The fluorescent lights hummed overhead, casting harsh shadows across the cluttered laboratory. Equipment lay scattered across every available surface: tablets displaying incomprehensible data streams, notepads covered in frantic scribbling, and empty coffee cups forming a small city along the counter's edge. Bloodied bandages overflowed from a biohazard bin, and what looked like scalpels lay haphazardly across a tray next to microscope slides. In the center of it all stood Shep, wild-eyed and vibrating with barely contained energy.
"…and that's when I realized the regeneration rate wasn't constant at all!" Shepherd gestured wildly with one hand while the other shoved the remainder of a cheese danish into his mouth. He spoke through the pastry, words tumbling out in an excited mash of English and Danish. "The helingshastighed, the healing speed, it actually accelerates based on the severity of the skade, the injury!" He swallowed hard, then immediately grabbed a marker and lunged toward the whiteboard. The cap went flying somewhere behind him as he began scribbling equations with one hand while gesturing at a cluster of monitors with the other. Crumbs dotted his sweatshirt. A fresh cut on his forearm was already knitting itself closed as he moved.
"Se? See right here?" He tapped the board frantically, leaving marker streaks. "When I induced the laceration at three centimeters deep, the cellular regeneration was femten gange, fifteen times, faster than the superficial wounds! Which means the kroppen, the body, it knows somehow, it prioritizes kritiske, critical, damage over minor abrasions, and if I can just map the neural pathways that trigger the…" He spun around, eyes blazing with discovery, danish flakes falling from his collar. He rolled up his sleeve to show the already-faded scar. "Stop."
The single word cut through his momentum like a blade. Shep froze mid-gesture, marker still raised, mouth half-open on whatever revelation was about to spill out next. He blinked once. Twice. The manic energy seemed to drain from his body all at once, his shoulders sagging as he looked at them, really looked at them for the first time since they'd entered the lab. The marker lowered slowly to his side. His expression crumbled into something defeated, almost puppy-like. The whiteboard behind him was covered in his fevered calculations, but suddenly all that excitement felt very far away. "Åh," he said quietly, the Danish slipping out unconsciously. "You… you're not interested."
@fortivoice



















