A beeping sound. A faint light shone through his eyelids.

  Air conditioning?

  Morbus felt as if he'd been in hibernation for the entire winter. But when he slowly opened one eye, he saw the red glow of a digital arm clock. Four rge numbers told him the time: 11.08 pm.

  Morbus opened his other eye and looked at what was behind the clock. A few chairs, some posters, and the rest—a completely white wall.

  Only now did Morbus realize he was seeing everything from the side. Apparently, he was lying on something.

  He turned onto his back.

  Where am I? How did I get here?

  Morbus pushed himself up and realized he was lying in a... hospital bed? He pushed the white bnkets off himself and saw that he was dressed in a white pajama suit.

  He noticed a strange sensation near his navel, as if there were extra clothing there.

  One by one, he unbuttoned his pajama top and looked down.

  His waist was tightly wrapped in a huge bandage. He tried to slip his fingernails under it, but it was too tight. He also felt a tube beneath his nose, and in his right arm and neck were two more tubes.

  What the fuck?

  Hysterically, he tore the tubes out of his body, letting them drop to the floor. The steady beeping changed to a continuous tone.

  Now he saw where the sound was coming from. To the right of his bed stood one of those hospital machines. On the monitor, the steady peaks of his heartbeat had turned into a single, ft line.

  What the hell happened?

  He dug through his memory to see if he could recall anything, but it felt as if there was a giant hole in his mind.

  Focus! What's the st thing you can remember? he asked himself.

  But his memory was total chaos. Nothing came up.

  He sat up. His whole body hurt—a kind of pain he didn't recognize.

  He made a list for himself.

  I am Morbus Horatio... Sixteen years old... I live with my dad in a small apartment...

  Slowly, more started to come back.

  [The 2023 flood disaster threw Catsroes into chaos. Aquinox put up the Walls that protected us from the new sea levels. President Previs took control and established the four Categories: Management, Enforcement, Agriculture, and Science. I go to school in the st one. Tomou is my best and only friend...]

  And then it stopped. Strange. And yet, he could feel that there was more than that, that things had happened he didn't know about.

  Maybe it's useful to first figure out where I even am.

  He looked around the small, white room. To his left, two chairs stood against the wall, with a few posters hanging above them. They seemed to be about human anatomy—bone structures and muscle connections and such. Across from the bed was a door, which he assumed led out. To the right of the bed was a wheeled table with an empty tray, a pen, and a notepad. Morbus leaned forward to read it, but the handwriting was so messy that even a toddler's scribbles would be easier to decipher. Right next to his bed stood the massive heart monitor, still showing the ft line and constant beep since Morbus was no longer connected to it.

  He noticed another door on the wall to his right. Beside it was a window with frosted gss. The kind of window that only lets you see through one way.

  So this is indeed a hospital...

  In his left field of vision, he noticed something hanging above his bed. Lucky him. It was a wall calendar. Morbus took it down.

  The days up to July 16 were circled in red.

  One less mystery. Today is Friday the 16th.

  Morbus scanned over the previous days.

  July 15... July 14... July 13... July 12 was marked. 'Memorial Day,' it read.

  That's the day we always have history css!

  He pulled the calendar from the wall and flipped back a month, looking for the 12th of the previous month.

  See? Saturday, June 12. Memorial Day.]

  They had to come to school over the weekend to attend a mandatory history css. He clearly remembered that not even half of the students showed up. Because they forgot, or just didn't want to? And then everyone had to write a two-page essay on what they missed as punishment. Yeah, that was funny.

  He hung the calendar back in its pce.

  Then why can't I remember Memorial Day of this month? And more importantly, why am I suddenly in a hospital?

  He swung his legs out of bed to stand up, but his whole body was sore and stiff. With a grimace, he stood up.

  Time to investigate.

  He pushed the wheeled table aside and walked step by step toward the door beside the frosted gss. But the handle wouldn't turn; it was locked. Then he pressed his face against the one-way window, but his suspicion was correct. No matter how hard he strained his eyes, he couldn't see through it.

  He tried the other door. Luckily, it was open. He stepped into a long, dark hallway stretching both left and right.

  As soon as he took a step, the fluorescent lights flickered on, letting him see more clearly.

  His eyes confirmed what he saw: a typical hospital corridor. Sticky floors, endless doors, and an eerie, chilly atmosphere. And no one in sight.

  He turned around. Next to his door hung his room's number: C-31.

  Which way should I go?

  On a whim, he turned right. His socks stuck to the floor with every step. His sore and stiff body limited his speed, forcing him to walk slowly and keep a hand on the wall. Every step made him flinch, and he was clearly not in top form.

  If only I could remember what happened...

  Other doors passed by. There wasn't a single window in sight. It was as if the building had sealed itself off from the outside world.

  He saw a door open further down the hall. Two people walked out. Both wore white b coats and were engrossed in conversation.

  "…have the analysis ready for Monday," said the man on the left. He was bald, wore thick-rimmed gsses, and carried a clipboard loaded with papers under his arm, looking straight ahead at the other person.

  "I expect it, Eugene," said the other. A female voice, strict with a sharp, high pitch. "By the way, I need you to stop by ter. That new patient is giving me headaches." She had long brown hair tied back in a ponytail. Morbus couldn't see her face from his angle; she was turned away from him.

  New patient? Are they talking about me?

  "Sure," said the man named Eugene. "Just bringing these reports away, and I'll be there."

  He walked away from her in the opposite direction down the hall, his back to Morbus. The woman walked—without even saying goodbye to Eugene—to the right, into a hallway branch and immediately out of sight.

  Did they seriously not see me?

  Morbus waited until the man was out of the hallway. He cautiously continued, helped by his socks that didn't make much noise.

  In hindsight, he thought he might've been better off grabbing their attention. That would be the logical thing to do when you wake up in some random hospital with a huge gap in your memory. But something told him that this pce was not to be trusted.

  He walked up to the door the two had just left. Morbus tried the handle. It wasn't locked.

  For a second, Morbus hesitated. Then he opened the door silently.

  Inside, it was dark. He felt around next to the door for a light switch. But when he pressed it and the light flicked on, he heard rushing footsteps approaching fast from behind.

  Shit.

  But his eyes were already fixed on what was in front of him.

  In the center of the room was a bed, with a motionless figure id out on it—at least, that's what it resembled.

  "Hey, you there!" a high-pitched voice shouted from behind.

  He turned around.

  The woman in the b coat with the ponytail from earlier was running toward him. Like Eugene, she wore those same rge, thick-rimmed gsses. Her lips were a bright red streak, and she didn't look pleased.

  "Good thing I went back to lock the door," she said sharply. "To prevent unwanted eyes." She pulled a key ring from her pocket, smmed the door shut, and locked it with record speed.

  But Morbus couldn't get the image out of his head. He was sure of it. There was a monster inside that room.

  The woman looked at him sternly. "Oh, you must be the new patient," she said, emotionless. "Morbus, wasn't it?"

  Morbus could hear no compassion in her voice whatsoever.

  "Y-yes, that's right," Morbus stammered, feeling her steely gaze bearing down on him.

  "What were you doing? You've got no business here," she spat at him.

  "I-I…uh…was just looking for the bathroom," Morbus quickly thought up, even though he didn't really need to go.

  With a brisk wave of her arm, the woman pointed to a door diagonally across from them with the familiar figure logo on it. "Over there. After that, would you please head back to your room right away? We have things to discuss."

  Morbus nodded.

  Bitch.

  * * *

  As soon as Morbus had spent enough time pretending in the bathroom, he stepped out and saw that the woman had already left. She was probably already in his room, just like she'd said.

  Morbus made his way back, noticing that walking was getting easier; his body was apparently adjusting to the movement.

  He followed the room numbers along the doors. When he reached the C-31, he went inside.

  "Welcome, Morbus," the woman from earlier greeted him in the most monotone voice he'd ever heard. At least, from what he could remember.

  She sat on an office chair behind the small table with a notepad. Her fingers were tapping furiously on a small ptop.

  "You must have a lot of questions," she sighed. "Don't worry; we'll tell you everything you want to know."

  Morbus now noticed that the second door, the one next to the shaded windows, was open. Apparently, that's where she'd brought the chair and computer from.

  "My name is Doctor Valerian," she said, standing up and extending a cold hand toward him. Morbus stared at her defiantly.

  Not in a hundred years.

  "Fine," she sighed, dropping her arm. "Could you please sit down?" she said, gesturing toward the bed. "I'll need to hook you back up to the IV."

  That sounded more like an order than a request.

  But Morbus decided it was better to comply—for now.

  As he sat back on the bed, he burst out.

  "So… can you tell me what's going on? Why am I in a hospital? What happened? Why can't I remember anything? What's with that mons—"

  Morbus hadn't even finished the word when Dr. Valerian raised a commanding hand.

  "So many questions," she said airily. "You teenage boys just never stop…"

  Morbus felt his blood boil.

  Lady, you're the one who should be lying here.

  Dr. Valerian took a tube from the machine and attached it to Morbus's arm. It pricked and felt completely unnatural.

  "You're in good hands, Morbus," she said in an overly cheerful tone. "We've discovered you're infected with cold bloom. Have you heard of this new illness?"

  "What illness?"

  Dr. Valerian looked down. "I guess not," she said more to herself than to him. "Cold bloom was only discovered a few weeks ago. More and more cases are popping up."

  Morbus scanned his shattered memory, but as far as he could tell, this was the first time he'd heard of it.

  She took the second tube and inserted it into Morbus's neck. "But don't worry. It's not that big a deal, really. You'll just feel a little under the weather for a week. After that, you'll be back to normal." She fshed him a sickly-sweet, forced smile.

  Morbus sat quietly for a few seconds while she activated the machine next to him, pressing a few buttons to bring it to life. He heard the beep of his heartbeat, and his EEG appeared on one of the monitors.

  "And what expins my memory loss?" he asked as seriously as he could.

  "Ah, those are just side effects," she said. "The cold bloom has disrupted your brain a little bit." She held her thumb and forefinger close together. "Just a tiny bit, nothing to worry about. In a week, you'll be back to your old self." Her eyebrows were raised so high that her forehead creased with wrinkles.

  That tone of hers! Like she thinks I'm a little kid.

  "I want to know what happened," Morbus said, nearly commanding. "How did I end up here?"

  Dr. Valerian went back to typing on her ptop. Her gsses reflected the light, and she didn't look up to answer him.

  "You were suddenly affected by a drop in blood pressure," she said with exaggerated sadness. "That caused you to faint. Your father found you unconscious on the floor at home. He called us immediately, and after a quick test, it turned out you indeed had cold bloom."

  Morbus was dumbfounded. How could something so simple cause him to lose an entire month of memory?

  "And that's why I have no memory?" he tried again.

  She kept typing cheerfully. "Ex-act-ly," she said in a monotone voice. "Well, if you don't mind, would you go to sleep now? You could really use the rest, Morbus."

  She may as well bark: Go sleep and don't ask questions.

  Morbus opened his mouth to protest. Deep in his gut, he felt something was off about her story. But he couldn't figure out what.

  "Sleepy time, sleepy time..." Dr. Valerian sang, clicking her tongue.

  Honestly, this woman's getting on my nerv—

  Suddenly, Morbus felt his eyelids grow heavy. His head started to feel light. The room and the typing doctor faded from view.

  He no longer had the energy to resist the doctor's strange expnation. His eyes closed completely. The st thing he saw in his minds eye was the monster id out on the table in the mysterious room. As he drifted off, the long strands hanging from its rge, open mouth remained burned into his mind.