Taken

Chapter 20

Win was so tense on the drive to the hospital that Bright made him pull over so he could take the wheel. 

"Why do you keep looking at the sky?" He huffed when Win leaned his head out the window again to examine the star-speckled expanse. 

"What happened...what we saw..." Win shook his head and tried to settle in his seat again, gripping his seatbelt in white hands. "How can it be possible?" 

"The universe is big," Bright said, awe in his voice. 

"Impossibly big," Win agreed. 

"I never thought-" 

"Anything could be out there." 

"Why would they come here?" 

Win shook his head. He didn't have the answers. Bright didn't expect him too, but they both had so many thoughts racing that they had to let them out.

"What do you think they did to me?" Bright asked nervously. "So many things have changed since that night I was...taken." Eh still couldn't fathom it. Maybe they had it all wrong. Maybe what they thought happened, didn't. 

Win's eyes drifted to the sky again.  

"There's no way to really know, is there?" 

Bright clamped his lips together and they drove the rest of the way in silence. 

Dr. Saetom was waiting at the back entrance of the hospital when they arrived and ushered them inside. 

"You say you've been feeling fatigued recently?" he asked the two young men, not wasting any time as they followed him down the long hallways. 

"Yes," Bright said hesitantly though the events of the last hour had left him wide awake, his heart racing in his chest. 

"Any other changed symptoms?"

He glanced over at Win before saying softly, "My mom says my scent has changed. She's been sniffing me since I was a baby, so she probably knows best."

"Changed?" Win asked in confusion.

"Like I smell sweeter or something. She said it was similar to an over ripe fruit."

Win leaned in and pressed his nose to Bright who swatted him away. "I thought you were just using a perfume or something. You do smell different than when we first met." 

"Scent changes," Dr. Saetom mumbled, hurrying his steps until they reached the lab. He couldn't help the scientific curiosity brimming from him on top of his care for the young men. He'd never experienced anything like this in his entire career. 

"Go get changed and head to the exam room while I get everything ready," the doctor told them as he sorted needles and vials onto a tray. He also gathered gloves and some alcohol swabs. "I'm going to draw some blood and take that jar there. I want to have a look at your urine as well. Do you think it's possible we could get some semen samples as well?" 

Bright glanced at Win nervously. 

"Didn't you check a lot of those when I first brought Bright to you?" Win asked. 

"Yes," Dr. Saetom confirmed, "But I want to see if there have been any changes to what we've already observed and to look for something outside the usual diseases and viruses I've been testing for. It's been months," he stressed. "I just want to find something to help or to at least understand." 

Win nodded. He wanted to know more too and he knew Bright was also curios though stressed by everything that had happened to him. 

"Help me push this cart," Dr. Saetom told Win as they moved to the observation room. "And while we'll be able to get some of the results tonight, some will take a lot longer."