Kris opened her eyes. She was laying on her back. She could see a shadow hovering in the darkness above her. She turned her head to the right and saw some sort of machine that was beeping rhythmically. Beyond it were weird shaped silhouettes. She looked to her left and could make out more dim, strange shadows.
She felt something dribbling from the corner of her mouth. She tried to lift her hand to wipe it away, but found that couldn't move it. She tried to move her other hand, but she couldn't move that one either. Kris started to panic. She had no idea where she was or how she had gotten there.
She lifted her head and looked down at her body. She was on some sort of gurney. She was covered in a thin white sheet from her chest down; her hands were also beneath the sheet. Kris could feel that she was naked under the sheet. She tried to move her legs, but to no avail. She tried to wriggle her toes and found she could do that. She tried to wriggle her fingers, again succeeding. She figured she must be tied down.
Panic started to really set in. She tried to yell out, but the sound came out muffled. She couldn't open her mouth! She tried, but could only feel something tugging at her lips with each attempt.
She noticed that the beeping from the machine had increased it's tempo.
Then she heard the soft pad of footsteps getting closer.
'Help!' she tried to yell; but it came out as, 'Mmmph!' Her lips stung piercingly from the attempt.
She heard a chuckle come from her right. It wasn't a nice sound.
She squinted, looking toward the source of the laugh. She saw a silhouette move toward her. A whimper purred in her throat.
As the shadow got closer, it began to resemble a man. He walked up and stood next to the gurney.
'Hello Kris,' the man said. His voice was harsh and reminded Kris of fingernails scratching down a chalkboard.
Kris looked at the man. He was dressed in a white overcoat, the type a doctor would wear. His balding hair was combed over, right to left, in a vain attempt to disguise the shiny patch atop his head. His wild eyes and lopsided grin made him look maniacal.
Kris mumbled something through her closed lips.
The man laughed; it sounded like glass shattering. Kris winced.
'You want to know how I know who you are,' the man said. Kris nodded urgently. 'That is not of consequence, my dear,' he said with a wave of his hand.
Kris mumbled something else.
'And you want to know who I am?' he questioned.
Kris nodded.
'You can call me the Doctor, if it makes you feel any better.' The Doctor laughed. 'Now, let's have a look at you, shall we?'
Kris shook her head, making the Doctor chuckle humourlessly.
He grabbed the sheet and pulled it from Kris' body. Kris lifted her head and looked at herself. Her hands were at her sides and were fixed, as were her feet, by straps connected to the gurney. She could see some wires running from just above her breasts to the machine that was beeping beside her. A heart monitor. It was beeping rapidly.
The Doctor looked at her naked body and smiled. He put his finger on her collarbone and ran it over her left breast and nipple. Kris shuddered at his touch. He walked the length of her, continuing to run his finger down her body, from her breast to her stomach, through the thin line of her pubic hair, and down her left leg, ending at her big toe, which he gave a quick squeeze.
He walked around the end of the bed and stood next to the heart monitor. He pressed a button and the beep disappeared.
'Incessant noise,' he claimed.
He reached into the darkness above her and flicked a switch. A blinding light beamed right into her eyes.
'Whoops, sorry,' he chuckled as he reached up and adjusted the light so that it wasn't in her face.
Kris squinted, waiting for her eyes to adjust. Black dots swam before her eyes, obscuring her vision. Gradually her sight returned to normal, and she could see the Doctor moving a small table on wheels toward the bed. Metal utensils glinted in the light. She looked away and could see that the shadows that surrounded her now resembled other machines. She recognised one from a medical show she used to watch. It was a respirator. It kept people alive.
Where was she? she wondered. What was going to happen to her? What did this maniac want?
She looked up at the Doctor, watching him as he pulled another trolley toward him. More instruments twinkled in the light. Kris was getting very anxious. She was sure the heart monitor, had the sound been on, would be humming rather than making singular beeps.
The Doctor turned to her. 'Are you ready Kris?'
She whipped her head back and forth. The Doctor laughed. He picked up a scalpel and held it in front of her eyes.
'Do you know what this is?' he turned the blade in his hands.
Kris nodded cautiously.
'Very good. Then I can cut to the chase,' he cackled at his humour.
He placed the scalpel on the skin under Kris' left breast, putting slight pressure on it. The blade easily went into her skin. A muffled yelp came from Kris' mouth. The Doctor drew the blade down, making a neat incision from under her breast down toward her abdomen. Kris' muffled yelps became louder. She tried to open her mouth to scream, but she could feel something pulling in opposite directions on both her lips, tearing at the skin. She clamped her mouth shut, concentrating on keeping it fixed closed. The pain from her chest was excruciating. She writhed around as much as her restraints would allow.
'Would you like something for the pain?' the Doctor asked sweetly.
'Mmph! Mmmph!' Kris nodded violently.
The Doctor turned to one of the tables and grabbed a vial and syringe. He filled the syringe with the liquid, held it up, depressing the plunger until liquid squirted from the needle, and jabbed it into the area that had been sliced open.
The pain slowly subsided.
'Better?' he asked as he withdrew the needle.
Kris didn't respond. She closed her eyes. What was this nightmare she was in?
If this is a dream, she thought, I want to wake up now!
She opened her eyes, but the same scene was before her. She snapped her eyes closed again. She concentrated on waking up.
Wake up! she told herself. Wake up! WAKE UP!
She slowly opened her eyes, but still nothing had changed. The Doctor stood over her, grinning.
'You want to wake up, don't you?'
Kris nodded.
'Would it make you feel better if I told you that this isn't your nightmare? It's mine?'
Kris looked at him, confused.
He laughed. 'That's confused you, huh? Now you don't know what to think. How about if I said it's not a dream, not yours and not mine? This, my dear, is real life.'
Kris shook her head.
'Well it is. Would you like proof?'
Before Kris could answer, the Doctor put his finger on the soft spot behind Kris' ear. She tried to move her head away, but he kept his finger where it was.
'See,' he put pressure on the spot, 'if this was a dream and I pushed here like this,' he pushed hard on the spot behind Kris' ear, 'you'd wake up.'
The pain shot through Kris' head, she snorted air into her nostrils. The pain spread down her jaw and up into her brain. Coloured spots appeared before her eyes. The Doctor removed his finger and the pain eased just as quickly as it had come.
Kris lay on the gurney, breathing heavily.
'See my dear, this is no dream,' the Doctor smiled. 'Now can I continue?'
He didn't wait for permission. Kris heard another machine start up and a sucking noise came from somewhere. She wearily lifted her head and saw the Doctor sucking a small amount of blood and gore from the incision. She laid her head back down, thankful that she couldn't feel anything down there. She lay, listening to the sucking and slurping as the Doctor cleaned up the wound.
The machine was turned off and Kris could feel the skin around the incision moving slightly. Again, she lifted her head and looked down. She instantly felt sick. She could feel bile moving up her throat. The Doctor was stretching the skin apart, revealing two white rib bones. Kris tried to swallow the lump in her throat, groaned and flopped her head back down. The Doctor looked at her and smiled.
'You're looking a little pale,' he sounded concerned, 'are you going to vomit or pass out?'
Kris nodded her head groggily; she was concentrating on keeping the vomit down.
'We can't have you choking to death.'
He picked up another vial and syringe and repeated the filling process, then jabbed it in her belly. Intense heat spread from the injection site, coursing around her body. Kris struggled against her bonds, moaning and groaning.
'It's painful, isn't it.'
The Doctor put the vial down and picked up a different one. He filled the same syringe and injected in into a vein on Kris' arm.
'The pain is going to get a lot worse, but we can't have you vomiting or passing out can we?'
The pain from the incision was almost too much to bear, and Kris wanted to welcome unconsciousness; but her brain was overly active, thanks to the drugs.
She felt something moving around inside her. The she heard an almighty crunch. She felt the pain of breaking bone go through her body. It seemed like every nerve was on full alert. She wearily raised her head and saw the Doctor poised over her with some sort of shears. She watched as he put the open blades about the other rib and pushed the handle closed. The bone snapped with another crunch. The pain was more fierce than the first bone. She tried to scream, but was reminded of her sealed lips, by pain not measurable to what else she was feeling.
She wanted to be sick, but her stomach felt calm. She wanted to pass out, but her mind was overstimulated.
The Doctor grabbed the vacuum and sucked some more blood and bits of bone away. He looked into the wound and started humming a tune, it was something Kris didn't recognise. He put his hands inside Kris and pain exploded in her body. She writhed on the bed, pulling against her restraints.
'Be still!' the Doctor ordered.
Kris continued to writhe around.
The Doctor sighed and turned to his trolley. He filled another syringe and injected it into Kris' arm. Slowly her body stopped moving and she became calm. Her eyes became vacant and she stared up into the darkness above her.
'I didn't want to use morphine,' the Doctor said, 'but look at the mess you've made of this incision.' He tutted and sucked up the mess with the vacuum. He wiped it clean with a wet sponge and put his fingers back into the cut.
After a minute, he gave a laugh and withdrew his fingers. He picked up a pair of forceps and put them into Kris' body, via the incision. He moved them around until he found what he was searching for. He put his scalpel into the cut and gave it a flick. He removed the scalpel, then the forceps. Hanging from the end of the forceps was a bloody lump of flesh. He dropped it into a kidney bowl. It landed with a wet splat.
During all this, Kris had lain, staring up past the light, stoned out of her brain. She had let her drug addled mind drift away, so as not hear the disgusting sounds coming from down below. She didn't want to know what he was doing to her.
The Doctor replaced the two rib bones, setting them place. Then he proceeded to sew up the incision. He finished stitching and cleaning up around the incision, then pushed his way into Kris' vision.
'See,' he grinned, 'that wasn't that bad, was it?'
He took a step back. Kris lifted her head and looked down at her freshly stitched chest. She looked at him, a pleading look in her eyes.
'Mumph kumph humph?' she mumbled.
'No my dear,' the Doctor shook his head, 'I'm sorry, you can't go just yet, I haven't finished. And besides, don't you want to see what I took from you?'
Kris shook her head, but the Doctor turned and picked up the kidney bowl. He picked up the fleshy mess with his fingers and showed it to Kris.
'This was your spleen. It has had better days,' he threw it up in the air; it splattered blood when he caught it. 'But you can live without it quite normally. It's fascinating isn't it?'
Kris shook her head.
The Doctor found this amusing. He turned back to his little trolley, dropped the spleen back into the bowl and rummaged around the trolley's contents.
He spun back to face Kris, a large serrated blade in his hand.
He laughed as Kris' eye's widened in horror.
'I'm just kidding,' he said, putting the knife back on the trolley.
He turned back to Kris, leaning toward her. He put his hands on Kris' shoulders and bent down, bringing his face close to hers.
'Before I continue, there is something I've been wanting to do.'
His face was so close that Kris could see the small pockmarks in his skin. She could smell the sourness on the breath. She could see the lunacy in his eyes. She felt him move and backed away from her. His hand flew toward her face and she shut her eyes tight.
She felt something brush against her lips. She heard and felt nothing else.
Kris opened her eyes and saw the Doctor standing, arms crossed, a smirk on his face.
Her lips felt different. She stretched her mouth open, feeling the cramped muscles relax. She licked her lips, running her tongue along them. She could feel strands of something uniformly along their length.
Then she realised she could open her mouth! She let out a scream. It was loud and it echoed around the room. She screamed again. And again. And again, until she passed out.
Kris opened her eyes and panicked. She thrashed about in the bed. She heard someone yell out. It was a woman's voice. A familiar woman's voice. Then she felt strong hands on her shoulders, pushing her back into the softness of the bed. She heard someone say something about 100cc's. She suddenly felt different, calm. The hands released their pressure on her shoulders. Kris sunk into a troubled slumber.
She woke up some time later, slowly opening her eyes. The first thing she saw was her mother's face. Kris smiled, her mother smiled back.
'Hello darling,' her mother said, walking toward her.
'Is she awake?' Kris heard her father say from behind her.
She looked over her shoulder and saw her dad getting up from a chair. She tried to sit up, but the pain from her chest was a bit too much.
'Try and keep still, dear,' her mother said, placing a cool hand on Kris' forehead.
Kris smiled.
Then she panicked as memories of the Doctor flooded in. She pushed her mum's hand away and tried to get out of the bed. She felt her dad holding her down, enveloping her in an embrace.
'Shhh, shhh. It's okay my baby girl, it's okay,' he said in soothing tones.
'It's not okay, Dad,' Kris sobbed. 'The psycho, what happened to the psycho doctor?'
Kris' father looked over her head at her mother. He gave her mother a weird look, who shrugged in reply. Her father took a step back from Kris and looked her in the eye.
'What psycho?' he asked.
'The psycho doctor that cut me up,' she cried. 'He took my spleen!'
'Darling,' her mother said, grimacing to her father, 'that was a normal doctor. Doctor Payne. He is a doctor at the hospital.'
'No! No,' Kris shook her head, tears falling onto her cheeks, 'we were in a dark place. He cut me open and gave me drugs and I was naked and he touched me and cut me and took my spleen and I couldn't talk, I couldn't move, I was strapped to the bed.' Kris paused for breath.
'Darling,' her father cut in, 'you were in a car accident.' He shared a look with her mother. 'You've been in a coma, and the doctors had to remove your spleen because it was ruptured in the accident.'
'There was no dark place,' her mother added, 'it was right here in the hospital.'
'We've been here with you the whole time, darling,' her father said.
Kris shook her head, but with less vehemence. She looked from her father to her mother.
'It's true, dear,' her mother nodded.
'But... but... but it was so real,' Kris whined.
'The brain can do strange things when in a coma, Kris, when the body is in distress.' The voice came from behind from her dad. Kris couldn't see who it belonged to, but it sounded familiar. 'How are you feeling?'
Kris' eyes widened as the speaker walked from behind her father and stood at the end of the hospital bed.
The man was dressed in a white overcoat, the type a doctor would wear. His balding hair was combed over, left to right, in a vain attempt to disguise the shiny patch atop his head. His soft grey eyes and lopsided grin made him look comical. He looked like he had a great sense of humour. Kris liked him straight away.
'I'm Doctor Payne, Kris. I performed the surgery on you.'
'I know,' said Kris, smiling.
By J. Barrett
10/06/2013
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