Touch

2 - Cassandra

The world is lit only by flashes of excruciating pain. Fireworks explode behind my eyes as I feel a tearing sensation in my abdomen. Somebody is inside my body, poking around, feeling for what they want.

They've found it.

I can feel tiny pricks of pain as cells are harvested from my body, ready to help make a baby.

The only thing that isn't ready is my mind.

I can feel tears in my eyes as they sew my skin back up, strand by painful strand. The mask is taken off my mouth and I am free to breathe fresh air.

I wake up quickly. My movements are jerky, irratic, unpredictable. I thrash against the table, desperately trying to escape from my bonds.

I can hear someone giggling. I look around and see a short, round woman staring down at me from a glass window up above. She's covered in fur coats, fur scarves, fur boots, fur hat. She looks rather hideous, although I would never be able to say that to her face.

She is the relative of a wealthy boy, who will be selected to be somebody's partner today.

A tall, stern-looking woman strides up to her and smacks her upside the head. I gasp, shocked. The smaller woman turns, her face purple with anger, but when she sees the taller woman, she goes extremely pale. Her nose almost touches the floor as she curtseys ungracefully.

The stern-looking woman turns and looks me right in the eye. I see the hint of a smile, as she turns and moves on to the next patient's viewing window.

•••

Someone untangles my bonds, roughly grabs me and drags me through a door to another room. My dress has been taken while I was asleep, and I am in a hospital gown now. My stomach is firm and painful from the operation.

A rather flamboyant man comes in. He has shaded everything; hair, eyes, clothing, even parts of his skin are dyed the same shade.

He claps his hands and six girls dance into the room. They go about undressing me, rubbing ointments and solutions on me. I wince each time they go near my stitches.

After my skin has been pulled thin by hands rubbing it, I am shoved into a corset and the laces are tightened. I scream as my stitches are yanked this way and that by the tightening of the corset. The girls just cackle.

I am pulled into a shiny dress. It appears to be the same shade as the flowers that grow outside my house. My tears soak the neckline, and the man screams at the girls to "get a different dress, we only have twenty minutes and we haven't even started on hair and makeup!"

I'm so confused. I thought the Saviours were about saving resources and using them to help people. Instead, I am being dressed up like a doll, pulled in every direction possible.

We try ten more dresses. My tears soak through all of them. Finally, the man has had enough. He storms up to me, and stops inches away from my face.

"Are you an idiot?" He says quietly. I shake my head, tears still streaming down my face.

"Are you stupid? Deformed? Disabled in any way?" I shake my head to all three.

Suddenly, pain explodes over the right side of my face. I clutch my cheek, too shocked to let any tears escape from my eyes.

"Then stop acting like it, you bitch!" He screams in my face. His method has been effective.

I do not cry.

Instead I stare daggers straight into his skull. He thinks I will cry again.

I will not give him the satisfaction.