That was the question I needed to answer while working on Delay of Game. It couldn’t be a physical injury. And it couldn’t be a straight-up poisoning. Those would both be too obvious.

I needed something quiet, something that could be dismissed or ignored.

In 2025, I saw what that looks like up close.

I saw the side effects of one medication take someone from being active, productive, and curious and, inch by inch, turned them into someone I worried might never be able to care for themselves again.

I know how easy it was to dismiss the symptoms. Confusion. Fatigue. Lack of effort. I did it myself, until I couldn’t ignore that something was seriously wrong.

And then I had to convince other people that it wasn’t just confusion, or fatigue, or a lack of effort. People who were not mean or lazy, but for whom the easy answer was often the right one.

Gradual erosion blamed on the person being eroded? That’s what I was looking for.

I just wish it had come at less of a cost to people I care about.