#like damn alright we need to compare to your worst off patient to my numbers? lmao

[sunflowercider]

Really random, but I would like to tell everyone that if you are feeling exhausted and never have energy and it feels like doing anything takes so much effort..... if you can, please get a blood test and see what your vitamin D levels are at

-signed, someone who finally got a primary doctor after years and found out they were super duper vitamin d deficient, and after 6 months of taking supplements feels like a human being again

[fablesrose]

Of Kings and Shadows XXV

Description: Y/n, a girl who seems to have found her calling. Being a SHIELD agent is like a dream come true. With a friendship starting to form with the Avengers, she’s the Queen of the world! What could go wrong?

Pairings: Avengers x reader, Loki x reader (eventually)

Notes: On Wattpad –> Here

 Series Masterlist

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The next day Loki came and tapped on my little corner with enthusiasm.

Guess what I brought!

I hope, for your sake, that you aren't holding something up for me to see, 'cuz that would be embarrassing since I can't see it.

Loki started to sputter a little bit, I'm not an idiot Y/n, honestly!

Just making sure.

He projected an image to me unexpectedly, which gave me a headache momentarily since I was still focusing my sight through my eyes. It was a little blurry while I tried to focus on it and not the smudged splotch of color on the floor the same color as my face and hair. Luckily it didn't take me long to recognize what he was showing me.

My phone? Don't tell me you've been keeping up with my Tumblr... Do you even know what that is?

You wound me.

I snickered at him.

No, I did not go through your social media. Rather, I thought you would enjoy listening to your playlist.

A feeling that can only be attributed to a favorite song washed over me at the thought of it. The radio that Loki had put on in the down-time was great and all, but nothing could compare to the playlist you made with your heart and your own hands.

I spoke quietly, Yes, I would like that. I would like that very much.

He wordlessly connected my phone to the speakers and put it on shuffle. I instantly recognized the song, but I had to wrack my mind for the name.

Out here in the fields I fight for my meals I get my back into my living I don't need to fight To prove I'm right I don't need to be forgiven

I smiled and hummed along, occasionally mumbling a line or two when it came to me. Loki stayed silent, but I could tell he was listening in contentment.

Don't cry Don't raise your eye It's only teenage wasteland

I just let the music surround me in a way I haven't felt in years. I almost forgot the situation I was in.

Sally take my hand We'll travel south cross land Put out the fire And don't look past my shoulder The exodus is here The happy ones are near Let's get together, before we get much older

It was going by so fast, but at the same time, time seemed to slow.

Teenage wasteland It's only teenage wasteland Teenage wasteland Oh yeah, teenage wasteland They're all wasted!

I could feel the end of the song coming all too soon and I still couldn't remember the name of the song, or even the artist. I became angry, at myself, Henry, the world, everything! I was angry that this was so sad.

I wanted to cry. I wanted to sob and to scream. Why couldn't I remember? Why couldn't I remember something I loved so much? It hurt. It hurt so damn much that I slammed myself against the wall that's caused me so much grief. The barrier held strong, it was as if I was running into a brick wall.

That's when Loki stepped in. He wrapped his magic around me, to keep me still, to calm me.

Hey hey, it's okay, you're okay. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to upset you.

I noticed he had stopped the music from continuing to the next song. I took a moment to calm myself, No, you didn't upset me, Loki. It's just... I... If I'm forgetting things that I loved so much, what else am I going to lose? What else have I already lost?

Loki paused for a second, Well, that's what I'm here for. We can work together to get you better alright? I can help you remember.

I sighed, Okay... What was that song? It hurt to ask, but what else was I supposed to do?

Baba O'Riley by The Who

I let myself soak in the name... It sounded so familiar. Maybe I felt more whole for a moment. Maybe I just identified another hole. Whatever the feeling was, it was a comforting discomfort that I wasn't sure I wanted to feel again, but I knew I needed it.

So that was what we did. For days Loki would come and play songs from my playlist. He would tell me the ones I couldn't remember and celebrate the ones that I did. It was a slow and embarrassing process, but I could tell I was making progress. Loki was being so supportive... Almost too supportive.

Loki?

Yes, my dear?

Why... Why are you being so nice to me? I mean, I appreciate it very much, but we weren't really on the best of terms when I disappeared.

We weren't on the worst, though.

He made me chuckle, but still.

He sighed, I suppose I found you intriguing...

Past tense? I couldn't help but poke fun.

He chose to ignore me, But then you disappeared and I never got to study you.

I'm flattered.

You should be.

There was a comfortable pause before I asked another question that's been on my mind, Loki?

Yes?

Why has no one come to visit me?

There was a short pause that I quickly filled.

I mean, I know I can't answer them back if they try to talk to me, but people visit and talk to comatose patients. We don't even know if they can hear them, but I can hear them... and... I trailed of pathetically. I really shouldn't be upset, this is more than I ever let myself hope for. Isn't it great to be so selfish?

It's nothing of your doing Y/n. Director Fury wishes for me to be your only contact until he begins the reports. They will all be in attendance then.

That's... That's good to hear.

He hummed in response and we moved on to other topics.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The day came when I was supposed to give my report. I still had no idea how this was going to work, but I trusted them to come up with some sort of solution. I waited patiently for them to arrive, but it seemed to be taking forever. The room was deadly silent for what must have been hours. There wasn't a voice or a footstep that broke it.

Y/n, are you ready?

Loki startled me with a sudden address.

Is everyone here already? I thought I would have heard Thor's lumbering footsteps!

He didn't even chuckle when he began to explain how it was going to work, No, we are in a nearby room as to limit the Queen from hearing anything.

I found it interesting that he called Noxy the Queen. When talking to me he usually called her Noxy. It occurred to me that he might be speaking out loud for everyone else's benefit.

I will hold an illusion of you to speak through. You alone will be able to hear and see the conversation. The illusion will mimic your motions and intentions that you portray. Do you understand?

Yes, Loki.

It felt like a tether was attached to me, the other end I didn't know, but I assumed it was the "control cable" for the illusion. There was a moment where nothing happened, but then I screamed.

My mind couldn't decide on what picture to focus on and it caused me an immense amount of pain. It kept flickering back and forth between the white floor of my cell and a blurry group of people in front of me. I clutched in upon myself to try and block off the instant migraine. I was surprised to hear my own voice saying, "Turn it off! Turn it off!"

Just as suddenly as it happened, it stopped.

Are you okay? Loki sounded worried.

Instead of answering his question I told him what had to change, I can't do the vision. It just... hurts.

Of course.

This time the tether attached seemed smaller, and after a moment I could hear the sounds of people idling. The shuffle of feet, the quiet breathing. It was relaxing. Nobody actually spoke for a while, so I had to break the ice, "Hi."

"Agent L/n."

It was a little hard to decipher voices with the combination of not being able to see and the amount of time that's past since hearing them, so I spoke tentatively, "Director Fury?"

"Correct. Do you understand that you are here to give a report so that we, Shield and the Avengers, may come to know of the nature of your capture so that we may prevent future incidents?"

"Yes, sir." Before Nick could continue I asked, "May I ask who is here since I cannot see?"

"In order to not overwhelm you the only ones here are myself and the members of the Avengers who you know."

I nodded, or felt like nodding.

Nick cleared his throat, "Alright, is there anyone who would like confirmation that who we are talking to is indeed Agent Y/n L/n?"

There was silence. It stretched out awkwardly, "Is anyone raising their hand? Loki are they raising their hands?"

"Ye-"

"NO!"

"So do you guys need confirmation or not?"

I could hear a number of voices mumble out a, "Yes, we would appreciate it."

I chuckled a little awkwardly, "Uh, was there a code word that I was supposed to remember? Cuz I very much do not remember it if there was."

"Y/n would never forget a code word!"

I was offended, "Fucking hell, Clint!"

He gasped, "She would never talk to me that way!"

"Woah, woah!" Who I thought was Tony cut in, "First off, Clint? You don't have any code words!"

He grumbled in response.

"And two, Y/n your filter is gone."

I smiled, "Damn straight."

Tony sighed, "Okay, so we all want confirmation that is actually you, so lets have you tell us something only we would know."

I took a moment to think it over, "Do you guys remember when..." I kinda chuckled at the memory, "When I video called you when I knew you had recently got off of a mission and had no plans and I asked you guys over for a movie night at my apartment?" It was a fond, if not totally embarressing memory. "Steve awkwardly declined for everyone, saying that you had a lot of work to do after the mission. I was totally disappointed, but hung up before anyone else could say anything or show that I was disappointed. I mean, I already had the movie picked out, popcorn popped, a number of snacks set out, and I even rearranged my living area to fit everyone in it!" I wished I could see their  faces, see the recognition, maybe their smiles.

"But, over the next hour, every single one of you came over, not together, mind you! Clint and Natasha first, then Tony, surprised he wasn't fashionably late, Thor and Bruce with Loki dragging behind, and then Steve, with a slightly red face." I surprised myself in remembering those details.

I, my illusion, was probably smiling from ear to ear while recanting the story, "We watched Ghost Rider and mocked how totally cheezy it was and yelled at the screen when the 'monster' scene came on." I huffed with amusement, "That was a very good memory I liked to look back on..."

I didn't hear anyone say anything or even the shuffling of feet, "Uh, hello? Does anyone need a personal story? A reassuring joke? I hope not, because I very much did not have access to the internet."

The silence wasn't even broke with a chuckle. I began to grow scared. Did they leave? Do they not believe me? I'm sure my smile cracked.

"I believe a personal story or two could be beneficial to their conscience, Y/n." Loki's voice was soft, but rigid.

I made a soft popping noise with my tongue as I thought about who I could talk about first. This was a cool illusion to make a subconscious sound. I came to a stop when I just decided to talk about what first came to mind for each of them, "Natasha, I remember when you first walked in the door of my apartment for that movie night, you pulled me aside and said some very comforting things to me as well as some choice words for others." I laughed, "and I swore that those things would stay between us, so I am going to keep it that way."

That got the ball rolling so I just started to pour out everything, "Clint, when I first met you, you could have showed off to impress me, but instead you used your skills to make me smile. I- I really appreciated that, and that might have impressed me even more than you hitting every bullseye."

I was glad I wasn't actually talking because this was a lot of talking, "Thor." I grew serious, "I really appreciate you sharing your food with me that one time. And all the other times you don't know about."

I heard a quick inhale of air and I took that as a signal to move on, "Tony, the care you took with me, guiding me through breathing exercises, taking me to the infirmary after... the Loki incident. I'm forever grateful you were able to show that to me."

"I remember one mission where there was a lot of chemical and radiation components that needed to be understood. Unfortunately, I am not that proficient in that area, but fortunately I was able to approach Bruce. He walked me through everything I needed to know for that mission even late into the night in his lab," I smiled.

"And finally Steve." I willed my illusion to look him in the eyes. I hoped that's how it worked and hoped that Loki would make it happen. "This is very important. I absolutely hate running with you."

At this point the silence was beyond unnerving. "So either nobody likes me enough to talk while I'm blind, Clint is signing at me like an idiot, or everyone just left and Loki is keeping the illusion up for no other reason than his enjoyment. I can see you doing that Loki, I know you can hear me."

There were a few snorts around me before Natasha spoke up, "Uh, Clint just said that you'll get along with Sam just fine."

"I have literally no idea who that is, but I'll take that as a good sign."

"Hey," Tony cut off the laughing, "we didn't hear a story about tikes turtle over there."

There was a beat of silence.

"Wha--who?"

"Yeah, not my best idea. Loki. We haven't heard a story about Loki."

Loki quickly cut in, "I don't believe that will be neces-"

"I must give the people what they want!"

"You really don't."

I started anyway, "My fondest memory of the jolly green giant would be when I was high off of cold medicine and pulled some wicked ninja moves to steal chocolate from our dear Rapunzel while crying over rom-coms. He nearly blew my cover. Happy?"

There were a few "Very"s thrown back my way before Nick had had enough.

"Alright, is everyone convinced that this is indeed Y/n?"

"Yes."

Nick cleared his throat, "Okay, so Agent L/n, you know how this works. According to our calculations, you were a prisoner for two years before you emerged as the asset we know as Queen, correct?"

"Uh, sure."

"Agent L/n..."

I sighed, "I trust your calculations, sir, as I had no sense of time while in captivity. I could have been in there anywhere from six months to six years and I wouldn't have been the wiser."

Nick grunted, "What exactly did they do to you in those two years?"

I mentally straightened my shoulders in preparation of the story I was about to tell. I guess I should have known, I guess I should have been ready. But here I was, trying to control my thoughts.

"The majority of those two years were spent doing two things: being locked in a cell made of concrete walls, and being shoved into rooms with another prisoner. There were two rules when we were put in that room: don't start before they told us, and... and I quote: 'fight like your life depends on it, because it does.'" I took a moment to steady myself, "like a gladiator arena, it was a fight to the death, with our bare hands, only one of us would leave the room alive."

"So we can safely assume you won every round?" I wasn't sure which of the guys had spoke since I wasn't really paying attention.

I chuckled darkly, "That's the thing... My honest answer would be a no. I got beat to a pulp, but they stopped my opponent before he could kill me. My first fight... I lost."

Maybe that's what made it that much worse. I was saved to commit worse atrocities.

"So yeah, between the experiments, the locking me away in the latter part of it, and the immense amount of pain, I lied in a small cell with a roommate I called my friend, and killed other prisoners to weed out the weak ones for hell knows what."

I didn't have anything else to say about the matter so I stayed quiet until Nick was prepared with his next question.

"There was another agent who went missing the same mission that you did: Ichabod Laime. Are you aware of his status?"

"Yes, he is dead."

"What was your relationship with Agent Laime?"

"I would have called him my friend."

"How do you know he's dead?"

Before I could answer Steve mumbled, "Shouldn't you have asked that question before?"

"Don't test me Rogers!" Nick snapped at him roughly.

"Easy, sir. I'm the one who killed him."

There was a quiet sputtering going on around me.

Nick recovered enough to ask, "Did they force you to?"

I left a pause where I would have breathed, "No, I killed him of my own free will."

I felt the tether flicker and pull a little bit. It confused me. It felt like something was missing, or different all of the sudden.

It didn't help that I couldn't see anything. I thought I heard whispering in the room. Fuck me for telling the truth I guess. I was going to be locked up forever.

"Let's call it a day. We'll continue this another time Agent L/n." Nick sounded almost rushed.

Before I could respond the tether was cut and I was left in silence, not even left with a goodbye.

Song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gY5rztWa1TM

TAG LIST: @kitkatd7 @snarky--starky @confetti-its-an-imagine-blog

[rosekmorgan]

I am in a medical trial for a supplement to make people more perceptive. Unfortunately, it works.

[check tags for cws]

“Question thirteen,” I was mid-beer-sip when the announcer, a cheerful man who I knew only by the name of “Trivia Guy”, read out the next question. “In a human body, bacterial cells outnumber actual human cells by a ratio of three to one, ten to one, or six to one?”

“It’s ten to one,” Jack said. He sounded pretty confident about it, too.

“That’s a common misconception,” Lis responded, her eyes shining with the unmistakable joy of someone who is about to tell someone else they’re wrong. “It’s actually a lot closer to three to one. I was reading this article about gut microbiomes and fecal transplants the other day, and --”

“Jesus,” I looked at the plate of nachos shared between the four of us. The pile of chili on top didn’t look as appealing as it had moments before. “Can we not?”

She grabbed a chip herself, then, in classic Lis fashion, continued to talk through her full mouth.

“Alright, fine, but I’m telling you, it’s three to one.”

Jack grunted, writing something down on the answer sheet. Seeing as Lis was a bio major and Jack was in CompSci with me, I hoped he took her answer.

“Question fourteen,” Trivia Guy pulled no punches. “According to a poll from Cosmopolitan magazine, the worst vacation fashion trend was speedos, socks and sandals, or Hawaiian shirts?”

“Socks and sandals.” Sadie spoke up first. She didn’t even wait for anyone else to comment before she snatched the answer sheet from Jack and began to write it down.

“Oh, definitely,” I agreed, a few moments too late for it to matter. But hey -- Sadie was the reason our trivia team was ever anything besides dead last (not to mention the only one of the four of us who’d ever cracked open a copy of Cosmo). I took another sip of the beer and cringed slightly. Corona is not what I’d normally go for, but that night, the price point meant a lot more to me than the quality.

The night continued on in a haze of shitty beer and nachos that went cold far too fast. We didn’t place this week, but we were all slightly buzzed, so we got over it. As Trivia Guy made his final remarks, the waitress came and gave us our bills. My total for the night was $40, and that was before adding a tip. I could cover it, but just barely. Sadie watched me as I pulled out the cash and put it down on the table, completely emptying my wallet of change.

I stood up. My head spun for a moment, but it wasn’t too bad.

“I think I’m gonna have to skip next week.” I didn’t know why I felt the need to announce it to everyone. Probably the vodka that had come before the Corona. I regretted it the moment I said it -- way to look like a broke loser in front of everyone. Great one, Brent.

We shuffled out of the bar in a sea of other beer-sticky, stumbling students. Lucky for us, it wasn’t a long walk; All four of us lived on campus. There were probably cheaper places to get drunk on a Thursday, but there weren’t more conveniently located ones, and certainly none with trivia.

We said goodbye to Jack first, then Lis. I had a vague awareness of the May air being frigid, but it didn’t register with me on a physical level. The alcohol had taken off the edge of a Canadian spring that still thinks it’s winter. A coat would have been a more responsible way to handle it, but hey. Whatever works.

“You’re broke.” The words weren’t stated, but slurred. I watched Sadie as she swayed side to side. In the bar, it hadn’t been clear just how drunk she was. A delayed reaction, she clasped her hands over her mouth, then said something that was probably “I’m sorry!” into the palms of her hands. I just laughed.

“Yeah, I’m broke. What gave it away? The fact that I have no money?” Not my cleverest comeback. Not technically true, either -- I didn’t have money to throw around, but it’s not like I’d starve. I still had my meal plan and two parents who tolerated me, so I wasn’t exactly in dire straits.

“I’ve got an idea.” She grabbed my arm, her nails poking me through my hoodie, and I recoiled. Sharper than they looked. “No, really!”

“Alright, what is it then?” I half expected her to try and sell me on the essential oil bullshit I knew her sister was into, but then again, Sadie was always the brighter of the two.

“Dr. Davidson asked us to try and get him some subjects for some experiment he’s running.” She grinned. I had no idea who he was -- being in CompSci myself, I wasn’t familiar with any of the professors over in the psych department. I thought she’d said the name before, but I was never good with names -- especially the names of people I had no reason to care about.

“Okay, and?” I’d gone into experiments at Sadie’s behest before and never really gained that much from the experience. In one of them I got two marshmallows, which I appreciated. Most of them just involved watching videos of shapes dancing about on a screen and then writing a story about whether you thought the triangle and the square were friends or enemies. Neither of those were going to help me buy another night of beers.

“He’s paying participants $100 for being a part of it.” I froze in my tracks. $100 wasn’t life-changing - not for me, anyway - but it was more than enough to solve the problem of not having the spare cash to get wasted. “I wanted to do it myself, but he says we’re not allowed to if we’re in his class. He doesn’t want to ‘inadvertently prime’ us or anything.”

“Hell yeah,” I nodded, though Sadie hadn’t asked a question. “Yeah, I’ll do it. That sounds great. Do you think there’ll be any marshmallows?”

Before long, we were at our dorm complex. I helped Sadie to her room, and in return she promised me that she’d text me the details in the morning.

I made my way back to my own dorm. I unlocked the door and sighed. I hated the room. It was small -- scarcely room for a single nightstand between Tareq’s bed and my own. He was asleep already, a flat cardboard box that smelled of pepperoni flipped open on the nightstand. He was a good enough guy, but God, the number of pizza boxes that room had seen must rival all of Italy.

I was asleep by the time my head hit the pillow. I awoke what felt like five minutes later to the blaring of my alarm. The morning began like any other -- with me blindly grasping for my phone. Alarm turned off, I noticed a text from Sadie. She’d kept her word (as she always did) and sent me the details on where and when I could find Dr. Davidson.

Lucky for me, I had no classes that Friday. I’d done my damndest to cram everything else into the other four days of the work week to extend my weekend. When I finally rolled out of bed around 11:30, there were only two things on my mind: breakfast and Davidson.

After pancakes and coffee -- thank God for meal plans -- I took another look at the text. Davidson’s office was, to my surprise, in the science complex. Most of Sadie’s classes were in the McPherson building - an ancient brick monolith crawling with ivy - and that was where all the studies I’d been a part of before had taken place. I’d assumed that’s where I’d find Davidson, but apparently not.

Davidson’s office hours weren’t until three, so I headed back to my room to get showered. I didn’t know exactly what kind of test subject he was hoping for, but I figured being halfway presentable would probably be a good start. I nearly tripped over Tareq’s iPad in the process. He had a habit of leaving it unlocked on the bathroom floor, for reasons I tried not to learn.

Stone-cold sober, I made the decision to wear an actual jacket as I headed off to the science complex. The building had a name other than “science complex”, but I could never remember it since no one called it that. It was the newest building on campus, one of those angular glass monstrosities that makes any fan of classical architecture cry and bemoan the decline of society. I liked it well enough, but I was in the minority.

I got lost finding my way to Davidson’s office -- it was in the basement, and none of the elevators seemed to go down there. It was only after talking to a group of tense zoology students that I managed to get conclusive directions.

As far as basements went, the science complex’s was pretty damn classy. Since they couldn’t exactly carry on the whole glass-walls theme underground, they’d gone with a smooth black faux-marble. Comparing it to the basement where one of my small-group sessions took place -- where the black on the walls was almost certainly mold -- I felt a surge of jealousy.

Davidson’s office was not as classy as the surrounding corridors. Papers lay scattered around an oak desk clearly much older than the building itself, a man even older still seated behind it. His hair was dark, but streaked with grey that he made no attempt to cover, and his face was softly wrinkled. Looking at him, I had no idea how old the man was, but presumably old enough that he should have done a better job cleaning the place. I knocked on the open door and he looked up. His brows knit together and he squinted, the face of someone trying to figure out if they’re supposed to know you or not.

“Dr. Davidson?” I asked. His name had been on the door, but it didn’t hurt to confirm. He tilted his head like an inquisitive puppy, and I winced as his neck cracked. He didn’t seem to notice.

“Yes?” His voice caught me off guard - it was smoother than I would have assumed from his appearance. He waited patiently, big brown eyes staring expectantly in my direction.

“I’m here about the, uh, study.” It would have helped had I known what he was researching, but Davidson beamed up at me. Clearly he knew what I was talking about, even if I didn’t.

“You’re interested in participating?”

“Yeah. A friend of mine, Sadie, she’s in one of your classes,” I watched him process the name, trying to figure out who Sadie might be. “She said you were doing a study with compensation.” I winced after saying it -- way to look desperate.

“Yes,” He smiled, shaking his head, bemused. “A hundred as soon as you’re approved, and a hundred at the conclusion.” My eyes bulged. Sadie had said there was $100 compensation total -- I guess she’d finally been mistaken about something. All the better for me.

Davidson rifled through the papers on his desk, licking his thumb to help him separate a set of sheets. “We’ll need to make sure you’re fit first, of course.” He held two pages out, and I finally left his doorway to approach the desk. “Both of these can be done at the clinic on Stonemason Ave.”

I frowned as I took the papers. This I wasn’t expecting. One was a letter requesting an EKG, and the second a blood test. “You’ll need to put your info at the top of those there, but once you’ve filled them out you can get tested. They fax the results straight to me, same day.”

For a moment, I wondered what kind of psychology experiment needed an EKG and blood test, but the doctor continued. “Once I’ve got the documents, you come back and we can fill out your consent form. And,” he paused, grinning, “get you the first payment.”

Despite my moment of apprehension, I was grinning back at him. I took one more look at the papers, and gave him a nod. “Awesome.”

Davidson let me know my deadline for the testing, but he didn’t need to -- the second I was out of the science complex, I was on my way to the clinic. When both tests were through, it was dinner time. My parents were coming to visit on Saturday and Davidson had no office hours Sunday, so I resolved to visit him right at three on Monday.

The weekend flew by. It always did when my parents came. It was their mission to cram as much family time as possible into every visit. They lived just an hour away from the campus, but I was an only child. I didn’t really know what it was like for them, but I must have made the house feel different for me to not be around. Dad was always saying how empty it felt, while my mom told me how happy she was that I was pursuing my passion. Mixed messages, maybe, but think they just missed me. I missed them too. We always were close.

I woke up at 7:45am on Monday. I was one of the few who liked morning classes; I thought it was more practical to get class done early in the day so I had the afternoon to do whatever I wanted. This meant by the time three rolled around, I was finished class for the day and ready to pay Davidson another visit.

His office was tidier than it had been the last time. Papers were still scattered around the room, but they had coalesced into semi-defined piles. He seemed excited to see me.

“Wonderful news!” was how he began the conversation. The blood test and EKG had come through normal, which meant that it was time for me to sign my consent form -- and receive my first payment.

I skimmed the document. I didn’t understand a lot of it, but I also didn’t care. Much to my surprise, this wasn’t going to be another marshmallow or shape storytelling study. This was a full-on medical trial. Or, well...something like that. I was fuzzy on the details. Myself, and the other subjects, were going to be given some sort of supplements. I wasn’t on any medications they could interfere with, and I didn’t have any heart conditions that they could aggravate. Animal trials had indicated that, in mice, the supplements boosted reaction times and functioning in tests of reasoning. The most notable finding was that the rodents were more “generally perceptive”, whatever that meant.

The last sheet of the document included a list of seven other names. Below that were two lines for me to sign - one confirming that I consented to take part in the study, and the other confirming I did not know any of the seven listed people. I scrawled Brent Haywood twice*,* wrote my phone number and email below, and a few minutes later I was walking out of the room with $100 cash. I was giddy. $100 wasn’t much, but at least I wasn’t going to miss trivia after all.

I didn’t see Davidson again until Thursday. He’d emailed asking me to meet him and the other participants in the science complex. This time we didn’t meet in the basement, but in a small aboveground lab. I thought I was prompt, getting there right at three -- but when I walked in, there were already nine people present.

Davidson stood at the front of the room, a tray of bottles behind him. He flipped through some papers, whispering to the woman standing next to him. The other seven, clearly students, were in chairs organized into a rough semi-circle. One seat remained right on the end, next to a girl who looked to be a year or two my senior. Her brown eyes were warm and inviting, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t interested. She smiled as I sat down. I opened my mouth to greet her, but Davidson cleared his throat to gather our attention, cutting off any attempts at flirting.

“Hello!” He smiled and waved, and I couldn’t help but smile back. In the light of the lab, not crammed behind a desk, he looked a bit better off. He had an energy about him, that kind that radiates from anyone who has a genuine passion for what they do.

“You all know me, but I’d like to introduce you to Ms. Gill. She’s a fantastic woman and she’ll be assisting me throughout the duration of this study. Ms. Gill and I have worked together for the last few years, and she has even taken the lead on some of our most recent animal studies.” Davidson beamed like a proud parent. The faintest pink blush graced her cheeks as she smiled.

“Nice to meet all of you. I’ve got all of your consent forms here, but I would like to ask one more time before we begin: do any of you know each other?”

I looked down the line of chairs. Counting me, there were four men and four women. It struck me as an awfully small group, but this wasn’t my field. I didn’t know any of them. One man looked familiar -- I’d definitely seen him before. I was about 90% sure he worked at the Subway on campus. That hardly counted as knowing him, though. I looked back to Gill and shook my head. There were some murmurs of no from my cohorts.

“Excellent. Now, it is absolutely critical to the integrity of this study that at no point do you attempt to contact any of these fine folks outside of the context of the study. As we want to measure your individual responses to the supplement, we don’t want to muddy the waters by having you discuss your experiences with each other outside of the lab.”

I shot the girl next to me an exaggerated frown. She stifled a laugh, and turned her eyes back to Gill.

Gill went on to explain the process. She would be giving us each a bottle of the supplement. We were to take one pill each morning at eight o’clock. Failures to take it on time would need to be reported immediately. Every weekday, we’d report back to the lab at an assigned time and complete some basic reasoning tasks to assess any impact the supplement had on our abilities over time. For me, that meant I’d need to haul my ass out to the science complex at seven o’clock in the evening for the foreseeable future. I scowled - that was going to be annoying. The good news was that we had no need to show up on weekends.

The next morning, I woke up at 7:45 with a mild hangover. Trivia had been the night before. I’d thanked Sadie again for the lead, and she’d admitted she was surprised about the fact that there were only eight people there.

“I’d expected more,” she told me, sipping on her cider. “Assuming half of you are actually taking the supplement, the rest a placebo, that’s only four people in each group!”

“Who cares?” I asked, holding up my own. No discounted Corona this week. “Cheers to Davidson!”

It didn’t take long to make my hair look tolerable and pull on some clothes. A second alarm went off at eight, reminding me that it was time for me to take my first dose of the supplement. Tareq, not a morning person, growled into his pillow.

I didn’t give the pill itself much thought - it looked like a multivitamin, and it tasted like something that’d fallen to the back of an oven and continued to burn there for over a year before someone realized and pulled it out. I nearly gagged, but it was nothing half a bottle of Sprite couldn’t help with.

Nothing felt that out of the ordinary throughout the day, but I wasn’t really sure what I’d expected. It sure as hell wasn’t the pill from Limitless. The only difference I really noticed in my own behaviour was that I was overanalyzing everything I did and trying to figure out if it was the pill’s fault. Was I slightly jumpier today? Was I thinking about the pill too much because of the pill?

No. None of that. Obviously.

At six, I grabbed a quick dinner with Lis, Jack and Sadie. When I was done, I headed off to the lab and arrived just before seven. Subway guy was leaving as I went in. We gave each other a nod of recognition as we crossed paths.

Inside the lab, Gill and Davidson were seated at one of the black lab countertops. In front of them were some sheets of paper and some red and white tiles. I recognized them from when I was younger. In grade four I’d had to do some sort of test with those tiles where they showed me a picture of a completed pattern and I had to assemble it myself. I hadn’t expected to see them again at twenty-two.

Davidson seemed happy to see me, and gestured for me to come sit. The next twenty minutes were spent on a variety of tasks - not just reasoning, but memory as well. In one of them, they’d read me a series of numbers, and then I’d have to recite them backwards. I didn’t do particularly well on that task. I was more confident with the tiles, at least. Time flew by.

Gill was the one who actually administered the tests, while Davidson took notes, grinning the whole time. I wondered what he was so excited about; It couldn’t have been my test results. Finally, they took my blood pressure and sent me on my way.

As I went to leave, the brown-eyed girl from the first day was coming in. She smiled at me, and before I knew it I was smiling back. I just barely managed to choke back a hi before we’d walked past each other and I was back out in the hallway, alone.

In the empty hallway my heart was racing, and I couldn’t tell you why. I felt sweat instantly start to build on the back of my neck. I’d almost said hi to her when I wasn’t meant to. Davidson wouldn’t have been happy -- was that it? Or was it the simple fact that she was hot and I wanted to talk to her? Whatever it was, it felt stronger than it should have -- but -- goddammit, I was just overthinking things again.

Days passed, following the same pattern -- I’d get up, I’d take the pill at eight, and I’d spend the rest of the day overanalyzing everything I did. Each day it worsened, because I had another twenty-four hours of evidence that I was overthinking. My heart was getting one hell of a workout, though Davidson and Gill never commented when my blood pressure was taken.

A feedback loop sparked to life deep inside my chest. I’d hear my heart hammering away and I would feel anxiety make my hairs stand on end -- then I would think about what I was experiencing and the panic would grow deeper. I couldn’t talk myself down from it. Every time I tried, my body would fight against me, digging in its heels, turning up my nerves.

By Monday, I was on edge in a way I'd never experienced. In the past, I hadn’t been a leg-shake. Now, crammed into my lecture theatre seat, laptop balanced on the tiny desk, my right leg was positively vibrating. I nearly leapt out of my seat when Jack asked me if I could double-check a piece of code he had written.

“Jesus, dude,” He looked me up and down. “Are you alright?”

I nodded, but speech hadn’t come back to me just yet. I closed my eyes, breathing deeply and rhythmically in an effort to calm myself down. After a few moments passed, I was able to speak. “Yeah, it’s just...the study I’m doing. I think it’s getting to me, man.”

Jack shook his head, incredulous. “Yeah, no shit.” He turned, and as he did his arm clipped the edge of his laptop.

Something in my chest exploded, and my vision completely greyed out. When it came back, my hand had Jack’s laptop in a death-grip. It was still sitting on the desk, but it was clear it had nearly fallen. Jack, mouth slightly ajar, stared at me.

I swallowed hard, gently nudging the laptop into a more secure position on the table. As I pulled my hand back, it was quivering.

“What the fuck, Brent?”

A few moments passed, the instructor droning on in the distance.

“It was going to fall,” I finally answered, my voice weak. My heart was still throbbing, and the beginnings of nausea tickled at my stomach. It was too much. I closed my laptop, slipped it into my bag, and walked out.

The instructor paused to stare as I walked to the doors. I managed to choke out the word “sick” before I was out of the room. In the corridor, I broke into a run. I needed to go home.

I needed to lie down.

I spent the bulk of the day as a heap in my dorm room. I wasn’t an anxious person by nature, so it had to be the supplement’s doing. What a fucking shame. I feel like I’m going to die but I don’t feel any smarter.

Thankfully, I had my laptop and Netflix. I stuck to watching comedies for the rest of the day. Eventually my heart rate slowed to the point where it wasn’t dominating my every thought. By the time seven rolled around, I was in a state you might almost mistake for normal. A benefit, since I needed to haul my ass down to Davidson and Gill.

I didn’t see Subway guy leaving the lab this time. I wondered if he’d left early -- or maybe last time he’d left late. Oh well.

It was much the same as Friday -- little puzzling questions, tests of memory, rearranging tiles. If anything, I thought I did worse than I had on the first day. As it continued, anxiety began to rise in me again, building in my chest, setting my nerve endings on fire. I managed to keep it together until the very end.

As I finished up the last of the tile activities, my thoughts were consumed by the fact that there was someone behind me turn around now they’re behind you --

I nearly snapped my neck spinning around to look behind me. There was no one there -- at first. A second later later, the brown-eyed girl walked through the open door. Our eyes instantly met, and for the first time I saw her frown. It was probably off putting to walk into a room and find someone staring directly at you. I turned, gingerly rubbing my neck, back towards the researchers.

Neither was facing me. Instead, they were looking at each other. Davidson’s grin was wider than ever, and a smile was playing at Gill’s lips. Whatever that shared look said, I was deaf to it. Davidson turned, and offered me words that gave little clarity in the moment.

“Brent, you’re becoming an awfully perceptive person.”

Before I could respond, Gill stood up and gestured for me to leave. As I walked past the girl, she refused to look at me.

That evening, I received an email from Davidson. There was going to be a slight change to our regimen -- I was now to come in at 7:10pm. The message said that a greater effort should be taken to “space out” the subjects.

I was feeling pretty spaced out myself. By the time I was back in my dorm, all I could think about was going to sleep. But it did not come easily. No matter how long I lay in the bed, tossing and turning, I never felt at ease. Eventually, with the help of a meditation app my mother had emailed me months ago but I’d never bothered trying, I calmed myself to a point of stillness. That was when things got worse.

I am not sure if you have ever experienced sleep paralysis, but if not, consider yourself blessed. Instead of drifting to sleep, I felt a tingling sensation crawl across my limbs. I went to shake them out, and found I was frozen in place. I couldn’t see a damn thing -- my eyes may as well have been glued shut. There were no dreams, no hallucinations to break up the blackness. As I lay still as a corpse, the tingling gave way to numbness. Before long the only sensation I could experience was one of impending doom. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t feel.Unable to form rational thoughts in this dark void, I was absolutely certain I was going to die.

I don’t know how long it was I lay there in that worse-than-nightmare state, but eventually it ended. I woke up groggy, no memory of any dreams.

I don’t know why I kept taking the supplements. Maybe it was morbid curiosity. Perhaps it was the manifestation of some deep-seated self-loathing I’d never bothered to unearth, some sort of pill-popping l'appel du vide. It doesn’t matter why, it just matters that I did. I skipped classes over the next few days, only leaving to get food and to visit Davidson and Gill for the next round of my testing. The researchers would watch my actions and smile at me, but I have no idea if I improved. Davidson seemed thrilled, but he wouldn’t tell me why.

“What’s your problem?” Tareq had asked me on Thursday. I shrugged, my duvet pulled tight around my body. I was acutely aware of the dark shadows that hung below eyes -- sleep was getting harder. Every night, the pins and needles, the numbness, the sensation that Death Himself was in the room with me seemed to take up a greater percentage of my sleep cycle. I was anything but well rested.

My phone vibrated on the bed next to me, and I was angry. I shouted a string of expletives at the phone for daring to disturb me, at whoever was on the other end of it for having the gall to try and contact me, before tossing the damn thing to my bedroom floor.

“You’ve fucking lost it, dude.”

My skin prickled as he picked up a slice of pizza from the newest box he’d added to his hoard. I watched as he lifted the greasy, floppy triangle up to his mouth. When I realized he was going to drop it, I buried my head in my blanket. I didn’t want to watch. I didn’t want to be right. I didn’t want to be perceptive.

Through the blanket, I heard a muffled “fuck”. I screamed into the fabric.

“Fuck’s sake Brent, it’s just pizza.”

I didn’t respond. My hands shook, and I held the blanket tighter. I gripped it so intensely I feared my nails might tear through the fabric.

“Hey, it’s almost seven. Shouldn’t you be leaving?” Tareq spoke, clearly not out of a genuine interest for what I was supposed to be doing but because he had found a great way to get rid of me. Motives aside, he was right. I leapt off the bed, dropping the blanket on the floor as I went to pick up my phone from where it had landed.

Moving helped, terrifying though it was. Walking across the campus managed to lessen the feelings, or at the very least, distract me from them.

I broke down crying during the testing. Davidson lacked his usual grin, replacing it with a look of concern which, as far as I could tell, was genuine. He stopped the last test early. In what was clearly a breach of some sort of ethics code, he reached out to give me a pat on the arm.

I recoiled before his fingers could touch me, the hairs on my arm standing on end like I’d stepped out into a hailstorm without so much as a jacket. I stared at him, rubbing my face with my other arm to try and get rid of the tears. Finally, he spoke.

“I don’t understand.” He said it quietly. At first I thought he was talking to me, but he wasn’t facing my direction. He was looking down at the sheet where he’d been taking notes. Then he said it again, more forcefully. “I don’t understand.” He turned to Gill. She shrugged.

“What don’t you understand?” I asked. There was a tickle on my arm where Davidson had nearly touched me. Just a faint sensation, like a tiny spider had found its way onto my skin when I wasn’t looking. I tried to brush it off, but it wouldn’t go.

He didn’t respond. He spoke again, but to Gill rather than me.

“We need to stop this.”

“What don’t you understand?” I meant to just ask, but somehow I was shouting. Somehow I was standing, scratching my arm as I shouted.

“You were our most promising candidate, Brent.” His voice was quiet, and he refused to make eye contact. “Your scores have gone up every day, by a significant margin. You’ve become so much more perceptive, but -- “

There it was again. That word -- perceptive. I supposed it was accurate, too. I noticed people, sounds, things about to happen. I paid more attention to the world than I ever had before. I obsessed over it, whether I wanted to or not.

“But?”

“Maybe...too perceptive?” Gill whispered. As she looked up at me, I could see pity in her eyes.

She was right. As I stood in front of the two, I felt everything. I felt the fabric of my hoodie rubbing up against my chest, and the pressure of my jeans tight around my legs. I felt the crawling sensation growing across my skin, moving from one arm up to my neck, to my face.

For the final time, I ran from the lab back to my dorm room. Outside, the gentle wind hit my face, stabbing into my skin like icicles. My phone vibrated in my pocket and I screamed as it buzzed up against my leg. I pulled it out, glancing at the message from Sadie -- “you coming to trivia?” -- and I threw it as hard as I could against the pavement. I did not stop to look and see if it cracked. I left it behind and kept running.

Back in my dorm room, the first thing I did was tear the sweater off. It was too much to bear. The rubbing of fabric against my body was nauseating, and the sensation of unseen spiders creeping across my skin had reached an apex. No matter how much I scratched, I couldn’t stop it. In my absence Tareq had left, so I had free reign of the dorm. I headed for the bathroom, hoping to scrub away whatever plagued me.

It worked, to some degree. The itching lessened, but did not dissipate entirely. When I stepped out of the shower, I took a look at the mirror. I could see nothing there but my own face, the same as it had always been. There were no bugs visibly crawling across my skin, but I could feel them. Less than before, but still undeniably present.

I towelled off, then sat on my bed attempting to comprehend what was happening. This wasn’t imagination -- not according to Davidson, anyway. This was not simply hallucination brought on by lack of sleep. No, he’d said that I had become more perceptive. So what the Hell was I perceiving? As I sat scratching my arms, the explanation came to me.

When people say “the answer was inside you all along”, I don’t think this is what they mean.

It started with a tickle in my throat, the kind that lets you know you’ve got the beginnings of a cold. I coughed, an attempt to make the sensation go away, but it failed. If anything, it made my throat itchier. I stood to grab a glass of water, and my legs shook beneath me. Something was deeply wrong. The itching, the crawling, had sunk far deeper down into my throat than any cold ever reaches.

Once the awareness was there, I could not return to ignorance: There were things moving within me, and I would never be rid of them. Deep inside of me, there were billions of things squirming and twitching and pressing up against my internal organs, and I could feel every one of them. Now that I had become perceptive enough to feel them, there was simply no way to stop.

I tried to scream. I felt the movement of my throat and stopped because it was agonizing. I tried to stand, but the billions of living things inside of me crawled and shuddered as I moved. Innumerable flagella smacked against the walls of my intestines as I shifted, miniature whips cutting into me. I wanted to destroy each and every one of these legions of invaders who I had never asked for but who I would die without. I wanted to lacerate my abdomen, pry myself open and scrape them all out until only I remained, just me.

I tried to stand, but I hated it. I despised them writhing and scratching inside of me. Unable to take the sensation, I fell to my knees. The carpet burned like I had fallen into a lit campfire. Everything was too much and there was no escape because it was on me and within me. I started to sob and the tears seared my flesh like acid. I don’t know how long I was there on hands and knees, gasping as everything within me twitched and moved and boiled.

There was nothing I could do to quell the sensations, crashed there in the middle of my dorm room, but I knew how to make it stop once and for all. And so I began my mission of dragging myself to the bathroom. I pulled myself there on my hands, and my knees dragged. They turned red and raw and they felt like they had been shredded to the bone. The things in my guts wriggled and whipped and the things on my skin itched and crawled.

It was an agonizingly slow process. Eventually, my desperate, reaching palms were met with the cold tile of the bathroom floor. It was like passing from a volcano to a glacier, but I forced myself onward. My hand grasped for the latch on the cabinet under the sink.

I sit here with a bottle of drain cleaner in one hand, the other pressed to the floor as I try to hold myself up. Every second that passes, I still feel them, on me and in me. I’m not an idiot, you know, but there’s only one way out of this. The good news is that I’m going to take every one of those little fuckers down with me.

There’s one thing, though, that I can’t help thinking about as I sit here, trying to overcome the sensations long enough to do what needs to be done.

For my family’s sake, I hope I wasn’t in the control group.