Chapter 779 - 778: Pain to the Bone

Chapter 779: Chapter 778: Pain to the Bone

After more than four hours, Annabelle Linton finally woke up.

But she felt groggy and terribly unwell, as if she had a bad cold.

Annabelle Linton leaned against the headboard, sitting up weakly.

Quentin Holland walked to her side and listened to her heartbeat with a stethoscope. "Annabelle, how are you feeling now?" he asked.

Annabelle Linton knew this was for the clinical trial record, so she couldn’t afford to be careless. She complied, saying, "I feel really hot."

Mia Holloway stood beside Quentin Holland, listening to Annabelle Linton’s words and furiously scribbling notes.

"Her heartbeat is a little slow," Quentin Holland said to Mia Holloway, then turned back to Annabelle Linton. "Anything else?"

"A bit nauseous. My body doesn’t feel right, and I don’t have any energy."

Mia Holloway and Quentin Holland looked at her with shared concern.

Annabelle Linton offered a faint smile. "I’m fine."

But despite her smile, her pale complexion was completely unconvincing; it was impossible not to feel a pang of heartache for her.

Quentin Holland sighed. He removed the thermometer and studied her temperature changes over the past four hours, relaying the information for Mia to record.

The trial was far more arduous than expected.

Annabelle Linton lay in bed to have her blood drawn, then underwent nearly half an hour of observation before the session was finally over.

Mia Holloway helped her dress. Annabelle went back, ate a simple meal, and returned to her hotel in a daze. She slept until evening.

Then, she was required to be active for over an hour to get her cells moving and see if there were any side effects.

After her physical activity, her vitals were recorded again. She then drank two hundred and fifty milliliters of plain water as instructed, which finally concluded this phase of the trial.

Simply put, if no issues arose within the next twelve hours, they could proceed with the next experiment.

The results of this test would be studied by the staff to identify which components did not react with the virus in Annabelle Linton’s body. Those components would then be extracted and preserved.

The next eight trials would follow the same process of investigation and extraction, though the clinical reactions were likely to differ.

...

Twelve hours later, Annabelle Linton was fine, so the next experiment began as scheduled.

After a full night’s rest, she felt much better, but she couldn’t stop coughing.

Whenever she was seized by a painful coughing fit, she would think of Leona Grant. ’Does Leona suffer like this, too?’

She didn’t want Leona Grant to suffer like this. So, she told herself...

’No matter how painful it is, I have to grit my teeth and endure.’

Annabelle Linton changed into a sterile hospital gown, had her blood drawn, and then received another injection.

An hour later, the color drained from her face, leaving it deathly pale. An uncontrollable chill seeped into her bones, and then the pain began.

The pain wasn’t intense at first, but it grew stronger with each passing moment, building like a gathering storm into a soul-crushing agony.

Annabelle Linton writhed in pain on the bed. Her entire body was screaming in agony—her muscles, her bones—it was a pain that went bone-deep.

At first, she could barely endure it, but the pain grew more and more intense until her forehead was drenched in sweat.

She felt as if her body was about to be ripped in half. It was as if countless steel needles were traveling through her blood vessels, inch by inch, converging on her heart to stab it without mercy.

Annabelle Linton fell from the bed and thrashed on the floor before crawling into a corner, where she clawed at her hair in utter despair.