Friday the 13^th was just another day at College for Johnny. Even though some people thought of the day to be cursed or frightening due to implications of popular culture, Johnny did not mind it in the least. To him it was a regular day with the only possible upside being his favorite rapper dropping a new studio album the same night. So, he went on with his day rather uneventfully up until the walk to his college dorm at the end of the day. It was here the first inflection point of the day caught up with the young man. 

Floating around the walking path was a solitary bee on its merry way to collect pollen. In this scenario another grad student might have laughed it off thinking what degree of difference a singular bee would have on this sizable sideline garden. Another might have even pondered how the bee spent its entire existence chasing parallel to us humans, who chase after materialistic effects just to inevitably leave them behind. But in the case of Johnny, the bee struck only one thought, fear, for he had a phobia of bees. A full-fledged panic attack stung through rendering the grad student incomprehensible of his surroundings and landing him face first on the ground.

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“He’s coding, he’s coding, administer serum IX to him, STAT”, yelled Dr. X to his protégé Dr. 11. 

“I told you not to give  him that solution , the trials were not complete, and it was very clearly unstable. Now look at  what you did , it triggered his phobia of bees into his subconscious mind. Poor bloke is lucky he didn’t have an aneurysm ”, yelled back the protégé with a look of utter annoyance on his face as he administered the vaccine.  

“It’s all for the greater good of the humankind my dear, once the trials are complete, we might finally be able to cure schizophrenia, get rid of phobias and so much more for the entire population of the Earth !”, said X with a smile.

“But if the trials continue, we might not have a test subject to progress any further with. I’m unplugging him from the machines! “, said 11 inching closer to Johnny who was strapped on to the Helmviewer machine in the middle of the dimly lit room.

At this point surprisingly Dr. X chose not to intervene allowing Dr. 11 to unplug the poor lad from the machine. The two doctors watched over as the young man regained his consciousness and woke up from the hospital bed, he was lying in. 

Johnny woke up disoriented without a clue of where he was or who he was. He looked at the two doctors,  glanced at the machine he was strapped into and immediately flew into a rage. He grabbed a pair of surgical scissors was about to stab Dr. X in the eyeball when  a third doctor appeared behind him and injected another syringe into his neck . Once again Johnny passed out on to the floor face first causing Deja’ Vu to run buck wild inside his grey matter. 

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Johnny woke up in his room clutching a pair of safety scissors, lying in a pool of his own sweat. His dad walked in dressed in his lab coat and concealing another vial of antipsychotics in his hand just in case. 

“Rick?”, he called out, his voice trembling with fear and hope.

“Yeah dad”, answered back the young lad.

“Oh, thank God, I thought you were still Johnny”, muttered the good doctor under his breath.

“Johnny? Who’s Johnny dad?”

“Oh, never mind that son! Put on a shirt we’re going out for pizza!” 

Penned By: Rtr. Pasindu Gunawardhana (Editorial Member 2021-22)

Edited and published by: RACSLIIT Editorial Team 2021-22