She Who Sees Through Darkness

Part Sixteen

Noise.

It played on repeat, weaving in and out of her body, distorted, round and ringing. It was not entering through her ears. She heard hissing, chirping . . . and then it vanished into a thick wave of wind, and then the peeping returned.

"Look at the delta patterns," said Dr. Harper, her voice quivering with hope. "There's an echo. It worked."

"She's still comatose. It's too soon to tell. We could lose her and a fertile female, Phyllis. The risk—"

"We set out to take these risks. And that's Dr. Harper to you."

An avalanche of wind and silence buried the voices. Cold washed over her like the current of a river, and her skin burned, and warmth leaked up from her core.

Someone pressed a thumb to her shoulder. A thousand nerves shouted. She hadn't known how sensitive skin could be—yes, yes you know, that's how skin works.

"Ms. Harris?" Dr. Harper asked quietly.

That's me. Katrina Harris. She reached for herself, grabbing for memories: concrete pounding under her sneakers, Annie laughing in a party hat, a thousand hands clapping when Senator Winters announced her campaign. Threads of control swam down her prickling limbs. Her thoughts threatened to leak out the back of her head, sucked down by a force stronger than gravity. No. My thoughts. Me.

She opened her eyes.

Vertigo hit hard. Shadows scattered. Whiteness seemed to swallow up her world—no, it's just the damn ceiling—and suddenly, every crack swam into vibrant focus, every jagged edge and tear in the plaster. The colors took on a new dimension; a sharper contrast. Something's wrong. She turned her head sideways to look for Dr. Harper and realized her peripheral vision had been cut short, erased at the edges. Her vision zoomed in and out on every flickering muscle in the doctor's face: her jaw, clenched, her smile, forced, her eyes, holding back tears.

"My sight!" Katrina gasped, her throat rough and raw. Her lungs expanded and expanded, more and more air filling her chest.

"You can see me?" Dr. Harper asked.

"Of course I can! That's the problem!" She tried to touch her face, but her wrists had been strapped down. They found me out! she thought, wildly tugging against the restraints. Something snapped in her left hand.

Bones slid past one another, scraping under her skin. Light twisted in front of her eyes. The hole in the back of her head seized her, dragging her in, and her wing seized up with pain, and she fell—

Not mine, said another voice, pushing her thoughts sideways. Her, it's her, the woman from the snow—and then Katrina saw herself, picked out with telescopic vision from above.

No! Katrina screamed as she pulled her broken hand free of the cuff, barely maintaining the sense to roll over, reach for the other strap as her bones screamed—

"Do I have to tranquilize you?" Dr. Harper pushed her back down. Katrina tried forcing herself upwards, but the doctor felt much heavier than she looked. Try as she might to move her free arm away, she couldn't stop Dr. Harper from re-fastening and tightening the strap.

My arm. It was thin, bony, skeletonized. The thin paper sheet had fallen off her naked body, and she saw her breasts had deflated like two popped balloons. Each one of her ribs was visible, her skin pulled tight like a corpse's. Dr. Harper's not heavier. I'm weaker.

"Dr. Garyali!" Dr. Harper shouted. "Get in here! She's awake and injured!"

"What did you do to me?" Katrina gasped.

"Restrained you before you could hurt yourself." She said it without a hint of sarcasm, like a doctor explaining a procedure—hell, that's what she was—but Katrina wanted to rage and scream.

"My head!" She twisted it sideways. "There is someone else—something else—inside my head!"

Dr. Harper paused, pursing her lips. "Well," she finally said. "That was more or less what we expected."

If you like this story, be sure to share it on Facebook, Twitter, or your other favorite site!