Ch.7: First Blood

3:00 AM.

The digital clock on the wall glows like a predatory eye.

The new poison is ten inches away from my vein.

I stare at the tubing. I can almost see the molecules marching down the line, an invisible army coming to reclaim my body.

I have four minutes.

Four minutes to stop being a victim. Four minutes to start a war.

I focus on my right hand again. The pinky had moved. But a pinky is useless. I need a grip. I need a weapon.

I scan the room. The metal tray table is next to the bed, just within reach if I can extend my arm. On it sits a glass vial of saline, left behind by Greta in her exhaustion.

Glass. Sharp. Dangerous.

I send the signal to my bicep.

*Lift.*

The muscle fires, but it feels like wet sand. Heavy. Sluggish. The atrophy has already set in. The fibers are weak, starved of protein and movement for days.

The arm trembles. It rises an inch off the mattress, then collapses back down with a soft thud.

*No.*

Panic flares in my chest. If I can't even lift my arm, the window means nothing. I’ll just be a conscious prisoner instead of an unconscious one.

I try again.

*Lift.*

I visualize the neurons firing. I imagine the acetylcholine flooding the synapses, screaming at the muscle fibers to contract.

The arm shakes violently. The tremor runs up my shoulder, rattling the IV stand.

*Come on. You lifted three-year-old Lily into her car seat every day. You carried boxes of textbooks up three flights of stairs. You are strong.*

I grid my teeth—my jaw actually clenches. Another victory.

The arm rises. Two inches. Three.

It hovers in the air, a pale, trembling ghost. The sweat breaks out on my forehead, stinging the raw tissue where my skin used to be.

I swing it toward the table.

The movement is jerky, uncoordinated. My proprioception is shot. I can’t tell exactly where my hand is in space.

I miss the table. My hand flails in the empty air, grasping at nothing.

I check the tube. The separation line has moved. Five inches.

Two minutes left.

I drop the arm back to the bed to rest for a second. My lungs burn. My heart is hammering against the ribcage—*58 BPM*. The monitor is watching me.

I have to be careful. If I spike the heart rate, the automated sedation kicks in, and it won't matter if my muscles work because my brain will be gone.

I close my eyes. I force the rhythm down. *In. Out. In. Out.*

I open them.

*Go.*

I throw my arm out this time. No finesse. Just brute force.

My hand hits the metal edge of the tray table. The impact sends a jolt of pain up my wrist, sharp and electric.

Good. Pain means nerves are firing.

I claw at the surface. My fingers are stiff, like frozen sausages. I drag them across the cold steel.

I feel the smooth, cool curve of the glass vial.

I have it.

I try to close my fingers around it. I try to grip it.

But the fine motor control isn't there. The Rocuronium blockade is fading from the large muscle groups first. The small, intricate muscles of the hand are still partially paralyzed.

My fingers won't close. They just twitch uselessly against the glass.

I check the tube. Two inches.

Less than a minute.

I can't pick it up. I can't hold it.

If I can't hold it, I can't hide it. And if I can't hide it, I have nothing.

Despair washes over me, cold and black. I failed. I found the flaw, I did the math, and I failed because my own hand betrayed me.

*No.*

If I can't be a surgeon, I'll be a demolitionist.

I don't need to hold it. I just need to break it.

I pull my arm back, coiling the weak muscles for one final strike.

I lock my eyes on the vial. It’s sitting right on the edge.

I swing my hand like a club.

My wrist bone connects with the glass vial.

*Smash.*

The sound is deafening in the silence of the basement.

The vial doesn't just fall. It shatters against the concrete floor. The glass explodes, sending shards skittering across the room like diamonds. The saline splashes, a dark wet stain spreading on the grey cement.

The noise echoes. It bounces off the cinder block walls. It rings in the air like a gunshot.

I freeze.

My arm drops back to the bed, exhausted, useless.

Silence returns.

But it’s a charged silence now. A waiting silence.

Then, I hear it.

Above me. Through the ceiling.

*Thump. Thump. Thump.*

Heavy. Urgent.

Someone is running across the hardwood floor of the living room.

The door at the top of the stairs creaks open.

The sound was thunderous. Footsteps were coming down the stairs.