The scalpel pierced Nick's right palm, and blood kept dripping onto the floor with clear, sharp taps.
Several doctors and nurses hurried down the corridor. Their footsteps should have drawn closer, but suddenly became indistinct, while their confused shouts vanished in an instant.
Nick felt as though something had abruptly pulled his consciousness free, and time stopped at that very moment.
He looked down in confusion and actually saw a drop of blood suspended eerily in midair, forming a perfect droplet.
Alarm surged through Nick. He tried to struggle but found he could exert no strength at all. This felt different from being restrained by the Hexenbiest's telekinesis earlier. Instead, it was like being trapped in some waking nightmare, with a sense of dislocation as though his soul had left his body.
"Nice moves, young man." A British voice with a standard London accent sounded beside his ear.
Nick tried to turn toward the voice, but he still could not move, until he felt a hand pat his shoulder.
At once, a weightless sensation spread through him. He felt as though he could finally move, although his entire body remained limp and powerless.
Nick turned his head and discovered, to his horror, that he really had left his body and was seeing himself from a third-person perspective.
His body remained standing where it was, looking down at the floor. Several drops of blood hung eerily in midair. The one that had landed in the small pool of blood on the floor had already formed a splash above its depressed surface, but had not yet fallen back down.
Two people had appeared behind him. One was a short, stocky man with stubble and a head of graying curls, wearing small, round glasses and very casual, slovenly clothes. He looked about forty