Remember More

Chapter 05

REMEMBER MORE

CHAPTER 05

"More?!" John drew back from his son. "Are you crazy? It's already killing you!"

Jonas whipped his head from side to side. "I…you…you don't understand…" He was now sitting up in bed with his hands out on the rails for support. Yan was by his other side, holding his arm.

"What do you mean?" asked John.

Jonas was sucking breath in and out like he'd just run a marathon. His sweat ran down his face to his chin and then dripped onto his clothes. "I…I can't explain right now…" He turned into Yan's face. "…Yan, you know…you tell him…"

Yan's eyes widened. "Me?"

Jonas turned back to his father. "…I can feel it…" He lifted his hand and he studied it, turning it over this way and that. "…it's coursing through my very body…" He held it up to the light. "…so the ancients were right…"

"Jonas…" John reached out and touched his son on the arm. John's hand was quivering.

Jonas turned to his father and looked away from his hand. "Dad, you have to trust me. Just this one time. I know what I'm talking about. I'm starting to remember things…" He scrunched his eyes together and then blinked some more. "…if not that, at least trust my training! All the years of medicine, the TCM, herbology, my research, and…and…please, Dad…" He leaned in closer to John. "…before it's too late."

Jonas coughed into his hand a few times and the fits racked his body. Hair fell from his head and they were clumps and clumps of dark waves now crisp, dried out, thickets of crinkled wires lying on the pristine, white linens of the king sized hospital bed.

John stared at the strands of his son's hair.

"Ungh…!" Jonas' head jerked back. He winced.

The alarms sounded all at once.

Jonas spasmed. His body straightened out like a board and he fell back on the bed.

Yan tore over to the drip. She cranked it up as high as it would go. Whipping back into the pharmacy, she added more tranquilizer into the bag.

Another thirty seconds and Jonas relaxed in the bed once more. He was breathing again. His clothes, as well as every last inch on the sheets of the bed were entirely soaked with sweat.

Yan moved over and began to straighten things up a little. She switched off the alarms. Rearranging the pillow and other things on the bed, she adjusted Jonas' body as well so he'd be more comfortable. She happened to touch Jonas on the belly and it felt like it was on fire.

Meanwhile, John was holding his hand out and resting it on Jonas' arm.

She finished what she was doing. Moving over to stand by John's side, she let out a breath quietly. "He's not getting better, sir. This is three times the amount of tranquilizer I was giving him before."

John swallowed once. He licked his lips for the dryness he felt but it didn't help.

Wheeling himself around, he made his way over to the desk closer to the middle of the room. He took a pen and scratched down something on a scrap of paper.

Yan treaded over after him.

John turned and handed to her what he had written down.

"Sir?"

"Call the lab. Ask for Mike."

"Sir…?"

"But it must be Mike. No one else. Tell him I need a box of it. And it must be from that lot…" He pointed to the paper.