Formula 1: The GOAT

When he opened his eyes, the way he experienced the world seemed to have gone through a glitch. He was experiencing things he couldn’t even explain for a brief moment that seemed to stretch for more than a full minute before everything went silent, as if the system was rebooting. When he opened his eyes again, he finally saw the white lights and ceiling, and he immediately could tell that he was in a hospital. He could now smell the familiar hospital scent, one that he had gotten to spend a lot of time with when his lung was punctured, through his now very sensitive nose.

”Shit,” he thought to himself, immediately knowing the worst had happened. But as his line of thought was about to continue to figure out what excuse he would give, he heard wings flapping. The instant he closed his eyes and opened them again, he found himself tracing a fly passing under the lights.

To his surprise, he found himself honing in on it as everything else went silent. He didn’t know if it was his imagination or reality, but he was seeing lines of where the fly would most likely be heading. His eyes tracked it and saw it adhering to the imaginary line, which felt unbelievable. He focused on it for two seconds before he raised his hand and pinched his pinky and pointer finger together.

The movement happened so fast that even he was surprised by how quickly it happened. As he had imagined, there was a fly between his two fingers, and despite the speed at which his hand had moved, he’d had enough power control to be able to catch it alive.

He could feel it on his fingers with enough sensitivity to tell which side was the right and which side was the left before releasing the fly back into the air. It managed to fly away, making it clear that no lasting damage had been caused.

”What the fuck?” was the only thing he heard that removed him from his trance. He turned his head and was met by his mother at the door to his room, having seen everything that had happened.

”Hi, Mom,” he said as he waved, doing it so casually that even he was surprised by his calmness, and immediately connected it to Invictus being the reason he could do that. He was experiencing in real time what it was like to have perfect hardware and software. The focus that allowed him to follow a fly and even capture it with just enough force to not harm it, he had slowly and naturally exited, returning to what was his usual normal, feeling like he could enter the focused mode anytime he wanted.

”Don’t ’hi Mom’ me! Don’t you know how worried I was when you didn’t wake up, no matter how hard I tried?” she said as she moved and cupped his cheeks, turning his head left and right, trying to see if he was okay.

”I was just tired, Mom, but other than that, I’m fine,” he said as he tried to calm her, though he knew it was going to be for naught, and he was right. It took her nearly ten minutes to believe him that he was okay, and only then did he ask, ”Who else is here?”

”Burak and Mom were here, but I sent them home to rest, as they have been here since last night when you didn’t wake up for dinner,” she said as she took a seat.

”What about Red Bull?” he asked.

”What about them? Ah, no, I didn’t tell them, and I wasn’t planning on doing it until we knew what the problem was,” she said while releasing a sigh of relief.

”I’m fine, Mom, I was just tired,” Fatih said, feeling a slight guilt for making her go through such feelings.

”That is not going to save you, and you are not leaving here until we have enough information about your body to build a copy of you if you do it again,” she said, making it clear that he was going to be touring the hospital from one department to another, getting tested for everything.

Fatih wasn’t planning on arguing about it at all, as he was curious as well if there would be anything different about his body now that Sponge Body had reached Limit Break.

Just as he had finished dealing with his mother, Burak and Güldane arrived, having left home the moment they were updated about Fatih waking up, and he had to do it all over again. Although he was exhausted from trying to make it clear that he was fine, inside, he was restless, as he couldn’t wait for an opportunity to enter the simulation and see just how much the improvement was and what it could allow him to do that had been difficult or impossible to do previously. But he had to wait, because for the third time, another group arrived: Seraphina and her family.

Seraphina, who had been told by Fatih that he was not going to join her on the track today, had tried to call him a few hours later, only for it not to be answered, and even her messages were not read, which made her worried. She immediately headed to his home the moment she was done with practice to check on him, only to find him in his room sleeping peacefully, which calmed her down.

Upon seeing that, she had just gone downstairs to spend time with Fatih’s grandmother until it was time for dinner, when she was asked to go and wake Fatih up. But no matter how much she tried, she failed to wake him, making her panic and rush down to tell Fatih’s mother about the situation, which set everything else in motion. Now, thanks to that, he was having to do a second round of assuring this new group that he was fine, even more so for Seraphina, who had immediately jumped on Fatih the moment they arrived at the hospital.