Pop 20

Dr. Sebastian’s fingers danced over the keyboard,

the bluish glow of the monitor reflecting in his glasses.

The steady hum of the printer filled the cramped space of his makeshift lab-

the back store room of the convenience store

Sheets slid out one after another, curling into a neat pile.

He plucked two pages free, scanned them with clinical precision,

and then lifted his gaze toward Tristan.

“Well?” Tristan’s voice cracked the silence.

His foot tapped nervously against the floor.

“What do the tests say? Something wrong?

My extremities have been twitching… they feel arthritic.

Like… like they’re giving out. There are days I feel weaker,

I think the pills are losing their effects,

I need to stay young Sebastian not revert to geriatric mode”

Dr. Sebastian raised a brow, lips tightening.

He exhaled sharply, almost impatient.

“According to this, everything is where it should be.”

He placed the pages on the desk with surgical care. “How many pills do you have left?”

Tristan shrugged, trying to mask his unease.

“Couple, maybe. I need a refill. That’s why I’ve been frantically texting and calling you

for weeks, but to no avail, it seems, you’ve been—- distant”

Dr. Sebastian slid his glasses off, setting them beside the laptop as though

the gesture itself carried weight.

His tone came low, final: “There are no more refills.”

The words hit Tristan like a blow to the chest.

His throat tightened. “What do you mean by that?”

Sebastian’s fingers returned to the keyboard, the clacking sharp,

deliberate. He didn’t look up.

“Sebastian… does that mean…” Tristan’s voice faltered.

His hand trembled as he gripped the chair’s armrest. “I’ll revert to my old self?”

No answer. Only the relentless tap-tap-tap of keys.

The frustration boiled over. Tristan slammed his fist onto the table.

The printer rattled. “Tell me! What’s going to happen to me?

I need those pills. We had a deal. A contract.

You were supposed to keep me supplied!”

Dr. Sebastian finally froze. The typing stopped.

He leaned back in his chair, studying Tristan with something between pity and irritation.

“They shut down my lab,” he said at last.

His voice was stripped of its usual arrogance, raw with exhaustion.

“They sent me to Liberia like excess baggage. I escaped by cramming myself into a freight container.

I’ve lost everything—funding, access, materials.

Those pills? Gone. This—” he gestured at the cluttered room of wires, vials, and second-hand

equipment—“is me building from the ground up again.

And you—Tristan—your blood is the foundation. The starting blocks.”

“Starting blocks?” Tristan’s hand slid instinctively to his pocket.

A second later, a gun glinted in the fluorescent light.

Its barrel leveled at Sebastian’s chest.

Sebastian stiffened, but his voice rose, incredulous.

“Tristan—are you out of your mind? Kill me? Here?

Now? After everything we’ve achieved together? You’d throw it all away?”

The tension coiled, the silence crackling with menace.

Then—

“Wait!”

A voice rang out from behind Tristan. Loud. Human. Desperate.

Tristan jerked his head.

The waiter—apron still tied at the waist, tray tucked awkwardly under his arm—stood frozen in the doorway of the store room.

Dr. Sebastian’s injectable had worn off.

He’s now back and up.

His eyes darted between the gun, Sebastian, and the scattered lab notes.

“Ok before we even talk of what just happened back there and why you guys jab that weird

stuff on me, not that you both are asking, ‘cause I feel fine right now, just a little bit

tipsy, but I’m ok. Let’s… let’s sort this out first”

the waiter stammered, voice pitching high, frantic. “Violence only begets violence, you know?”

Tristan’s grip on the gun faltered, then loosened.

He lowered the weapon slowly, his jaw tight.

“That’s it,” the waiter said, exhaling. “Easy… easy.”

Without missing a beat, he strode across the room, plucked Sebastian’s portable whiteboard

from a stack of equipment, and uncapped a pen.

He drew two columns in rushed, squeaky strokes: PLUS and MINUS.

“Alright, here’s where we are,” he announced,

his tone suddenly firm, almost teacher-like.

“Tristan—pulling a gun? Minus. But then, you didn’t shoot, so—plus.

Dr. Sebastian—uh, points for not screaming your head off. That’s a plus too.”

Sebastian pinched the bridge of his nose. “What?”

The waiter planted his free hand on his hip.

“Because if you screamed, someone would hear, right?

You’ve got a convenience store out front,

people walking in and out all the time.

You gotta keep this—” he circled the pen dramatically in the air—“tight.

Very tight. So, who else knows about this whole pill thing?”

Sebastian and Tristan exchanged a glance.

For once, united. Their answer came in the same breath.

“You.”

The waiter blinked.

Then, with a faint shrug, he turned back to the board and scrawled a crooked line under MINUS.

“Fair. Guess that makes me… a minus.”

And before either of them could move—before the tension

could shift—everything went black.

———————————————————————————————————————————

The waiter woke with his head pounding, spinning like a carousel after too many rides.

A noise—loud, foreign, almost musical—scratched at his ears.

He tapped the side of his head, convinced it was something inside him, but no.

The sound wasn’t in him. It was around him.

He blinked his eyes open.

The room was dim, suffocating. Torn wallpaper peeled like curling tongues from the walls.

A rusted ceiling fan rotated lazily above, buzzing with exposed wires that hissed like impatient snakes.

The air smelled of sweat, dust, and something sharp—spices, maybe.

And then he realized.

He was practically naked.

With a squeal that wasn’t nearly as dignified as he hoped,

he grabbed the crumpled bedsheet and wrapped it around himself like a toga.

He stumbled to the window and yanked it open. A wave of hot air smacked him in the face.

Below, chaos reigned: a spice market alive with shouting vendors, bargaining customers,

and a rainbow of powders piled high on wooden carts. Gold turmeric, crimson cayenne, earthy cumin.

People jostled shoulder-to-shoulder, hands flying, money clinking.

The voices rose in a blur—Arabic? Spanish? He couldn’t tell.

All he knew was that he was far, far from home.

His throat went dry. He turned, clutching the bedsheet tighter, and tried the door.

It rattled uselessly. Locked. From the outside.

Then—slam.

The door burst inward, nearly knocking him off his feet.

A hulking man filled the frame, shoulders so wide he seemed carved from stone.

Behind him, two lean men followed, their eyes gleaming with something unsettling.

The waiter backed up, bumping against the rickety nightstand. “Where… where am I?”

The big man rolled his eyes. “Seriously? You’re asking me that?

Do you even know what you did? I’ve lost six of my top sellers because of you.”

The waiter’s knees went weak. He stammered, “T-Top sellers? What does that even mean?”

The man’s brow arched. His tone dripped with disbelief.

“What have you been taking? Everyone wants you.”

“W-Wants me? Why?”

The two men behind him grinned, teeth flashing.

And then—all three laughed at once, their laughter booming and terrible.

The waiter swallowed hard. His sheet slipped slightly. And then, like a slap, the words hit him.

“You’re our power bottom.”

The room spun.

The big man stepped forward, mimicking a falsetto. “‘I will never be the minus in your life,’”

he quoted, smirking, “‘I will be your plus—the plus you’ll never forget.’”

The waiter’s jaw dropped. “I said that?!”

The three men nodded in unison, grinning wider.

And then the waiter screamed.

It was a scream so raw, so high-pitched, so endless that it rattled the flimsy shutters.

But down below, the spice market roared louder—vendors haggling, donkeys braying,

the clang of pans and barter. No one looked up. No one cared.

His terror was swallowed whole by the soundscape of Morocco.