Perfectly Scarred

The Procedure

I WAKE UP in a hospital bed. I'm surrounded by a white curtain, white walls, white ceiling, white bedding, bright strip lighting. I wince against the light.

I'm wearing a red hospital gown. I try to sit up but I'm stuck. My upper body is stiff but it moves, my arms and upper torso will do what they're told, but from the waist down, absolutely nothing happens.

There's no movement. I'm paralyzed. Feeling trapped.

I start to whimper with the effort. I throw off the covers and try to lift my legs with my hands. They're heavy and I can move them, but I can't feel a thing. I thump them, slap them, try to wake them up, force them to obey.

The curtain is pulled back and I jump, startled. Jessica appears. Jessica. The guard who was with me during the branding, the guard who disappeared. The guard who I thought had disappeared, along with all the others. She's wearing her Whistleblower uniform and everything I thought I knew dismantles in my mind.

The neat little theory that she had been on my side, that she'd smuggled the footage to me, that Dahee had hidden her away, all disintegrates. She is the enemy.

She holds her finger to her lips conspiratorially. "She gave you some kind of injection to paralyze you," she whispers.

"They plan to do a skin graft to remove the sixth brand."

"What?" I hiss.

"Shh," she says loudly.

"Dr. Heo has been brought in by the Society to carry out the surgery. I'm sorry, Roseanne, this is a mess."

"I thought you were missing. I was actually worried about you." She comes closer, takes my hand. "Dahee threatened me and my daughter. I saw what she did to the others. I couldn't..." Her eyes fill. "I tried to help you as best I could. Did you find the USB I gave you?"

"In the glass dome?" I ask. She brightens with relief.

"Billy added a fake base. I wasn't sure you'd figure it out, but he thought you would. She's a clever girl, he said." She smiles sadly at the memory of him.

"I thought I should write it down but then I didn't want a paper trail, or for it to fall into the wrong hands. I couldn't contact you; I wasn't sure if you would find it."

"I didn't realize it was there until too late. Carina removed everything from my bedroom. I don't think she knows it's in the glass dome, though, otherwise I wouldn't be here. Where would she have put it?"

"I don't know." She thinks, eyes panicking. If they find the footage in the dome, it will land her in a lot of trouble. "Please, Jessica, I need to know. Please find out for me."

The door opens.

She reaches out and I think she's going to slap me but she pushes my head back down on the pillow and places her hand over my eyes so that I instantly close them.

"She's still sleeping, Dr. Heo," Jessica says quietly.

"Goodness, I've never known somebody to sleep so heavily."

"I suppose she has been on the run for quite some time. I imagine she's exhausted," Jessica says, and I hear the pity in her voice.