"YOU'RE HIDING from someone, no?" Jonathan asked while watching their back for a short moment as they walked.
They were already far from San Rafael Hospital, but its rooftop was still in sight.
"No," Kaelee replied, lowering her head to hide her face. Because who could say if Surgeon Sin was already at the rooftop and he could see her from that spot? Of course, that would be strange, but he was weird so that could be possible. Also, she just got to know Jonathan, so she could not trust him yet about her problem with Dr. Alfred, and that she was hiding from him.
Since her house was closer than Jonathan's, it felt like he walked her home. She stopped walking when they got to the front of the low gate and turned to face him.
"Umm, I'm already here," she smiled sheepishly at him. "That—" she cocked her head to the side to point at the small gate and the bungalow behind it, "—is our house."
He nodded, then briefly scanned her house which had white painted walls and a blue aluminum roof. It was surrounded by lush green plants and had a wooden, low gate.
"Nice," he said, facing her. "I'll be heading now to the bus stop."
She nodded. "Take care."
"Thanks," he nodded before he began walking past her house.
Kaelee followed him with her eyes before she entered her home.
⚕
SHOCKED, Lola Helene immediately left the kitchen. She was in the middle of cooking dinner when she heard the door opening and closing. So, the old woman immediately checked who had come. She caught Kaelee placing her backpack on the one-seat sofa.
"Whoa, why are you early?"
She approached Lola Helene, took her hand, and placed its back on her forehead. This tradition of politely greeting the elders is called 'pagmamano.'
"Aren't you supposed to be at Doc's clinic after your training in the hospital?"
What she heard made her pause. What alibi would she tell her grandmother? And what if Surgeon Sin decided to search for her in this house? She gulped upon recalling what he said the night he made her choose whether to be his assistant or not.
"I will have to kill you..."
Kaelee blinked and felt goosebumps upon remembering what the doctor's voice sounded like. His voice gave her the chills—it was cold, emotionless, and terrifying.
She looked Lola Helene in the eyes. "I'm not feeling well."
"My goodness, is it tiring in the hospital? Or have you forgotten to put on a face mask and you caught some disease?" she assisted her by the elbow and helped her sit on the sofa. "Don't worry. The macaroni soup will be cooked soon. You're just in time for dinner. Sit here and get some rest."
Lola Helene hurried back to the kitchen to attend to her cooking. Meanwhile, Kaelee pressed her back against the backrest of the sofa and closed her eyes.
'What am I going to do if Surgeon Sin finds me here?'
Her eyes flung open upon hearing some knocking on the door.
"Just a minute!" she heard Lola Helene holler. Any minute from now, her grandmother would leave the kitchen and open the door for their...guest.
Kaelee sighed in surrender. Maybe this was one of the signs that her mother was reminding her about the valuable lesson she left for her. That she could never escape any person or situation that destiny had presented before her. So, she got moved ahead of her grandmother.
"I'll open the door, 'La."
Kaelee did not wait for her answer. She headed straight to the door and opened it. Even if she already expected Surgeon Sin, she almost held her breath upon seeing him. He wore his black pair of slacks and a black long-sleeved polo. The corner of his lips lifted to a sinister smile.
"Hi," he greeted with a mix of chuckles in his voice.
How her stomach wanted to turn. Because even his snake eyes seemed to be laughing at her.
"H-Hi..." She cursed at herself because she didn't want him to have a single clue that she was hiding from him. But how could she do that?
Her grandmother appeared from behind her. "Oh, Doc!"
"Good evening!" he greeted, cocking his head to the side.
When Lola Helene glanced at her, Kaelee felt the need to ask for her help. She felt teary-eyed out of frustration, too, because why wasn't she staring at Surgeon Sin? Her smiles for him were so big as well! How was she supposed to have the courage to tell on him if, at this very moment, she could see how her grandmother favored the doctor?
"Come in, Doc! You're just in time, I'm cooking some macaroni soup!"
Then, Lola Helene went back to the kitchen. Kaelee was left with no choice but to let him in. She stepped aside and the doctor walked past her. She hadn't closed the door yet but the doctor was already seated on the one-seat sofa where he sat on his first visit to their house.
Upon closing the door, she followed the doctor.
"So, Kaelee," he grinned while staring at her. "It seems like you forgot our agreement."
"Uh...Y-You bet!" she sat down slowly on the sofa. This time, she occupied the long sofa that was positioned beside the doctor's seat because it was closer to the door, and her weakening knees would really need immediate aid by sitting down to the nearest seat.
"Do you need brain surgery to recover your memory?" he laughed, which added to her terror. "We can check your limbic system, you know. Maybe, I can poke on your hippocampus, amygdala, epithalamus..."
"N-No..." she replied weakly. "I-I mean...Our agreement just slipped out of my mind, because I'm not feeling well. I-I think I'll get sick."
"Is that so?" he said, leaning forward to bring his face close to hers, the only thing between them was the left armrest of his chair and the right of her chair.
At that moment, her heart began racing. It was as if she was standing before death itself. His snake eyes stared closely into hers, as if peeking where he could poke his hands to pull out her soul. At closer inspection, she noticed that his eyes weren't plainly green. It was a transparent, yellowish-green. She didn't know that the shade is called 'chartreuse.'
"A sick person breathes slower than usual," he breathed on her face, "your breathing is fast."
She gulped.
"Too fast," he stated, the corner of his lips rising.
'Does Surgeon Sin eat people? Will he spare my bones if ever—'
"You are scared," he chuckled lowly.
In this moment, she felt a strong slap in the face by the reality that her biggest mistake was fo pretend to be ill in front of a doctor!
"I don't tolerate AWOL's, Miss Kaelee Montano," he said smugly with a shadow of a mischievous smile on his face. "Where did you even got the audacity to pretend to be sick right in front of me?" He pointed to his left eye, making Kaelee focus on its sharp slit iris. "Infrared too," he said, pertaining to his eyes, his vision. "So, you're basically looking right now at a walking thermometer, Kaelee."
⚕
"LET'S GO," Surgeon Sin invited her excited as they stepped inside his clinic.
Kaelee regretted eating too much macaroni soup earlier. Because it seemed like she would vomit a lot now that she was going back to the clinic. Apparently, Dr. Alfred convinced her grandmother that he had a very effective medication at home to help her feel better. On the other hand, Kaelee agreed to go with the doctor or else he would tell Lola Helene that she was pretending to be sick earlier. As much as Kaelee wanted to tell her grandmother why she didn't want to be Dr. Alfred's assistant, she figured that she would need some kind of evidence to completely convince Lola Helene. So, she went along with how the doctor wanted their setup to be. She reluctantly joined him in his clinic.
"Hi, Spike!" the doctor greeted the monster, correction, the creature, that welcomed them by the door.
Kaelee only nodded at Spike before she immediately avoided her eyes from it. She hugged herself and paid more attention to her senses because who knew if a little later on, she was going to be experimented on by Spike and Surgeon Sin.
"Here," the doctor glanced at her with a smile as he brought her closer to the darker part of the building.
The area felt colder. Kaelee unconsciously rubbed her arms.
Surgeon Sin pushed a door open, which blasted out an icier air. It was so cold as if it came from something frozen.
"Come in!" he gestured like a child full of glee. He even stretched out a hand to guide her way inside the door.
Kaelee only slowly stepped in when Surgeon Sin flicked on the light switch. She immediately looked at the man behind her, because she feared that he might do something terrible once her back was turned on him. To her relief, the doctor walked past her. He walked straight to a metal table.
The room had soft lighting. It consisted of two meat refrigerators in one corner. But since the walls were made of metal, Kaelee figured that the room itself was a giant, walk-in chiller.
"Come here," the doctor called her.
She stood beside the doctor who was already cutting the strings tied around the parcels on the metallic table. The parcels were only wrapped in brown paper, so Kaelee moved her hands carefully in order to avoid tearing them away. Once she untied the strings, she did not unwrap the brown paper bag yet.
Meanwhile, Surgeon Sin pulled out a Swiss knife from his pocket and used it to open his packages in one swift stroke of the blade against multiple strings.
"Get some containers from the shelf."
Her eyes searched for the shelf that was made of metal. When she found it, she walked to it and shivered as her skin touched the icy metal. She shuddered and reached for the big containers with air-tight covers.
"H-How many?" she asked. If the doctor only told her that they would be chilling inside a giant chiller, then she should have brought a jacket instead of settling with her red T-shirt and white scrub suit pants!
"Two."
She took two containers and placed them on the table, beside the other parcels that were left for the doctor to unwrap. Dr. Alfred gently revealed what was wrapped inside the brown paper bag of one of the untied packages. Kaelee could not help covering her mouth with a hand. Her eyes widened upon seeing a bloody human leg.
It was quite a hair leg. She could tell that it was freshly mutilated because the blood was still reddish. A bone poked out from its flesh, on the part where it was cut off, probably because the instrument of the animal who did this to the victim was too dull.
She shakily shifted her eyes to the doctor.
Her terror doubled upon seeing how Surgeon Sin looked different. He smiled so wide as if he just got a brand new car for Christmas.
"Now look at this beauty," he glanced at her before admiring the severed leg once more. "It looks sturdy. The tissues and veins seem easy to restore."
He inspected the cut of the leg, which reached past its knee, and lightly poked its flesh with a forefinger. It made a disgusting squishy sound, it almost made her gag. But Kaelee knew better, she should control the urge to vomit.
Surgeon Sin put the leg aside and opened the other parcel that contained another leg—the other pair of the leg they just unwrapped earlier.
"Perfect legs!" he turned to her, laughing. "You see, Kaelee, there's not much of a difference between humans and animals."
She shook her head. 'Crazy. Soulless.' Her irritation turned into a serious expression. 'Seems like he did not expect to receive a pair of legs. So, probably, he didn't have x-ray vision. He won't be able to use it on me then.'
She secretly glared at the doctor whose eyes glowed happily.
"Let's bring these to the sink. Take that leg."
She gulped. "Are we not going to put on some gloves?"
"Why are you even disgusted? This even used to be human just like you, right?" he chuckled while his back was turned on her since he was already heading to the sink. "Don't worry. Whoever owns this leg doesn't have any contagious diseases. My supplier makes sure of that with every body part that he sends me."
Shaking, she picked up the right leg with both hands. She bit her lower lip as she carried it, heavy like a log, toward the sink. Kaelee had to gulp a few times, just to make sure she could hold in her vomit that she could already feel rising in her throat.
"Wash it well," Surgeon Sin instructed as he opened the faucet and let the water run on the severed leg he was holding. "Don't mind the place where it was cut. Just let it be a little bloody. I didn't want the cut to be touched. Clear?"
She nodded and felt a wave of nausea consuming her bit by bit as she watched streams of thick, red blood mixing with the water that ran down the sink.
"Your turn," he said, carrying away the washed leg so that Kaelee could use the sink and faucet.
She gently put the leg there and washed it. The iciness of the water made her a little bit jumpy. Then, her hand gently washed the leg, avoiding the top.
"Very good," Dr. Alfred smirked. "Let's go to the table."
They placed the legs on the metal table. Kaelee shivered a bit more because her hands were already wet as they brushed against the cold table. Add to that the freezing temperature in this room.
"We'll dry these off," the doctor turned to her, smiling. "After that, we'll put them in those big containers. I didn't want to put them in plastic bags because the coldness would make the flesh stick to the plastic. It will ruin the tissues."
She shut her eyes tightly. Her dizziness was starting to get more intense.
Kaelee began to gag.