u/DrummerOk4846

There it is again. That smell of rotting foliage, of mushrooms moldering beneath skeleton trees. I can almost see the beetles and worms winding their way through the rot, chewing, always chewing. Nurse Loren said this is normal, that it would soon go away and I’d be back to perfect health. Or was that Nurse Clara? It doesn’t matter. The blanket presses down on me like a pile of stones as I watch my twin sister reach out to me from the ceiling. Her neck is smiling. She laughs, and her blood drips onto me. But I don’t reach out. I shut my eyes tight, and whisper the a-b-c’s. This has happened before, enough times that I can't be fooled. She isn’t really there. She’s inside me now. The surgery took hours and hours, but it worked. Her lovely heart beats next to mine, and her brain dreams fitfully, nestled against my own. They had to stretch me out to make her fit, but now she won’t have to fly away and leave me. We can share this flesh forever.

The laughter stops, and I open my eyes again. There, see? Nothing to worry about. She’s still here with me, still breathing and dreaming and existing. I try to look at her face, but they sewed it so close to mine that I can’t see it anymore. I know she’s beautiful, though. We are beautiful. Dr Withers said so, when I woke up and everything hurt. When I asked for a mirror, he said we didn’t need one. All I had to do was think of the prettiest thing in the world, and know that we were even more lovely. I picture us, all dolled up, in an advert or a poster, showing our perfect body to the world. Oh, how jealous they would all be.

Her eye opens, slowly. I can feel the iris contract in the sudden brightness of the room. Our lips are joined, so mine quiver with hers as she gathers a breath of sterile air. She makes a noise. It could’ve been a scream, but her throat is still healing. I reach across our stomachs to her bandaged arm, and gently hold her hand. Our hand.

 I whisper “Wakey wakey eggs and bakey”, and curl my end of our mouth into half a smile. Her brow tries to furrow, but it’s stapled to mine. It hurts.

“Hey, stop that! Everything’s OK now. You’re OK.” I soothe.

My words are slurred by the twisting of our lips in discordant emotion. She whimpers, and her eye flicks from the door, to the window, and finally stops on our wonderful body. Her teeth clench, and her eye goes wide. I feel a wetness on our cheek. My half-smile falters.

“What’s wrong? You should be happy. We get to be together forever. No more needles, or cold rooms, or machines. Once we’ve healed, we’ll run away and be stars!”

I push down the memory of the nurses taking her away from me over and over, and returning her with some fresh bruise or band aid. Or wheeling me in my metal chair into an eggshell room and shining lights through me and asking me questions and giving me cards to sort through and strapping wires to my head and- No! I won’t think of that. None of it matters anymore. It’s just us. Whole, complete, perfect us.

She stirs again, vainly struggling against the heavy blanket. Another tear. Another shriveled croak. I reinforce my smile, nearly tearing the delicate seams. We are one. We are beautiful. And soon, we will be free.