And then it expanded, making her throat bulge, exceeding the limits of the advanced numbing agent as skin and cartilage shifted, trying to accommodate, lest she tear.
It didn’t matter.
With a single, ominous chirp, the thing pierced her throat, popping through the delicate skin above her collarbones. Below her voice box.
Rendered mute, she bucked, eyes bulging behind the lids and rolling in their sockets, she writhed. Sweat beading on every inch of exposed flesh, in spite of the cold. Veins standing out against flushed, warm skin. Pulse pounding in her ears. Unable to scream much less fight for her life.
Another beep. Another spine lancing into the freezing air, slick with blood as it matched the other. Both points of agonizing pain standing out against her collarbones.
Calves flexed, her back bowed. Trying to force the thing out.
Beep.
Pop. Three legs standing rigid in the frost.
A cramp knotted the sole of her left foot, a blissful distraction from the thing playing house in her airway and the sick monsters cooing gentle, loving songs as it moved in.
Beep!
Pop. Skin breaking. Cartilage cracking in an oval around her voice box.
Strong fingers worked at her cramp, kneading the painful, distracting gift away.
Beep!
Five. Five spiny arms waving a gory salute to her captors. And her, without the energy to manage a proper flinch. No, not with the dark stars returning to glimmer at the edge of narrowed vision. Sparkling with the onset of blessed unconsciousness.
Beeeep!
A sixth, and final spine burst through tattered flesh. Her new parasite squawked, shrill, using her throat to speak to its owners.
Humming, the man withdrew his fingers, letting her draw a rattling, ragged breath at last. Preventing her from slipping into the dark as he moved away, he left her trembling on the gurney, pierced and bleeding, airway partially blocked.
He was back before she’d had time to flex her fingers. Setting something heavy and warm in the center of the spines, speaking in quick, guttural sentences interspersed with whistles and clicks the likes of which she’d never heard before. A rare African dialect, perhaps? Or possibly Amazonian?
The nestling in her throat responded to the man’s voice, and with a metallic click, the spines snapped shut. Locking in place. One inside, the other out. Some clutching the warm thing they’d been given, while two bent backward to pierce the flesh over her carotid arteries. Seeking better purchase with metal teeth sunk deep, yet they must have avoided a killing blow, for there was no flood of hot life-blood spraying over her nudity. Offering a touch of warmth before her spirit drained away.
No. There was only the pain as the thing burrowed in, getting comfy, clicking and adjusting its seat over her voice box. Wriggling deep.
Above her, the man spoke. Was answered by the metallic thing poking through her flesh by way of a final, morbid beeeep! before it flashed hot. Searing her insides.
But before she could even begin to fight, he tangled those sticky digits in her sweat-damp tresses, and pulled the bit from between her molars. Keeping her motionless as her new voice box sent tendrils of molten steel pulsing throughout her nerves. Into her brain stem and twinning about her spinal cord. Becoming one with her skin, bones, and tendons.
Gentle now, he twisted her head to the left, freeing her from the clamp keeping her immobile and laying her cheek against the gurney and brushed damp hair off her nape.
She groaned, nostrils filled with his musty scent, the copper tang of her own blood, and the charred smoke of pork strip-loin on a hot barbecue. Her own cooked flesh was thick on her tongue, making the empty pit in her stomach beg and whine—which was a degree of morbid she wasn’t remotely prepared to cope with.
Not with that faceless man and his female partner mucking around with her vitals. Not when she heard the distinct sound of another metallic something being dragged toward her, screeching and scraping on the floor.
It was then, as she lay there staring at the back of her eyelids without the strength to react, that she realized two things. Whatever had been done to her throat was permanent, and she was in shock.
Shock was the only thing capable of explaining why she couldn’t be bothered to whimper or fight. Her body’s way of protecting her mind when everything else was lost.
All of this should matter. Her heart rate should be elevated to dangerous levels. Palms sweaty. It wouldn’t be unexpected if she’d lost control of her faculties at some point, messing all over herself.
But she hadn’t. Couldn’t bring herself to get too worked up about anything at all.
Perhaps the slime had a sedative effect, even if they’d foregone the courtesy of truly knocking her out during their macabre experiments.
The man was speaking now, soft. His partner responding in kind, though they were both too far away to rouse her. So close… Blissful nothingness only a few seconds away…
He lifted her skull. Bringing her back with a jolt from her inner ear, and she tried to blink through her fused lids when he set something hot against the back of her skull.
It whirred to life, the high-pitched whine of a dentist’s drill boring into her skull. Communicating with her new voice box and the searing tendrils branching out beneath her skin. When she heard the click of the two objects joining, she knew it was permanent, even without her sight or being able to speak the language.
But she couldn’t bring herself to care. Not when he pressed one of his filthy, sticky fingers to the center of her new voice box and her nerves gave one final, pathetic lurch before they lit up all at once. Sending lightning through her brain as her limbs writhed and danced beneath the kiss of fire at the base of her brain stem.
A strangled, inhuman scream tore itself free from her ravaged throat, numbness be damned. Rupturing something unseen. Gargling blood, she sobbed. Unable to shed her tears. Uncaring if she aspirated and died right then and there, if only someone would take the hot embers out from under her skin!
Panting, she came back to herself. Muscles twitching. Skin warm, in spite of the frigid air.
“They make such pretty sounds, don’t they?” A hand traveled down her flank. Caressing. “If this one survives, I think I shall like to have a whole collection of them, dearest.”
“Mhm,” a man hummed, and a moment later, a warm cloth brushed over her collarbones and throat. “They breed quickly enough. This mammalian species can have litters with as many as—” he paused, as if searching for the information, “—twelve young. Though that’s quite rare, according to the directory. Far more likely to have a single pup.”
“Yes, well, we can always adjust her birth rate, can’t we?” A cluck, and those hands continued petting. Sticky fingers wandering. “Look at all this lovely, stretchy skin! She could carry a hundred, if we wanted her to. Just keep her suspended in fluid until the pups are full-term…”
A finger traced her vulva, making her flinch.
“Oh! She’s coming around!” the woman cried, elated. “Hurry up. I want to see what color her eyes are. I’ve heard this species can have a whole range.”
“She’s not your pet, Filvtra. You mustn’t allow yourself to become attached,” he said, but a moment later, applied the cloth to eyes sealed shut, dissolving the solution and returning sight. “Come now, little human. Wakey, wakey.”
In spite of the urge to succumb to the day’s trauma, his words landed with enough force to keep her conscious. Human. She was human. The word rang with truth, giving her a second wind and driving her to do as her tormentor commanded. And with a morbid sort of curiosity, the little human did as she was bade.