Bestial Planet

Chapter 38: The Horror of Dissonance

Roisin rolled over and felt a hand on her thigh. At first she didn't move for what felt like hours. The hand moved again, this time her eyes shot open and she thought she saw a shadowy figure. She slowly put her hand to her mouth to keep from screaming but the figure must have noticed her moving. They rushed her and grabbed her by the throat trying to choke the life from her. She clawed at their arm, desperately trying to get them to let go. They must have been clawing back at her with their free hand and she was losing the fight because she felt blood and her grip was weakening.

*****

Something didn't feel right. I wasn't sure what it was but it was keeping me from falling asleep so I went for a walk. A few minutes later I was exiting an elevator when I heard the most terrified scream you couldn't imagine if you tried. I started running.

My heart was racing as my eyes were darting up and down the halls looking for the source of the screaming. They were blood curdling... terrifying. I thought it was what someone being murdered would sound like. The screams weren't accompanied by the sound of things being thrown or banging, it was just the screams. Feminine, pain, terror.

I saw Yora out of the corner of my eye, he looked as scared as I felt. The next scream I heard rung a bell in my head. It sounded like Roisin. Did someone finally come in to kill the Androids? I ran faster, Yora was yelling something at me but I couldn't make it out. My mind was set on stopping - killing whoever was attacking Roisin. I faintly hear the elevator door door open as I kicked down the door to Roisin's room and was both equally, horrified and confused.

The lights were out but my night vision let me see clearly. The bones were jutting out from her shoulder and she was scraping at her stomach. Her arm was broken and in three pieces, one hanging from her bed, but she was on the opposite side of the room, on her back, clawing at her stomach as if there was something inside she needed to get out. Her right leg was deformed, broken in several places with bone piercing through the skin. Yora turned on the light and ran past me to Roisin's dresser and pulled out a needle. He ran next to her and was grabbing at her remaining arm, trying to keep her from pulling out more parts. He was trying to use the needle but she was thrashing around like she was possessed. My hearing came back as I heard Lancieta behind me.

"MOVE!"

I leapt out of the way still looking at how much of her own blood Roisin had spilled and the mangled pieces that were her arm and leg. There was red everywhere, her screams were as loud as ever. Yora sat on top of Roisin and held her leg down, passing the needle to mom. She grabbed Roisin's arm and jammed the needle into her neck.

"BRING THAT CART OVER OR GET OUT!"

I snapped to action, almost on auto-pilot. I rushed to the cart and brought it over to Lancieta. Yora ran to the bed to pickup the pieces of her arm and Lancieta opened the cart into a stretcher of sorts. Yora placed the pieces onto a tray that folded out beneath the main table and helped mom strap Roisin down.

"Quick before she wakes up again!"

Fluid which, for all intents and purposes was her blood, was flowing from Roisin's stomach, shoulder stump, leg, face and her remaining arm.

"Are they gone?" She barely spoke above an intoxicated whisper.

"Yeah, they're gone."

Lancieta looked at me to see if I had figured out what was happening. At that moment I was still in shock, running on auto-pilot. She noticed, flipped up the screen next to me and pushed me aside. She put in some commands and small tubes rose out of the stretcher and connected to the ports that were exposed on Roisin. Red liquid started flowing through the tubes and lights started flashing beneath her skin. A barb stuck itself into her neck then Roisin went limp. Lancieta and Yora rushed out of the room but not before Yora tapped on one of the containers Roisin had come back to Earth with. It lifted off the ground and obediently followed them, hovering silently. I stood there motionless, thoughtless, staring at the doorway for what must've been a few minutes. I looked back at Roisin's bed, my knees felt weak. Then I threw up everything I had eaten.

*****

I spent the last 3 hours cleaning. Cleaning and trying to understand what the fuck I just witnessed. Catty and Nik were in our room some 48 floors up so they didn't hear anything. I'd gotten most of the fluid... blood, cleaned up and I gathered the parts that Yora didn't. I put them in the associated techno-hazard bins that he dropped off earlier while I was cleaning. He walked in looking like he was going to clean up Roisin's room but just left me the supplies he'd gathered and went back to the medical wing without saying anything. I wasn't sure I would've answered. I couldn't get that image out of my head... Roisin was pulling herself apart. I'd puked a few times in the last 3 hours so by now it was just dry heaving.

Another 2 hours passed by the time I was done. Again the image of Roisin popped into my head but this time I focused on her face. She was terrified and confused. She was looking at her body as if it wasn't hers. She asked if "They" were gone... I knew who "they" was now. This was a side effect of being given a new body you didn't want. I assumed she was asleep and felt something touch her. Her eyes would've shot open and saw this strange arm in front of her. "Who's is it? Why are they on top of me?", was probably what she was thinking. Imagine what you'd do if you woke up with a stranger in your bed right next to you... Now imagine if that stranger was your body, not you but your body. How do you run away from your body? You have to rip the stranger off of you... out of you...

"I fought for them to-to go through... this?"

Tears streamed from my eyes as I walked down the hall to the elevator. I had the Containers of blo... fluid and parts with me, the only place for techno-hazard materials was the medical wing. I walked in silently when the door opened. I did my best to avoid the three of them as I made my way in and slid the containers into place for extraction by the next aid shuttle. I washed my clothes and took a shower. When I got out all I could do was sit in the bathroom of the medical bay in silence.

"What did I do to them?"

"This... is what we deserve."

I shot up, startled by Lancieta's voice. Tears were in my eyes but she looked worn; not tired, not out of it or in need of sleep, but worn. I tried to say something but she shook her head "no".

"This is, what we deserve."

She flashed a sympathetic smile that said there was nothing I could do and went back to Roisin. I took my time walking back to my room. The door slid open and I walked silently across the floor, passing Nik and Catty who were still oblivious to the chaos downstairs. I looked at my bed for a moment and walked to the edge of the hole in Section 6 and sat down with my legs hanging out. I sat there, staring at the moon set in the early morning sky as the stars disappeared one by one, clearing the way for the sun.