Day three. Percy woke up feeling very broken and weak. For some time, he struggled with the reluctance to get out of bed, but eventually checked his watch and realized he had overslept alarmingly long. Even if he left the house right now, there still wouldn't be enough time to reach the office. The junior marketer sighed regretfully, mentally saying goodbye to a promotion, and called work. After cheerfully greeting Claire about his poor health, he received wishes for good health in return and felt slightly calmer.
In reality, the company was quite lenient about sick days, but Percy, being overly responsible, still felt some guilt. He measured his temperature several times, and the fact that it was close to normal only made him feel worse. In a way, the junior marketer began to feel like an offender who was abusing someone else's kindness. Again and again, he returned to the thought that he should have taken some aspirin and gone to work instead of pretending to be dying. Although his condition couldn't exactly be described as completely normal either. In the middle of the day, Percy felt that each breath was becoming increasingly difficult, as if something inside his chest was pressing outward, squeezing past his throat, constricting his trachea and hindering airflow. He had heard about terrible asthma attacks, but he had never experienced anything similar himself. The fear of suddenly suffocating turned into panic, making it even harder to breathe. Chest pain appeared. Percy collapsed back onto the bed again, spreading his arms and legs out like a starfish, and stared at the ceiling, trying to calm down.
It wasn't working well. Although the choking sensation subsided, some completely crazy ideas started creeping into his mind. This strange illness, which kept presenting new symptoms... Percy had been sick many times before, but this didn't seem like a natural disease. What if it wasn't just a fictional invention? What if experiments were also being conducted on him? First, they mixed something into his food. It would be easy for special services to bribe or even replace the Mexican taco vendor. And what about pills? Do we often think about whether the medicine we're taking is genuine? We simply take everything on faith. After all, medications can easily be counterfeit too. All those Indian generics packed in basements—supposedly analogues. At best, they might add useless chalk powder to them; at worst, something even worse. And what about the air? Why did breathing suddenly become so difficult? We're told about exhaust fumes and increasing pulmonary diseases... But at the beginning of the century, there weren't so many patients, yet there was even more harmful exhaust. It's scary to think about—it was a time when steam locomotives ran and homes were heated by coal. Could we be deliberately poisoned? Spraying something from airplanes? Or releasing odorless gas through ventilation ducts to observe the body's reaction later? Previously, they had Auschwitz for that purpose. Now they had to become smarter...
Percy was distracted from his frightening thoughts by a sudden knock at the door. He listened attentively, and the knocking repeated itself. Trying not to creak the mattress, the junior marketer got up, tiptoed toward the door, and pressed his ear against the peephole, holding his breath. To his surprise, he saw Maridj. "What is she doing here? I'm supposed to be at work at this hour... Could she also be involved in this? Of course! She's a medic. And supposedly someone I can trust... You couldn't find a better spy." The girl glanced suspiciously around and knocked again. "Who's there?" Percy asked quietly, pretending he hadn't been looking through the peephole. "It's me... Are you okay? You said I could come over if you stayed home." "Yes?" Percy didn't remember saying anything like that, but decided to play along. "Yes. Of course... Just... I'm actually heading to the office." Maridj frowned suspiciously. "Alright... But are you really okay? Are you alright?" "Yes. Of course! Completely fine. Thanks." The junior marketer stepped back slightly from the door and listened again. For another half-minute, the girl stood there waiting for something, but then her retreating footsteps finally became audible. Percy sighed with relief. Only now did he realize how wildly his heart was pounding. Then he slowly walked further into the apartment and drew the curtains more tightly. That was the last time he spoke to anyone.