Ch.49: The Blind Surgeon

The lab is a cauldron.

The sprinklers are still firing, a relentless, hissing downpour of caustic rain. The fire along the wall is fighting back, turning the water into steam, but the chemicals are winning. The flames sputter and die, leaving behind a thick, acrid fog.

Aris is in the center of it.

He is trying to shield his face with his arms, but it’s too late. The liquid is everywhere. It soaks his pristine surgical scrubs. It runs down his neck.

It gets into his eyes.

He screams.

It isn't a scream of fear. It is a scream of pure, biological shock. The sound of nerve endings firing a distress signal that overloads the brain.

He falls to his knees, clawing at his face.

"My eyes! My eyes!"

The nurse—the new one—is screaming too. She is curled into a ball under the instrument table, sobbing as the chemical rain burns her skin.

But Aris... Aris took the brunt of it. He was looking up. He was looking for the source.

I watch from the grate above. The steam rises through the metal mesh, warm and stinging, but I don't move.

I watch him writhe.

This is the man who peeled my face off. This is the man who looked into my eyes while he erased me.

And now he can't see anything.

"Help me!" he shrieks. "Someone help me!"

He tries to stand, but he slips on the wet floor. He crashes into the operating table.

He flails, his hands searching for purchase. He grabs a scalpel from the tray. He holds it out, slashing blindly at the air.

"Elena!" he roars. "I know you're here! I'll kill you! I'll cut you into pieces!"

He spins in a circle, the blade flashing in the strobe-light flicker of the dying emergency lights.

He looks like a dancer in a nightmare. A blind conductor leading an orchestra of pain.

I should leave. I should run.

But I can't.

I need to see this. I need to witness the fall of the god.

I climb down the ladder.

The rungs are slippery with condensation. My hands—my ruined, skinless hands—ache with every grip. But I descend.

I drop onto the wet floor of the lab.

The air is thick with the smell of bleach and burnt flesh. It burns my throat, but I am used to it. I have been breathing poison for weeks.

I walk toward him.

My bare feet make a wet slapping sound on the tiles.

*Slap. Slap. Slap.*

Aris freezes. He turns his head, trying to triangulate the sound. His eyes are squeezed shut, red and swollen, tears streaming down his cheeks mixing with the chemical burns.

"Who's there?" he whispers.

"The donor," I say.

He lunges.

He is fast, even blind. He slashes the scalpel in a wide arc.

I step back. The blade misses my chest by an inch.

He stumbles past me, off-balance.

I could kill him now. I have the gun tucked into the waistband of my hospital gown. I could put a bullet in his head and end it.

But that’s too easy. That’s too clean.

He didn't give me a clean death. He gave me a living hell.

So I give him a push.

Just a gentle shove between the shoulder blades.

He crashes into the wall. He hits the oxygen valve I shot earlier.

"Ah!" he cries out, turning around, waving the knife. "Stay back! I'll skin you alive!"

"You already did," I remind him.

I walk around him. I circle him like a shark.

He turns with me, guided by my voice, but he is slow. Clumsy. The pain is disorienting him.

"You think you've won?" he spits. "You're nothing. You're a failed experiment. A reject."

"And you're blind," I say.

I kick the back of his knee.

He buckles. He goes down on one leg.

He slashes at my leg, but I’m already gone. I’m behind him again.

"It's dark, isn't it?" I whisper. "Just like the cell you put me in."

"I gave you everything!" he screams. "I made you immortal!"

"You made me a monster."

I grab a bottle of saline from the counter. A heavy, glass bottle.

I swing it.

*CRACK.*

It connects with his wrist. The wrist holding the scalpel.

Bone snaps.

Aris drops the knife. He howls, clutching his broken hand to his chest. He curls into a fetal position on the wet floor, sobbing.

The great surgeon. The architect of beauty.

Reduced to a weeping child in a puddle of bleach.

I stand over him. I look down at his ruined face. The chemical burns are already blistering. His eyes will likely never see clearly again. Even if they heal, the scarring will be permanent.

He will never hold a scalpel again. He will never carve another face.

"Now you know," I say.

I lean down. I put my lips close to his ear.

"Now you know what it's like to be in the dark."