The scalpel was black, laced through with ruby-red veins and glittering ever so slightly. I held it in my bare right hand, the blade dripping with bright white blood.

The little creature on the table, lit with bright white light, hissed. It writhed against its bonds. It bared rows of teeth when it opened its snake-like mouth, it's head twisting to look at me.

The creature's eyes stood out blue against its orange body. Its total height was only about a foot, it's shape snake-like but for two little arms, nearer it's head. A wide mouth.

I pulled my hand back as it tried to bite me.

"Wish you'd stop that," I told it.

I put my left hand halfway down its before running it up to hold the things head. It felt cool. Smooth but not slimey. Slightly slick, now, as I'd unthinkingly smeared it with the blood.

Its tail whipped in the air. The creature shrieked now, instead of hissing. It sounded almost like a fitful housecat.

When I cut the thing again, the shrieking got loud enough that I winced. I pressed the scalpel down slightly harder, trying carefully not to let it mess up the incision.

The wounded creature fell silent as I finished the cut. Dead, perhaps. Finally so injured it lost conciousness.

I hummed as I reached into the incision, feeling past wet flesh, organs, noticing that it had no bones, until I felt something cool and hard. Round. Like a marble, maybe the size of a human eye.

"That's it." I pulled my hand out of the thing.

Coated as it was in blood, I couldn't make out the color of the object. But it was the right size, the right shape. And it had a pulse I could feel through my fingers. This had to be the object.

"Unless there's anything else in there."

I stared at my now blood-covered hands, for now setting the scalpel and the object on the metal cart to my right.