Whump Side Blog

Knox blinked some more and tried once again to speak. He could taste some foreign object in his mouth, made of a rubber of some kind. Knox swallowed and a spasm suddenly shook his entire body; there was a tube running through his mouth and down his throat, blocking it off entirely.

“The hemophage has regained consciousness,” a second voice spoke. This one was younger, but with that same disconnected tone. “Make a note: approximately 1.6 liters of blood were consumed before the hemophage became active.”

As the men spoke, Knox looked around, squeezing his eyes shut once more before opening them. He looked straight up and around first, confused, muffled noises escaping him as he took in the appearances of the trio of men, all of whom were wearing lab coats and rubber gloves. On each of their lapels was pinned a small silver symbol: it looked like a crescent moon with an arrow spearing through it. One of the men held a digital audio recorder by his face and was speaking into it as he looked Knox over with a clinical disinterest.

Am I in a hospital? No, they...they said they fed me blood...but...that means they know I’m a...

Knox followed his gaze. He froze and his eyes widened; Knox was strapped down onto a clean stainless steel slab, his arms and legs tightly restrained with thick bands of metal. He was completely unclothed; he could feel the uncomfortable coldness of the steel on his bare skin.

A doctor (these can’t really be doctors, can they? This is illegal, isn’t it?!) wheeled over a metal tray, its contents just out of eyesight from Knox’s position on the table. Knox craned his neck to look, but he couldn’t sit upright enough to see. Then, there was movement and Knox tensed as the third man reached for his face, gripping hold of the tube that had been forced down his throat.

With a practiced motion, the doctor began to pull the tube out, one gloved hand pressed to Knox’s forehead to hold him down. As the rubber object was withdrawn, agonizingly slowly, Knox gagged, instinctively arching his back as the tube rubbed painfully against his insides. Finally, the end of the tube left Knox’s throat, and he tasted the remnants of the blood that had been flowing through it and into his stomach moments before.

Knox coughed harshly, blood flecking at his lips, and looked at the three men with wide, panicked eyes. “Wh...what the hell is this?!” he rasped out, his voice harsh and frightened. Nobody responded to him.

“The hemophage has no visible external injuries or marks,” the doctor with the recorder continued as if Knox hadn’t even spoken, “We will begin the internal examination with a Y incision, starting at the top of each shoulder-”

“W-wait…” Knox’s voice was soft. To his left, he saw another man pick up something from the tray he had wheeled out. It was a scalpel.

The man lowered the blade to Knox’s bare shoulder. He flet the touch of the steel and cringed away, shaking his head with disbelief. “Wait...st...stop…” he breathed, terror gripping him like a vice around his throat.

Steel pierced flesh and Knox shut his eyes tightly; he clenched his hands into tight fists as the blade began to draw down his chest in a smooth line.

“And meeting directly below the sternum before extending to the pubic bone-”

Knox was shaking hard, breathing heavily through his nose. He could hear the sound of the flesh being parted. Pain like hot oil flowed over his body, numbing all thoughts from his brain.

“Once the initial incision is made-” Knox’s hyperventilating halted entirely and then he took in a sharp, agonized gasp of air, eyes widening as he felt the flesh peeling apart, “We can open the chest cavity. As you can see, we need to work quickly to counteract the hemophage’s naturally accelerated healing.”

Knox gasped again and then let out a harsh scream; the doctor had taken a pair of medical shears and was delicately snipping into the chest cavity. Meanwhile, the man with the recorder addressed one of the others.

“We’ll want to contain the remains in something quickly once we remove the sternum. Do you remember why that is, Anderson?” he asked with the tone of a professor in a lecture hall.

Anderson, the young man who had removed the feeding tube from Knox's throat, replied quickly, “Oh, it’s because a hemophage’s cells rapidly deteriorate when separated from the main body. Is that right, sir?”

“That’s right,” the first man replied, and Knox’s screaming grew louder, more desperate as he felt a hideous snapping sensation in his chest; the doctor added with some impatience, “Shut it up, will you, Anderson, I can’t think with it making that noise. Then we can move on to the examination of the internal organs.”

A thick piece of rubber was shoved into Knox’s mouth and strapped around his head tightly, all but silencing his screams. Bloody tears were beginning to trail down the sides of his face, staining the tips of his blonde hair.

The men continued speaking, but Knox couldn’t focus on them anymore. He was hyper-aware of the cracking of his ribs being parted from his sternum, then of the hideous, alien sensation of hand feeling around inside his rib cage.

“Make a note of its breathing, there. We’ve observed that, despite the hemophage’s lungs being vestigial, many of the juveniles still practice what you might call psychosomatic breathing. That is to say, when under duress, they imitate the natural behaviors of humans: breathing, vocalizations, and the like.”

“Nghhhhh!! Mm-mphhhh!!” Knox sobbed, shaking his head back and forth and trying to pull away from his assailant.

Knox bucked against his restraints, moaning into his gag as the assistant doctor continued to slide his scalpel into the flesh. Knox couldn’t see what he was cutting, but he could intimately feel the sensation of his organs being manipulated from the inside.

“It’s all instinctive, though, a sort of after-image,” continued the man, “Muscle contractions, but it doesn’t have any pain receptors. This is more of a social camouflage than anything. Now then, I think we should begin by removing the right lung-”

There was a sudden slam of a door, and Knox could hear a figure rapidly approaching. When he spoke, Knox opened his eyes in surprise; he recognized that light Scottish voice…

“I’m here from R&D,” the man who had entered said snappishly, “This is a cute exercise in anatomical analysis, but this one isn’t scheduled for requisition yet. We don’t have the storage space for it.”

“You’ve got to be kidding, we’ve already started,” Anderson, the younger doctor, replied irritably. Knox was panting, shuddering with pain as the cool air of the room brushed against his exposed chest cavity. The Scotsman replied brusquely, “That’s not my problem. Just leave, I’ll take care of storage; I’m sure there’re plenty of other specimens back in the vats.”

Muttering sullenly to each other, the three men nonetheless did as they were told. Knox turned his head to watch through eyes glazed over with exertion, and to take in the appearance of his rescuer: the wavy brown hair and dark blue eyes of Knox’s elder brother, Beathan.

The door closed behind the doctors and Beathan immediately dropped to his knees and began unstrapping Knox, starting with the gag. The cold look on his face was replaced with an expression of horror and concern. He pulled the gag out and Knox took in a shaky breath of air, trying to focus his gaze on his big brother.

“Oh, God, Knox, how did they get you?” Beathan breathed, releasing the rest of the straps in quick succession.

“I...I don’t…” Knox’s voice was faint; he could feel his blood drizzling around his sides and down his neck from where his skin was peeled open. Beathan shushed him, shaking his head with an almost desperate expression of worry on his face.

“N-no, never mind, it doesn’t matter,” he tried to reassure the teenager, lifting him off the slab and into his arms and standing up; his white lab coat swiftly began to stain crimson, “I’ve got you, Knox. Don’t worry, I’ve got you. You’re safe, I’m here.”

“...Beath...an…?” Knox mumbled, nearly inarticulate with pain.

Beathan hugged Knox closer to him, wrapping his arms around his brother protectively. “That’s right, Beathan’s here. I’m here. I’ve got you...I’ve got you…”