The Belly of Bygone Days

Wounded Heart

The Final Day

The stench of stale cigarette smoke hung thick on the air. There was a quiet rustle as the counsellor nudged at the papers strewn across her desk.

"There's really nothing you want to talk about?" she asked, raising a thin eyebrow. "Nothing at all?"

Doris looked down at her hands, clasped in her lap. It wasn't that there was nothing to say, it was that there was too much. A veritable sea of secrets and fears, stopped up and left to stagnate for so long the water had become fetid. What use was talking about any of it now?

Helga frowned and picked up a pen, tapping the end of it against the desk. "You're usually the most chattiest of the bunch. What's happened?"

Doris responded with a half-hearted shrug.

Helga sighed and dropped her pen back onto the desk. "Well, if you're not going to talk, you may as well get out of my office. I won't say no to an early lunch break."

"Wait!" Doris cried as Helga reached for the button that would call for the scientists.

Helga regarded her with an expression of indifference. "I'm listening."

"I guess I'm just... I'm just worried about Yakov. That's all," Doris relented. It was just the latest drop to fall into the sea. "I haven't seen him since..."

Since he'd suspected her of trying to poison him.

Since he'd threatened the scientists with a scalpel.

Since they'd dragged his unconscious body from the common room.

"...since they took him away."

Helga fished around in her pocket and took out a cigarette. "Yakov?"

"Subject A001," Doris clarified.

"Oh, him." She put the cigarette between her lips. Took out a lighter.

"Do you know when he'll be coming back?"

Doris was made to wait a couple of moments as Helga lit her cigarette. She was made to wait even longer as the counsellor consulted the mess of papers on her desk. A trickle of ash fell onto one of the reports. She carelessly brushed it off with her hand.

"Experimental program A has been deemed a failure," Helga finally said, the words enveloped in a cloud of pungent smoke. "The final observations have already been conducted. Subject A001 is set to be released this afternoon."

Doris' heart gave a jolt. "He's going to be let go?"

Helga shrugged and leaned back in her chair. "Something like that."

Doris felt conflicted by the news. She was glad the nightmare would finally be over for him, but at the same time she was heartbroken. She never even got the chance to say goodbye. Perhaps once this was all over—if it was ever over—she would try to find him.

The session was interrupted by a sharp knock at the door.

Helga rolled her eyes and quickly hid the cigarette. "Come in."

The door opened and in stepped General Bernard Schultz. His nose wrinkled as the smoke hit him, but a moment later, his face eased back into that confident, arrogant expression Doris had come to hate.

"I'm sorry to interrupt, Helga, but I require Subject C001 for a special task."

Helga's lips curled in an insincere smile. "Of course, General Schultz. We were just finishing up here."

Shultz turned to Doris. "Subject C001, come with me, please."

Without a word, Doris stood up and followed him out.

"What is this special task, sir?" she asked as they walked. It felt strange to be walking through these halls without the usual entourage of scientists.

"Patience, Subject C001. I'm sure it'll become evident very soon."

The lights in her individualized training room were dim when they arrived. The usual laboratory equipment had not been set out. It seemed there was no one else in the room.

"As I said," Shultz explained when she asked him about it, "this is a task. There will be no observations. No tests."

He switched on the lights, revealing the room not to be so empty after all.

"Yakov!" Doris cried.

He stirred when he heard her voice, raised his head to look at her, but gave no other reaction.

"Yakov!" she cried again, her eyes falling to the chains that bound him to the wooden post that had been set up in the room some weeks prior.

The execution post.

"Subject C001, ready yourself to carry out execution protocol."

At once, her training took over and she found herself subconsciously moving to the other side of the room.

"I don't want to do this," she begged. "Please, don't make me do this."

"Subject C001, silence, please." He handed her the rifle and walked over to the side of the room, stepping over the safety line. He opened a cabinet and took out a small, silver bell.

"Subject C001, take your aim."

Before Doris knew what she was doing, she had already raised the rifle. Her fingers fumbled as she removed the safety catch. Her hands shook as she aimed the barrel at Yakov's heart.

"No," she whispered, trying to fight against the compulsion Schultz's words had created. "No."

For a moment, her eyes locked with Yakov's, black and lifeless.

"Just do it, Doris," he said, his voice flat with bitter resignation. "It's not your fault. It's his."

For a moment, there was silence. Then came the tinkling of a bell. Such a small, innocuous sound. A blinding white light surged through Doris' mind, engulfing her synapsis, controlling her muscles. Her finger twitched against the trigger of the gun.

It was over in an instant. He was dead the moment the bullet pierced his heart.