Can You Hear Me?

"Fuck, I can't see anything!" Layton whispered, who stopped and immediately cleaned the mask visors using the sleeves of his jacket in a clumsy way, too scared to do things calmly.

With the reduced view and the torchlight shaking following the movements of his hand, Layton noticed that a man's body lay on that undone bed: Dr. Klein's chest swelled and deflated, while the rest of his body remained motionless as if he had been minimized his vital functions.

"Oh... fuck it! I can recognize him! It's him, it's Dr. Klein! I remember that ring!" Faith exclaimed, unable to hold back her agitation and noticing the ring that the man carried in his hand, reflecting the light of the torch for a few seconds.

"Eh, yes... I had no doubt that was him. Uhm... Dr. Klein?" Layton said aloud, trying trivially to call the man on the bed and see if he reacted in some way.

Just as Dr. Tyler had described, Klein did not move in the slightest, staying on the bed in a vegetative state, expanding and closing only the lungs that allowed him to stay alive.

Faith and Layton's masks continued to tarnish, and every time they cleaned the visors with the sleeves of their jackets, they tarnished faster and faster, not allowing them to see anything.

"Holy slut, they should have recharged the internal oxygen filters! Maybe we should have waited a few more minutes before wearing them!" Faith said, pressing a button located at the height of the temple that would have to release clean oxygen inside the mask, thus preventing the glass to tarnish.

Soon after Faith's careful consideration, Layton got even closer to the bed, curious to be able to distinguish Klein's face between the messy blankets and pillows on the big mattress.

"Dr. Layton, can you hear me? What happened to you, how do you feel?" he asked again, hoping to receive an answer that never came.

The only sound in the room beside the noises emitted by the two companions remained that of the faint breath of that poor man who seemed to be at the end of his life.

When Layton was close enough, Klein's face was finally visible: a short untreated beard covered his cheeks dug into his face and the upper part of his neck, which was also very thin, almost skeletal.

The protruding cheekbones and deep dark furrows around his eyes were symptoms of the fact that that poor man had not been able to feed himself for several days.

"Why isn't there even a drip? I don't see any kind of medicine or medical machine nearby, how is that possible?! They're not helping him, they're just waiting for him to die!" Layton said, pointing the flashlight at the nightstand by the bedside table for a moment, trying to discredit his own thesis.

On the small wooden bedside table there were only insignificant objects, such as a book, a lamp, a pair of glasses, and other useless junk, but no trace of syringes or medicines.

"Maybe Dr. Tyler wants to take the place of Voyager's first doctor and is making Klein die! It's a really cruel thing, what a piece of shit!" Faith exclaimed, who knew that the ship's first doctor's pay was one of the highest of all the crew members, second only to that of the generals and the Captain.

Layton listened to Faith's words in the background and in the meantime focused on the details of the doctor's body, realizing that that incredible warmth came from him.

"It must have a frightening fever, but it doesn't look like any of the diseases I've seen on Earth... I've never felt on my skin the body temperature of someone other than me..." Layton thought aloud, knowing that, after several attempts, Klein would never answer his questions.

The doctor's eyes were half-closed and under his eyelids, only the white sclera could be seen, full of red capillaries spreading out like the branches of a tree, and when Faith positioned herself next to Layton, she was shocked to observe the features of that man, more like a dead than a living being.

"Poor Dr. Klein... he was always so kind, so smiling... it doesn't look like him, he really scares me, Layton... what do we still do here? I don't like this at all... we must tell Sam, we must warn everybody that something is wrong with this! And we have to do it quickly!" the girl exclaimed, who when saw Klein's face looking like a zombie, began to lose control again.

"Aaargh..."

Suddenly Dr. Klein uttered a lament-like verse that caused both Faith and Layton to jump, who thought the man would be motionless the whole time.

"Dr. Klein! Can you hear me?" Layton asked soon after, approaching the bed again and trying to communicate with him.

"Rrrgh..."

Klein's upper teeth began to crawl on the lower ones, with a horrible, almost metallic noise.

His jaw moved inhumanly, writhing sideways, almost deforming and his mouth opened showing his yellowed teeth.

"Fuck! What are you doing?! Dr. Klein! Please stop! We're just two janitors, don't freak out! Does anything hurt? Tell us where you feel pain!" Faith added, who could no longer cope with that situation but could finally glimpse a shred of humanity in the behavior of the man lying on the bed, who, despite his abnormal verses, moved as if feeling severe physical pain.

Klein's hands began to move towards his chest and Layton, who was the closest to him, walked away as the doctor grabbed the white shirt he was wearing and squeezed its fabric into his hands.

Helping himself with his nails, Klein tried to tear off his shirt, as if he too was feeling the strong heat that his body exuded and wanted to try to reduce his body temperature.

"Lay, the doctor is hot! We have to help him!" Faith exclaimed, who joined her friend and moved the blankets from Klein's arms, ready to grab his wrist and move his hand.