I woke up again, somehow still feeling tired.

Glancing back at my window, I see that the thing that was watching me before is no longer there, although now that I think about it I'm pretty sure I know what it was. I then hear a sigh to the other side of me, and I look to see Time sitting in a chair next to my bed. He seems conflicted about something.

"Time...?" I say, turning my head to face him.

Time looks back at me with surprise, then relief. He gets up from the chair and walks over, now slightly smiling and not seeming to be worrying about what he was thinking about before.

"Hey Sabre." He answers. "How ya feeling?"

"Like I just got kicked in the head."

Time stays silent for a moment, then looks back at me.

"...You gotta stop scaring us like that, bud. I was honestly kinda worried you wouldn't wake up, for a moment there."

I'm able to get myself to sit up, although it takes a bit of effort. "How long was I out?" I ask.

"Little over four hours." Time says. "Apparently, coughing up blood is a new symptom of the virus."

I remember what happened before I passed out in the analysis room. Inadvertently, I start focusing on the sharp pain in my heart again. Time understands what's happening.

"Yeah, the Professor said that would happen." He says. "In fact, he should be coming in again soon to check on you. He's been doing that since your episode earlier, it seems."

As if on cue, Professor Red steps into the room holding a book and quill, and sees me and Time talking to each other. He breathes a sigh of relief, and walks in.

"Told ya." Time says.

"Oh, hey." I say. "We were just talking about you."

"Hey there, Sabre. You doing alright?" Professor Red asks.

"Eh, I've seen my own blood before. I'll live."

The Professor checks in on my health for a while, then holds out the book and quill he was carrying.

"One more thing," He says. "Could you write down any other symptoms you have? M and I are researching past viruses in the library to see if what you're infected with is a mutated strain of something already existing."

I take the book and quill, and nod at the Professor. I write down what else has been happening to me as quickly as I can, however it's still pretty slow due to the tiredness I still feel.

============================================================

- Dizziness

- Heart Pain (Connected to the coughing, maybe)

- Weird Tiredness

============================================================

I hand the small list to the Professor, and he looks at it and I immediately see he's already thinking of possibilities to what they could mean for the virus. He then quickly walks out of the room.

"Thank you, this will be very useful to me. Seeya later!" He says.

After the Professor leaves, Time and I stay talking for a while, just like yesterday. Then he has to go back home, and I feel bad that he has to be alone in the house now. Once he leaves, I try to find the energy to at least read some more of the book Happy gave me, but it's in vain. I already feel myself falling asleep again, despite sleeping through most of today. I know this isn't just some normal fatigue like the Professor believes, but I don't really think much more of it at the moment as I sink into the soft bedding. 

Maybe I can bring that up... to the Professor... tomorrow...

-

—————————————————————————————————————

[Prof. Red's POV, later that night]

It may not have been many, but the new list of symptoms Sabre wrote down has helped narrow down the possible original strains exponentially. Now the problem is figuring out which one fits his condition the most, and seeing what cured it.

I was looking in the library with only the Assistant, as it was very late at night and M had already left for bed (Pathetic, it's only 11:30). I found some entries of similar viruses, but none of them had all four of the symptoms we've found so far. Another wall hit, now to find one more thing to break it down.

My research is interrupted by the sound of breaking glass. Either someone else is late-night researching and broke some of my stuff, or...

Someone just broke in.

I quietly close the book I'm holding and signal the Assistant to follow me, as he also heard the glass. Creeping down the hallway, I see the window that was broken, and a strange black-and-white-swirled color creature standing next to it. It's pulling out shards of glass from its hand, however not bleeding at all. What is this thing... can I experiment on it?

I'm pulled from my thoughts by the creature suddenly moving, and the Assistant and I duck back behind the corner of the wall, as we don't know what it'll do if it sees us. Watching it start to head further into the lab, I whisper a command to the Assistant.

"Follow it." I say.

The Assistant nods, and quickly yet quietly begins following our strange intruder. We watch as it keeps making turns, and I come to a horrible realization.

It's heading straight to Sabre's room.

When it arrives at his door, the Assistant and I still following, it immediately tries quietly opening it. I can't let this thing get to Sabre, it will most likely make him worse! I point at the creature, giving a new command to the Assistant.

"Invasion Prevention Protocol." I whisper. "Capture."

Receiving the command successfully, the Assistant rushes over to the creature and quickly pulls its hands behind its back, making sure it can't struggle. Holding the invader in place, the Assistant nods, my signal that it's safe to come out. I walk over to the strange creature, examining it.

"What do I do with it, Professor?" The Assistant asks me.

"Take it to one of the more secured testing chambers in the basement." I say. "It won't be able to break out there."

The Assistant quietly teleports to do so, bringing the creature with him. I'll have to study it later, I need to check if Sabre is okay.

I open the door to Sabre's room a little, being careful not to make too much noise. I see that he's still in the room, and relief washes over me as I also see he's still asleep. Good, neither that thing or the Assistant made too much noise. I won't have to explain this to him tomorrow, he has enough to panic about as-is.

Once I close the door, I'm met with a familiar one-eyed face to my left, scaring me. He's about to speak, but I hold up a hand, the point at the door I just closed. He rolls his eye as we walk over to another room so his distorted voice doesn't scare my patient awake. Once we get there, I turn to him.

"Why are you here, Hypno?" I ask.

"Oh, y'know, Just wandering around." He says.

"Did you have something to do with that... thing?"

"No, of course not. That thing was sent by who did this to Sabre."

I freeze in place. Does Hypno know who did this?

"Well, can you tell me who sent it then?!" I say.

"Nah, it's not relevant to this." Hypno answers.

I sigh. He can be such a pain in my side. I guess that's what I get for doing this to him...

"I am doing something though."

"What?! What are you doing?!"

"Chill, Origin would kill me if I just let Sabre die. It's not that big a deal."

"Hypno." I say sternly. "What are you doing to Sabre?"

"Well, I believe you know of the strange  fatiguing tiredness Sabre is going through."

"Yes, what about it?"

+==================================================+

Quick author's interruption!

Doing Hypno's lines like that is tedious and annoying as frick, but I didn't want to delete his previous lines bc I put a lot of effort into them, so I'm just typing his dialogue in bold now. Sorry I got lazy QwQ

+==================================================+

"That's actually my doing, because the virus isn't just going to kill him, it's going to make it hurt. Keeping him like that will make him unable to focus on the pain the virus is causing, making it easier to research the virus and cure him."

I... don't actually believe this. Hypno helping Sabre? He has to be getting something out of this, right? Is he planning something? Is he going to weaken Sabre in order to defeat him? No, no, he just said Origin would kill him if he did anything to Sabre. I put my confusion of that aside for now.

"I don't get it, you hate Sabre." I say. "Why are you helping him? ...Not that I'm complaining."

"Let's just say that if Sabre dies to the virus, events will unfold that even I believe are terrible." Hypno answers me.

"How are you even doing this, exactly? All the sedatives and painkillers I give him don't work as well as normal, or nearly as long, how could a simple power be better than that?"

"For one thing, my power of hypnosis affects the mind directly rather than using something close to a potion effect that will eventually wear off. As long as I want him to, Sabre will be affected by this fatigue. It'll only wear off once I don't need it active anymore. And for another thing, it's not just 'simple'."

"I guess that makes sense..." I mumble. "Could you tone it down a little, though? He slept through the vast majority of the day yesterday, and I'm sure that's not a good thing."

"Alright, alright. I will. Seeya."

Hypno suddenly disappears, probably teleported away. I walk out of the room I was talking with him in, and the Assistant is standing next to Sabre's door.

"Objective complete." He says. "Shall we return to the library?"

"Yes," I answer. "I've gotten some new information that replaces old data. Come on, now."

The Assistant and I walk back to the library, while I keep any eye out for any other lab invaders. We've already had two in so little time... maybe I should increase the lab's security once this is all over.

For now, I've got some research to do and experiments to run.