Imagine this: someone takes a needle and pokes it into your eye. They then take a hot candle and let the wax drip into both of your ears and nose. Your tongue is laid out on a table and beat with a hammer repeatedly. And then they detonate some low-yield nuclear weapons on every side of your brain and let the fractured pieces of your skull slice your gray matter into oblivion.

That was about a third as bad as how I felt upon waking up.

Despite the feeling that my mouth was permanently shut, I managed to utter a couple of hoarse whimpers. I needed a doctor. No, I needed morphine. All the morphine my body could handle, and then some.

My candlewax-filled ears managed to pick up some unintelligible voice speaking quickly. A doctor? Father? I prayed it was someone I knew other than Professor Ross – I was going to have some very choice words with him about his little ‘project’.

The vague feeling of a needle sliding into my neck was the last sensation my body registered before blissful darkness once again took ahold of me.