PROLOGUE. LUCY GRAVES.
{To the pain}
First phase of treatment.
Yet another personentered the surgical suite, and the hiss of the hermetically sealing doors sent shivers down my spine. Or... they would...if I was currently capable of moving a single muscle. Even blinking seemed difficult, as if they’d strapped down my eyelids along with the rest of my body.
Being surrounded by so many other human beings was making me anxious. I could feel them moving, shifting the antiseptic scented air as I lay immobile on the cool table. They’d covered me in warmed blankets originally, yet those had long gone cold. I wanted to open my mouth and ask for fresh blankets, but my tongue was another thing rendered useless.
Maybe this was a mistake...
Maybe I can change my mind...
Maybe it’s too late for that.
All these figures, spilling into the room one by one—each with lower faces disguised by masks—couldn't possibly be herefor my initial treatment. It just wasn’t reasonable. Was this experimental process really that interesting? Every set of eyes—which I strained to make out by angling my own eyes as far to the right or left in their sockets as possible—was filled with curiosity.
I only felt apprehension bordering on abject terror.
I’d always lived like a goldfish in a too-small bowl. Confined, reliant on others to care for me, always observed from the outside looking in and forever unable to touch reality. Very few people in my life had become solid human beings, near constants I could almost count on. Like Doctor Emerson. Was he here? Did he join this crowd to watch me claw at survival?
Sharing a room with so many felt unnatural.
My body chilled further.
I was beginning to feel numb.
Physically, and mentally.
Immobile, frozen. Metaphorically stood on the precipice of either complete and utter destruction or life-altering transformation. I was so scared… and so hopeful. And that hope was worse than any nightmare.
Because hope meant risking disappointment again. And disappointment was an all too familiar companion. What was worse was that this was the last hope. There was no new medicine or treatment waiting to be tried.
Can a hope be terminal?
Can a hope be the final nail in a coffin?
I didn’t want to live caged forever.
Didn’t want to die young.
I wanted to be free.
So, I was risking it all.
Someone came closer. The blanket shifted, exposing my already cool arm to chilly air. My teeth began to chatter. “Edema around the IV site.”
“Let’s set up a PICC line. I don’t want any complications during the procedure.”
“Yes, Doctor.” Which doctor were they talking to? Not Doctor Emerson... the voice was too different. The Institute’s physician maybe? I tried to remember the tenor and cadence of that man’s voice, but my mind was abuzz with too many things to focus clearly on something specific.
I closed my eyes as the blanket shifted further, and strangers’ hands began to touch my left arm. The original IV was removed from my left. I winced at the dual sources of discomfort and eventual pain as they guided the thin tube to a large central vein after applying anesthetic.
“That’s a good line,” a voice said, “flushes cleanly.”
“I can taste it,” I murmured, out of habit. I always could smell and taste whenever a fresh IV was flushed with saline. I didn’t know if that was normal or not; for whatever reason, I’d never asked.
No one answered me, as if I were invisible.
