Atelo [MXB] [BOOK 1] ✓

CHAPTER 14: HEART

It's the same guy as before, that greets him when he reaches the end of the Never Ending Hallway. He's still in his Wall Window, and he greets Marley with;

"Mr. Nocona." The same as last time, Marley remembers because he's rarely ever referred to as Mr. anything. Marley just smiles. The one mainly reserved for politics, but this seems like the appropriate situation.

That's the only greeting he gives, until the guy says, "Doctor Rellik will see you, whenever you're ready."

Marley just nods, not wanting to say anything because there's a pretty high probability right now that his voice will crack and he doesn't need that.

He opens the door, feeling the guy's eyes on him the whole time, and steps through on shaky legs. Calm down, Marley, your pain tolerance has always been pretty good. You can make it through this, no problem. It'll all be fine—

Okay, yeah, that's not working. Just because he can deal with some cuts and bruises does not mean he wants whatever is in store for him here.

What is Doctor Rellik gonna do? What should Marley be expecting, here? Is everything that the people say here true? Is Marley really about to be seriously harmed all because he can't be seriously fucking harmed?

Like last time, the room is white and there's a chair in the middle. Marley immediately walks to the chair and sits down. Fuck it, let's just get it over with before he breaks down from nerves. Wouldn't be the first time and definitely not the last.

He waits for a moment. For the voice over the intercom thing to talk. However, the voice never comes, because metal cuffs appear from out of freakin' nowhere and trap his wrists and his ankles, effectively scaring him to death.

Well, okay. That's over with.

A few seconds later, the side door is opening and Doctor Rellik himself is stepping out. He looks the exact same as he did last time, white coat and all. He looks like a doctor.

"Marley Nocona, nice to see you again." He greets without making eye contact. He has a clipboard in his hand that he's looking at. He begins writing some stuff so Marley decides to survey the room, for lack of anything else to do. The first thing he notices is the whole hospital situation next to him. It's an IV and a heart monitor, from what he can tell. There's some other stuff that he sees but he really doesn't know what it is.

He's only been in a hospital a few times, and he has never even tried to understand anything medical—he has a hard enough time with exterior intersections, thanks—so the rest of the freaky machines and such in here are a mystery to him.

After a moment, he looks back over at the doctor, who finally decides to make eye contact with him. He's making a weird face, like one that you'd use when you're about to tell a kid their goldfish died. Marley already knows this visit will not be fun.

"I'm going to get right down to it, today I'll be seeing how you react to blood loss. I can do this two ways, one is going to take longer but not be as painful. The other will be quicker but you'll definitely feel it. Which one?"

Choose the form of torture. Okay, what should he go with? He doesn't really have much left to do, aside from lunch. It depends on how much time, but Dr. Rellik didn't specify and Marley doesn't want to ask.

Also, if it takes long he'll probably be bored. Or have to sit still. Both of those things would be absolutely horrible because they will both most likely end in him messing this up.

"I'll go with the quick one, please," he responds. His heartbeat is getting faster because however this guy is going to make him lose blood, no matter how, will absolutely suck. If it's going to be quick... what's he going to do? Stab Marley? Now that he's really thinking, that was probably the wrong decision. Crap.