Darkness, deep, deep slumber. Sound, sound again. “I am seeing stimulation in the ventrolateral preoptic nucleus. She is waking up again. We need to administer more sedatives.” A sting of pain, weight, darkness.

Light and a cold shiver. “Damn it, it’s not working.” A man roared in the distant distance. “Administer another dose.”

“I can’t do that sir, she will die.” a young woman replied, her voice close, just beyond the wall of slumber.

“Looks like this one is a failure too.” a woman commented whose voice was as a withered timeworn flower. The shadows gripped hold of my nerves again, tugging me below the eternal nocturne.

“We don’t have time to wait. The cells are already dying.” the older man growled, his voice tugging me towards the surface, but still I could not breach it as though a thick piece of glass separated me. I was nothing in that abyss.

“We could try cloning again.”

“No, we already know cloning does not work.” he murmured. “This time has to work. We have no other options. Get me a dose of epinephrine and adrenochrome. We have to stabilize her.”

I felt it, warmth, traveling down the channels of my veins, pumped along the organ’s path. It expanded upon every corner and a flutter came over me, like wings lifting me out of the maw of this hell; drifting me over past the gates of the arctic black. The entire world tremored as I tumbled into the bright light.

My fingers clawed against the cool, sleek walls of the enclosure. I feel the cool chill run into my arm as my body spasmed. Yet even so, my eyes are blind in the darkness. I tried to let out any noise I could muster, but I seemed to have lost my voice, and she had run far away hiding deep in my throat. My skin crawled as the world spiraled. Darkness returns, my sense of locality melted into an open space, as I was left suspended in the endless void.

“It’s a failure, just like the last ones. Why waste our efforts? Hasn’t the past weeks proven my point. Hellibor, it is time to give up. This is no way to treat a person.” That woman. Who was she? And now the older man had a name, Hellibor.

“Stop! Remove your hands from her!” Hellibor roared, full of command. “We will not abandon this one. My method will work! We need to extract the needed parts. That is all, I will not waste this donor because of the boards refusal to use extreme measures.” I had no idea who they were discussing, but I assumed it was me. They wanted my parts. My parts alone. What would that mean? I wondered.

“Sir, I disagree.” the young woman from earlier intervenes.

“Why so?”

“If she dies during the process, she will be ruined.” Dies? Ruined? “Let’s allow her to wake up. Treat her well. She doesn’t have to know.” I didn’t have to know what?

“We cannot sustain her here. She would die of starvation. It is better to put her to rest.” the older woman soppily retorts.

“No, we continue the process regardless of the board’s decision. I purchased it, I will decide what to do with it.”

The passage of time… …is unknown.

“Damn it!” the older man screamed, waking me from the darkness. “The board is terminating her life support! We can’t keep her in stasis much longer. We only have supplies for…”

“Please, I will take care of her myself.” the younger girl begged.

There is a long pause. “If you are so insistent on this, then we will make this attempt. They will charge you with taking care of her and I will take responsibility with the board. They will not like this idea at all.” Hellibor explained. “We don’t wake her from her coma yet, however, we first prepare a place for her. We will ask the board for permission after.”

I tried so hard to scream, “Wake me up now!” but sadly either I never did, or they ignored me.

“Thank you, Doctor Winters, you won’t regret it.”

“I should hope not, dear Vanity. We just need her to pump blood. It should not be too difficult to manage.” Hellibor; Doctor Winters grunted.

Vanity.

~

Vanity’s voice would visit from time to time. She said things to me like “… your parents loved you very much.” Many things about my history. “Your name is Primina.” That I had a younger brother and two sisters. Primina, I don’t remember being Primina. But perhaps I was, I could not have known. So I took it as my own. Vanity even read me stories from time to time. She told me of sickness and disease. “A sickness? Is this all a dream?”

~

“She cannot hear you. I don’t know why you bother.” Hellibor had returned, I had not heard him for ages it seemed like.

“You don’t know that. I remember stories about people in comas being able to hear things.” Vanity retorted. So, I am comatose.

I mouthed the words, “I can hear you.” I am not sure if I managed the feat of moving my lips. Though I hoped they did. Even though, I don’t know who Vanity was on the other side. I was glad, truly, simply because she was somewhere near me. Whoever Vanity was.

“Leave her be. She needs to rest for now.” the man said before the sound of a door slamming shut sent me back into that night.

~

“I won’t feel a thing?” I chirped to a woman dressed in white scrubs. A man stood next to her dressed in a matching pair, although his were burgundy. They might as well have been shadows as I could not see the features of their faces. The room is foggy, at least I remember it that way. The wall of the capsule seemed to contour to my spine. My dainty little uncovered toes came to rest on the platform. A small amount of nail polish remained from days before. I looked up to meet the pair’s smile as they nodded. My cheeks flushed from the white form fitting bodysuit which clung tightly against my skin. It honestly felt as though I was wearing nothing at all, I didn’t like it. The man speaks, but no words left his mouth. “All right, like this?” I said to him, adjusting my arms to rest folded on my chest.

The glass shielding of the chamber closed, locking me inside the capsule. “No! Let me out!” I yelped with every ounce of energy I had left. Immediately the temperature dropped. Then wetness covered my feet. I looked down to see a clear fluid like water rising past my ankles. “No!” I screamed again as the two people gave me a wave flashing those sinister uncaring smiles.

It was all routine to them by this point. “What are you doing?!” I shrieked as the water level reaches my hips. To free myself, I began thrashing for all that I could until my body could no longer move. The orientation of the chamber leveled itself flat, forcing me into a lying position. The fluids came to rest at my face. I pressed my lips against the glass in vain as the surface rises past my cheeks and soon poured into my mouth. I sucked one last breath before the liquid entirely submerged me. The cold and icy fluid surrounds me as I struggled. My lungs burning and as every muscle in my body roared for respiration, I knew that soon, I would have to take a breath. When I did, the worst feeling in the world came over me. The fluids flooded down my throat, filling my lungs as though with molten metal. In my agony, I saw the ceiling retreating as the capsule returns to the wall, locking me into darkness. “Please, someone help me!” I tried to cry. A foul odor enters my mouth, causing me to cough. Soon the coughing becomes a numbing sensation as everything slowed. I gasped to push the fluids free from my lungs until I fell into that long slumber.