#1 - Knives

Celeste walked into the room with one hand on the door and the other clutching her chest. The body that laid before her was twice her size; in fact, it looked nothing like her. It was an alien to her; the body, a completely new breed filled with organs and anatomy structure unlike her own. At least, that’s what she thought. A surge of panic overwhelmed her. It was a fear of the unknown. She couldn’t allow this thing to die on her. It didn’t matter if it was a feral, someone like her, someone rotten to their core, Celeste couldn’t handle a dead body.

Celeste walked slowly to the body, watching it breathe underneath the white sheet that was spread over them. She looked at her tools and observed them, grounding herself. She counted in her head, named what she had bestowed on her, and thought to herself what she needed to do. She took a deep breath and proceeded to examine her subject.

It was only a month of hard work to bring this creature in. To watch into the human world is a dangerous feature. Apparently this one was on his way to claim his third “prize.” That’s the kind of man this creature was. A man who looked at others as trophies, little reminders of his work. A corrupt form with no benefits. Sloppy.

Celeste would still have to be careful. She’s nothing like him. To own someone’s life is something a God would do. Perhaps God wouldn’t even want that. She couldn’t tell. Celeste was not a very religious girl.

To do a procedure on your own seems impossible. Celeste punctured where she needed to, dragging her small knife inward into the skin. She had cleaned the area beforehand when she dragged him in the room. How strange it is this time to cause such a surge of emotions within her. The blood seeped out. Celeste pulled back and hesitated.

Why did her nerves get the best of her? She watched the monitor that signaled a patient’s life. It was outdated and quite old for what it was. Not many can get their hands on such equipment.

Her fear, it seemed, so intense. It almost made her want to stab herself, to stab the nerves. There was a gnawing feeling in her throat that wanted to escape. It was agony. It was nerve-wrecking to see such a stranger.

She tried again with precision. She made her cuts and trimmed her knife with overflowing beads of blood. One cut turned into two. She cleared the wound, made sure not to panic during the process. What a thought it was. To kill a human being.

She wondered if humans thought like that when they kill something that isn’t like them. Perhaps, if it were the opposite way, humans would kill creatures like Celeste just the same way Celeste’s people would kill ferals.

“We are above them,” Celeste thought. She dug the knife deeper, keep tracking on the blood loss and adjusting the cuts. Now, she had to search.

“Maybe they wouldn’t care about my life,” she thought. She pressed her fingers in deep, searching.

“Maybe it wouldn’t matter,” she said aloud. She dug her hands in deep, lost in a trance. All her emotions go through her veins, into her work, into this body she was harvesting. Celeste tugged one hand in and allowed her knife to glide among the insides of the body. There was an urgent beeping coming from the monitor concerning the human. Even though they were loud, Celeste couldn’t hear them.

“Maybe with this, it could do more for us than it could ever do for just us,” she whispered.

She pulled out the man’s liver. She held it in her hand, trembling with excitement. Her emotions mixed in a pool deep within her heart. It was a stepping stone to her in this moment. To recklessly take something that was never meant for her. To put someone’s life on the line because she couldn’t hold her demons down long enough to care. Everything she dreaded went into the body and out came a prize.

The blood gushed out faster like a river. The beeping grew faster like the racing pace of a heart. Celeste breathed. She felt perfect with this in her hands. She felt everything.