Chapter 3 - Gunther’s Unyielding Protocol
Halfway across the continent, inside a sterile private room at Vancouver General Hospital, absolute psychological terror was unfolding.
David Sterling lay flat on his back, immobilized by two heavy metal skeletal traction bars supporting his broken femurs and a rigid brace immobilizing his fractured collarbone. He was sweaty, pale, disheveled, and furious. For hours, he had been screaming for a nurse, demanding a phone, and bellowing about his executive status to anyone who would listen.
Then, the heavy metal door swung open.
A mountain of a man stepped into the room. Gunther stood six-foot-four, weighed nearly three hundred pounds, sported a shaved head, thick tribal tattoos crawling up his massive neck, and possessed the cold, dead-eyed expression of a man who viewed human beings entirely as physics problems to be solved.
“Are you the new orderly?” David barked, attempting to adopt his most authoritative corporate glare. “Listen to me, you incompetent oaf. I am a senior executive. I demand my cell phone immediately, I want this traction adjusted, and get me a turkey club sandwich with sparkling water right now. Do you know who I—”
Gunther did not speak. He merely stepped up to the side of the bed, checking a clipboard clipped to his massive belt.
“Wife’s orders,” Gunther muttered in a deep, gravelly baritone that vibrated through the floorboards. “Protocol Alpha. Combative delusion management and mandatory aggressive repositioning.”
“What? My wife didn't say that!” David panicked, trying to scramble backward against the pillows. “I am not delusional! Call the head physician! Call my lawyer!”
“Subject is experiencing auditory hallucinations and aggressive resistance,” Gunther droned mechanically, entirely unfazed. “Initiating mandatory hourly rolling protocol to prevent ischemic tissue necrosis.”
“Wait! Don't touch me! Ahhh—!”
Without an ounce of hesitation, Gunther slid his massive, ham-sized hands beneath David’s fractured pelvis and wrenched his broken body ninety degrees to the left with the brutal efficiency of a professional powerlifter.
A high-pitched shriek of pure agony ripped from David’s throat as the sudden movement jarred his broken femurs inside their traction boots.
“Good lord! You’re breaking my legs! Stop! Stop it!” David wept, hot tears streaming down his face as he gasped for air.
“Patient is combative and crying out phantom pain,” Gunther noted aloud to himself with chilling indifference. “Standard procedure: apply firm, unyielding physical reassurance.”
Gunther pressed his entire three-hundred-pound forearm directly down onto David’s uninjured chest, pinning him securely against the mattress while using his free hand to violently force a hospital bedpan beneath him.
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“You requested a full-service VIP experience, Mr. Sterling,” Gunther whispered, leaning his massive face down inches from David’s terrified eyes. “Your wife paid double. I’m giving you double value.”
In the adjacent room, Emily—who was recovering from her concussion with a simple wrist cast—listened in absolute horror as the muffled screams of her married sugar daddy echoed through the thin drywall every single hour on the hour, accompanied by the heavy, rhythmic thud of Gunther executing his unyielding rolling protocol. She didn't dare step out into the hallway. She simply curled into a fetal position beneath her scratchy hospital blanket, realizing with sinking terror that the man she had hitched her wagon to was not a titan of industry at all—he was a helpless, broken captive in a nightmare of his own making.
