The silence was terrible.

But it was something to clear his mind, something to give him a moment to think about things.

Why is it affecting me so much?

Arthur was in his temporary house, standing in the kitchen, waiting for some type of food to finish cooking. The place where he was in was in fact a hotel, just a few blocks away from the building him and the others were in just an hour ago.

He hoped his creation would have good taste, but that would be an unusual thing to happen. Despite his indignant protests to others, he knew his cooking wasn't very skilled.

The oven began to beep; he carefully opened it and took out the scones. They were burnt.

"Ah," he sighed, shaking his head, and placed the baking container on the kitchen counter.

He was suddenly blinded by pain in his stomach; gasping, his hand wildly reached out and knocked over the tray of scones, sending them crashing to the floor. He could see, but just barely as his eyes watered. Slowly sitting down on the floor, he rubbed his eyes and wrapped an arm around his stomach, attempting to ease the sudden unexpected pain.

After about forty seconds, it went away completely.

"What happened?" he mumbled out loud, and began picking up the spilled food from off the floor, while doing so attempting to figure out why he had been in great pain.

His face visibly turned white as he realized with shock that the effecting rule was still functional in such a way that meant whatever thing was going in in his country affected his body in almost dual reaction.

Something bad had just happened.

As he could not be alerted by someone every time a major event occurred in his own nation, the only thing he could do was the check the news on his television everyday. Of course, weekly meetings with his subordinates informed him of much information, but he prefered the alternate way, as it was quicker and more to the point.

Quickly making his way to the living room and switching on the television, he could only stand and watch that way - he was too tense to sit.

"The main building has been destroyed, as well as the laboratory. In that laboratory was the research to find a cure for the new epidemic, AC2P." On the screen, a shot of a burning building was seen, the same one, Arthur realized, that was fine when he was watching the news just a few hours before. "Five people have been killed, and twenty injured. We believe this to be the work of some group, although the details are unknown about the true purpose behind this act."

"So….no cure, huh?" Arthur stood there, not taking the information in as correctly as he should be. Lying down on the couch with a heavy sigh and action, he brought an arm over his face, and rested there. He honestly didn't quite know how to react, as it seemed like just a small thing had happened. But deep down in his heart, he was scared.

He was already paranoid whenever someone even glanced his way; it had only started three months ago, but increased within the weeks that passed.

He would refrain himself with quite difficulty not to snap back at a person whenever they made an innocent comment about or to him.

And he was tired all the time. It seemed as if there was some invisible force present, siphoning off his energy day by day.

And now, he was feeling all three emotions at once. And so he rolled over, and fell asleep within twenty minutes.

Television soon became the only thing he focused on in the daytime. Every night he slept on the couch in the living room, and constantly kept the screen from being even the slightest bit blank at all times.

He found it more and more pleasurable to sit at the kitchen table and write random notes, and then stick them on the fridge. He rarely ate, but when he did it was something he had found in the back of his fridge.

Every so often would he seldom feel severe pain again, and would look over at the screen only to see what he expected - news of another crime that escalated the AC2P issue.

And that was all he did - write dislocative ideas on notes and watch the news.

It was his obsession that lasted five days.