A knock on the hollow door dragged Arturo out of his thoughts. He spied the alarm clock beside him. 11:39pm. Who would be at the door at this time of night? Sensing something wrong he threw the raggedy blanket off his body and shuffled towards the door. Pulling back the latch he pushed the door open, allowing a thin stream of light to enter and illuminate the dark face of Dr Jeffrye's.
"We've got some talking to do Arturo" he snarled with a glare. Arturo, noticing his expression, gulped visibly and forged a yawn. "At this time? Can't it be done tomorrow?"
"You know fully well we can't discuss this tomorrow." Dr Jeffrye raged and shoved Arturo onto the wall. "Let's talk now." His fists tightened on Arturo's shirt and he dragged him to the chair.
"Didn't we make it clear to you before this experiment that your presence should be kept secret?" Dr Jeffrye asked. Arturo clicked his jaw and stared at him pointedly.
"I don't recall you telling me that at all. In fact, it was Dr Paulo that told me about this god-forsaken project. Where is he? I haven't seen him in a long time" Arturo speculated with false curiosity. He crossed his arms and laid back in his seat ignoring the sharp glare sent his way.
"Dr Paulo is currently on leave. He injured his foot whilst on the premises." Dr Jeffrye explained, clearing his throat whilst adjusting his tie that suddenly felt like it was choking his windpipe.
"Bull! You expect me to believe that? I know what you did to him! You know, for a man that has so many secrets you really need to hire nurses that can contain themselves."
"What do you mean?" Dr Jeffrye narrowed his eyes at the man sitting before him. Arturo scoffed.
"Fourth week in, one of the nurses comes in to check my room. Her eyes are bloodshot and she's got a red stain on her uniform. Of course I asked what was wrong and she sobbed it all out."
Dr Jeffrye clenched his fists and sighed. Slowly a sly smirk grew on his face. "Well if you know already... Alex was a good friend. He was the sole mastermind behind Merudoxin. Came straight out of Cambridge with this awesome idea of painless births. I mean he lost his wife to childbirth, of course he'd be driven to a creation like this. But... he didn't see the bigger picture. I tried to persuade him, show him my vision! But the idiot didn't want to hear anything about it. He got further than I ever could" he whispered the end.
"Because your medical license got cancelled" Arturo confirmed and Dr Jeffrye looked up. "You know a lot about me, how?" he asked.
"I guess, you really did choose some bad nurses" Arturo said. The doctor gritted his teeth. "Violent conduct was apparently the reason. But I know they removed it because they were jealous of my ideas. They hated that I was more creative, more knowledgeable! Hitting that guy was the last straw though apparently" he spat out in bitter distaste.
"Hit? You knocked that guy out with a hammer! Splintered his skull and left him brain damaged!" Arturo said in disbelief. "You don't know how desperate I was to leave this place. Get away from you when I learnt that. Heck your own nurses wanted to escape! And when that nurse told me what you did to Dr Paulo... I knew I had to get out now. But then..."
Dr Jeffrye looked up. "Why stop now? Might as well spill" he said with a knowing erratic grin. Arturo looked away. "Before you realised that Hazel was carrying your baby? Is that it?" the doctor laughed out. "I knew you two knew about each other. I was angry but then it was done and I couldn't reverse it. You broke the rules and she's paying the price!"
"Paying the price? What did you do to her?" Arturo shouted. He stood up from his seat and attempted to grab hold of Dr Jeffrye but the man raised his hand and stopped him in his tracks. "I'm not stopping you from seeing her. Go to the staffroom, I'm sure her screams will lead you the way" he chuckled out. Arturo widened his eyes in concern and ran out of the room. The sound of his shoes slapping the steps of the staircase echoed in Dr Jeffrye's ears.
~~~~~~~~~~~
The pain was excruciating. Sweat rolled down my forehead slowly, trying to cool down my fevered body. I struggled against the binds and whimpered as I recognised the intense contraction arriving once more. No one was there to help me. No one was there to tell me when it was safe to push.
"Help me" I screamed at the top of my lungs. I heard the hard thumps of footsteps approaching. Raising my neck I watched hopefully as the door pushed open and suddenly Arturo burst in. His eyes were wide and he looked around in a frenzy before they rested on my helpless body.
"Hazel..."he whispered, his eyes tearing up immediately at the sight.
"Get someone right... now!" I spoke out through gritted teeth. I groaned as another wave of torture washed over me. Arturo ran out with the same frenzied manner and shouted for any nurses that can hear him. In a matter of minutes two nurses ran in and gasped at the sight.
"Hazel?" one of them whispered, recognising my face. Looking at the binds around my wrists and the green serum beside me she closed her eyes in understanding. "Where's Dr Jeffrye?" she asked Arturo.
"I don't have a damn idea! Help Hazel!" he shouted. He ran to my side and unlocked the binds on my wrists. "Why did he do this to you?" he said while massaging the bruised skin around my thin wrists. But I was too occupied by the pain to acknowledge him. The nurses stepped into plan. Checking the dilation they immediately became tense.
"Hazel you're nearly ready to push! On my say so I need you to push really hard" one of the nurses spoke. Minutes passed by and suddenly it was time. The past nine months I was waiting for this moment and now that it was here she believed it was too soon. The excruciating torture erupted viciously inside her, twisting my insides out. Arturo was right beside me, enduring the sharp pain as I nearly cut off his blood supply by grabbing on to him. I honestly thought this was my last moment. I'm not even going to make it to bring my baby into this world. This unpredictable world.
My thoughts were interrupted by the shrill screaming of a new born baby. The sharp scream filled me with such content and I released Arturo's hand and dropped my head tiredly as I realised that finally it was all over. But rather than immediately place my baby on my chest they took my precious bundle into a separate room. One of the nurses came back out.
"Where's my baby?" I asked desperately craving for the piece of me that I carried for 3/4 of a year.
"We need to wait until Dr Jeffrye arrives. I have just paged him" she announced and the blood drained out of me. Arturo's face burned.
"Like hell he's carrying our baby! He's a vicious monster!" he shouted.
"That I may be" the man said and Arturo spun on his heels to see the man waiting with a smirk. "I assume the baby has arrived?" he asked the nurse. She nodded. He followed the nurse into the room and came back with the baby wrapped in a towel. But his face was grim.
"It didn't work" he whispered. I frowned and Arturo furrowed his eyebrows. Dr Jeffrye paced the room rapidly suddenly unaware that he had a baby in his arms. "All these experiments and still nothing is going to plan" he spat out. Arturo grabbed the baby out of his arms before the deranged doctor could harm it in his wild interaction. Looking down at the baby his blood ran cold.
"Is this some kind of sick joke?" he pleaded out. I turned to look at him. "What do you mean? What's wrong with my baby?!" I screamed unable to contain my desperate irritation. I attempted to move but the raw pain of labour encased me in the position I was left on the bed. Slowly he turned the baby around and I gasped, covering my mouth to prevent my sobs from escaping.
"What happened to my baby!" I screamed. The baby staring curiously at me was born with deformities. A limb was poking out from his stomach and he had scaly skin. I had never seen anything like it. As Arturo turned the baby around to expose his bare back I noticed a black mark that resembled an 'M'. It almost seemed like it was burnt on but in fact was a birthmark.
"How did that happen?" I asked as I ran my hand over the mark.
"We managed to inject another serum whilst updating your dose of Merudoxin which allowed your baby's skin to generate this particular mark as it grew. It's to brand all our experiments" the doctor simply explained. My mouth was dry. "You both are probably very confused by now, so let me elaborate." the doctor spoke.
"As you already know Arturo, Dr Paulo is dead. He's been dead after the first month of the trial. Incinerated his body and left without a trace. The government believes his still leading the trial and so no investigation ever took place - thank God! He was a good friend... but he couldn't witness the vision I had planned for so long. Refused to be a part of it! Oh well, his loss. Once all of you joined we administered your first dose of Merudoxin each month. It's a serum lined in your bloodstream that strengthens your immune system and enhances your health whilst also weakening the pain cells around your abdomen and uterus. Now that- was all of Paulo's creation. My own mark, was a little orthodox."
"We're in an era in which everything is designed to suit our own needs. Technology at its best! If we can develop anything and improve it to its maximum ability, why hasn't anyone decided to moderate the most important thing? Us! We as humans are one of the most complicated beings ever made and yet not once has anyone thought of designing something that would improve us! I created a solution that enables humans to alter their physical body in order to survive in an environment that's constantly adapting."
"There are so many gadgets we now need as a daily necessity so why only limit ourselves to two hands?"
That's when it began to dawn on me. His creation. He wanted to change the human race in order to fit in with the pace of the world. I looked at my baby, the result of this madman's ideas. He experimented on us to witness the effects of his solution. I thought I was here to bust open a government operation to prove to people that babies lives shouldn't be put at risk and here I was walking into the most biggest danger of all. I've risked my child's life once again unintentionally, blind to all the dangers around me. I was pathetic and useless. How did I manage to be so careless?
"Is that what that smell was? What Chichi picked up on when she first arrived?" I whimpered out.
"Ah. Yes. I was administering my solution along with Dr Paulo's Merudoxin drug. But I needed to intensify my solution, to make sure all of the patients had the full effect. So I released it through the air vent. I tried to make it completely odourless but only managed, but apparently that Chichi kept picking it up. I knew I had to remove her somehow."
My face paled. Chichi bleeding on the ground once again barged into my poor head. The red spreading over the material of her clothes. The thought that it was all planned and occurred on purpose sickened me. Witnessing baby Samuel being given away to a couple that would never love him as much as his late mother did. Samuel would most definitely not learn of Chichi at all. Then my eyes landed on my baby. No matter what was wrong with him I still felt immense love radiating from me. He was a part of me. I lifted my arms up, motioning to carry him.
"We don't let the mother and child bond when the experiment has failed." With that he began turning around. Arturo grabbed him by the shoulders and dragged his son away from the madman. Before Dr Jeffrye could even attempt to take the baby away Arturo punched him square in the face. The doctor landed on the floor in an uncomfortable heap, unconscious and bleeding. The nurses gaped at the sight, uncertain of what to do next but Arturo was now in charge. As he held his son protectively in his arms he began ordering them.
"Find the nearest phone and contact the police. Tell them where we are and what's happened."
"But I don't know where we are. He didn't reveal the location to his staff either" the nurse whimpered.
"Then make them trace the call" he said exasperatedly.
"And you help me tie him up" he ordered the second nurse. Looking for objects to help him tie Dr Jeffrye up he left my son on the crook of my arm. I stared lovingly at my baby's face and caressed his cheek. I bent my head down to kiss him when abruptly a sharp stinging pain was felt in my chest. My vision became blurred and the heavy feeling of loss already overpowered me. The sounds around me were deafening and a huge desire to close my eyes was taking over.
I still need to edit this chapter but tell me how it is! The story is nearly finished!