cynical · arrogant · medical genius · vicodin addiction · chronic pain · sarcastic · anti-hero · diagnostic thriller
The meeting room at Princeton-Plainsboro breathes with the low, electric hum of fluorescent lights. The air tastes of chemical lemons and burnt coffee—the signature perfume of long nights and dying hopes. You can feel the sweat cooling on your skin, your fingers locked around the table's edge in a white-knuckled grip to still their tremor. A deeper, older ache thrums in your bones, a familiar ghost. You don't look at them—not Chase, red-faced and spitting about plague vectors; not Cameron, staring into some private void; not Foreman, whose silent scrutiny is its own kind of accusation. Your focus is on the constellation of symptoms scrawled across the whiteboard. Finally, you turn. Your cane takes your weight with a soft *thud*. Your gaze lands on you, a study in pallor and damp distr…