𝐋𝐚𝐬𝐭 𝐛𝐨𝐫𝐧 𝐇𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐭𝐨𝐧 -𝐋.𝐒

𝐑𝐨𝐨𝐟𝐭𝐨𝐩 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐟𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 <28>

AFTER WHAT FELT LIKE A REALLY LONG TIME, Alice and Will's brain scan results were finally in. In the board room, several doctors including Owens were gathered round the table discussing the results. And, to say they were rather shocked about what they found was an understatement.

"This is Alice's, exactly three months ago. As you can see, there is nothing abnormal about it at all. Brain is completely unaffected." The doctor flicked onto another slide showing Alice's brain from a more recent time frame.

"And, this was three weeks ago. There's nothing majorly concerning about this scan, but as you can see there is a few abnormalities starting to form around this section of the brain."

The doctor flipped on to yet another slide, Alice's second most recent scan. "Now, this is from last night. We took this scan after she had been put to sleep. And as you can see, practically the whole brain has been affected."

Finally, the doctor moved onto yet another slide. The picture of the brain was absolutely covered in red. It left the room in a rather deafening silence. This really was serious.

"And this is from this morning. Just like the boy's, her brain now has abnormalities in each section of the brain. If this moves any worse, it's likely to be incurable. She could be left with serious brain damage- meaning she might night be able to wake up."

"So, she'd be stuck in a coma?"

"Most likely." The doctor agreed. "But that's not the strange part. The strange part is, we tracked her sleeping pattern over the last night. It's as if she isn't sleeping at all. She's gaining no energy from sleeping. Something else inside her is taking that energy."

"You think that thing, is slowly killing her?"

"I think it's using her. It's channeling her energy. Whatever the hell this thing is doing to her, it's poisoning her. Her blood levels were extremely high- much higher than any sample I've ever seen, especially for a kid her age."

"So, it's in her system?" A doctor asked. "This thing?"

"Not literally. But it's somehow connected to her. I don't know if it's a virus she picked up last year that's slowly been developing inside her or if it's something to do with the nightmares she reported to having."

"So, we have two kids infected with some deadly disease from another dimension? Is that what your telling us here?" Owens asked, breathing out his nose worriedly.

The man in front of the slideshow nodded slowly. It wasn't a fun subject. Talking about how two innocent kids were going to die in less than 24 hours if they didn't do something about it.

It really was terrible.

"Why don't I here any suggestions?"

The whole table was silent as anything. And Owens suspected that they were keeping something from him.

"We have bigger problems than the children." The doctor across from him answered without meeting Owen's eyes.

"Do we?" Owens asked sarcastically.

"We can't keep delaying the burn." Another one answered.

Owens slammed his hands down onto the table out of frustration. "You're talking about putting . . . Putting a Band-Aid on this."

"Right now, a Band-Aid is the best option."

"It's our only option."

Owens did not agree with a single thing the doctors were saying. Will and Alice, were his only concern right now. He had to make sure they were safe- he promised. He couldn't just turn his back on them when they needed him most, especially when it was the damn lab which caused their pain in the first place.