Nick glanced down at the sliver of needle poking uncomfortably from the gauze that covered it's insertion point in the crook of his left arm. He sighed deeply as his eyes trailed the tube that began at that needle, ran the length of his arm, which was taped stratigically in several places so it wouldn't be pulled out, and ended at the bag of fluids hanging loosely on the IV pole beside his hospital bed.

"Exhaustion, dehydration and possible shock."

Those were the words the doctor had used to diagnose him after he'd passed out cold nearly an hour before. He was sure it was more than simple exhaustion though. More than shock even.

He was sure this was all a part of the same huge nightmare he'd been living in all day. And he was just as sure that soon he'd be waking up and starting a new day where none of this had happened. Where his friends were all okay and his own body didn't ache for normalcy. This nightmare absolutely had to be ending soon... that much he knew.

He stared up at the ceiling in silence, doing his best to block out the constant visions that attempted to replay themselves over and over, again and again in his worn out mind. He'd tried with all his might to block out those memories, knowing in his heart what he needed to do -- that he needed to focus on the before and the after, not the then, but the now -- the fact that his friends were still alive, if barely, and that they were all together again, even if for the time being, "together again" meant having to be separated by cold sterile hospital rooms and the Intensive Care rules of a New York City hospital.

Try as he might to block out all of those horrible memories, all attempts were futile. His mind continually raced back to those horrible moments on the 15th floor of what had in the earliest moments of their stay, seemed like an incredibly safe and peaceful place to take refuge. His mind replayed the sounds of those screams -- the screams of his best friends as they held tightly to one of their own, bloodied and broken on the carpeted floor. Then to her screams... those high pitched, god-awful, agonizing shrill screeches that led him down the hallway to that room and to that body. Down the hallway to the horrendous, gutwrenching sight he'd seen when he'd opened that door.

His ability to remember the tiniest of details -- His blessing and his curse.

The image of what was once a body, laying splayed upon the sitting room floor. The tattoo that had at some point been etched on the arm of his good friend and manager... now only visible because the arm was detached from the body and laying at his feet. And then, then he saw the rest. A finger here, a toe over there... and he was pretty sure that thing he'd seen propped up on the center of the bed...

No. Just no.

He shuddered and shivered at the very thought, his stomach lurching violently as his body rebeled against the very idea... he couldn't think about any of this anymore.

He wondered once again if maybe he'd missed something somewhere. A clue? A person? Someone lurking in the shadows. A killer who had been waiting. A killer who might still be waiting... watching. He wondered about the waitress in the coffee shop at the hotel and the desk clerk chewing his pen. He wondered about the mother with her little boy who seemed to be in such a hurry to get her son out of the building that she couldn't even stop to fill his simple request. He wondered about the man on the elevator in the baseball cap who'd brushed past him so harshly he'd nearly felt the angry energy radiating from his body. What had he missed? Somewhere... there had to be something. Some clue that could solve this entire mystery. If only he'd gone back up to his room a little earlier. If only he'd never left at all. If only he hadn't gotten that call from his mother... If only, if only, if only.

If only could make all the difference.

If only could save a life.

If only... could kill you.

His blessing, and his curse.

He closed his eyes and shook his head as hard as he could, as if perhaps he could shake the thoughts and the images from his brain. It was no use though. He stared at the IV in his arm once more and traced the path of the tubing up towards the bag. The steady drip, drip, drip of the fluids as it flowed into his veins. He found himself counting -- 1, 2, 3, 4, 5... drip, drip, drip, drip, drip.

Maybe if he just kept counting... maybe if the medicine just kept dripping, maybe then he could stop thinking about anything at all.

"Yeah right"... he thought. It would take all the medicine in the world to make someone like him stop thinking.