The person you made me

5. The doctor

Somehow, winter came, which made me uncomfortable because it meant the world was still spinning outside. How could it, when all of this was going on?

I tried to rest well in my certainty that nobody in the world outside knew about us. If they had, surely they would have made the world stop spinning by now. No? 

December came and we were given blankets. Only thin cloths, but blankets nonetheless. Me and Will stayed if not warm then at least alive at night by fucking and sleeping glued to one another. Others were not so lucky. When frost came, we woke up to each new day with at least one of us dead from the cold as they slept. And somehow, we got used to it; their blue skin, their dead, frozen eyes.

The one light in the dark was that extra piece of bread that would show up beneath our thin pillow every evening for me and Will to share. We kept it a secret, sometimes trading it for extra pieces of clothing.

"Who do you think it is?" Will asked one day. "Who puts it there?"

"I don't know", I answered truthfully, because my first guess seemed more impossible than if it had been placed there by a fairy.

One day, we were woken up by a serene soldier. He didn't scream at us as they used to, which made us all the more alert.

Something is wrong.

My heart jolted as I saw General Senju stand behind two soldiers. It was very rare that he came, only during special occasions.

As selections.

But I frowned as I realised he was not alone. Behind him stood a tall man in a white coat. On his face was an eerie smile, not the evil, youthful grins of the soldiers but more cunning. A shiver went through my body; I could feel how afraid the soldiers were of this man.

I glanced at General Senju. He didn't look afraid at all, which calmed me for some reason. But he looked... I think he looked disgusted. As if he didn't want to breathe the same air that the white-coated man had breathed out.

"Mengele", someone behind me whispered.

The name didn't tell me anything back then, of course, but even then, the sound of it made me shiver. It was something about the mix of syllables and vocals that went down wrong in my mind.

"Will you line up, please?" Mengele said in a voice so low, I was certain he did it on purpose to manipulate us to listen carefully.

We did, and he started walking along the line. He didn't, however, ask us to step to the right or two the left. Instead, he just inspected each and every one of us.

"Any identical twins here?" he asked, voice still low. Behind me, I felt Will take my hand, and I took his. Why would he need identical twins? "Not any? Pity. Regular twins, then?" Two men stepped forwards, and Mengele grinned. "Excellent. Any siblings?" A few others stepped forwards. "Let's have a look at the rest of you."

Mengele walked along the line. As he came closer, a soft smell of flowery cologne brushed past my face. Under any other circumstances, it would have been a pleasant scent, but here, over the scent of urine and faeces and unwashed bodies, on a stomach so empty it felt hollow, it made me gag.

Mengele stopped right next to me and looked down with that evil grin I started to hate. Will had released my hand to keep us save, and I had never longed so much for it.

"Well, well, well, what do we have here?" he said with a raspy voice. He lifted his hand and grabbed my chin, and I couldn't help but compare it to that time when the General had done the same. Whereas the General's hand had been large and warm and soft, Mengele's was cold and dry and spindly. "Aren't you pretty?"