I tried waiting for Caitlin and Joe, trying to avoid any awkward conversations with Cisco and the other man. It was weird, I liked Cisco a lot, as if we had grown up as best friends, but I felt a stronger attachment to Caitlin. Maybe she and Barry were a couple way back when. However, I felt no connection whatsoever to the other man, and I expected that Barry had never seen him before either. 

Suddenly, Cisco laughed slightly. 

"What?" I asked. 

"I dunno, man," he shrugged. "It's just weird, y'know? I'm looking at one of my best friends and he doesn't even know me anymore. After all the crazy things that've happened to us over the past two years, I just expected to not be fazed by something as weird as this". 

"You and me both". 

"You say that like this is an everyday experience for you". 

I shook my head, smiling. "No, I just know what you mean by being around someone who you're really close to, yet them not even recognising you". 

"It must suck having to go through this," the other man said. 

I looked over at him and nodded. "You have no idea". 

He paused for a moment, his silence suddenly followed by a look of realisation in his eye. He stepped forward, hand outstretched. "Sorry, just realised we haven't been acquainted yet. My name's Jay Garrick". 

I took his hand and shook it firmly. "Chase Davenport". 

"Pleasure to meet you". 

"Hold up, I thought your name was Gavin or something?" Cisco cut in. 

"I--" I paused for a moment. "I mean, Chase is my real name, but I guess I go by Gavin now. It's a long and confusing story as to why". 

"So, what do we call you? Obviously not Barry, but out of Gavin and Chase". 

"I'd prefer Chase". 

Cisco raised an eyebrow and nodded slowly. 

At that exact moment, Caitlin decided to walk in, Joe in tail, relieving me of elaborating further in this conversation. 

I glanced over at Joe but couldn't bring myself to look him in the eyes. Despite his policeman pokerface, I couldn't stop seeing the sadness in his eyes, and that broke my heart into millions of tiny pieces. 

"Hey, Chase?" Caitlin started. "If it's alright with you, I'd like to run some tests. Just to see whether there's anything about your physical infrastructure that could help us find the man that did this to you". 

"Doctor Demon, you mean?" 

She and Cisco exchanged an unreadable look. "Um, yeah. How'd you know?" 

"Research," I shrugged. "And a man named Michael on the train". 

She nodded and strode over to a small room that connected to the labs cortex, beckoning me to follow. I tried to follow, but something was holding me back. A feeling, a sort of warding or forcefield not allowing me to go on. I took a step forward, using all of my strength to push through it, instantly regretting it. I could hear the others yelling, screaming at me as I lost my footing, falling, falling onto the floor and into darkness, slipping into a deep and restless sleep. 

***

I stood in the middle of a dark, open room, filled with cages and chains. It was like a serial killer's lair, the stereotypical type. One side of the room was filled with computers and monitors; one part being high-tech technology while the other had old 80's technology. On another side of the room was a small med-bay, containing a large amount of run-down medical equipment and a ragged bed. I made my way over to that particular room, my footsteps echoing, feeling drawn to it somehow. It didn't feel right, somewhat chilling. I cautiously entered the room, making sure not to step on anything nasty. I was immediately enticed by an old clip board. Blowing the dust off, I gasped as I heard a sharp noise coming from the other side of the room. I spun around in fright and took a step back, not realising that I had knocked over a small, metallic cylinder in the process. I tripped over it, losing balance and crashing into the edge of one of the cages in the room, hearing a daunting crunch against my back. I told myself to breathe, then, with all the willpower I had, slowly allowed myself to look at the clipped up pages. It was pretty much empty, except for a couple of lines of writing and a photograph. The writing was pretty simple; situated on the top of the page in messy black scrawl was a name, a name I'd become pretty familiar with over the past forty-eight hours. Below it, stamped in big, red letters stood only one word: incarcerated. I nodded to myself, processing the information. Some psycho had captured and imprisoned The Flash, according to this information at least, and I bet my money that it was Doctor Demon. I dropped the clipboard to the floor; I didn't even have to look at the photo to know that it was of Barry, bleeding and scarred.  I froze, suddenly hearing three small taps from behind me. I cautiously turned around, my heart beating furiously, to see... 

***

I woke up with a start, unaware of the space I was in. It took me a moment to register that I was still in S.T.A.R. Labs, lying in one of the numerous amount of medical rooms lining the cortex. 

"Chase? You OK?" I heard someone ask distantly. 

"Yeah," I grunted as I sat up. That was a lie, obviously. Truth be told, I was still scarred by the nightmare I was experiencing up until a few seconds ago.  

"Are you OK to stand?" 

I nodded and swung my legs over the side of the bed, slinking down until my feet touched the floor, and, with support, stood up. 

"Look, son," the unregistered voice, obviously now belonging to Joe West, said slowly. "I know you're not actually Barry, and, believe me, that's very hard to wrap my head around, but it'd be great if you could come to the CCPD, pretending you're him, and just tell the director that you're alive. Mostly because people'll see you walking around the street and report it to the station anyway, so it'd probably be best for you to go there and tell them yourself to avoid any awkward situations".  

I nodded in agreement. "Hey, Mr West, I--".

"Just Joe". 

"Right. Uh, Joe, I just wanted to say I'm sorry about what happened to your son and I know how difficult this might be for you and how much you probably hate me because of it, but I'm going to find a way to reverse this. I promise you that. Honestly, I have no desire to stay like this. Hell, I never even wanted this! So, yeah. I'll get Barry back to you, no matter what it takes". 

He smiled at this and began chuckling. 

"What?" I asked, my determined voice from before slowly dying into no more than an expression of worry. Did I say something wrong?

"Nothing," he said, mildly amused. "You just sounded a lot like him. Determined and willing to risk anything for the good of other people".  

"Sounds like an amazing guy". 

Joe nodded distantly.

"He is". 

____________________________________________________________________________________

Right, well, obviously I'm back from camp and exams are over, so yay! Sorry about any inconvenience last month caused... 

Anyway, hopefully this chapter was alright. It's taking me a while to get back into the swing of everything, so sorry if this chapter seemed a bit rushed or something. I'd love to hear feedback! 

Hopefully you'll all continue reading, even if this chapter was a disappointment, because I've got some pretty intense and interesting stuff planned for the next few chapters! :D 

Also, thoughts on the new cover?? 

So, as always, thanks for reading!