When Life Stands Still

48. Overflow

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3 days ago. The basement of the lab.

Dr. Hansen casually wiped at some blood stains on his cheek as he glanced at the vitals of Ash Kage on the screen. The data showed strong fluctuations. Sometimes they were dangerously low while other times they were abnormally high. He took a look at the boy strapped to the stimulator for the past two days. His cloths were dyed red with his own blood and torn from the various knife slashes. Sweat tickled down from his chin and mixed into the blood-soaked shirt.

Now was a rare moment of rest, but there was hardly a peep from the boy. Ash had his eyes wide open as he stared blankly at his feet. One couldn't even see the rise and fall of his chest as any indicator that he was still alive. Yet Dr. Hansen knew that although there weren't any movements, the boy was still barely holding on to life, the signal in the monitors were proof for it. It was only due to his miraculous self-healing ability that Ash was hanging in there, anyone else in the same situation would have died three times over. 'Dr. Davis was right to push forward with an aggressive approach. The boy really seems to be in his last stretches of life. His self-healing has slowed down considerably, it was just a matter of time before it may completely disappear. Then they won't have such a rare and precious hope of salvation anymore. So, before that happened, I have to find a way to isolate the power.'

As Dr. Hansen was lost in thought, the slim figure of Shelly arrived without his notice. "Dr. Hansen, I have been sent over by Dr. Davis to inquire on your progress." she said which startled the man out of his skin.

"Oh! you have to wait a bit, I myself am waiting on the test result. I have sent all the samples to the laboratory. They should arrive any minute now." Dr. Hansen said while calming his heart. "I would have gone up to see him in a bit after the results came back anyway. Why did he rush to send you? Did something happen?"

"Apparently Dr. Davis just received a call from his good friend Dr. Hawks, informing him that he has landed in our country. There were some complications so the plane touched down some distance off, but he should already be making his way here as we speak. depending on how the road between us is, he should arrive within three weeks to a month." Shelly shared the information she got. "I assume that Dr. Davis wants to present good results to his friend, so he is urging us along."

Dr.Hansen grumbled under his breath in dissatisfaction. It was hard having an unreasonable superior. Even in the apocalypse he had to watch how he talked and acted. It was getting exhausting. Yet he knew that there was nothing else he could do. As he was about to lead the woman to get some tea while they waited, one of his students rushed over holding an envelope in his hands. "They have arrived!" Dr. Hansen immediately got excited and rushed over to take over the documents. Without hesitation he took out the papers and scanned through them rapidly. Even before he reached the end of the document, his face fell, and an ugly expression replaced his previous joy.

"I am assuming not good news?" Shelly asked as she carefully observed all of the man's expressions.

Dr. Hanson looked at her and sighed. "Bad news. The samples that were send over do not show any sign of regenerative ability." His hands clenched into fists over the paper crumbling them a bit. He has been down here for days now without rest, yet the results were all negative and... he shot a look at the motionless boy, 'the boy is at his limit.'

"Hmm. That is indeed bad news. If I report it back like this, Dr. Davis would most likely be very displeased. Is there any hypothesis that can be shared along with it to lighten the blow?" Shelly asked as a concerned look also flittered across her face.

Dr. Hansen looked at her for a long moment, chewing on his words before he finally sighed and decided to state his guess, "From what I can gather, it is not his DNA that carries the regenerative ability. Yet it has been detected in his blood before. So according to logic our method should have been correct. But from the last few months of observation what I think is the actual situation is that "It's the boy's mind that somehow alters the DNA of his body for an amount of time to help his recover. Likewise, I also think, unless he actively thinks about wanting to heal someone his power would not extend out of his body to help others. Of course, all this is still a guess. And like we thought before, I would assume that each time he uses his power it saps at his vitality."