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Jon’s head had started buzzing. What was he doing again? Oh yeah. He talked to Helen, then Michael. And Helen’s gone now.
Didn’t Michael do something before he left? Jon couldn’t remember what it was. It was important, but he couldn’t recall what it was. Hopefully he’d remember what it was soon enough.
He was thirsty, and tea sounded good right now.
Jon stood up and instantly felt dizzy. Must be that he hadn’t drank all day. Tea! That’ll help him feel more steady on his feet.
Jon wandered out of the office to the break room, while Martin was busy preparing tea for the daily rounds.
“Martin, could I… could I have some tea?” Jon said, leaning against the door. Unusual, but maybe he’s trying and failing to borrow some of Tim’s mannerisms.
“Yeah, I was just about to make you some.” Martin said, as the kettle whistled. He added the teabags to the designated mugs and poured in the hot water.
Jon grabbed his mug, and took a sip of the scalding water.
“Jon! You need to wait for it to steep!” Martin squawked. That water was still boiling hot, and wasn’t even close to being tea yet, having steeped for milliseconds.
Jon instantly scalded his tongue on the hot water which no doubt, tasted nothing like tea.
“Eurghhhh…” Jon said, sticking out his now burnt tongue a little.
“Told you.” Martin chuckled a little at that. “Seriously though, you doing alright there?“ Honestly, Jon is not normally this careless. Nor this impatient.
Jon nodded, “Fine… I’m fine. Thank you for the tea.” He stood back up and wavered dangerously with his cup of hot water with a tea bag in there.
“You’re… you should sit down.” Seemed like Jon had gotten sick and ignored it until it was too bad to ignore. Some properly made tea would likely help him feel better, then Martin would try and wrangle him home.
Jon flopped into the chair, with all the grace of a ragdoll.
Martin looked over Jon, expecting to see more telltale signs of being sick, but instead his eyes turned to the slowly growing blood stain at Jon’s lower side. “Oh my god, Jon! What happened?”
This was not good, something bad had happened in the office and Martin didn’t even notice! He was just puttering around, and Jon was bleeding out without him noticing! Martin was going to shove some tea and accompany the man on the ride home when he was actively bleeding from his side!
Martin looked down at the shirt. “When did that happen?” He said, “What even happened?”
Jon raised the shirt up to peek at what was underneath, only to find no wound at the spot that it would suggest, but now on the other side of him. The blood splatter on the shirt also now looked like it had always been there.
“What happened?” Martin said, leaning over to look at the wound. This was by far not a normal wound, that was easy to see. Martin knew for a fact that wound had changed sides. Martin may not have been a physician, but the laws of physics would never allow a stab wound to change sides.
“Uhhhh… I got stabbed?” Jon said, clearly uncertain of what he was saying.
“Right… I can see that. By what?”
Jon looked around and he turned his eyes to the remnant of where one of the researchers forgot to clean up after preparing lunch, and dialed in on that detail.
“Bread knife?” Jon said as he squinted at the mess.
“You got stabbed with a bread knife.” Martin clarified.
Jon gave a quick nod. “Yes.” He seemed proud of himself despite blatantly lying.
This was clearly going nowhere. Might as well just run with it, if it meant getting him to the hospital.
The stab wound was now on the shoulder, still bleeding just as badly. Whatever weird thing was going on with this wound, it needed to be treated. And Martin was no doctor and he didn’t trust himself to do this many stitches.
“Hey Tim!” Martin called out, “Get the first aid kit!”
Jon looked up at him. “What for?” He mumbled.
“You’ve been stabbed.”
“Oh… oh yeah.”
Tim rushed in with the first aid kit, and looked over the damage. “Did he get hit in the heart? How is he alive?”
”I don’t think the wound is actually that deep?” Martin said.
Regardless of if a wound to that area of the chest was survivable, Tim grabbed some gauze and pressed it on the wound, only for it to move back to the gut.
“Okay, what the fuck.”
“Just… wrap his entire torso, I don’t know!” Martin said, before dialing 999.
As Martin spoke on the phone, he watched Tim try and manage the injury. Jon squirmed around a lot, as Tim frantically tried to catch the injury.
“I’m fine!” Jon protested, to which Tim held up the bandages in frustration like he wanted to shove them in his mouth.
“You have a stab wound!” Tim countered.
“It’s not on my left shoulder.” Jon said petulantly.
Tim cursed, before moving to wrap the entire torso.
What is the nature of the injury?
“Stab wound. It’s long but not deep.”
Where is the injury located?
”Torso? It… keeps changing the specific spot.”
And where are you calling from?
”The Magnus Institute.”
A sigh could be heard over the phone. We’ll be with you shortly.
“Alright, they’re on the way.” Martin said, “Just… just hang tight okay?”
Jon nodded.
“How’d this happen?” Tim said, as he wrapped the injury.
A look of confusion crossed Jon’s expression.
“He claimed it was a bread knife.” Martin clarified, “Don’t know if I believe that.”
“Ohhh yeah.” Jon said, “Bread knife. That was it.”
“Bread knife injuries don’t jump around like this.”
“It was… a knife from artifact storage?”
“Where’d you leave it then?” Martin asked, “We need to find it again if it’s dangerous.”
“It… walked out the door?” Jon’s tone of voice could either indicate a poorly constructed lie or a truth he was uncertain of.
“Sure. You got stabbed by a walking artifact storage knife.” Tim said, “Why’d you use it in the first place?”
“It walked in and stabbed me.” Jon declared, far more confidently.
“Right…” Martin said.
Soon, the EMT loaded their boss into the ambulance, and the two took Tim’s car to the nearby hospital. When they arrived, doctors were already preparing to operate, with large quantities of forms.
“I take it you both are the patient’s friends?” A doctor said, “Unfortunately due to the… complicated nature of the injury, we had to use general anesthesia, but assuming that the wound allows operation, it should be a quick procedure, and Mr. Sims will be admitted to a recovery room while he wakes up.”
“Gotcha.” Tim said, “So, do you want to look over the boss while he’s recovering or should I?”
“I can do it.” Martin said, “However, I still need a ride…”
“I got it. Want to make it a sleepover?” Tim suggested.
“You’ve seen how shaken up by Prentiss Jon’s been.” Martin sighed, “He probably needs less company rather than more.”
Tim nodded. “Keep trying to get him to open up, okay?” He said, “He likes to act like he hates everyone but he’s grateful for what you’re doing, I’m sure.”
After a little while, Jon was wheeled out to the recovery room, and one of the doctors went to talk to the pair of assistants out in the waiting room.
“Luckily, the wound didn’t migrate until an individual stitch was finished, and the stitches moved with the wound, so the main difficulty was hunting down the changed spots.“ The doctor explained, “It was mostly standard procedure, just a curious case at that. Since you three are from the Magnus Institute, I figured we wouldn’t need to do the typical follow up with the Section 31 police, which does dramatically reduce our necessary paperwork. It was tested that the stitched up wound still shifted, so we did have to wrap the entire torso to keep the site sterile, wherever it chooses to be.”
They were led to Jon’s recovery room, where basic monitoring equipment was strapped up and showing what looked like normal signs to Martin.
“He should be waking up in about an hour or so,” The doctor explained, “He’ll be a little dizzy from the blood loss, and still be out of it for a while. However, once he wakes up, he should be able to be taken home shortly.”
So they waited, both just awkwardly sitting on their phones.
Eventually, Jon woke up without any issues. In his still half-asleep state, he didn’t make much sense when the pair questioned him on getting stabbed. He mumbled something incomprehensible about doors, getting eaten by doors, and knife hands, but gave no more of an easy answer than “walking bread knife stabbed me and walked out”. So, either the tale about the bread knife was true, or something equally as bizarre and unexplainable was the cause.
The next day, Jon was already back to work, and he refused to acknowledge what happened that got him stabbed, but they figured it was best to give up, other than the occasional nagging.
Apparently the scar that Jon was eventually left with still refused to stay in a consistent spot, shifting around day to day. Not like much else at the Institute made more sense.