Nadia

“Sweetheart, will you please talk to me?”

My body is turned away from her, as far away as I can be in this car. I stay silent. I have nothing more to say to her.

“Nadia, you know I have no choice!”

I could laugh. Honestly. Of course she has a fucking choice. She could choose to have a daughter. She could choose me. Instead she chose this, to send me away like some old, unwanted dog. For what? Out of fear? It sure as hell isn’t out of love.

Every weekend she drops me off there, at the hospital. Every weekend she turns a blind eye to what they do to me. She lets them treat me like an animal. What kind of mother does that? What kind of mother looks so relieved to be rid of her child?

“Nadia!” Her anxious cries turn into shouts. Like this is all my fault. “You need to understand it’s for your own good! Can you please just say one word? One fucking word!” My silence this time is the final straw. The woman slams her hands hard on the wheel.

“Don’t you fucking dare treat me like I’m the bad guy. You have no idea what kind of pressure this is putting on me, on this family! I never fucking asked for this!” She screams. “I wanted a normal life! A normal family! A normal fucking daughter!”

My hands squeeze hard around the restraints of my seat belt. Tears press hard against my eyelids. The urge to cry lodges deep in my throat. But I wipe at my eyes and steady my breathing before I can give in. If I started crying now, who knows if I’ll ever stop?

I suck it up like every week and count the exit markers on the highway. Twenty eight. Twenty nine. The hospital is far from the city, stuck somewhere upstate. I dread these roads, these trees, this open sky. It means going back there. Being alone with them.

Mom hates me. I know that. So I wish she would stop pretending that she doesn’t. Freak or not, she would just find something else to hate about me. The only time I see a genuine smile on her face is after she drops me off, when she turns and leaves as a free woman. Like she could just forget me, forget her mistake.

Large elephant tears roll down her cheeks. It makes me swallow the lump in my throat further. Weakness makes me feel sick.

“Baby, I didn’t mean it. I’m sorry sweetheart. Your mama’s just stressed, ok? It’s a lot to handle. These hospital visits and… well, all of it. But the doctors, they’re going to help you ok. They’re going to help us. Yeah?”

Finally, the silence in me turns sour. I open my mouth, unable to contain my bitterness.

“I’m nine. Not stupid.”

My mother blinks. She blinks hard. And then her blank face turns into something like anger. Or guilt. Maybe both.

“That’s not fair, Nadia,” she says through her tears. “That’s not fair.”

No, I think as I lose count of the exit signs, as the trees all blur into blue sky with the weight of my tears. None of this is fair.

***

“Hey honey,” the doctor says with a smile when she walks in. This time I kept the wooden train in the pocket of my overalls. I’m not sure why. Maybe as a good luck charm. Or as a reminder that everything here is broken. Especially me.

“You know the drill. Clothes off. Here’s your paper gown.”

My heart rate picks up as I slip out of my overalls. The monkey peeks out from the floor where I shed the denim. I want to cry. It smiles back at me.

I hate this part. I hate it so bad. I hate the way they all look at me like some kind of lab specimen.

The paper gown barely covers any of my naked body; you can see right through it. I cover my chest with my arms when the other doctors walk in, pulling masks over their faces like I have some kind of terrible disease. Like being a freak is contagious.

I choke down my tears. I have to be strong. Strong like Mom never was.

“Just a pinch.”

They tie a rubber band around my arm to make the veins pop out. I wince as they stab the needle through the skin on my wrist, wiggling the syringe until blood begins to pump into the first vial. But I don’t cry.

And I shudder when they tag me with a chip in my neck and force the chalk-like liquid down my throat and stick those patches on my forehead and behind my ears before getting me to lie down on the bed. But I still don’t cry.

The worst part has yet to come anyway.

“You know what comes next, don’t you?”

I nod. I do what I’m always instructed to. I close my eyes and hold my breath as the bed moves into the large MRI machine. It beeps once, twice, then I breathe. 

The darkness of the machine morphs. I’m not in a hospital anymore. I’m in the alley behind school, the one with all the men who talk funny and have that murky look in their eyes. 

“Hey kid,” one of them says, nodding to me. I try to do what Dad always told me to, ignore them and walk away. But another man blocks the exit. I freeze, try to swallow my heart. I don’t know what they want but I know it’s not good. “Where’s your mommy? You look lost. Do you need help?”

“Go away,” I say. My voice is smaller than it ever has been. “Please.”

“I only want to help,” he says. But his smile is predator-like. I’m a rabbit in a cage of tigers. My dad also used to say that, if ignoring them doesn’t work, I have to scream.

But I can’t find my voice. I’m too scared. 

The man at the end of the alley pulls something out of the pocket of his jacket. A knife.

“Go away,” I whisper. I can’t feel my hands. I want to cry. I still don’t. Foolishly, I stand my ground.

“Do it, Nadia,” A voice echoes from beyond. It’s the doctor. I know this is a simulation. I know it’s not real. But it feels real. 

The first man lunges, grabs my skinny arms in one hand and forces me to the ground. I cry out as my arm twists, cry out harder when he rolls me around and forces me to face him. He wears a sickening smile.

“Keep the entrance clear,” he tells the man with a knife, who wears a similar expression. I finally find my voice.

“No!” I scream. “No! Let me go!” I thrash and kick but another man grips my legs tight and pins them to the ground. I’m terrified but I still don’t cry.

“It will only hurt if you fight back,” he says. My whimpers grow louder. I’m shivering when he tears away my scarf, unbuttons my blue overalls. No. No no no no.

No.

I scream. The furthest man begins to tremble. His whole body shakes violently. He looks at his own hand in horror as it begins to move without his consent.

“Wha-” he begins to say aloud. The knife is no longer pointed outward at me. It’s turned on himself. “Wait!” He yells in fear. I don’t wait. I only scream.

The knife buries itself in his left eyeball with a squish. He crumples instantly and blood rapidly pools beneath his motionless head. The other two men look on in horror. I don’t show mercy. Not to the people who were never going to show mercy to me.

The other man keeping watch looks horrified as he pulls his gun out of his pocket. And when the gun turns on himself, he begins to cry. “M-M-Monster,” he stutters in fear. His cries are cut short when a bullet blows his face from his body, splattering the brick wall in blood, chunks of bone, and brain matter.

The man on top of me clasps his hands around my throat tight. The horror in his eyes makes him look like a wild animal, vicious and dangerous. I gasp and choke as he squeezes harder.

“What the fuck did you do?” he sneers. I’m tired. So tired. I don’t know if I have enough strength to save myself this time.

The harder he squeezes, the harder it is to stay conscious. My vision goes red, lights and black spots dance along the edges of my sight. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. I’m going to die.

I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die. Maybe I don’t deserve to live. Maybe I’ll never be worthy of life like the others are.

But I don’t want to die.

My eyes close. When they open, the man is on his side, blood pooling from his chest. His own hand is torn through the cavity, stopping his heart. He’s dead. I’m alive. 

I wake in the MRI machine sweating and shaking profusely.

“Please, please,” I beg softly. “Let me out. Let me out! Please!”

“Two hundred twenty volts,” a doctor mutters. My heart seizes in my chest.

“No!” I scream.

My whole body flails as a surge of electricity shorts my nerves. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. My screams grow hoarse as the pain worsens. They increase the voltage and all I can do is flail. Finally, I cry. I sob out in pain, in fear.

I should hate her, I should. But all I want right now is my mother. I want her to make it stop. I want her to wipe the tears from my eyes and hold me close and tell me it’ll be ok. I don’t want to be strong. I don’t want to be brave.

When it’s finally over, all I can do is cry. I have no strength in my muscles to do anything. I can’t move. I can barely breathe.

“First session complete.”

The doctors pull me out of the machine and stare, some taking notes and some adjusting the patches on my head. Tears blur everything together.

I’m not a nine year old girl here. I’m an experiment. Why? Why is this happening to me?

I cry so hard I forget how to breathe normally. I’m gasping like a fish out of water when they begin to push me back in.

“Again,” they say.

“No!” I scream. But I’m no match. My cries are instantly drowned out by the sound of machines. 

“Three hundred volts.”

***