned back to look at her, stunned, half-expecting an apology. But she was already pulling off her glove like nothing had happened.
"Get a job! Stop reading weird novels on the internet! We have a five-year-old girl outside who is dying from a pneumonia infection. Get the hell out of my hospital before I give you a reason to be admitted!"
Oh.
I nodded and exited the room.
Seems like the night is already here.
The air hung thick, like a damp blanket draped over everything. It clung to my skin, sticky and slow, making even the smallest movent feel like a chore. Breathing felt heavier, as if the oxygen had been watered down with steam. Nothing moved—not the trees, not the clouds. Even the bugs seed to drag themselves through the heat, wings too tired to hum. The humidity pressed in from all sides, not just hot but wet, like the whole world was sweating and refusing to dry off.
What am I supposed to do now?
Cassian is dead.
Madam has gone missing.
Luther forgot at the hospital.
"What are you still doing here?"
Killian mangled his feet in an attempt to walk normally. I guess the tranquilizers haven’t worn off yet.
"One old lady with an iron hand threw out."
"That doesn’t respond to the question, buddy. I see Tom, Luther and their evil gno pet are gone. So why are you still here? What? Is their ride a triple-seat bicycle?"
"I think they kinda forgot about ."
"Nah. Maybe Tom. But Luther? He’s big-ti mad."
"You think?"
"My guy, the chair I caught hands with was for you. I was just laughing too hard."
"Luther’s mad at !"
His nose wrinkled first, like he’d just caught a whiff of sothing foul. Then his lips pulled back, slow and tight, exposing his teeth in a way that wasn’t quite a snarl, but close. His brows dropped low, eyes narrowing with a sharp, almost offended look—like whatever he was seeing shouldn’t exist. He stared for a beat too long, as if trying to confirm it was really that bad, then looked away with a short exhale through his nose, sharp and final.
"Can you not judge ?", I started to yell.
"Dude, you went to your crush’s father to adopt you. You beca your crush’s step-brother. He left you behind at the hospital and almost threw a chair at your head and now you’re whimpering? Disgusting behavior."
"We could have been running to Fiji!"
"Dude, I had the sa plan. Well, to Sicily instead of Fiji, but that’s not how it works! Look at us! And now guess who’s with Luther? Exactly: the psycho theater gno turns criminal and the funny lawyer!"
"Not us."
Killian frowned.
"Yeah, dude, not us. Are you ok? You’ve been really slow today."
"My chest hurts, but it was just a heartache because of the cafeteria food and now I am heartbroken."
"You’re also sweating like crazy. Were you like this even before the cafeteria?"
"I guess. I haven’t paid attention."
"Get up."
"Huh?"
"Get up. We’re going back in."
"No, the an lady is going to slap again."
"Dude, you’re sweating, you have chest pain and you are talking like a fifth grader. There is sothing wrong. I’ve t you before the auction. You were the face of the second most powerful pharmaceutical company. Ain’t no way you were this stupid."
"His pheromones are neutralized. He is regressing to being a beta again!"
That’s what the doctor said after a close consultation. I was not an alpha anymore?
"What caused it?", Killian asked.
He was standing behind like an angry dad, talking with the doctor like I didn’t have the ntal capacity to respond for myself.
And he was probably right.
I didn’t feel that good.
"Pheromone overdose. I see here he is not a natural alpha. His gender was switched by powerful, toxic oga pheromones. So when a dominant alpha overflowed his system with his pheromones, it canceled out the first traumatic effect."
"I get that it could provoke sweating and heart pain, but he dumbed down because of that?"
"It could have killed him actually. For the mont, his brain has fried itself trying to regulate itself. Like a 2015 laptop trying to run Sims. It lagged and it lagged and if it were to freeze, it would have stayed like that or power down."
"Can you extract the alpha pheromones that caused this? Given how much of an idiot he is, they must still be in his body."
"I can’t say. The effect might persist even if the pheromones were dissolved and gotten rid of. It could still be there, it could not and he’ll be stuck on this IQ for the rest of his life."
"What’s the treatnt?", I mumbled, interrupting their conversation." Do I need to kiss Luther again?"
Killian’s eyes narrowed slightly, focused and tense, while his lips pressed into a flat, unmoving line. The frown sat heavy on his face, loud enough to scream his refusal of the treatnt I’ve suggested.
"Man, wipe that goofy smile off your face. You’re dying! Be for real for a minute!"
"Geez, Killian, can’t a dying man have a dying wish?"
The doctor glanced down, lips twitching before he quickly masked it with a cough into his fist. His shoulders gave the tiniest shake, betraying the laugh he tried to bury. When he looked up again, his face was composed—but his eyes still sparkled with amusent he couldn’t quite hide.
At least soone thinks I’m funny.
It started with the sound.
Not a loud bang or so dramatic final noise—just everything fading. Voices around dulled, like soone was turning the world down with a slow twist of the dial. Even my own breath sounded far away, echoing in a space that didn’t feel like mine anymore.
I tried to lift my hand. I was sure I did. But nothing happened. My body felt distant, like I was watching it from across the room. There was no pain anymore—just this strange heaviness creeping up my limbs, like I was sinking into warm, thick water. Everything moved slower. Thoughts. Blinks. Ti itself.
My vision blurred at the edges, dark seeping in like ink spilled on paper. I blinked hard, once, twice—but the shapes around started to lt together anyway. Soone called my na. I think. Or maybe it was just a mory playing back in my head. I couldn’t tell the difference.
Panic should’ve co, but it didn’t. Just this eerie calm, like sothing in had already let go before I could argue with it. I wanted to say sothing—anything. I had words just a second ago. Now they scattered before I could catch one.
I could still feel my heartbeat, steady but far. Like a drum played from another room.
Then...stillness.
Everything paused—not in a dramatic crash, but like a curtain lowering, slow and final. I knew I was going. I knew I was slipping, and that sothing was closing behind . But it wasn’t terrifying. It was... quiet. Heavy. A weightless kind of weight. Like falling asleep underwater.
I rember the exact mont I let go—not because I wanted to, but because I didn’t have the strength left to hold on.
I knew exactly what this was.
After all, Emiliano kept in an induced coma for a month.
Maybe it would have been useful to let them know that—
But it was too late now.
No light.
No sound.
Just the soft click of sothing shutting off inside .
And then I was gone.
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