"Public opinion is against us," Fabian said. "People are criticizing us and supporting Dynamic Health. We don't have a decent platform to put forward our argument, which is pretty weak anyway. No one wants to listen to it. Everyone believes that the secret recipe belongs to Riley."
He sighed. "Alex, I don't know what else to say. I think the most rational thing for us to do is make amends with Riley and offer him some kind of compensation. That way, we can regain some of our reputation. Besides, this morning, Quality Pharmaceutical's lawyer called and told me that they'll sue you for defamation if you keep saying that their medicine's defective. We need to give up. There will be more opportunities in the future."
"Dynamic Health really is defective," Alex said stubbornly.
"Listen to Fabian," Maryann urged him. Then she took his arm and said, "Why don't we go away somewhere to relax?" She was worried about Alex's growing obsession.
Alex smiled weakly and said, "I'm afraid that we can't leave."
Suddenly, a car sped up to the entrance of the clinic. It hadn't even come to a full stop when the back door opened, and a well-dressed woman with a child in her arms rushed over and shouted, "Help! Help my son."
Alex and the others went to find out what was happening.
"Son, don't move. Stop scratching!" the woman said. Then she cried again, "Help my son!"
The boy was about five years old, and he was struggling and crying as his mother carried him toward the entrance.
His left arm was covered in bright red marks, and it was bleeding in a few places. He kept trying to scratch it, but his mother grabbed his right hand, preventing him from doing any more damage.
"Mom, it itches so badly," the boy moaned.
A middle-aged man ran out of the parked car and rushed into the hospital to join them. "Please help him," he yelled.
A group of doctors came over to help hold the boy down while they cleaned up his injured arm.
It was fine as long as no one touched it, but the moment anything made contact with his skin, he writhed and screamed, "It itches!"
The doctors didn't know what to do.
"Let me!" Alex said, marching over. After a couple of minutes, Alex managed to stop the boy from struggling, but he still kept screaming in pain.
Celeste asked his family, "What happened?"
"We don't know," his mother said.
Now that her son was no longer struggling, she was calmer, but she still looked very worried.
"We took him to the amusement park today," she said. "As we left, he yelled that his arm itched, and then he started to scratch it. He kept scratching until he broke the skin and the more he scratched, the crazier he became. I knew something was wrong, so I held him down to stop him. Then we brought him here."
"It all happened so quickly," his father added. "We don't know what's going on."
Alex picked up the child's left arm to examine it. "Has his arm been injured recently?" he asked.
The boy's mother nodded. "He broke a window yesterday," she explained. "And he cut his arm, but the wound wasn't deep or long. It was only about three centimeters. We applied that new healing powder to it twice, and it stopped the bleeding and scarring. It healed so quickly that I had forgotten it even happened."
The father took out a bottle. "Of course, Dynamic Health! We can use it to heal him!"
"You can't!" Alex shouted, holding out a hand.
They looked at Alex in surprise. "Do you think there's something wrong with Dynamic Health?" the mother asked.
Alex nodded. "It's defective and dangerous. He's so itchy that he's scratching to the point of bleeding. This is the appalling side effect of Dynamic Health. Although it stopped the original wound from bleeding and created a scar on the surface of the skin, it hasn't worked completely. The wound underneath still needs treatment. After a day of running around and sweating, it has aggravated the wound and created the uncontrollable urge to scratch."
He shook his head. "If you apply more of the same thing now, then you'll simply be in a vicious cycle of temporary relief followed by more scratching."
"Why do you seem so familiar?" the woman asked. Then her eyes widened with recognition. "Are you the one who caused all that trouble at the press conference?"
"Yes," her husband said. "He's the one who's been badmouthing Dynamic Health all over the place. No wonder he doesn't want us to use it on our son. His scratching probably has nothing to do with Dynamic Health. If there was something wrong with it, then why has he only just started scratching now?"
He scowled at Alex. "What kind of doctor are you? How dare you slander such a good medicine? If you have no medical ethics, then you presumably have no medical skills either." He turned to his wife. "Let's get out of here. We'll go to a proper hospital."
He turned back to Alex. "What did you do to get him to stop struggling? If anything happens to him, I won't let you get away with it." He picked up his son and pointed at Alex. "My brother-in-law works for the medical board. You'd better watch yourself."
Seeing how much quieter his son was, the man was filled with confidence. He quickly got his family into the car and drove off.
Kendall couldn't stop herself from slapping the table in frustration.
"Who does that?" she asked in disbelief. "You try to help someone, and they just yell at you and drive off!"
All the doctors were shaking their heads.
Maryann walked up from behind and took Alex's arm. "Don't be angry," she said. "They love their son, and they don't know what to do to help."
"I'm not angry," Alex said. "I'm sorry for the boy, but it proves that there's a problem with Dynamic Health."
***
In the emergency room of a nearby hospital, a doctor arrived to treat the little boy. After an examination, she decided that there wasn't anything serious, and that the wound had probably just healed too quickly, which was causing the itching.
She explained that while adults could control the urge to scratch, children's self-control is poor. She gave the boy an anti-inflammatory injection, prescribed more anti-inflammatory drugs, and told him that he would be okay after two days in the hospital.
His parents breathed a sigh of relief. Now they despised Alex even more and were furious at his scaremongering and slandering of Dynamic Health.
So, as they sat with their son in the hospital, they went online to post about their experiences. They didn't want other people to be fooled by Alex.
Despite all the anti-inflammatories, within minutes, the boy screamed again and reached out to scratch the newly applied Dynamic Health.
His nails dug in hard, breaking the skin, and causing his left arm to bleed again. He knew he was hurting himself, but he needed to stop the itching. Soon, tears were streaming down his face, but he still couldn't stop scratching.
The parents started shouting, "Don't scratch! Don't scratch! Help! We need a doctor!"
Seven or eight medical staff rushed in and pressed the child down against the bed. Although the wound was quickly treated, the boy wouldn't calm down, so the doctor was forced to use a tranquilizer to let him sleep for a while.
At two o'clock in the morning, the woman, who hadn't slept at all, saw the boy wake up and start to scratch again, so she grabbed his right hand.
She said to her husband, "He's doing it again. Call the doctor quickly."
The man jumped up and rushed out to call for the medical staff.
Although more sedatives were administered, the child only slept for a few hours, and then he woke up, tossing and turning, exhausting the husband and wife physically and mentally.
In the end, the medical staff had to hold the boy's hands and remind the parents to pay close attention to him. They couldn't just keep giving him sedatives.
Seven or eight times, the boy woke up and started yelling. His parents were exhausted, and they couldn't get to sleep. They couldn't even catch their breath.
"What the hell's going on here?" the woman asked. "Is there really something wrong with this medicine?"
***
At three in the morning, Alyssa, who had been sleeping, felt a slight itch on her left palm.
She mumbled in her sleep and scratched it.
After a while, she woke suddenly with pain in her hand.
She sat up straight, turned on the light, and looked at her hand. It was bright red, with many marks left by her nails, and blood was seeping from where she had broken the skin.
Dots of blood stained the sheet, and her hand was throbbing.
But what scared her the most was that her left palm was still itchy, and she couldn't stop scratching it. But while that offered temporary relief, it didn't fix anything, and it just made the wound worse.
"I must stop scratching," she said to herself.
She bit her lip and resisted the impulse to scratch again, fearing she would do even more damage to her palm.
Then, shaking, she picked up her phone and called 911.
***
As Alyssa called for help, Cam fell out of bed, covering his abdomen and groaning with pain.
The wound that had just been operated on two days ago was bleeding where he had scratched it raw. His heart was pounding as if he had just been exercising.
What really scared him was that he couldn't help scratching it, even though he knew it was making things worse.
He felt like countless ants were crawling around his abdomen, and he couldn't stand it. Oddly, he felt okay when he scratched, even though it was painful. He knew had a serious problem.
Worried, he shouted, "Call the doctor!"
Then he lay back on his bed with his hands by his sides and tried to focus on his breathing until help arrived.