"you sure you wanna do this?" amauri asked, looking at me nervously
"do i want to? of course not. but do i really have a choice?"
he sighed then proceeded to take the cd out of the envelope.
we've held back on watching the cd that came with the documents, not because we didn't want to watch it, but because we couldn't. amauri tried every store around us including target, best buy, micro-center; none having a dvd player. not in stores at least, so we had to order one.
it was delivered today and amauri brought it up on his way back from the shop. he just finished connecting it to our tv, but we've still been hesitant to watch it. me more than him.
"aight" he said before inserting the cd in the dvd plaver
a part of me was wishing he had set it up wrong or it was broken, only so there'd be a legitimate excuse to not watch it.
of course i'm curious to see what it's about, but some shit honestly does not need to be seen. i refuse to be the cat that curiosity killed.
after some moments of buffering it finally began. it started with a man dressed in surgical gear on the screen. you couldn't see his entire face due to him wearing a surgical mask.
"the date is feburary seventeen at approximately nineteen hundred o'clock" he started
his voice didn't sound familiar so it couldn't have been someone from the hospital. at least not someone i knew.
"today we'll be proceeding with the trials of batch two. subject zero-zero-one-three is prepped now and ready for insemination"
he stepped to the side allowing for the full picture to come into view. there i was, laying on the surgical table while a few people also dressed in surgical gear stood around me.
i genuinely couldn't believe my eyes. i'd read about it and seen the pictures, yes. but seeing it on film was confirmation. you can photoshop pictures. and yes you can cgi films too i guess. but there's no denying this happened, because what other explanation is there for how this is possible?
"as with the other subjects, we've taken an artificial egg, neutral of any dna and have combined the dna of both the host parent and the donor parent to fertilize the egg, equally contributing to the fetuses dna set. a process we experimented with in batch one and have since improved. this was done by substituting the use of a female egg for an artificial one. instead of three dna sets like previously, there are now only two"
so there's more of me? there are more male's out there who are pregnant as well?
"due to the unsuccessfulness of subjects one through twelve, we've decided to change the approach this time with subject thirteen"
nevermind then.
"in subjects one through twelve we used a different process of hosting the fetus. we entered it directly into the sigmoid colon. this of course caused significant issues resulting in the termination of all twelve subjects"
"shit" amauri whispered
"with subject thirteen, however, we've opted for a different route. we'll be using a graft to create an artificial uterus to then attach to the colon. the graft has been taken from the uterus of a suitable donor, who's an excellent match. the length of this procedure should be approximately sixteen hours give or take. the extensiveness is due to introducing the body to a whole new organ"
this is literally insane. who the fuck would do some type of shit like this? to someone who hasn't even volunteered to do it nonetheless.
he once again moved out of the frame, displaying my body on the operating table. he then went into detail, explaining each thing that the doctors were doing to my body. you could tell the whole operation was filmed, however, this video sped through a lot of it, only using the normal playback speed when there was something important to say.
"this can't be real" amauri said as the screen went black when the surgery was complete
i sat there in shock. i've never been raped so i can't compare this to that, but i felt like this was a close second. my body was violated. i was sliced up and worked on without any knowledge of it. a baby was put inside of me without my permission. i have no recollection of this happening yet i still felt sick to my stomach watching it happen to me.
i almost feel like this is worse. watching this be done to myself when i have no way of fighting back. i felt like my soul had left my body and was watching this in real time.
amauri stood up, going to turn off the dvd player when the tv screen lit up again, causing him to stop.
on the screen now was me in a white room. i lay in a bed asleep while there were monitors hooked up to me. the room resembled somewhat of a hospital room, but was all white. kind've like what you'd see in a mental facility or something.
the same guy appeared once again in the camera, still wearing the surgical mask so you couldn't really get the full image of his face. even with just his eyes showing i couldn't recognize him.
"the date is feburary nineteenth at approximately fourteen hundred o'clock" he began
"it's been approximately twenty-four hours since completion of the operation. although it's too soon to tell, subject zero-zero-one-three seems to be responding well indicating a positive outcome. subject zero-zero-one-three did suffer a mild fever some hours after the surgery, more than likely due to his body recognizing the new organ as a foreign object. however, the fever subsided on its own which is promising"
the screen went black over again for a second before coming back on, the same setting.
"the date is feburary twenty-second at approximately ten o'clock. it's been five days since operating. subject zero-zero-one-three is still in a medically induced coma. his vitals are performing exceptionally well. he suffered another fever two days ago, a brutal one at that. we were able to combat that, however, and he's been improving ever since. the embryo has now attached to the walls of the new organ and is following the normal course of a pregnancy. by day eleven the organ should start producing enough hcg for him to detect the pregnancy using an at home test"
once again the screen went black for a second before coming back on, still the same setting.
"the date is feburary twenty-fourth, also known as d-day, at approximately thirteen hundred o'clock. subject-zero-zero-one-three will be released today. he will have no recollection of the events preceding this past week. the embryo is successfully attached and is operating exactly as we planned. zero-zero-one-three has proven to be a successful candidate. we'll be monitoring him from a far, however, i believe he'll be our first true success of batch two. for now that is all, until next time"
the video paused after that indicating that it had finally come to an end. amauri got up to take it out, before slipping it back into the envelope.
i don't know when it fell but i felt a tear from my eye now rolling down my cheek.
"i was gone for a whole week, and i didn't even know" i spoke
amauri sat down next to me, pulling me into him, and wrapping his arms around me.
"i was gone for a whole week, and nobody noticed"
i can understand my parents maybe not being concerned because i talk to them maybe once a week, if that. i can possibly understand z not saying anything since at that time we weren't as close as we are now. but how didn't my job notice i was gone for a week? nobody ever confronted me about missing a week of work. from what i remember nothing was ever mentioned about it.
what really gets me though, is how did josiah not notice i was gone. my whole ass roommate. my bestfriend. i was missing for an entire week and he wasn't put on notice that something was wrong? once again i don't recall him ever confronting me about a disappearance. i don't remember him ever mentioning anything about it.
could he have been in on it too? i know that's outlandish, but it's the only explanation i can come up with. if he had gone missing for a week, without saying anything about it to me, i'd definitely take action to find him. and let's say i did nothing about it—which i wouldn't—i'd at least confront him about his disappearance when he returned a week later. but he didn't do that. why not? it's not making any sense.
"we gotta take this to the police" amauri said
"no"
"whatchu mean no, this gotta be illegal. fuck that—it is illegal. they kidnapped you and performed surgery on you without your consent. we don't even know who they is. the police might be able to help in someway. right now we're sitting here not even knowing where to start. where do we go from this?"
"if we do that then they'll know. it'll expose everything. they'll take me away and lock me somewhere, performing experiments on me. i've already had enough of that"
"so what we finna do, nothing?" he asked
i just shrugged. what can we do? we don't know who sent this. we don't know who did this to me or who's involved. there's just too much to this that we don't know.
"so they just win?"
i freed myself from his embrace and stood up. i then walked over to my room, dragging my feet along the floor.
my intentions were to get into bed and ball myself up under the covers. instead, i found myself in my bathroom, under the running water of my shower fully clothed.
i wanted to scream. i wanted to ball out crying. but i was numb. i didn't know what to feel. actually i did but it was all too overwhelming.
i've been used. my body was taken from me to be used as an experiment. all for what, somebodies amusement, their curiosity, their boredom?
i sat down in the tub, letting the shower still run as i stared at the wall.
who would do this? what kind of sick, twisted group of people would do such a thing?
they clearly have to have had the resources to do such a thing. the money this would require does not seem like it's a small amount. on top of that the knowledge. despite how i'm feeling right now, i cannot deny, this is the work of a genius. it's evil, yes, but genius. artificial insemination in a male? who would have ever thought that was possible? today at least.
it begs the question: why was i chosen? why me? what did they recognize in me that made me one of the thirteen out of three million males in the world. what qualities do i have that made me considered to be a candidate in this heinous experiment?
what made me survive out of all the other ones? yeah i know they changed the procedure when it came to my turn, but what are the odds that i would be the one that was actually successful?
i was so lost in my thoughts that i had not realized amauri had come into the bathroom until he got in the tub, sitting behind me, allowing me to rest back on him.
i can't help but to think doctors truman and pierce have something to do with this. despite everyone in the film being masked up, i didn't see any features of any of the people that would resemble them. even then i still, however, feel like they have something to do with it. the only reason i'm trying to not think that way is because if that's true, that would mean zaniyah is in on it as well. she would have to be. she's the one who found them, suspiciously quick at that.
but i refuse to believe she is. i can't. there's just no way. it would be easier to think that she is rather than not, based on everything i know, but i'm willing to accept them as coincidences.
if they're not involved in this though, then the ultimate question is who is? who would do this?
"i should've gotten him taken out like i originally planned, it would've made all of this a whole lot easier. but nah. i let money and dick convince me otherwise" i said
amauri didn't say anything. he just continued to hold me as i vented.
"i don't know what to do," i said feeling a wave of emotions come onto me "i'm scared"
"we finna figure this shit out...together. i gotchu okay? don't be scared. i gotchu"
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