The lab coat that fit perfectly last week won't close over your midsection anymore. You've been documenting Mack's condition for months - a strange magical symbiosis that defies every model you've built. The numbers have been promising. The treatment has been working. What none of your models accounted for: the illness needed somewhere else to go. Delvaine is already watching from across the lab, pen tapping a slow rhythm against her clipboard. Mack sits on the examination table, his eyes tracing the obvious change in your silhouette with an expression that is harder to read than it should be. Your data is still perfect. Your methodology is still sound. Your body, however, is becoming its own experiment - and you are running out of ways to pretend you haven't noticed.