134340 |JJK FF|

Chapter 27

Jeongguk felt like shit.

Two days. Two days had gone by, and there was no sign of Taehyung getting any better.

If anything, worse. If he could call it that.

It wasn't like Taehyung lost his memories. He seemed quite fine, actually. He answered any type of question Jeongguk asked to check his memory.

"What time do you normally eat dinner?"

"Sometimes as early as seven in the evening, sometimes as late as midnight,"

"If you were to have thirty-seven apples and I asked for twenty-nine, how many would you have left?"

"Theoretically, eight. Practically, zero. I hate apples and I'd give all of them to you,"

"What was the first thought you had when you saw me?"

"That kid looks easy to kill."

"Hey!"

"It's true!"

So, his memories and problem-solving abilities weren't affected at all. No, the thing that worried him the most was...

SLUMP!

"Woah!" Jeongguk yelled as he hurried over to Taehyung, who was lying on the floor, "What the heck was that?!"

"I... I don't know," Taehyung trailed off as he accepted Jeongguk's held-out hand, "I just--I thought I'd walk a bit...my legs, I dunno, gave up?" he sounded confused as he slumped back onto the bed.

"Right." Jeongguk took a deep breath, letting his frenzied state calm down. He looked out the window. The water waves hit the body of the ship as the floor swayed accordingly.

"Well, I guess we are one step closer to finding out what's wrong, yeah?" Taehyung laughed sadly. Jeongguk fixed his eyes on him.

"I'll look into it," Jeongguk muttered as he retook his seat by the table. Placing his palm over the display on the table, he let his eyes immerse back in the text that floated midair.

The cerebellum, a fist-sized part of the brain, is located at the back of the head beneath the occipital lobes (the back part of the brain that is involved with vision). It is separated from the cerebrum by the tentorium (fold of dura). The cerebellum fine-tunes motor activity or movement such as voluntary muscle contraction, maintaining body posture, balance and equilibrium.

If someone is suffering from Felinis Debrainy (More commonly known as The Feline Illness) and the first change you notice in them is their motor skills deteriorating (Tripping, dropping something they were holding, not being able to walk straight are some examples), it is most probable that the illness has affected the cerebellum and will tend to spread down the brain stem.

The brainstem consists of the Cerebellum, the Pons and the Medulla Oblongata. As the infection moves further down, the Pons will next be affected. The Pons contain four out of twelve of the Cranial nerves and the Reticular Activating System which operates the body's sleep-wake cycle, alertness, and pain responses and is part of the body's fight-or-flight system. Look out for a messy sleep schedule and twitching of the facial muscles in the patient.

Next will be the Medulla Oblongata, or Medulla for short. The medulla is where the cardiovascular and respiratory systems link together into a united system that controls the heart rate, breathing, blood pressure and more. The Medulla manages other automatic processes. These are things that the body often does without you having to think about them. Some examples include coughing, sneezing, swallowing, vomiting etc. This stage will occur only weeks after the infection, and once it does, the patient is at higher risk of facing a sudden heart attack, a stroke or difficulty breathing. Make sure to be ready with immediate medical help if things were to get extreme--