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Lio has lost count of the amount of times he’s seen his own heart.
The familiar searing pain of steel slicing into his chest sends his consciousness skittering into its dark little corner of his mind. Blood runs down his legs and into the trough beneath his dangling feet.
Lio watches, numb with shock, as his newly-formed heart is cut from his chest. A metal arm lowers it into a waiting container before the container is sealed and whisked away on the conveyer belt.
Flames flicker inside Lio’s ruined chest, already struggling to repair the damage while the machine prepares to extract more of Lio’s organs.
And then, the whirring of gears stops.
Lio blinks, wary. He wonders if this is a new form of torture. He really doesn’t think his situation could get any worse than it already is.
But the machinery remains silent and still, sharp prongs poised. Lio’s new heart continues to form. As Lio’s vision shimmers, his new heart begins to beat, sending a rush of fresh blood through his veins. Lio becomes aware of the ache in his wrists, which are suspended by cuffs above his head.
Minutes pass, and still silence.
Lio slowly turns his head to the left, then the right. Other Burnish hang on either side of him, the line stretching a dozen deep in both directions. Everyone is in a similar state to Lio. Bound, malnourished, and exhausted. Butchered like pigs.
Somewhere in the distance, Lio hears a bang. He flinches. It isn’t until people in high-vis gear begin flowing into the room that Lio realises the bang was a door opening. Lio hears the sound of retching, then faintly, “If you’re gonna be sick, get out!” Then, another voice, “Ugh…this smell…”
The machinery starts whirring again, and Lio’s eyes fix on the array of sharp metal in front of him, but it doesn’t move. He looks down, and realises that a cover is sliding over the trough under his feet.
Lio feels a sharp jolt of fear as he begins to drop slowly toward it. His bare feet slip and slide on it until he’s on his knees, the surface cold but firm under them. Lio’s wrists remain just above his head, still chained to the bar, which has apparently been lowered.
When Lio catches the eye of the Burnish to his right, he sees that the man’s eyes are wide with fear and confusion. Lio tries not to look at the blood streaking the man’s freshly-healed torso.
The people in high-vis are too loud. Lio cranes his neck to see what’s happening down the end of the line, but he can’t. No one’s screaming, at least. Yet.
It isn’t until the strangers reach the man beside Lio that Lio finally gets a clue as to what’s happening. He watches, his confusion growing, as his neighbour’s cuffs are removed and he’s helped down from the trough and carried toward the door of the room.
Lio has no idea what’s about to happen to him as one of the strangers steps in front of him. The stranger has blue, spiked hair which clashes with the orange and yellow of his jacket. Lio realises that he’s an emergency services worker, not a factory worker or Foundation employee. What the hell is going on?
The stranger reaches for Lio’s wrists. When his gloved hands touch Lio’s skin, Lio flinches. He can’t recall the last time physical contact brought him anything but pain. The stranger wrestles with the cuffs, then swears. He turns to his right, where a woman is unfastening the next man’s cuffs.
“I can’t get these off. The metal’s warped,” he complains.
“Move on, then. We’ll have to cut them off,” the woman says.
The man’s blue eyes fix on Lio and Lio sees a look in them that he hasn’t seen in a long time. Softness. Compassion. Pity. None of those things belong in this steel hell.
“I’ll wait,” the man says, his jaw set into a stubborn line.
The woman shrugs before helping her charge down. The man grips her shoulder with desperate fingers as his feet find solid ground. He wobbles, legs threatening to buckle. Lio sees tears running down his cheeks as he’s helped toward the exit.
Lio listens to the blue-haired guy talk into his radio while Lio shivers. The cold of the metal beneath him is seeping up into his bones like water through a plant’s root system.
The blue-haired guy clips his radio back onto his belt, then brushes Lio’s tangled hair out of his face. “You look like you’ve been here for a while, huh,” he says.
Lio supposes he does. He’s so skinny that he could probably get a job as a skeleton in a carnival’s haunted house—no costume necessary. His hair has grown down past his shoulders, and it’s a mess. His eyes are sunken and his skin is so pale that it’s almost translucent.
“Don’t worry. You’ll be out of here soon,” the stranger says. His eyes are a bewitching blue, and Lio can’t tear his own away from them. This feels so foreign to him, being face-to-face with another human—being treated like a human, not an animal marked for slaughter, not a piece of meat to be packaged and sold.
Running feet startle Lio. A small figure skids to a stop next to the stranger and holds up a pair of bolt cutters. “Here you go,” she says.
Blue-hair takes them and gives Lio a grin. For a brief moment, Lio’s fear threatens to drown him as he recalls the smug smile of the Freeze Force general as he snapped the cuffs on Lio’s wrists. That was the start of Lio’s nightmare.
“You Burnish are useful for something, at least,” that man had crowed. “Spare parts. No one will ever need to wait for an organ transplant again.”
Lio hears the clang of the cutters slicing through the chain binding his wrists to the bar—and then the chain slackens. Lio’s wrists drop like they’re attached to weights. The cuffs clutter against the trough’s cover.
And Lio’s free. Sure, his wrists are still cuffed, but he’s free. He can move.
If his legs would obey his brain. Lio wonders if the machines have sliced something vital that his flames haven’t healed yet.
“Down we go.” Blue-hair helps Lio off the trough, keeping a firm grip on him. The bolt-cutter girl has vanished with her tool. Lio leans into the stranger, shaking.
“I’m gonna pick you up and carry you, okay?” Without waiting for a response—not that Lio could have vocalised one anyway—Blue-hair picks Lio up into a fireman’s carry and heads for the exit.
The ride is not pleasant, but it’s mercifully brief. Lio is set down on a chair and a blanket is wrapped around his bony shoulders. Lio lets his head hang forward in exhaustion.
“Someone’s gotta get these cuffs off this guy!” Blue-hair calls. Then he kneels in front of Lio and squeezes his hands. “I gotta get back in there,” he says. “But you’re not alone out here.” He rises and leaves.
Lio huddles underneath the blanket. It’s thin, and does nothing to warm him but he’s grateful for the covering. A minute later, he becomes aware that the chair next to him is no longer empty. Lio turns his head to see another man sitting there. Like Lio, he’s naked but for the blanket around him, and his red hair is a tangled mess. The man seems to sense his stare, and turns his head to give Lio a tired smile.
“How’s your heart?” the man asks, his voice raspy and weak.
Lio looks down at himself. His torso has fully healed. There aren’t even any scars. It takes a few embarrassing tries before Lio can get any words out. “Still got one left, I think,” he says.
The red-haired man lets out a weak laugh. He wipes tears from his cheek. “Keep it,” he says.
Lio intends to.