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As I watched, transfixed, the worm lifted its upper half before plunging down, burrowing itself into his skin. The man let out a cry of agony, the worm slithering, growing, beneath his skin.

I watched the path the parasite made - up his neck and cheek, across his forehead, and finally disappearing behind his shock of dark hair. My stomach churned, threatening to expel the contents of my last meal. I wrapped my arms around myself as if that could somehow hold the food in.

And then, it happened.

The man’s eyelids shut, and when he reopened them, his eyes were red as the blood vessels popped. White foam exploded from his mouth, and his body convulsed. A sound that wasn’t entirely human emitted from his mouth. A feral growl. A scream. I could only describe it as a combination of the two.

It was too much. Hands on my stomach, I turned away from the gruesome sight. Deth’s lips curled into a sneer as I vomited, tears burning my eyes. Only when I was sure that my stomach was empty did I turn back to the death doctor and his beady eyes.

“Why did you show me this?” I whispered hoarsely. I used the back of my hand to wipe the remnants of vomit from my mouth. I felt disgusting. All I wanted to do was shower and then sleep for an eternity. My body shook as fear rode me. Instinctively, my eyes flickered to the skin on my arm. White scars adorned each of my wrists intermingling with savage looking burn marks. Was the parasite, the Arctic, slithering just beneath my skin?

“The longest it took for the parasite to corrupt the mind was thirteen minutes and twenty-two seconds,” Deth said. He began to lead me back down the hall, in the opposite direction of my room. I followed along behind him feeling helpless. Small. Vulnerable. An insignificant, pesky bug just waiting to be squashed beneath his boot.

“And?”

“And.” He turned back to stare at me, a white eyebrow raised. “It’s been hours, and you’re still normal. Well, relatively normal.”

“I don’t understand,” I said honestly. We stopped at a nondescript door at the end of the hall. There was no placard announcing what - or who - I would find inside.

I pictured my father sitting on a leather throne, a bottle of whisky in one hand and his favorite cigar in the other. I pictured his feet kicked up on the desk as he reclined, but when I entered, he dropped his feet to the ground and took a threatening step towards me.

My hands were sweating, shaking, and I swore my heart was beating irregularly fast. I could barely see through the terror, barely think. I was suffocating on my own fear.

Deth didn’t bother knocking, instead pushing the door open without preamble.

I shoved my hands into my pockets as if that gesture could somehow quell the shaking. Nope, didn’t work. Still felt like thousands of bolts of electricity were coursing through me.

I slowly lifted my eyes to face the figure in the room, and my breath left me in a swooping exhale. I physically staggered back a step, hand rising to cover my chest. My heart.

It couldn’t be…

“Fallon?”