Chapter 4

Sabrina's POV

"Why would you say something so depressing?" My father gripped the steering wheel tighter and shot me a look in the rearview mirror. "We were planning to make it up to you after this, give you something nice, and you say that?"

Gilbert twisted around in his seat. "Sabrina, that's not funny."

Yvonne squeezed my hand and put on her concerned face. "Don't joke like that, you're scaring everyone."

I looked at all of them staring at me, waiting for me to apologize.

"I was just kidding," I said.

My mother relaxed back into her seat. "Don't say things like that, it's bad luck."

The research facility came into view ahead of us, this gray concrete building surrounded by high fences with no windows on the ground floor.

The car stopped and I got out.

"We'll be back in a month," my father said through the window. "Be good."

Gilbert waved at me and Yvonne blew me a kiss.

I walked through the entrance alone and the door locked behind me with this heavy metallic click.

A man in a white coat met me in the hallway with a badge that said Dr. Wallace.

"Ms. Collins," he said. "Follow me."

The room was small with white walls, a metal examination table.

"Sit," Dr. Wallace said.

I sat down on the table and he strapped my arms down, then my legs.

"This will help us monitor your reactions," he said.

Another person came in, a woman also in a white coat with a badge that said Dr. Myers.

They stopped talking to me after that and just moved around the room preparing instruments I couldn't see clearly from where I was strapped down.

Dr. Wallace came toward me with a scalpel in his hand.

"We need tissue samples," he said.

The blade touched my arm and I bit down hard on the inside of my cheek to keep from screaming.

They cut small pieces from my arm, my leg, my shoulder, and each cut brought excruciating pain, they didn't even give me anesthesia.

Then the injections started, one after another, these different colored liquids being pushed into my veins.

The days after that just blurred together into this endless cycle of more cuts, more injections, more pain.

I lost track of what day it was because everything hurt too much to think straight.

On the third day, or maybe the fourth, Dr. Wallace stopped halfway through giving me another injection.

"Your reactions are unusual," he said, staring at his clipboard with this confused frown.

I could barely get the words out. "I have cancer."

His head snapped up. "What?"

"Stage four stomach cancer. Three months to live."

Dr. Wallace just stared at me for a second, then walked out of the room fast without saying anything else.

I heard him talking on the phone in the hallway, his voice carrying through the door.

"Did you know Ms. Collins has cancer?" he was asking someone.

A pause.

"Stage four, she just told me."

Another pause.

"Are you certain?"

Then he came back inside and looked at me differently now, like he thought I was lying to him.

"Your family says you're lying," he said. "They think you're trying to get out of the trial."

"I'm not lying."

"They were very clear, no cancer. They said you might make up stories to avoid helping your cousin."

I closed my eyes and didn't say anything else.

Dr. Wallace picked up another syringe. "We'll continue as planned."

The pain got worse after that because my body just couldn't handle what they were doing to me.

I knew I was dying.

On the seventh day my heart just stopped beating.

I opened my eyes and found myself standing in the corner of the room looking down at my own body still strapped to that metal table.

My skin had gone this awful gray color, covered in cuts and injection marks and these strange red rashes spreading everywhere. My eyes were still open but completely empty.

Dr. Wallace walked in a few minutes later already talking.

"Ms. Collins, we need to—" He stopped dead.

He rushed over to my body and checked for a pulse, pressing his fingers to my neck, then put his ear against my chest listening for a heartbeat that wasn't there anymore.

"No, no, no," he kept saying. "This wasn't supposed to happen."

He grabbed his phone with shaking hands.

Dr. Myers ran into the room. "What's wrong?"

"She's dead," Dr. Wallace said.

Dr. Myers's face went completely white. "We need to call someone, we need to—"

"No." Dr. Wallace cut her off. "Her family is coming here today to pick up the medication for the cousin."

"What do we do?"

"Get her to the morgue right now."

They moved incredibly fast after that, Dr. Myers brought in a gurney and they lifted my body onto it and threw a sheet over me.

They took me to the morgue.

"We need to leave," Dr. Wallace said. "Tonight."

"But her family—"

"We'll tell them she needs another month, that should give us enough time to disappear."

They rushed back upstairs and I followed them.

About an hour later I heard voices coming from upstairs, voices I recognized.

"We're here to pick up Yvonne's medication," my father said.

Dr. Wallace answered. "Of course, Mr. Collins, I have it ready for you."

"And Sabrina?" My mother asked. "How is she doing?"

"The trial is going very well, but we need to extend it by a few more weeks. Her reactions have been quite promising and we want to gather more data."

"A few more weeks?" Gilbert sounded disappointed.

"These things take time," Dr. Wallace said. "She's doing excellent work for your cousin's sake, you should all be very proud."

"Can we see her?" Yvonne asked.

"I'm afraid not, we need to maintain completely sterile conditions during the testing phase. But she's perfectly healthy and she'll be ready to come home in about a month."

"A month," my father repeated. "Fine, we'll come back then."

"Thank you for your patience."

I heard footsteps, then the front door opening and closing, then a car engine starting up.

They were just leaving me here.

Then I watched Dr. Wallace pull a passport out of his desk drawer.

The name on it said Glenn Webb, not Dr. Wallace at all.

Dr. Myers's passport said Sarah Mitchell.

They finished packing and left through the back door, a car engine started, and then there was just silence.

I was completely alone.

The hours passed, then turned into days.

My body started to smell because the morgue wasn't cold enough to actually stop decomposition.

I stood in the corner just watching, unable to leave here, unable to do anything.

Rats found their way into the building after a few days because they could smell death.

I had to watch them eat parts of me.

The smell got worse and flies showed up, then more rats.

I wanted to look away but I physically couldn't, I was trapped here with my own rotting corpse.

Weeks went by and my body was barely recognizable anymore.

I stopped counting the days after a while because what was even the point?

Then one day I heard voices again coming from upstairs, right by the entrance.

"Sabrina! Time to come home!"