I wake with a start, my heart beating hard in my chest. Sleep paralysis grips me, an oppressive weight crushing my chest. My heart pulses savagely against my ribs, causing my whole body to throb with it. This is my third nightmare in a row. I am healed.
I inhale a ragged breath of cool, antiseptic air. An IV drips nutrients into my veins. My stomach long since past registering hunger, I no longer feel the tight painful cramping. I do not eat, I do not really sleep, passing most of my days in a haze of mindless fog, dreading the Orderly’s next appearance. And then the nightmares come, an ugly, terrifying harbinger. My body registering fear at being whole.
I huddle under the thin blanket on my bed, my restrained wrists and ankles making the effort pathetic. I am afraid. I am always afraid.
My cell door opens and the Orderly enters wearing surgical scrubs, face covered with a mask. Their cold, empty eyes sweep the room, then the Orderly steps to my bed and unlocks the castors with a squeak and a grunt. I am wheeled into the hallway, my IV secured to a post on the bed itself.
I am momentarily blinded. The lights in the corridor glare at me and I blink my eyes several times until they adjust to the blazing light. The ceiling is glass-smooth and mirror-bright, and I watch my reflection as I am taken to the operating theatre. I am a wraith: starved, empty, paper thin. My heart beats hard against its cage, a frightened bird.
The operating theatre smells of sharp lye, ozone, and something slightly sweet, but toxic. The Orderly wheels my bed to a large, pressurised gas canister. A mask with a hose is attached to the nozzle. The Orderly holds the mask over my mouth and opens the tap.
The inside of my nose is instantly coated in a sticky sweet film as I inhale the tranquilising gas, and my limbs grow heavy, as if gravity has increased. My frantic heartbeat slows to a booming hollow gong in my chest. The mask is lifted from my face and the blanket is pulled off me. I shiver slightly in the cool air of the room, but I can barely feel it through the weight of the tranquiliser on my senses.
My restraints are unbuckled. The Orderly stands at the head of my bed and picks up the sheet on either side of my shoulders. A second pair of hands lifts the sheet from the foot of my bed, and they transfer me to the operating table in a single smooth motion. I try to blink, but once my eyes close, it is too hard to open them again. It does not matter if I can see my torturers. I already know what comes next.
A bright light comes on overhead, burning my eyes with pink light and spots through my eyelids. My hospital gown is pulled open to bare my chest. There is a slight buzz of cold as the incision site is prepped. I am almost entirely detached from my body, the tranquiliser making everything soft, muted, barely noticeable, like an echo reach the very end of a long tunnel.
I hear metallic clicks and a needle-thin spike of adrenaline-heightened fear pierces the tranquiliser fog. I know when the scalpel touches and penetrates my skin, feel my flesh part beneath the sharp steel. The Surgeon slices me open like a fish for gutting. My chest gapes, my flesh peeled back, exposing my ribs, my heart beat still slow and plodding.
The Surgeon murmurs something and the Orderly’s reply is a soft buzz in my ear, but I cannot hear the words. Her finger taps against my breastbone and the Orderly hands her something. There is a pressure on my chest followed by a sharp popping that causes a spasm of white hot pain to stab through the tranquiliser. More pressure and another sharp pop, and then again. The Surgeon spreads my ribs, snipped neatly away from my sternum.
The pain subsides almost as soon as each spasm ends. The lethargy of the tranquiliser wraps around me again. I feel the Surgeon stick her hand in my chest. I feel her press against the flesh, shift the bone out of her way, invade the sanctum of my ribcage. I feel her fingertips press against my heart, which continues to beat slow, steady.
There is a pressure, and then I feel my flesh part again and I can no longer feel my heartbeat. The blood vessels anchoring the organ in my chest are severed. I gasp. There is a loud snapping sound and the strong scent of ozone. The light burning through my eyelids is suddenly blocked as the Surgeon leans over me, watching the small organ she electrocuted begin to pulse, erratically at first. The overhead light is blotted out until the tinny beat steadies.
They jump-started my secondary heart.
My chest feels hollow as the Surgeon closes and stitches up the incisions. My secondary heart beats, but it is so faint, so weak compared to the heart the Surgeon just harvested. It is a single tom trying to fill the role of an entire section of timpani.
Once the Surgeon is done, she steps away from the operating table. I am lifted by the sheet and transferred back to my hospital bed. The Orderly closes my gown and covers me with the blanket. They wheel me down the mirror-ceilinged corridor, back to my cell.
A fortnight will pass, and they will come for me once more. The portentous dreams will come with the crushing weight on my chest, telling me I am healed once more. Three nightmares, and then the Orderly will wheel me to the Operating Theatre once more. And the cycle will begin once more. Fortnight after fortnight, as it has gone for so long, I can no longer remember my life outside this hell.
The little plaque next to my cell door reads: Patient #6438900, AB-, bi-weekly heart donor, but I must remember this is not who I am. I have not always been in this sadistic laboratory prison. I cannot have been. I can't.
My name is Tamsin Lev. I must remember. I must ... remember.
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