Part 15
It was late in the evening before Doctor Travis Pearson arrived home. He stood at the front doors of his father's mansion, clutching a white box wrapped with a large red ribbon under his right arm. His left hand fumbling through the contents of his pocket for his keys.
Years ago he had graduated college and gone onto medical school, graduating at the top of his class. After short stints at several hospitals he returned home.With his father's money went about converting the basement of the mansion into his own personal hospital and laboratory. His assistants came and went, most vanishing mysteriously never to be heard from again.
He kept his studies and experiments closely guarded, rarely ever speaking of them to anyone but his various assistants. His father left him to his own devices rarely wondering what the experiments were, surely whatever his studies were it would be for the benefit of mankind; perhaps a cure for cancer or something of that ilk.
Doctor Pearson drew his keys from his pocket and clumsily tried to pick out the front door key before finally clasping the brass door knock and banging it loudly against the door in frustration. Moments later the door opened and he barged inside past Henry, their butler.
"Have you forgot your keys again, Master Travis?" Henry asked.
Travis murmured intelligibly and rushed downstairs to his laboratory as Henry closed the front door behind him. His feet pounded down the concrete stairs, the door slamming shut as he hurried down the staircase.
He found the fruit of his labors sitting on the couch the waiting room of his laboratory, watching television. His creation was a young woman with large brown eyes and light brown hair. Her body was covered in scars from head to toe, some patches were pale, some were more olive in color, others were light brown. Wrapped around her frame was a white linen hospital gown.
"Subject Seven," he called out, holding the package behind his back.
The woman looked back at him and rose from the couch, her mismatched feet scuffing across the blue microfiber carpeting and onto the white linoleum to Doctor Pearson.
"Yes?" She asked.
"Do you know what today is?" He asked with a smile.
"August the thirteenth," she replied.
"That is correct," he said with a nod. "But today is special. Do you know why?"
She craned her head, trying to peer behind him.
"What do you have behind your back?" She asked.
"I'll show you if you can guess why today is special," he insisted.
Subject Seven squinted, "I thought that I was your secret, when have you hidden things from me?"
"Damn it, Seven!" He shouted, his brow furrowing.
"Yom Kippur," she guessed, knowing the answer was wrong.
A moment passed and once again the smile returned to Doctor Pearson's face, "No, it's your birthday!"
Her eyebrow raised, "No, it is not."
He nodded, "It is, a year ago you took your first breath."
She scoffed, "I was not born. I was created."
His hand came swinging around, his palm snapping against her left cheek.
"It's your birthday because I say it's your fucking birthday!" He shouted at her.
Her teeth clenched tight and she took a deep breath.
Once again his hand swung around, cracking against the side of her face. The familiar impact shook her but caused no pain.
Subject Seven reached back in retaliation, hurling her fist forward. It drove into Doctor Pearson's teeth, knocking loose his bottom two incisors with a spray of blood. He dropped to the floor, the package tumbling between his legs. He scrambled backward into a corner and she stormed across the tile floor, following after him.
Seven towered over Doctor Pearson in her hospital gown while he cowered in the corner of the laboratory. His gray eyes filled with fear as he stared up at her, his forearm held above his head.
Her bare right foot lifted from the white linoleum floor and came crashing down with full force against his chest. Beneath her foot his ribs cracked like twigs, the broken bones puncturing his left lung and he let out a great gasp for air.
"Seven, y-you can't do this to me," he said, inhaling sharply and whincing.
"Tell me why I should not," Subject Seven said, glaring down at him huddling in the corner like a frightened child.
"Through all of the suffering and misery that is my existence you beg for my mercy. What makes you think that you are deserving?"
He gasped, "Because, I-I created you. I brought you to life again. You exist because of me. I am . . . your father."
She reached down suddenly, clasping her thin fingers against his throat, her fingers gripping around his trachea.
Her brown eyes pierced his, "You did not create me, you merely pieced me together. You sewed together appendages, leaving me a hideous, patchwork miscreation. This existence you have given me is a curse. You are not my father, I am a monster created by another breed of monster. Since I first awoke on that godforsaken table until now I have suffered your abuse. You neglected to even give me a name and refer to me as what I am. Countless operations to replace my failing pieces, even more to repair the work of your misdeeds."
seven's fingers tightened further as the doctor gasped for every breath.
"I think that it is time for you to be treated as you have treated me," she said quietly.
With a swing of her arm, Subject Seven hurled him across the floor watching as he crashed against the operating table. She stormed over to him, taking quick determined steps. Again her foot came down at him, her heel digging into his back, crushing several vertebrae as he simultaneously let out an echoing scream through the laboratory.
"Please don't do this, Seven. I promise that I will never hurt you again," he whimpered, curling up into a ball.
Seven seized his throat and lifted him from the floor, slamming him down hard on the table. Doctor Pearson let out another scream. Seven's hands quickly seized the leather restraint straps and cuffed his left arm and leg to the table.
He began wriggling violently, attempting to escape. Subject Seven's hand reached to the surgery tray at the foot of the table. Her delicate fingers gripping a scalpel, with a vicious swing of her arm she drove the blade into his right knee.
"You taught me well, Doctor, perhaps I can create my own monster from your parts," she growled as she buckled the restraint around his right ankle.
"No, no," he whined, his eyes full of desperation.
Seven restrained his right wrist to the table.
Hours passed as Doctor Pearson laid restrained to the table as his creation sliced his torso open and removed various organs, clamping off arteries and breaking his ribs individually. His screams and pleads for mercy went ignored. Eventually he went unconscious from the pain, only to be awoken by the excruciating feeling of her live autopsy.
"Subject Seven," he said, his voice hoarse and barely audible.
She drove the scalpel into his appendix, "Yes?"
He let out a whimpering groan and said, "You can't live without me. This is your home. You won't be able to survive in the outside world."
His eyes closed slowly and she watched while his exposed heart ceased its beating and his lungs deflated.
Her eyebrows furrowed and she twisted the scalpel lodged in his appendix only to receive no reaction. She removed her bloody hands from his torso and let out a sigh.
She stood beside the operating table where a year ago she had taken her first breath, staring at his lifeless body covered in blood and spread open before her.
"You are wrong, Travis," she murmured.
Minutes later she found herself sitting on the shower room floor, the water pouring down over her. She watched as the blood swirled down the drain. Her mind was full of memories. All of the times he had beaten her, using her as a punching bag to vent his frustrations. All of the broken bones that had to be set or put into casts. The dark bruises that would cover her body. The sex that he routinely forced upon her.
Her hair hung in her eyes drenched with water, hiding the one part of her body that seemed to match. The head that he had stolen or lopped off like all of her other parts.
As the water washed away the blood she rose to her feet and turned to the wall, both hands clasping the knobs and turning them toward each other. The water dripped from the shower head and she returned to the operating room.
Lying on the floor was the white box wrapped with a red bow. Subject Seven bent down and snatched it up into her hands. She set the box beside Doctor Pearson's body and tugged at the bow, unwrapping her present. Carefully she lifted the lid from the box and peered inside. She tossed the lid of the box away and drew out the pink cloth that was inside. She held it in front of her and watched it unfurl.
A pink dress.
Her eyes scowled at the dress and she tossed it onto the surgery tray.
"Asshole," she muttered as she scowled at his corpse, her hands reaching behind her neck to untie the knot that held her hospital gown to her body.
Seven's hands slid down to the middle of her back and her fingers untied the second knot. The linen gown dropped to the floor before her and she pulled the dress from the tray. Her hands lifted the dress up over her head and pulled it down over her body. She slipped her hands around to her back and slowly tugged the zipper up to the back of her neck.
She stepped forward and reached into Doctor Pearson's pocket, drawing out his keys from his left pocket. She circled around the table, slipping her hand into his right front pocket. She felt his leather wallet and snatched it from his pocket.
Quickly Seven's feet passed over the linoleum floor to the staircase. Her small feet pounded up the concrete steps and she flung open the door entering the vestibule of the mansion. Her eyes turned to the double doors and she spun both knobs, hurling the doors open to take her first steps outside.
She stumbled down the front steps and rushed to the black sedan parked outside the garage in front of the estate. She tugged at the car door handle only to find it was locked. One by one she began driving keys into the keyhole below the door handle.
After several keys the door unlocked and she climbed into the driver's seat. She shoved the key into the ignition and turned it. The engine roared to life. Her feet mashed down on the pedals and the engine roared louder. She looked to the gearshift, pulled the lever into drive and smashed her foot against the gas pedal.
With a loud screech the car sped forward, slamming into the white garage door with a loud metallic crash. With a gasp Seven pressed her foot to the brake pedal. Her eyes turned back to the gears and she lifted the lever into reverse. Hesitantly she pushed on the gas pedal and the car pulled out of the garage, the ruined door toppled to the ground.