Page 29

A rabbit.

A small white rabbit hops toward me, stopping when he's a few steps away. His eyes are bloody red as he looks upon me.

It blinks. Then it runs.

I don't know why, but I follow, running after the tiny creature until I hit a brick wall, my entire body reeling from the impact.

"What…" I whisper, raising my head to regard the looming wall. Even as I look to the sky, I cannot seem to find its end point.

"Here," I hear a voice call to me, and without even thinking I follow. The voice gets increasingly louder, until I find myself in another room, this time filled with children.

I'm in the middle of the crowd as tens of children swarm around me, all of them screaming and yelling and protesting something.

Suddenly, they turn their eyes on me, noticing my presence for the first time. Their features draw up in anger and they give a shout before chasing me.

I don't even know how I evade them. I just run and run and run. My feet carry me to places I shouldn't be able to access. My body reacts first, and then my mind follows.

I watch how under my eyes, the background changes again, walls erecting around me, steel machinery appearing everywhere.

"That's it, my little miracle," I hear someone say, his breath next to my ear. "The aorta is the largest artery in the body. You've learned your lesson well," he praises, putting a silver tray with different instruments in front of me.

"Let's see how you put it into practice, too. Dissect the aorta from beginning to end, and you may earn a prize."

I nod, grabbing on to the instruments that I know by name by now. Every step, every technical term, it's embedded in my mind as I start the dissection, cutting into live flesh, the screams of my subject deafening, yet so familiar that I don't even mind them.

I am entirely focused on pleasing the man watching behind me, knowing that if I do, the reward will be good indeed — and not only for me.

I bring the scalpel down on his chest, removing all skin and flesh from bone, cutting into muscle until the sternum is visible.Then, I switch to different instruments to open his chest cavity to get access to his heart.

Blood comes out in spurts, my technique new and unpracticed. But I don't mind it as my sole goal is to bring this to an end and get my sister a new set of clothes.

Sister.

Where did that thought come from?

I have a sister?

I raise my head up from the opened up carcass in front of me, and I seeher.

She's small, so excruciatingly small as she holds onto the rabbit I'd chased earlier. She notices me looking at her and she turns to me slowly, giving me a dazzling smile.

"You're back, brother," she whispers, warmth dripping from her tone.

"V…" I start, the name stuck on my tongue.

A light tremor goes through my surroundings, mounting until the very building I'm in starts shaking, the walls crumbling.

"V!" I yell to her, extending my hand out to her to get her to safety. But she just shakes her head, her arms tightening over the rabbit.

The entire structure collapses, and yet none of the debris touches me.

I blink and waves start crashing into me, the water so red you'd think it was blood.

"Run," I hear Vanya's voice in my head, so I do, the waves following me. One look back and like a tsunami, the waves are becoming taller and taller.

I open my mouth to reply to her, but everything happens at once. The water swallows me whole, inundating my senses. I taste the metallic hint of blood in my mouth, and as I try my best to fight against it, I can't do anything as I start choking on it.

"You shouldn't have come here, brother," my sister tells me as she slowly comes toward me. I'm still coughing up blood, the scenery changed again.