There is a drain in the floor beneath the table. A drain that is also stained with crimson.
I lock my knees, so they don’t give out on me. I count to three and try to push through the nausea roiling around my stomach. My eyes move over the space, taking it all in.
The workbench on the opposite wall is filled with vials of different colored liquids. Morbid curiosity drives me to examine them. They are sedatives. Children's cough syrups. And in the pill bottles, prescriptions for Zara Castillo.
My legs feel like jelly as I continue my investigation. There are surgical tools scattered everywhere. Scalpels, forceps, scissors. Alcohol wipes and bandages.
I need to leave this room. I need to run away and forget whatever horrors happened here. But I am overwhelmed with questions.
Why did Javi kill his mother? Was he bad from the start? I have an insatiable need to know more. To understand him.
I can’t explain it.
And I know that I am risking my only chance at freedom. But I also know I can’t leave here without answers to these questions. I need to know what really happened to Zara. What horrors might await me if I don't escape.
On the wall, there is a projector. And beneath it, reels and reels of old tapes. It is a foolish thing for me to wonder what is on them. It is a foolish thing of me not to run as fast and far as I can.
I try to talk myself into leaving. But my eye is on the reel already in the projector. Just this one. I will see what’s on this one tape, and then I will go.
I reach down and turn it on. It is old, but with a sputter, it comes to life, projecting the video onto the opposite wall. At first, what I see does not look like the horror movie I had imagined.
It is a woman. A woman that I recognize from the media headlines as Zara. And in her arms, a young boy. He must have only been eight or nine here. She is cradling him in her arms, singing to him. Encouraging him to drink the liquid while she hums a soothing melody.
He protests, but in the end, she wins by forcing the cup to his lips. After a time, he grows sleepy. When his body is limp, she moves him to the table and straps him down, kissing his hair and smoothing it away from his face.
"I'm going to remove the implants," she whispers. "I'm going to get them all this time, Javi. I won't let them control us."
On the screen, Zara retrieves a tray of surgical tools, and I swallow.
She sets them beside the table and lifts Javi's shirt. His body is so little here. The body of a child. And already, it is riddled with scars. Old and new. Deep and shallow. It is obvious that whatever this practice is between them, it has been happening already for some time.
As the film goes on, it becomes apparent that Zara was living in another dimension altogether. She proceeds to document her findings in a series of unintelligible words and gestures. Sometimes walking directly to the camera to speak, or alternately scribbling into a notepad.
A notepad already covered in black ink.
When she is done, she rattles off some information about Javi. His age and gender and a few other clinical details that seem to separate her from the reality of the situation, at least briefly. She sobs over him and then hits herself in the head, yanking on her own hair. Crying out that she doesn't want to do this. That she doesn't understand how they keep implanting him.
She berates herself for failing to protect him yet again. Then she whispers that they are listening. She must get the device out now. Her personality does another one-eighty when she reaches for a scalpel.
With the precision of a surgeon, the barbaric practice begins. She carves into Javi's arm, digging around in the flesh. When she does not find what she's looking for, her search continues on his leg. His abdomen. His chest.
And I can watch it no longer. I lunge for the machine and fumble with the buttons. On the screen, Javi is waking up. Crying. Bloody. Helpless. Pleading with his mother to stop.
I feel like I'm going to vomit.
And finally... finally... I find the power switch. The machine and the horrifying visions on the wall come to an abrupt end.
I'm still shaking when the door swings open, and I am faced with the adult version of the monster she created. His rage is a force of nature this time. Unstoppable.
Before he even comes for me, I know that I have crossed a line. This is a space I was never meant to see.
I am incapable of words when he stalks towards me and backs me into the corner. It is of little use to close my eyes. The monster is still there. He will always be there.
Javi grabs me by the throat and breathes into my face.
“If you wanted some pain, my Bella, all you had to do was say so.”
His words are taken as they are meant to be. They terrify me.