Three days passed without incident, which made me a bit skeptical that something related to the murder would happen again. I still kept my guard up and waited for a report of suspicious behavior, but was somewhat disappointed when none came.

The influx of patients had steadied enough to the point that I had more free time on my hands than usual. I was tidying up a medbay one evening after the last patient had been transported to a recovery room and the last thing I needed to do was put a sample of the mech's energon in a refrigerated container so that it wouldn't spoil. When I was organizing the samples to make more room, I noticed a small vile of discolored energon that had been pushed to the back of the cooler by larger containers. Intrigued, I dug it out after I was finished organizing and brought it over to a table to see what it was. I read the label and stiffened.

It was the infected energon sample that I had brought with me when I first came here. I had completely forgotten about it in the chaos of running the hospital and dealing with a case of murder!

I checked my chronometer. It was getting fairly late, but I couldn't just set this aside and forget about it again. Who knows how many more lives could've been lost while it sat in the back of that cooler just waiting to be studied? I hurriedly gathered a few things that I would need to properly analyze and set everything up on the table. I spent the entirety of that night analyzing the sample and taking notes, time flying by without me even noticing. Before I knew it, morning came.

———

"-atchet?"

I awoke to someone gently shaking my shoulder. I shot upright almost immediately with a slight gasp and blinked a few times. When had I fallen asleep? I didn't remember falling asleep.

The medic who had woken me up wore a nervous smile as he stepped back to give me some room. "Sorry for waking you up, but there's something you need to see." He murmured, averting his gaze for a moment. I could tell his optics were laced with worry as he stared elsewhere. Something was wrong.

After comprehending what he said, I nodded my head and rubbed my optics to rid myself of the sleepiness. "Alright. Just give me a moment to clean up." I pushed myself up out of the chair and swiftly cleaned up my mess, placing the sample back in the cooler and the tools I had used on the counter to be washed and disinfected. Once that was done, the mech then lead me out of the room and towards the front entrance of the hospital. Why was he taking me there?

When we got there, a few other medics and nurses were gathered at the front doors. They all looked pretty spooked and it gave me an unsettling feeling in my stomach as I approached them. I didn't feel the need to ask why they looked so scared, I had already figured it out in my mind.

The medic that had brought me here paused at the door, as if there was some invisible force preventing him from going any further. He turned to me with a grave expression. "T-There's another one, Ratchet." He struggled to say, his voice quivering in absolute fear. He didn't want to go out there. I was about to understand why.

"Okay.. Just keep everyone calm for me." I replied, trying to stay calm so that the others wouldn't freak out. Drawing in a deep breath, I prepared for the worst as I opened the door and stepped outside. The smell that greeted me was absolutely gut-wrenching and I had to cover my mouth so I wouldn't purge. My optics were watering because of how foul the stench was.

The way this hospital was designed, the part where the entrance was pushed in further than the rest of the exterior walls, meaning there were two walls on each side that were perpendicular to the wall with the door. On the wall to my right, the eviscerated corpse of what looked to be a scout was hanging from the wall by two spears: one in what remained of his torso and the other in his left shoulder. I nearly gagged upon seeing it, but what made me feel especially sick was the pool of discolored energon that had streaked down the wall and gathered on the ground below the mech's pedes. He was infected.

Upon further examination, I discovered a message that had been carved into the mech's forehead with something sharp like a knife. I got chills as I slowly read it aloud to myself.

"The more you try, the more will die."