Riley
They didn't stop.
Three days. Maybe four. I lost count after the second time my heart stopped.
The table was my world now. The straps. The needles. The machines that beeped and hummed and screamed when my body did things bodies weren't supposed to do.
Dr. Marlow was always there. Always watching. Always taking notes.
"The third personality is stabilizing. But the host body is rejecting the changes. We're seeing tissue necrosis in the extremities."
I looked at my hands.
My fingers were black.
Not bruised. Not dirty. Black. Like the color had been drained out and replaced with something else. Something dead.
The nails had fallen off. Three of them. The beds underneath were soft. Wet. They smelled like rot.
"We're losing the fingers on the left hand. Prepare the amputation kit."
"No—"
"It's necessary. The necrosis is spreading. If we don't remove the digits, we'll lose the whole hand."
I watched them cut off my fingers.
No anesthesia. They'd stopped using that days ago. Said it interfered with the split. Said I needed to be present. Aware. Feeling.
The scalpel was small. Sharp. The doctor—not Marlow, someone else, someone whose name I never learned—pressed down between my middle and ring fingers.
I felt everything.
The skin splitting. The muscle separating. The scrape of the blade against bone.
I screamed. Not the first time. Not the last.
"Finger one removed. Applying cauterization."
The hot metal pressed against the wound. The smell of my own burning flesh filled the room. I vomited. There was nothing in my stomach. Just bile. Just acid. It burned my throat on the way up.
"Finger two. Prepare to separate at the proximal phalanx."
---
Hannah was screaming inside my head.
Not out loud. But I could hear her. Trapped somewhere deep. Watching through my eyes. Feeling through my skin.
"Make it stop. Please. Please make it stop."
"I can't," I thought back. "I can't make anything stop."
"Then let me out. Let me take over. I can't watch anymore—"
"You'll feel it too. If you come out, you'll feel everything."
"I already feel everything. I always have. That's the difference between us, Riley. You feel nothing. I feel too much. And right now, I'm feeling your fingers being cut off one by one."
I didn't have an answer for that.
---
The third finger came off.
Then the fourth.
Then the thumb.
My left hand was a stump now. Wrapped in bloody bandages. The pain was so loud I couldn't think. Couldn't see. Couldn't breathe.
"The host is going into shock. Blood pressure sixty over forty. Heart rate dropping."
"Administer epinephrine. Keep her conscious. We need her awake for the next phase."
The next phase.
There was always a next phase.
---
They injected something into my neck. My heart lurched. Pounded. I could feel it in my teeth. In my eyes. In the black stumps where my fingers used to be.
"The necrosis is spreading to the right hand now. Look."
Marlow held up my right arm. My fingers were gray. The nails were loose. One fell off when she touched it. Landed on my chest. I felt it land. A tiny weight. Like a dead insect.
"We're going to lose these too."
"Then take them," I said. My voice was a whisper. A croak. "Just take them. I don't care anymore."
"Oh, we will. But first, we need to test something else."
She set my arm down. Walked to the counter. Picked up a different syringe. The liquid inside was black. Thick. Like oil.
"This is a neural accelerant. It will heighten your sensory perception by approximately eight hundred percent. Every touch. Every sound. Every sensation will be magnified. Including pain."
"Why?"
"Because we need to see how much the third personality can withstand. Vessel is supposed to be the one who doesn't feel. The one who can endure anything. But if Vessel breaks... then the Project has failed."
She inserted the needle into my neck.
"Don't break, Riley. For your sake. And for Hannah's."
---
The world became needles.
Every sound was a spike in my skull. The hum of the lights. The beep of the machines. The doctor's breathing. All of it. Loud. Sharp. Painful.
Every touch was fire. The strap on my wrist. The cloth of my gown. The air on my skin. All of it. Burning. Tearing. Destroying.
And then they touched my hand.
The one with no fingers.
Someone—a nurse, an assistant, I couldn't see—pressed a cotton swab to the wound. To the raw flesh where my fingers used to be.
I felt every cell.
Every nerve ending. Every broken bone. Every drop of blood.
I felt the swab absorb the moisture from my open wound. Felt the fibers of the cotton drag across the exposed tissue. Felt the air hit the wetness and turn it cold.
I screamed until my throat bled.
"Vitals are spiking. Neural activity is off the charts. The third personality is... activating."
Something shifted inside me.
Not Riley. Not Hannah. Something else. Something that had been sleeping. Waiting.
"Vessel. Can you hear me?"
My mouth opened. Someone else's voice came out.
"I hear you."
"How do you feel?"
"Nothing."
"No pain?"
"Pain is information. I process it. I don't feel it."
Marlow smiled. "Excellent."
---
They tested me for hours.
Burns. Cuts. Needles. Electricity. They broke bones. Dislocated joints. Pulled out teeth.
Vessel felt nothing.
I watched from inside. Trapped. Helpless. Feeling everything.
Because Vessel might not feel pain. But I did. And Hannah did. And we were still here. Still inside. Still breaking.
"The third personality is fully integrated. The split is complete. Riley. Hannah. Vessel. Three selves in one body."
Marlow set down her tablet. Walked to the head of the table. Looked down at me.
"You're no longer human, Riley. You're something new. Something the Project has been trying to create for years."
She touched my face. Her fingers were warm.
"You're the future."
---
They threw me back in the room with the others.
My hands were stumps. Both of them. Wrapped in bloody bandages. The fingers were gone. The thumbs were gone. Just... nothing.
Sasha was there. She saw me. Her face went white.
"Riley—"
"Don't."
"Your hands—"
"I know what my hands look like."
I sat on the bunk. Stared at the wall.
Hannah was crying inside my head. Soft. Broken.
"I can't do this anymore. I can't feel this anymore."
"Then stop feeling."
"I don't know how."
"Ask Vessel. Vessel knows how to feel nothing."
"I don't want to be Vessel. I want to be me."
"There is no me anymore. There's just... us. And we're falling apart."
Sasha sat down next to me. Didn't touch me. Didn't speak. Just sat there.
"They cut off my fingers," I said. "One by one. I watched them do it."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be sorry. Be useful. Find me a knife. I need to cut something."
"What?"
"Myself. Them. I don't care. I just need to feel something different. Something I choose."
Sasha was quiet for a long time. Then she stood up. Walked to the corner of the room. Came back with a piece of metal. Sharp. Broken off from something.
"This is all I could find."
I took it with my stumps. Held it between my wrists. The metal was cold.
"Thank you."
"Riley..."
"What?"
"You're scaring me."
I looked at her. At the scar on her jaw. At the fear in her eyes.
"Good," I said. "You should be scared. Everyone should be scared. Because I'm not Riley anymore. I'm not Hannah. I'm not even Vessel."
"Then what are you?"
I looked at the metal in my hands. At my reflection in the dull surface.
"I'm what happens when you break someone and they don't die."
---
That night, I carved into my arm.
Not deep. Just enough to feel. Just enough to remember that I was still here. Still real. Still something.
The lines became words.
EMPTY
BROKEN
NOTHING
Sasha watched. Didn't stop me. Didn't tell me to stop.
When I was done, I lay down on the bunk. Stared at the ceiling.
The lights never went out. The sounds never stopped. The pain never ended.
But I was still here.
And as long as I was here, I was going to survive.
Even if surviving meant becoming something unrecognizable.
---
End of Chapter Sixteen