Well, there was only one way to find out, he thought to himself. But he still hesitated for another few minutes before steeling himself to take the glass, and with eyes closed, he drank the liquid. Which sort of tasted like licorice, or what he imagined liquid licorice would taste like. I hope all this means it was not just a type of licorice plant, he thought to himself. He could feel the liquid run down inside him, and seemingly nothing happened. He sighed in exasperation and relaxed as he started packing things up. Then his guts suddenly twisted and not so much hurt as he began to feel really strange. He saw stars and sat down on the bed, where he quickly found himself struggling to breathe. His vision started tunneling as his chest labored, and he leaned over the bed to the house phone, managed to press zero to get reception, and as he felt himself fading away, he heard a voice say in Greek. “Reception. How may I help you?”

“Medical emergency, room three oh four.” He sputtered out in Greek, and then everything went all black on him.

Chapter 7

Huh! Not dead yet!

Jason opened his eyes into darkness and experienced a moment of panic but then realized he was in a dark room where the features were unclear due to the gloom. His body felt heavy and lethargic, while the act of raising his head to look around left him feeling exhausted and rather nauseous. His waking up must have done something somewhere because a few moments later, what had seemed to be a solid wall over to his right proved to have a door.

The door opened to admit a lot of light, and a female in a uniform he decided had to be that of a nurse came bustling into the room. She gave him a slight smile and said hello in Greek, after which her conversational skills seemed to be limited to very simple phrases. She took his blood pressure and temperature before updating a clipboard at the end of the bed. During this operation, she said little beyond occasionally muttering a few placating words in his direction, which he gathered were designed to calm him more by the tone than the actual content. It was possible she didn’t realize he could speak Greek if she knew he was an American. The nurse finished with her tasks and told him to stay in bed till the doctor came and accompanied these words with suitable hand motions that confirmed his earlier suspicion. As he didn’t even feel the need to attend the bathroom, he was happy to oblige her request, given how strange his body felt. He had aches and pains throughout his body, he had discovered as he woke up fully, but they were only dull aches and pains, as if he’d been run over by a truck, say a month ago or something. Very odd.

He was getting small nerve twinges all over his body as well. They were only mild, small sudden twitches or jerks, but it felt really strange like he was a puppet and someone was not so much as pulling on the strings but rather just jerking them a little. It was also a bit like pins and needles but sharper, if not as painful, and not so generalized. Instead, it was like little pins being shoved into him here, there, and everywhere. Mostly on the inside rather than on the outside, as happened with pins and needles. He lay there hurting, twitching, and trying to remember what had happened. Ahh. His mental blankness regarding how he got here was suddenly full of memories of making the liquid concoction. What the hell had he been thinking?