Our Lovely Donor

Rose was to receive an injection. To rid her of the pain she had been in for the last several years. Pain in her wrists, pain she had tried everything to get rid of. Having driven to the hospital, she was alone in the waiting room. The walls were a pristine white, and the floor showed few signs of wear. A reassuring environment; the hospital clearly cared about its patients. 

After some time, a nurse appeared. Her scrubs were neat and wrinkle-free, her dark hair pulled back into a high ponytail. 

“You must be Rose. Here, the doctor will be ready soon. Come with me, I’ll take you back,” she said with a smile. Rose obliged.

She was led to a small, well-lit room overlooking the nearly empty parking lot. Within minutes of being taken to the room, she heard a knock on the door, and it swung open to admit a friendly looking man in a white coat. Introducing himself as Doctor H, he pulled on a pair of latex gloves whilst preparing a small wheeled table for Rose’s injection. First he covered the table with a towel. Then he expertly filled a syringe, set the equipment aside, and instructed Rose to lay her right hand on the table. Palm down. Apprehension filled her. Even so, she followed his instructions and allowed him to touch her wrist and then spray it with a numbing agent. It was cold. He picked up the syringe, telling her it would just feel like a small poke. He was right; it barely hurt.

She could feel the injection, sense the cortisone being forced into her wrist. It felt wrong. At first it was tolerable, but then the doctor had to force it into her body. Her wrist was full, and it hurt as the last of the syringe was dispensed into her, overfilling her. She refused to look, refused to see it happen. Feeling it was enough, her nerves protested, telling her she should pass out. He removed the needle, something she didn’t know until he told her. Then…she made the mistake of looking down. Looking at her hand. 

It was a swollen, misshapen thing to see, cortisone leaking out the hole left by the needle’s removal. She could barely remain conscious, and not falling into the table was a struggle. She was starting to lose her senses. The doctor noticed, and assisted her up from the chair to a table by the wall. She lay there, fighting, fighting with all her might to remain conscious. She couldn’t hear; it felt like cotton balls were stuffed into her ears. Her vision was blurry no matter how many times she tried to focus. She felt weak, she couldn’t move other than barely twitching her hands. Nurses rushed about the room, checking her pulse, completing actions she couldn’t register. Actions that seemed meaningless, without purpose.

Her efforts failed her. After what seemed like ages, she succumbed to the darkness. Her last vision was that of two nurses peering over her in concern.

When she came to, she was still on a table. But something was…different. Still weak, she tried to move and found that she was restrained. Her wrists and ankles were cuffed to the table, and she was alone. Turning her head, she examined the room. No longer clean, it was dilapidated and dark reddish-brown stains adorned the walls. The window was gone, and suitcases with glass jars were piled in a corner. Tables just out of reach were covered in surgical instruments, all bloody or rusted. Head spinning, Rose blinked, but nothing changed. Surely the former hospital was real? It had felt real; her wrist still throbbed. 

Hours passed before Rose heard any noise. Footsteps approached from behind. The nurse came into her view. She was different. No longer the friendly woman from before, she seemed irritated upon seeing Rose. “Ready for your vaccine?” She inquired sarcastically, grabbing a syringe with a rusty needle. Then, she precisely jabbed Rose in the arm, ignoring her faint protests. With eyes colder than the metal trapping Rose, she prepared to leave. “I’ll be back soon, don’t worry,” she said. 

Rose heard nothing. Light-headed, hyperventilating, she only caught the nurse’s next remark. “Your surgery won’t take too long.”

Good. She was glad the surgery would be fast. Then she could leave. A man who had inexplicably appeared by the nurse’s side placed a clear gas mask over her nose and mouth and started to do his work. An… anesthesiologist? A…

It felt like days had passed. She woke up, surrounded by smiling nurses. She saw her family. They were happy; they told her the surgery was a success. They told her she had saved lives. They thanked her, hands full of bouquets and garbed in black. Surgery? What surgery!? She only meant to get an injection!

Running to her mother’s arms, she tripped and fell, abruptly waking with a spasm on the operating table. Still trapped, still doomed. Still surrounded by dirty tools, the jars open and awaiting her contributions. Desperately Rose called for help, but nobody came.  Hours passed, and detached, she sunk into a fitful sleep. 

An unfamiliar sound woke her, and motion was visible through her barely open eyelids. The sound…that of active machinery. Her jaw locked up. Paralyzed, she could only watch. And the blades above her started to descend.