The Last Conception

Chapter 11

The bulb above swayed gently, casting sharp white arcs across the basement walls. Every tool on the tray gleamed with deliberate order—scalpel, clamps, sutures, sterile gauze. She had laid them out the way she had practiced a dozen times before, every angle precise.

The teacher lay strapped to the table now, wrists and ankles fastened with thick leather belts she had scavenged and sterilized. His chest rose unevenly, slowed by the sedative, but his eyes fluttered—half-conscious, fighting the heavy fog.

"Don't fight it," she murmured, pulling her mask tighter over her face. "It won't help you now."

The first incision was always the hardest. She steadied her breath, blade poised just above his skin. The metal kissed his abdomen with a shallow line, and she felt her hand tremble—not from fear, but anticipation. Then she pressed, cutting deeper, guided by memory and diagram.

His body jerked weakly under the straps. A muffled moan escaped his gag.

"Shhh," she whispered, wiping away the first streak of blood with gauze. "Pain is just a reminder that you're still alive."

Her notebook lay open beside her, a page bookmarked with bold letters: Procedure for Extraction. She had practiced on dolls, on animals, on that nameless man who became her first success. Every misstep had been noted, every failure corrected. Tonight, there would be no mistakes.

She worked quickly, suctioning blood, clamping vessels, her movements fluid now. The smell of iron thickened the air, clinging to her gloves.

The teacher's eyes opened wider, glassy with terror. He tried to speak against the gag, his words reduced to wet gurgles.

She leaned over, scalpel glinting in her hand, and whispered into his ear:
"Do you remember the night you told me I was just a child, that no one would believe me? That my silence was your safety? I've broken that silence."

Tears streaked down his temples. His head shook violently, but his body was a prisoner to the belts, to her hands, to her vengeance.

With a swift, careful motion, she continued. Her breathing was steady, her mind cold, clinical. The body beneath her was no longer a man—it was a vessel, a lesson, an experiment.

Each note she had written came alive before her eyes: Incision depth. Blood flow. Clamp angle. Suturing method. Her pen had mapped this moment, and now her blade fulfilled it.

The teacher's consciousness flickered. He sank, floated, rose again in a haze of agony. He tried to focus on her face above him, but all he saw was the mask, the unblinking eyes, and the ceiling light burning spots into his vision.

"Please..." he croaked through the gag.

She paused, tilting her head, as though considering mercy. Then she shook her head once, firm.
"No. Not this time. You don't get to beg."

The scalpel descended again.

The basement filled with the sound of steel against flesh, the measured rhythm of her breath, and his strangled, weakening cries.

Her hands moved like a metronome, steady and precise, as if she were conducting an orchestra only she could hear. Each incision had its rhythm, each stitch a note, each spasm of his body a percussion beat.

She adjusted the clamp, tightening until the bleeding slowed. His muffled scream vibrated against the gag, then dipped into a whimper.

"Good," she murmured, almost to herself, "you're learning to be quiet now."

Sweat gathered along her hairline beneath the mask, but her focus never wavered. She remembered the failure of her first attempt—the slip of her hand, the way life had drained too quickly. That nameless man had been her cruelest teacher, but he had also been the proof that she could succeed.

Tonight, she would succeed again.

Her notebook lay open on the counter, edges curled with fingerprints and old stains. Each time she glanced at it, her eyes sharpened. Layer by layer. Don't rush. Precision is the difference between punishment and accident.

The teacher's body twitched as she reached deeper. His eyes rolled, veins in his neck straining. She pressed the scalpel aside, switched instruments, clamped again.
Her movements grew faster now, bolder, as if anger and skill were bleeding together in her veins.

When he tried to scream again, she pulled the gag down just enough for his words to slur out:
"Please... let me... I'll never—"

"Never what?" she hissed, leaning close, her gloves coated red. "Never touch another student? Never use fear to keep them silent? You don't get to make promises anymore."

She shoved the gag back in, tightening it cruelly.

Her final sutures were neat, the threads tying his flesh like embroidery across a canvas of revenge. She wiped the excess blood, sprayed antiseptic, and stepped back, chest heaving. The room smelled of iron and chemicals, of fear and retribution.

For a moment, silence. Just the drip of blood into a steel basin.

She peeled off her gloves one finger at a time, watching him fade into unconsciousness. His face was pale, drenched in sweat, but his chest still moved, shallow, tethered to life only because she had chosen not to end it.

She leaned over him, her voice a whisper sharp as the scalpel.
"Death would be too merciful for you. You will wake. You will remember. And every breath you take will remind you that I carved justice into your body with my own hands."

She adjusted the belts once more, ensuring he wouldn't wriggle free in his delirium. Then she cleaned her tray, placed the scalpel neatly back in its case, and turned off the overhead light.