I don't have much time to really let the disjointed words sink in, my stomach sinking as the needle is soon retracted to allow my shirt to be pulled over my head.
The sound of hatches opening around me fills the room, the noise only getting worse as various saws and suction devices come to life in preparation for the forced surgery that was about to commence. A screen flickers to life on the far wall, the monitor showing water dribbling down behind the display. Lines of text flicker on the screen, an intelligible scrawl flashing up as the machine attempts to explain that it was about to give me the full body of someone else trapped somewhere inside the machine.
Tears full my eyes as I hear the wet sloshing noise of thin steel blades meeting skin, the dripping sounds from within the walls of the booth soon being drowned out by the sound of viscera falling to the surgically clean floor.
All manner of life support devices soon descend down towards me, sliding down my throat to supply oxygen or racing in through open wounds to keep my heart rate steady as a drum.
Slowly but surely my pale skin is peeled away, soon followed by carefully extracted muscles fiber by fiber. I can't shut my eyes, I can't even blink, my eye lids seeming to have been pulled away in the haze of bloody motion.
Thankfully, the heady mixture of drugs both injected and filling my lungs leave me floating on a numbing cloud. It's hard for my mind to keep up with the terror of what is happening around me, the memories of what happened mere seconds ago slipping from my mental grasp like some mercurial sand between my fingers.
My head is suddenly yanked up, a dozen new tubes and pipes flying out to meet me as I find myself listing forward. Beneath me rests little more than a skeleton wretched in arteries and veins, my tall proud frame reduced to but it's base components. Organs shift and pulse inside it, caged in metal clamps and wires to simulate the nervous system that had been severed from them.
My jaw drops as I realize where I am, my view shifting further and further away from the skeletal stump between my shoulders. With a loud snap I watch as even my lower jaw is pulled free, the chiseled bones and accompanying teeth rapidly disappearing into a hole in the nearby wall.
From my vantage point up at the ceiling I watch as the eviscerated remains of my body are slowly and carefully lowered down, the floor opening to receive the Auto-Closets latest prize. A vat of oddly pale green goo sits just below the floor, the viscous ooze appearing to swallow the remnants of my body as it holds my broken form together.
In the vast cavern beneath me I can spy some other shapes, their own vats barely illuminated by the lights of the Auto-Closet. Bird and cat skeletons sit in various dainty glass jars, looking humanoid figures sitting further behind them in shadow. Beside the animals, tessellating well with the other small containers, rest various lumps of gray matter separated from their own bodies.
If I could swallow I would, if I could cry out in terror I would be making enough noise for the whole town to hear. This is not how I expected a visit to my parents to go, how could I have?
The sound of metal against bone fills my ears as my vision shakes. I watch as piece by bloody piece my skull is pulled apart, soon leaving me as just a brain with what little sensory organs the Auto-Closet had deigned to give me.
Suddenly, rising up from the depths I watch as one of the brain jars rises up inch by ominous inch. Small saws flank it, buzzing early as they move to shave away the last of my organs before leaving me a conscious but inert mass of fat and nerves.
Before they reach me however the lights in the booth flicker, the welcome chime replaying as the jar sloshes violently with the sudden cessation of movement. The saws barely slow, still shifting on course for my eyes before the word goes dark.
As the sound of the saws grow closer and closer to my ears I hear the booth try to speak over them, the crackling and disjointed voice barely making itself known over the industrial surgical equipment.
"Miss... Welcome to... Damage detect... Miss... Repair... Detected... Auto-Clos...
The world vanishes around me as the blades finish their task, my brain suddenly losing the ability to see and hear in a matter of seconds. Still bathed in whatever cocktail of narcotics the Auto-Closet had pumped into me, my mind struggles to comprehend what had been done to it.
Every time I try to think of a plan or imagine what was happening to me my train of thought would simply fall away from me, derailing into disjointed errant thoughts dredging themselves up from the depths of my sensory-deprived mind.
Thoughts of being trapped here, stuck underground alongside the other poor souls I had seen below, were quickly replaced with all manner of random imaginings.
Suddenly, light begins to sear at my eyes once again. I try to close my eyelids to shield myself, to raise an arm against the painfully bright light, but I find myself locked up once again.
My muscles, assuming I still had any, and my nerves just seem dead to my commands and refuse any semblance of control I otherwise had over them.
The metal arms dance around me, equipped with spray cans of foul-smelling liquid. The mist is hastily sprayed around me, the whirling devices practically painting me with the stuff from head to toe.
Despite the deadening of my nerves I feel something off about me, a dull throbbing tightness in my skull and encasing my body as though I was liable to burst at any moment. With each layer of spray the feeling thankfully seems to subside, the thin and fragile sensation running through my flesh easing off as I'm washed down with the disgustingly scented medicinal mist.
Suddenly, I feel the floor beneath my feet. It feels wet and cool, but the true height of the sensation seems blocked by whatever the Auto-Closet had pumped into me.
"Thank... Auto-Closet using... Come Miss you... Again... Again... Again..." It crackles, the feminine recording looping over and over on the last word as the door begins to hiss.
Seeing my chance I begin to bolt for the door, the metal hands reaching out one last time to meet me as I make my escape. I feel something glide over my legs, the cold wet floor suddenly being replaced with some compressed sensation around my feet. My vision darkens as something is pulled over my head and down to my torso. It holds me back for a moment before I finally push through, the arms relenting as I burst out from through the widening gap in the doors and into the rain outside.
Panting heavily I listen to the pounding rain and the sound of the door behind me. The Auto-Closet rapidly seals itself once again, the interior emanating a faint whirring noise as it cleans itself for the next victim.
I shiver and shake in the cold night air, whatever liquor I had in me now gone and replaced with rapidly diminishing painkillers and anesthetics. My skin stings as I feel the icy cold rain of my parent's island home pound against me, my panicked mind quickly turning to find another shelter and quick.
Further down the street I spot it, a small awning above a storefront that may provide some respite from the rain. As I run towards it my head throbs, a bombardment of new sensations wracking my fraying mind. Each step feels off somehow, my stride seeming shorter as the salvation of the awning takes longer and longer to get to than expected.
Finally I make it, the waterproof fabric above beating like a drum under the pounding if the heavy rain.
Panting heavily from the sprint I slowly look up, my blood running cold and my heart stopping for a brief moment as I catch movement in the glass window resting in the door.
A woman looks back at me, her hair matted and wet from the rain. Her mouth hangs open, her eyes following my every movement. Suddenly it hits me, a scream escaping my lips as I'm wracked with the realization that I am merely staring into a reflection.
My eyes dart about in a panic, hastily assessing the sight of the...
No comments:
Post a Comment