The warning splotches seeped a bloody smear into the fibers of shirt and tie, even skin. Cooper fixated the bleeding red stains as he leaned against a wall, hands on knees, struggling to catch his breath.

  Chant or not, he couldn’t carry out his commands to him, because he couldn’t breathe. It wasn’t that he couldn’t completely, but neither deep nor easy. Whenever he took a breath, a band tightened around his chest. When he took another, the band squeezed tighter.

  “Is there…a problem? Why did you…stop?” someone yelled somewhere in the area.

  The voice sounded as breathless as Cooper now felt. The Circuit was suffering the same! He sucked in the rushing, watery air. Some of it filtered through, feeding his blood, his brain, and madness.

  He had never felt the unnerving sensation, in his young and healthy prime. His condition, whatever it was, wouldn’t sustain his flight any further. He couldn’t race madly through the alleys, slam the walls dead-on, then scale the heights regardless, as if part of an ingenious plan.

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  In his latest trial to keep going, Cooper never got over the top. He slipped off the near side, like a giant lizard losing its stick. He plopped again, into another puddle, and assessed the situation.

  If he couldn’t run, then he might hide, but not while singled out for all to see. He flattened the matrix of the tainted clothing he had removed, then resumed licking it clean.

  Once, Cooper had spilled a cup of red sauce all over his shirt at lunch. The stains hadn’t washed off with soap and water, but an idea had spit out of a spigot, supplying a rare intelligence to his brain.

  He had spit on his shirt where his shirt had stained, and the spit had faded the stains. By nightfall that day, the stains had totally decomposed. The stuff of his saliva must have broken down the chemical staining his clothing red.

  Following a clear-cut chain of reasoning, Cooper licked his shirt and tie. In the rain, licking outperformed spitting, since less saliva leached away. The splotches steadily lightened! Soon, he might wear his shirt again!

  As he licked, the band locked in adverse reaction to the stain agent. Distracted, Cooper dismissed it inching inwards in a silent death grip, surround sound turned surround somatosensation.