Project Baby Spider * Peter Romanoff

-07

19 February 2001
[part two]

****

     AFTER ABOUT FIVE MINUTES of silence between the two, three men and two women entered the room. They each had on identical white lab coats with their last names on the left breast. They seemed to immediately know what they're part was, as they each started to do something different. Madam B stood from her stool beside Natalia and walked to the back of the room to observe.

     One of the two women had picked up a syringe from a metal box she'd brought in. Inside of the syringe was a vibrant blue liquid; it looked like something that should not be allowed inside your body. She — who Natalia had seen on her lab coat was Dr. Simon — attached a needle to it that was about as long as Natalia's middle finger.

     Natalia was never one to be scared of needles, but this one did. She knew the circumstances and it scared her knowing what that liquid was probably going to do. After it enters her body, her baby boy will never be "normal."

     Dr. Simon handed the needle to the tallest man, and he took it. He took a step closer to Natalia and her breathe got caught in her throat. "Relax," he told her in a deep monotoned voice. Natalia nodded her head and closed her eyes, breathing in and back out. He pushed some of her hair away from her neck, "This will only be a pinch" he tried to reassure her, but it hardly worked.

     Natalia closed her eyes again, and waited for the dreadful moment of the liquid seeping into her bloodstream. She felt the pinch and only flinched a tiny bit. She could immediately feel her body slowly going numb, starting at the injection spot in her neck.

Natalia started to internally panic and questions kept flooding her mind. Will it hurt him permanently? Will he make it out alive? Do they know how this will turn out? What happens if this doesn't work?

Natalia took another deep breathe and shut her eyes. You're fine Natalia. They wouldn't want to kill you or him. You're too important, she tried to reassure herself. It slightly worked.

The same doctor that had pushed the blue liquid into her neck held another needle. This time the liquid was clear. He took it and stuck it in her arm. Even though she was fully numb now, Natalia still felt the liquid move through her body.

The second women had another syringe with clear liquid yet again. This time she pushed it into Natalia's stomach. The way the liquid moved from her stomach made Natalia uneasy; it felt like worms crawling under her skin.

One of the last two men held the last syringe with, this time, a transparent grey liquid that was to be injected into Natalia's bloodstream. He stepped closer to Natalia and injected the needle at the end of the syringe into the opposite side of her stomach from the last. Again, the feeling made Natalia uneasy.

After he removed the needle from her stomach, everyone stepped away from Natalia. Natalia, noticing the sudden quietness of the room, opened her eyes and starred at the concrete ceiling.

"Grab the monitor," the last man to not push a needle into her skin instructed Dr. Simon. She nodded and walked across the room to grab a speaker-like machine. 

She handed it to the man, and he unattached the microphone-like part. He pressed it against Natalia's stomach and after a few seconds, a sound was heard throughout the room.

"The subject is alive," the man announced. "Phase one has worked." The doctors clapped at their work and Madam B joined in. Natalia's whole body relaxed and she let out a deep breathe.

Her son was still alive. That sound was her son's heartbeat — proof he was alive.

An ultrasound allowed her to see her son, but hearing his heartbeat was different. It gave her proof that her son was alive and not just an experiment inside of her. He will be born and he will have a life of his own — even if it's not one he gets to choose.

The man removed the microphone-like object from Natalia's stomach and the woman took it to the other side of the room again. The rest of the doctors cleaned up the small mess they had made and then exited the room. 

"Ms. Romanoff," Madam B greeted as she walked to sit in her previous stool from before the operation. She opened the file that she always had in hand and started to write. "He's alive," Natalia said, still starstruck.

Madam B nodded her head, "That is amazing news. Can you feel your body yet?" Natalia shook her head no. "I'm starting to feel my feet and hands again, but overall no."

"Then we'll wait here until you can walk on your own again," Madam B said, continuing to write in the file. 

****

EDITED/REWRITTEN

-Nat