In order for skin to be grafted, it must first be procured. An organ to be transplanted must be taken, and a limb has to come from somewhere.
In 1967, this woe of the medical field was solved.
“Doctor?”
Doctor turned to the newest boy in his line of assistants. “-Yes, Buddy?”
The youngster lit up at being addressed, quickly fumbling for a paper. “Well, um, here, sir! This is good, isn’t it?” Going by what the paper said, Doctor could indeed agree that it was a good thing. Not perfect by any means, but better than last week.
“Yes, it is,” Doctor replied absently, putting the paper back down on the crowded desk.
The boy didn’t seem quite done yet. “I’d like to say, Doctor, it’s a great honour to be working with you.” Buddy smiled awkwardly, on the cusp of returning to his work but not quite ready. Doctor gave him a glance, one that told him to continue or be quiet. “No, that’s, heh, that’s all I had to say. Sorry.”
“It’s fine, Buddy. You needn’t worry about such trivialities,” he swivelled a little test tube in front of his eyes, “if I wasn’t myself, I, too, might be flustered in my presence.”
“And rightfully so, sir!” Buddy said enthusiastically, grinning where he stood in his oversized lab coat and boyish good looks. When Doctor first met Buddy, he hadn’t pegged him for a genius of any kind. That is, until he was introduced as such. They had only been working together for a few days, but Doctor already knew Buddy was of a superior intellect. If everything went alright, Buddy would reach for greatness Doctor had never been able to.
Doctor sighed and left the little room, Buddy silently trailing after without any verbal command, much like a little puppy. The hallway was dark and silent as it ought to be at this hour.
At some point, Doctor noticed he couldn’t hear Buddy’s footsteps any longer. Once he turned around, he noticed the exact reason for this. The young apprentice had drawn to a stop right in front of one of the five rooms containing parts of the Monstrosity. Doctor should have known this day would come. “Buddy…”
“Sir, please. Someday, I’ve got to see it!”
Doctor wished he wasn’t right. Considering his personality, Buddy would find his way into one of those rooms one of these days. Might as well do it with it’s creator in tow. “Alright.”
Doctor didn’t even have to glance at the little placard to know which room it was. Swiping his card, he entered it first, Buddy happily joining him inside. It was dimly lit, as all these rooms were on account of the sensibilities of the creature housed within. That is, if it could be described as a creature at all.
No, Doctor’s favourite name for it had always been “the Monstrosity”. It felt fitting.
“Whoa!” Buddy gasped, perhaps thanking his strong constitution for once. In the pale light of the hallway, one could barely make out strange shapes along the edges of the walls. Half of the room seemed covered in some sort of plastic material obscuring the inside, but even then, one could clearly see something wet beneath it, glimmering like forgotten jewels.
It covered the walls, worms intertwining in pink patterns of should-not-be-seen. Hair-thin blood vessels nestled within the furrows, providing artificially-oxidized blood to the hundreds of trillions of neurons. Brain matter painted the walls, bulging and growing and moving, ripe for transplant.
On the other side, a similar sight could be seen, with a slightly different subject.
It was a maze of gums, swirling in ridged patterns, every part of the perverted hedge-maze sporting a toothy crown.
One side of the room grew gums and teeth, the other grew brain matter. It was a sight that never failed to make Doctor appalled. It was disgusting, after all. What he’d done. What this was.
Buddy disagreed. “Whoa! This must be the Gums ‘n Dumbs room!”
Doctor perked an eyebrow. “Where in the world did you hear that?”
“Huh? Oh, I’ve rewatched your interviews, like, a lot, and… You said it once, and I couldn’t get it out of my mind, heh,” Buddy said, smiling as a flush painted his cheeks red. Somehow, Doctor hated the thought of having fans. Especially because of his creation.
Sighing, Doctor turned towards the door. “Are you done?”
Buddy was about to answer when the both of them heard a sound. A strange sound, like that of naked feet and hands skittering across tiled floors. Doctor and Buddy shared a look, and exited into the hall. They saw nothing, but both of them knew the other had heard it as well. If Doctor’s memory served, it came from just down the hall.
Doctor made a sign for Buddy to follow, and they went towards the only room that could possibly have been the cause of such a noise. Soon enough, they both came to a stop in front of a certain room. If Doctor had to decide on a single room he hated the most in this entire hospital, it would be this very room. Just opening the door revealed exactly why.
Along a wall, hundreds of lazy eyes stared wide and alive into nothing. Along another, noses, ears and skin stretched across the entirety of the room. Throat-less mouths gaped, lips flapping soundlessly.
Finally, hair hung in clutters from the ceiling, dark and black like a greasy dark abyss. He hated this room. The eyes seemed to glance at him, and he couldn’t help but feel all too heard. He could already tell Buddy was about to gush about something odd, but he didn’t care for that. What he cared for was the open ventilation shaft. In these rooms, there were only three parts of the room not covered in skin and flesh, apart from the floor. This was the ventilation shaft, the door and the blood pipe. Something here was off. Wrong.
The eyes were looking at him. One at a time, they peered into his eyes, seeing his sin and his lacking virtue.
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The door slammed behind them, forcing Doctor to rip his gaze from the walls and spin around to face the door. He didn’t even hesitate to stride up to it to try and force it open, jerking the doorknob in an attempt to get it open. It remained fast. Cursing under his breath Doctor fished out his card, attempting to swipe it. The card-reader flashed green, but when he tried to open the door, he found it as steadfast as a boulder.
Something scuttled in front of the door. They weren’t locked in, something was keeping them in. A chill ran up Doctor’s spine.
“D-, Doctor?...” Buddy stuttered.
The next second, the lights all went out. Darkness descended upon the hospital like a winged raven, forcing a new form of panic onto Doctor and his assistant. He tried to push the door again, placing the entirety of his body weight upon it, and yet he lacked. “-Help me, boy!”
Buddy scrambled towards the door, bumping shoulders with Doctor only to get close enough to help him push. The second he pressed his body against the door, it flew open, forcing the two scientists to clatter to the floor, tumbling over each other. Was it Doctor’s imagination, or did the floor feel somewhat wet? He took a whiff of his hand, and couldn’t help but admit that it did smell quite a lot like the preservatives they use on the Monstrosity. It had the same kind of alcoholic sting.
He quickly rose to his feet, scrubbing off whatever liquids remained on his hand on the edge of his coat. After a few moments, Buddy also followed along, though Doctor could barely tell in the pitch black darkness. The only connecting facet between the two were their interlocked breaths. Quick, shallow breaths, almost gasping in the humid air.
In that stumbling darkness, they heard something.
A scream. A shriek, almost, tearing through the halls, rousing panic and terror in both Doctor and Buddy.
Doctor bolted down the hall. Whether it was to save someone else or to save himself, not even he knew. Cheap, empty breaths clawed through his throat, drowning out his hare-heart’s beats. He wished all he could hear was his boots rapping against the floor, but that wasn’t it. He wished all he could smell was the medicinic and sterile air of the hospital, but that wasn’t it either.
Every breath he drew in contained the choking sting of alcohol, and ever step he took was followed by a slimy scuttling just down the dall.
They were running towards something, pursued.
Thinking about what it was made his mind race with the impossibility of it. It couldn’t be that. It’s skin and flesh was imprisoned where it grew: in rooms and on walls! It couldn’t move. Not now, not ever.
Before Doctor knew it, he reached the end of the hallway, namely a locked door leading into another section of the hospital. All he needed was his ID card and his code to get through it. Nothing less, nothing more.
It was dark. He could barely see the card-reader, but he knew this process better than anyone. He fumbled through the darkness, hands groping after the card-reader, when all of a sudden he heard something that made him stop in his tracks. Something that made his blood run cold.
It was a sound. A mere sound and nothing more.
Like bones grating against metal.
He turned back towards the hallway and realized now that he was alone. His footsteps may not have been alone, but he hadn’t heard Buddy’s either.
He drew a sharp breath. In the darkness, he saw nothing.
Nothing but the glistening, slippery flesh of something that wasn’t supposed to have gotten out.
In this moment, he made a decision. A decision about what could save his life. And that decision was to turn back to the door, and draw his card. The wet scuttling continued behind him. He did not turn around. He swiped the card. In the moist movements, he heard thudding, like that of elbows and knees hitting the floor. He did not turn around. He punched in the code. The smell of alcohol made his eyes water. He did not turn around. Even when he could hear the breathing of too-many mouths, he did not turn around.
Not until he threw himself through the door, and slammed it closed behind him. His chest heaved in frozen panic. A little red lamp blinked, proving the door had locked itself. He peered into the darkness on the other side.
Nothing. It was dark, and he saw nothing.
He knew it was there. He knew it had escaped, and…
And he didn’t know where Buddy was.
He sunk down on his knees, white coat collapsing onto the floor, and let his mind take him by hand. Something had happened. Something was different. Was it sentient? Could it think? Did it wish for vengeance against him? It’d be right to. He deserved this.
In some increments, that is. Creating this abomination had been a sin, no doubt about that, but think of the lives he had saved! How many people had evaded paying dire sums for a prosthetic arm or leg? How many lives had been saved by gaining a new heart? How many blind people had been granted sight? How much virtue had this sin granted upon the world?
Was it so wrong, if it did so much right?
Yes. It was.
What he did was a sin beyond that of the cardinal, and he deserved the appropriate punishment for it.
...But Buddy did not.
Buddy is blameless, an innocent among the guilty. Whatever the Monstrosity has done to him, he does not deserve it. And as the creator of the Monstrosity… It was Doctor’s duty, his only duty, to put this right. Whatever the cost, he must right this wrong.
Picking himself off the floor, he wanders. He has nothing but determination. The darkness festers in the corridors, painting the white a dark, haunting blue that Doctor can never quite place. His eyes slowly adjust. In the distance, around corners that seem too far away and too close all at ones, he notices movements. The shadows sway and flicker in those places, arms and eyes and fleshy protrusions dancing beyond his vision, but when he comes close, it stills.
Hoping it is naught but his paranoia clouding his mind, he continues.
He hears nothing. When he comes to a stop, he finds himself outside the room containing teeth and brain matter. He swiped his card, and steps inside. Absently, he notes how half of the room, the part containing those labyrinths of teeth and gums, is entirely missing. All that remains are slimy snail-patterns of alcohol and embalming fluid.
The other side remains unchanged, a wide expanse of brain matter, swirling and pulsating and moving. If he wished to, he could put an end to it right here and now. All he would need is his own body and guts.
Shaking his head, he dismissed the idea. This was his life’s work, and destroying it would simply leave a bad taste in his mouth.
There was a thud outside the door.
His head swiveled around, and all fears that the door might have been thrown closed were extinguished, as it remained open. Something else had happened. No longer was he naïve enough to run outside. Careful and alert, he stepped outside, looked both ways, and promptly found Buddy, propped up against the wall.
“Buddy!” Doctor exclaimed, throwing himself at the young boy.
His eyes were half-closed, mouth open just a smidge. Though his posture was lax and hunched, there was a tension in his muscles that Doctor couldn’t ignore. Every limb he had seemed to be twitching, as if someone was periodically sending beats of electricity through him. “...Who did this to you?...”
Buddy’s eyes flare open.
Wide and staring, they dart about the room and he jerks into a sitting position. Something is wrong. He hunches over, hand pressed tightly against his mouth as if to puke. Doctor placed a hand on his shoulder. His young body tenses up a final time as his mouth opens and something escapes it. Like a snake, an entire intestine slithered out of his open mouth, accompanied by yellow gall and stomach acids and everything a man can find in a stomach. The young boy lurched and the intestine curled up on the floor in a pink heap.
Both parties stared at it, but they couldn’t stare for long before it appeared.
It was dark, and yet, Doctor could see it perfectly. Large and hulking. Flesh draped and folded like thick cloth. Liquids dripped off of it and down onto the floor. It filled the entire hallway. It’s arms reached the roof, where countless gaping eyes and mouths competed for place, shifting here and there as the Monstrosity couldn’t possibly have place for both.
It was so much. So, so much.
Like a large slug, it heaved closer to the pair, walking on too-many too-weak legs that carried it on feet and knees and whatever it could. As if someone had draped flesh over it. It had no context, no coherence, no combining factor that put it all together. And yet, all eyes were on him.
Buddy whimpered, stood up, and ran away. Doctor did not follow him, and neither did the Monstrosity.
They examined each other. That is the best way Doctor could describe it. He saw his creation, and his creation saw him. There was no malice in those eyes, nothing that told him there was anything to say. The mouths, open and silent, the ears, listening but deaf.
It approached him. Gently, it dragged its heavy body, unfit for life, and came closer to what created it. Doctor did not move. He watched it approach, and prepared himself for his end. This wouldn’t be a bad way to go. It would be alright. He wouldn’t go out with fireworks or in a hospital bed. He’d never longed for that.
In silence, he watched the Monstrosity take up more and more of his vision, until all he could see was skin and flesh and limbs and mouths and eyes, eyes that saw him and only him.
The limbs stretched out towards him. They trembled, each and every one of them.
Those fingers touched him, those hands clasped around his body, those arms lifted him, took him close, and held him close. The eyes closed, and the mouths opened.
“Never leave me,” it said. “Never leave me for another, never take someone else’s hand, never leave me, father.” The arms tightened around him as the Monstrosity trembled. “I forgive you, so please, please forgive me.”
Doctor shivered. Moved.
And forgave it.