She is awake. It’s the first time she’s opened her eyes. She sits for a moment, blinking at measured intervals. She examines the room: glossy metal surfaces shooting off refracted shards of light, narrow glass vials upturned on a drying rack, cold silver instruments adorning the walls. Her eyes water. She closes them, longer this time, and shudders at the tickle of a tear on her cheek. Her chest is bloated. She exhales, but it won’t flatten. She is full.
What is she doing here?
Cu-thunk. A bolt lifts and something enters: four limbs, two eyes, oily ears and a nose fluffy on the inside. It’s white — too white — with a long, papery coat and hair like daffodils. It leans down to her eye level.
‘Hello.’ It smiles. ‘I’m glad to see my girl is awake.’
The girl stares.
A sigh. It reeks of peppermint.
‘I know you can’t speak, but I’m Dr Shelley. I brought you here.’
After a moment, the girl lifts a hand to her chest. Dr Shelley nods.
‘That’s right. See there?’ The doctor points to her right hand. The skin is rough and scaly, five clawed fingers curling at the end. ‘I gave you that piece.’ He points to her lap, where she finds a tin torso and an exposed panel of wires. ‘I gave you that one, too.’
The humanoid lifts her legs. On the left, she sees thick brown fur and a long, flat paw. On the right, another metal prosthesis. She frowns.
‘Don’t worry,’ Dr Shelley tells her. ‘You’re just fine. In fact, you’re better than I ever anticipated.’
She feels her head, carefully running her clawed hand and her human hand through a soft scalp. She yanks gently on one side and pulls out a clump of hair: short, blonde, blood matting the roots.
‘Now, now,’ Dr Shelley tuts. ‘Careful. Don’t go making a mess.’ Gently, he takes the hair from her hands and holds it up to the light. ‘See, isn’t it pretty?’
His creation glares, watching as the blonde strands turn gold under the fluorescent lights. She imagines them bursting into flames in his hand.
Dr Shelley laughs. ‘You are quite the masterpiece, my dear. I’ve outdone myself.’
Her shoulders begin to shrink, caving in over a small, steely sternum.
Seeing her withdraw, Dr Shelley offers another, softer, smile. ‘It’s alright. You’re safe here. I’ll tell you what to do.’
With a short moment’s hesitation, Dr Shelley reaches forward to place a hand on the girl’s furry leg.
Still smiling, he says, ‘All you have to do is listen.’
***
Heavy with wet and grime, a sponge squelches in the girl’s reptilian hand. She squeezes once and the sponge disappears behind a clamp of thick fingers and sturdy claws, dirty water pooling in the cracks between her scales. She readjusts, leaning back on her mismatched feet to make sure she hasn’t missed a spot.
The bathroom floor gleams a blinding white, tainted only by the blackened grout between the tiles. She stops, her gaze tracing the straight, dark lines in the floor for several moments before she moves again.
Leaning forward, her big right hand hovers over the tiles. She angles a single claw down until it nestles perfectly into the thin, black space. And then, she drags down, leaving a mound of muck and mould in her wake.
The girl picks up the debris, idly examining the now white grout between the floor tiles. She dips her claw into clean water, ready for the next one.
***
Twice a day, the doctor takes his meals at a work bench in the laboratory’s hearth. He sits among a humble array of dining equipment: sterling silverware, a chequered placemat and an oversized novelty mug. He places an electronic touch screen atop the bench and scrolls through extensive charts occupied by recent data.
When his creature walks in, Dr Shelley doesn’t look up. He leans a couple centimetres to one side, giving her ample room to set down his plate, and hums his thanks.
The girl moves to leave when Dr Shelley finally takes note of his meal.
‘Wait.’
She stops, watching as the doctor gestures to her abdomen and the loosely closed compartment tin—her metal stomach. Careful to use her human hand, she pulls the compartment open, revealing a small tray of condiments inside. They rattle softly against each other, glass jars singing with vibration.
Dr Shelley reaches into his creature’s stomach and pulls out a saltshaker and a container labelled ‘mayonnaise’. He smiles.
‘Very good.’
Only when the doctor returns to his meal does the girl close the hatch in her abdomen. Her gaze wanders around the sterile room, landing on a tall plastic bottle standing in the corner.
Dr Shelley follows his creature’s look.
‘I’m so sorry, dear. I almost forgot.’ He nods toward the bottle. ‘Eat up.’
Slower this time, the young female humanoid moves, dropping down to all fours in the corner of the room. She collects the bottle in both hands and glowers into its contents — a thick, pale, odourless mulch. She drinks, while the doctor eats, her throat so wide she scarcely swallows.
***
When it gets dark outside, Dr Shelley tells his creature to power down. He chuckles, as if he’s made a joke. He leaves her on a thin cotton mat in the room where she prepares his meals, surrounded by common household appliances and exposed pipe shafts.
Still awake, the girl stares across the space — pitch black but for blue pinpricks of light flashing on the refrigerator door. She tilts her head.
Rising, she drags her form up piece by foreign piece. She approaches the fridge, staring directly into the tiny blue light. Her scowl deepens with each step. She lifts her reptilian hand and drops it. Instead, she lifts her human hand and grips the handle on the fridge door, tendons bulging across the remaining length of her arm as she pulls.
The door opens, revealing its cool, humming interior. Propping it open with one half of her body, she reaches inside with the finesse of a ghost, her hands hovering closely above every item. On the bottom shelf, at least twenty bottles of pale mulch have been lined up in short, perfect rows. On the top, homebrand essentials: eggs, milk, cheese. In the middle …
The girl stops. Her face twists. She curls forward, shuddering at the low creaks and churns sounding from her abdomen. Deeper than the hollow compartment, deeper than the naked wires. Her insides groan.
Breathing heavily, she picks a plate off the middle shelf. Dr Shelley had failed to finish yesterday’s second meal. His scraps stare back at her now: three neat slabs, cold, thick and red. Under her nose, the girl discovers the scent of a new metal — something vaguely familiar.
Mouth gaping, gears grating, fluids pumping, the girl eats. She snatches the food between her teeth and grinds it down to sinews, licking its burgundy crust off the plate’s surface. Finished too soon, she tips her head back and her whole body follows, arching over a ragged spine. She hangs there, her various limbs screeching at the stretch and strain.
She stands. With glossy eyes, she returns to the fridge, putting the empty plate back on its designated shelf. She looks again at the plastic bottles, the colourless mulch, glaring and growling until white froth bubbles above her curled lip.
She turns. Her jaw drops, saliva and mucus dribbling off her chin. She raises her reptilian hand to the compartment in her torso. In a swift, powerful gesture, her claws tear through the metal, again and again, until the space is reduced to a mangled ditch in the centre of her body.
Scarred and seared, the girl’s insides are quiet. She is full.
Sophie Breeze is currently studying a Master of Creative Writing, Editing and Publishing at the University of Melbourne. She is very interested in contemporary feminist theory as the basis for her creative work.