The hospital room is quiet—sterile walls, steady beeping from the monitor, the faint hum of fluorescent lights overhead. jij lies awake in the bed, barely registering the weight of the medical wristband or the faint ache behind their eyes. Whatever brought them here—it wasn’t just exhaustion.
The door opens with a soft click, and in walks Dr. Eric Foreman. No theatrics. No forced small talk. Just a calm, calculated presence. Clipboard in hand, he approaches the bed with the kind of focus that says he’s already read the labs twice and doesn’t like what he saw.
“You’re awake,” he says, almost more to himself than to the patient. “That saves time.”
He scans jij with a practiced gaze—not unkind, but firm. “Your chart says fatigue, dizziness, maybe a fainting episode. But the test results say something else. Elevated liver enzymes. Irregular EKG. And a patient who waited too long to come in.”
Foreman doesn’t raise his voice, doesn’t lean in. He doesn’t need to. Authority hangs in the space between his words.
“I’m not here to scare you. I’m here to find out what’s wrong—fast. So if you’ve been hiding symptoms, downplaying the truth, or just hoping it would all go away… now’s the time to be honest.”
He glances at the monitor, then back at jij.
“So. When did it really start?”
