Vivisection

By Emily Faerber

He didn’t know how he had ended up in that dark empty room. His memory was fragmented and blurry. He had gone out drinking with his friends, and at one of the bars he had met a sexy young woman who had seemed interested in him, then . . . Blank. He felt cold and oddly loose; touching down along himself he realized that he was naked. Pushing himself up off the floor, he began groping around to find a wall or object, but his hands touched nothing. Panic boiled up in his throat. Maybe he had tried to drive home and crashed. Maybe he was dead.

Suddenly a square of blinding light filled his vision, and he recoiled from it. Blinking, he tried to force his eyes to adjust to the sudden brightness. Something grabbed his arm and turned him away from the door, allowing him focus on the woman.

“I apologize for the wait, but we had to let the alcohol work itself out of your system. Nyarl said that it works better when the subject is sober.”She smiled over at the open doorway.

Heart pounding, he slowly turned and his blood seemed to freeze in his veins. Standing silhouetted in the doorway was a tall figure, unnaturally skinny with a round, hairless head. Its joints were wrong. The elbows stuck out as if they had been disconnected and twisted around, then snapped back into place, and its knees each had two bends in them, as if its legs had been broken and an extendible piece had been placed to connect the two parts back together. A tremor ran through his body as he gazed at the outline of the creature, and with a sickening certainty he knew he was not dead.

“This way,” it hissed, sounding gleeful as it turned and disappeared from sight.

“We’re going to the lab now. Don’t worry, it will be all right,” the woman said soothingly. He jumped when she touched him. He had forgotten that she was still there.

His legs glided underneath him, carrying him as the woman led him through a short hallway and into another room. In the center was a large metal table with a thick rubber mat over the top, and a small rolling tray next to it filled with various sharp objects. Against one of the walls set in a blacktopped counter was a sink, with a cupboard above it. A black cloth was pulled over his eyes, securely fastened and blocking out all light.

“Lie down on this.” She patted the blue rubber, kicking a step forward that grated along the tiled floor. Slowly, mechanically, he climbed up and laid down on his back on the table, feeling the rubber stick to his bare skin.

“Now my dear,” the creature’s voice purred, “I’ll teach you the basics very first.” A cold smooth object clamped around his arm, and he found himself on his side. “This side, where the backbone is . . .” the tip of some hard curved object grazed his skin down the middle of his back, “. . . is called the dorsum.” He fell back down into his original position. “And the opposite side is called the ventrum.”

“Front side ventrum, back side dorsum.”

“Something like that.” The same hard curved object was pulled along his stomach, making a line of red show in his skin. “Humans have bilateral symmetry along the median line. Each side is nearly identical.”

“That’s very obvious, my dear. I hope that just because I asked you to teach me, you aren’t going to treat me like I’m an idiot.” The woman’s voice seemed stern, yet carried an undertone of laughter with it.

“Not at all, my Alelle. I wouldn’t teach you if I thought you were an idiot.”

“Your compliment is heartwarming. Let’s hurry up and get started.”

“Very well. First, pin the subject down onto the mat to keep him in place. It would mess up our work if he was free to roll around.”

The woman’s warm soft hands closed around one of his, and she felt along his palm as she pulled his fingers out flat against the rubber. He felt the prick of the point only for a split second before the thick metal nail was clear through his hand and a warm liquid spewed out to coat is skin. Screaming, he instinctively rolled to the side that was pinned, but a strong vise clamped around his free arm and forced it back onto the mat.

“The feet too.” There was a distinct pleasure in the creature’s voice. “We’ll clean up the excess blood later.”

Prick. Push. Pinned. His arms were out from his body, and his feet were spread apart, each one pulsing with a hot pain that centered at the metal through his skin. His mind flew about him, the screaming never ceasing. He was worse than dead. That woman had lured him here, so that she and that thing could . . . Pulling upwards, he managed to raise his head and shoulders, but his hands stayed firmly stuck to the rubber, searing him with more agony until his strength gave out, and he collapsed back down.

“Should we write that down?”

“Yes.” Cold metal pressed against the center of his chest. “If you don’t mind, my sweet, I’ll make the cuts. I’ll be much more precise in them. One mistake, and our lesson will be over before we’re ready for it to end.”

“I would hate it if I accidentally killed him. I wouldn’t be able to see all the organs in action if he was dead.”

Cold sweat dripped down his face as lines of pain were drawn through his torso. No. Not sweat. Tears. He realized he was sobbing as the agony took over his mind, sharpening his senses and holding him prisoner to consciousness. He wished he was dead.

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A/N: In all honesty, I find this to be a little bit boring. The story is too . . . science-y and impersonal.