Here Comes My Brain! (Part 2)

Here’s the second part of Here Comes My Brain. Part one can be found here!

The name is Howard, I wanted to tell him, but the injection had worked on my lips as well. They lifted the deadweight that was my body and deposited it into the wheelchair with that blasted broken wheel, proceeding to push me down the hall, further bruising my knees on the cold walls due to that wicked left turn the chair so enjoyed making, and finally to the operation room the good doctor spoke of.

The room was well lit and sterile, with white walls and stainless steel tables, sinks and surgical equipment. There was a solitary metal chair in the center of the room with an adjustable high voltage light like those at a dentist’s office. Fluorescent bulbs illuminated the room as well as the two additional doctors who were waiting inside, loading syringes with a glowing amber liquid. Was that a smile I saw beneath the mask of the female doctor? That bitch just jumped up a peg on my shit list.

The orderlies lifted me out of the wheelchair and into the uncomfortable metal dentist chair–which was preferable to the metal bed frame in my cell–then they left without a word, leaving me alone with the three mad scientists.

The second doctor, a man with fiery red hair and green goblin eyes was looking over my chart. “Patient M302…male, thirty two years old, married with one child, eight years of age, perfect health aside from a high level of sodium,” he said with rising excitement. “A perfect specimen.”

A specimen for what, I wanted to know. My lips were still incapable of forming words and I cursed my inability to defend myself in some way. I tried to think of what I would say even if I could speak, but all that came to my feeble mind were obscenities, which only proceeded to frustrate me further.

“We have made significant progress with the reanimation doctor,” the bitch said to the doctor who had me brought from my cell. “There have been unexpected mutations to the tissue.”

“Very good, let’s proceed with the amputation,” the good doctor said without emotion.

I am not embarrassed to say that I’m almost positive I urinated in my pants at that moment. Had I the time to finish my meatloaf before they dragged me away from dinner, I may very well have moved my bowls in the same instant. My thoughts were racing from my own safety and survival, to that of my family. Were they being subjected to the same devious experimentation as I? I suppose in this instance, if the worst case scenario were the true one, ignorance was preferable.

At the time, my mind was too far gone to attempt to comprehend the purpose of their experimentation. I was too busy trying to figure out just what they intended to amputate. It was the bitch that handed the surgical saw to the good doctor—was she smiling again?—while fire-head got ready the syringe with the amber liquid.

“Left index finger,” the doctor informed the bitch in monotone while she wrote it down in my chart. “Removal and regeneration to take place on uh September 25^th at 9:24 AM.”

I was a coward and closed my eyes, unable to bear witness to the amputation of my left index finger. After a moment I opened them but not to assess the damage. I wished to burn the image of these three into my mind, so that I will remember in the event that I set myself free.

They stopped the bleeding and carried my finger in a metal tray to the table where the redhead was waiting. The good doctor looked at his watch as the redhead injected the serum into my recently severed finger.

“The time is uh 9:36 AM and the serum has just been administered to patient M302’s left index finger,” he said into a tape recorder while looking at my finger under a microscope. “The cells are reacting to the serum at an uh alarming rate. Regeneration is occurring at record speed. 9:38 AM…the finger is showing signs of movement already and is uh trying to make its way off the table.”

Had I not seen it with my own eyes I would think myself mad, but I dare say that my finger was moving on its own, apart from my body. I couldn’t move the fingers that remained on my person, yet that damn finger was inching its way across the metal table, leaving a trail of blood behind it.

“We must analyze this data and continue tomorrow morning. Please have patient M302 returned to his cell,” the good doctor said.

The orderlies returned and put me back in the wretched wheelchair, God I hate that damn chair, and pushed me back to my cell. I was not bound this time and they even left me a tray of food and were kind enough to put a mattress on my bed. How nice of them. The bindings were not necessary, as even when the strength returned so that I could once again move, I barely had the energy to lift the food to my mouth, let alone defend myself if they returned to bring me back to the operating room.

I dragged myself back to the bed after using the toilet and tried to sleep. I don’t recollect how long I laid there but I don’t remember sleeping at all. I was too busy trying to figure out just what was happening. They were obviously experimenting with the reanimation of dead tissue but for what purpose? Where they trying to prolong life, or make living soldiers out of the dead? The paranoid, conspiracy theorist in me had me believing the latter to be the case, but it didn’t really matter either way.

Sometime later, mister bushy face returned and strapped me into the chair and once again, I was brought to the operation room. The good doctor was busy scribbling frantically in my chart while the bitch helped the orderly lift me into the metal chair once more. I was administered another shot of the debilitating drug and then she joined the doctor, who was admiring the progress my finger had been making since…yesterday?

“The subject’s left index finger has grown uh tendrils which it has used to lift itself out of the dish,” the doctor said. “An alternate means of storage is necessary to avoid losing the specimen. Today we will attempt to reanimate a smaller piece of loose flesh, and see what mutations will occur with the adjustments made to the serum based off of our findings.”