A deadline

The next thing Irvyn saw, was a brightly lit room, with a slight smell of disinfectant, and a sweet lavender room freshener fragrance, probably trying to hide the disinfectant smell but somehow failing it. His eyes hurt by the sudden light hitting his eyes, but soon, it got adjusted to the light. Irvyn blinked a few more times until he realized he was somewhere he doesn't know, and he wasn't supposed to be.

"Woke up?" Irvyn turned around upon listening to a female voice he is all too familiar with.

"Chloe?" Irvyn groaned, feeling a sharp headache as soon as he tried to sit up.

"Don't get up so suddenly," Chloe got up from the chair she was sitting on, a just a bit further from the bed Irvyn was resting in. Coming close to him, she handed him a glass. "Drink this. You will feel better."

"What is that?" Irvyn peeked in the glass, in which the content looked clear like water.

"Just glucose water. Nothing else." Chloe handed him the glass, and went back to the chair.

Irvyn glanced one more time at Chloe before drinking from the glass. "Where am I?"

"Still in the hospital. At Dr. Richard's cabin." Chloe pulled out a file from the pile of the documents sitting on the desk, and threw them towards the bed, making it land right beside Irvyn. "The report you wanted."

"Thanks," Irvyn flipped through the file a little bit, soon shutting it close.

"Your father just got minor issues with digestion. He was facing difficulties for a while now, that's why he went through some tests."

"It's nothing serious, right?" Irvyn asked immediately.

"Nah, nothing for now. Just a father getting old slowly, and just a reminded that it's high time his son should start taking care of him."

Irvyn turned his eyes away from her, letting out a sigh. "He has people to take care of him. He wouldn't care if I do it or not."

"True that," Chloe let out a dry laugh. "But you should at least take care of yourself, right? You stopped taking medicines again, right?"

"I do take them." Irvyn calmly responded, while getting up from the bed and smoothening the slight wrinkled in his clothes.

"Only when things get out of hand. Irvyn, why don't you understand, you need to keep taking the medicines prescribed to you if you want to stay healthy." Chloe sounded desperate with her words, trying her best to explain him.

"And will that revert back everything? Will those hard to swallow, and the nauseousness dizziness afterwards, worth enough? Will that fix everything?" Irvyn snapped out, with a voice filled with anger, and annoyance. His eyes looked puffy thanks for being unconscious for long, but the sharp gaze was too strong to be ignored.

"Fine, do however you feel like it. I don't know anymore." Chloe got up from the chair, and headed towards the door of the cabin with stomping steps. "I'll be leaving tonight for Italy. I'll let you know when I get back."

"You don't need to try anymore, Chloe. I am accepting my fate." Irvyn spoke up from behind, halting Chloe in her steps. To her, his voice sounded rather distant and filled with helplessness, and swamped with forlorn. "I am terribly sick, I know that. And nothing in this world can change this."

But she was determined to her decision. No matter whatever the outcome she faces, or the hindrance get in her way, she will not stop in doing what she decided to. "And I am accepting my duty as a doctor here, Mr. Irvyn Collins. I am not giving in until I get to the bottom of this. And I promised you, I will never let any patient of me die just because I gave up on them."

With those words saying, Chloe slammed the door behind her, making Irvyn flinch. He just kept blankly staring at the door for a while, until his eyes moved towards the file lying on the bed. Now that he was all alone in the cabin, memories from a while back came flooding to him.

It happened again. He faced a panic attack again. It's been like this since the time he was diagnosed with his illness. An illness unknown to all, an illness in his brain. Unknown to all, hence not curable by anyone. The only fate sealed upon him was death. Slowly, but painfully. Since he knew about this 3 years ago, he has been carrying on with his life like nothing, even though he was entrusted with a looming deadline in his lifetime. Even though he acts like he isn't bothered by the sudden halt in his well-arranged life, he can't keep his composure anymore whenever he faces a life and death situation with his very eyes. It has happened before as well, whenever he would see someone fighting with their life, or someone dying from any illness, or accident, like today, he would panic, blank out and lose his consciousness. He can't control it no matter how much he tries, and he can't control himself getting attracted to those moments no matter how he tries. Death feels like a kin to him, the only kin who will never betray him, even if he wants her to. Like other people existing in his world, he wished death did the same. Just being there, but non existent to him.

But he feels somewhat thankful to death. For the warm looming fearsome existence of her, he was able to face an even scarier side of his life, that how much the people surrounding him were only hoping for his departure more and more, and how much they were simply coveting for the things he has.

Death felt so much timid compared to those feral snakes coiling around him.

That is why he was being so cold to everyone. So that the two or three people who genuinely cared for him, wouldn't get so hurt after he was gone.

And that is why he had to marry someone like this, so that when he is gone, everything he built over time goes to someone more deserving, instead of getting it to those snakes' hands only to face its doom as well, who are ironically his own family.