5 Amputation

Daren lays in the comfy bed that William lets him rest in. It's a nice change of pace after sleeping out in the cold. It's quiet.

Daren manages to fall asleep despite his whole vody screaming in agony. He was too afraid to take his socks off to see how his feet were doing. There's a sinking feeling that his toes will have to be amputated because of severe frostbite. He'll worry about it in the morning.

After a good night's rest, Daren gets off the bed and finds that he can barely stand up. There's a sharp pain that shoots from his toes to his ankle. He manages to hobble downstairs to a familiar smell. Breakfast.

"Good morning, sleepy head." William says with a feminine tone when he sees Daren stumble into the kitchen.

"Be careful not to eat too quickly. Your body needs to get used to digesting nutrition again." William as Daren takes a seat at the kitchen table.

"I thought that was only for people who are starving to death." Daren says as William plates the food and sets in right next to him.

"You can never be too careful. Besides, my master would kill me if you ended up dying on my watch."

Daren tries to pick up a fork to eat his food. But his fingers won't bend around it. William notices his lack of coordination and decides to help Daren by doing it himself.

"What's wrong with them?" Daren asks as William cuts the eggs with the fork and tries to feed it to Daren.

"Don't worry about it. Just eat."

Daren hates this feeling of being helpless. After everything he went through to get here, he needs to rely on others for help. That seems to be a common theme for him recently. No, it's been like this for his whole life. He hates it. He hates himself for letting his life become like this.

"All gone." William set the fork on the seramic plate after Daren finishes the last bite. After William washes the plate off, he takes a seat next to Daren. "We should take a look at those hands of yours."

He fights through the pain as William unwraps his right hand. Daren almost falls out of his seat when he sees how bad his hand really is. All of his fingers have turned black, looking like they have been charred and cooked to a krisp.

Daren starts panicking. He knows what this means for him. He's going to have to get his fingers amputated. His toes are sure to be in the same shape. "I won't be able to play video games again! This is all because of that stupid test you guys forced me into."

"Everything's fine." William assures him. "I'm a doctor. I can perform the surgery."

"THAT'S NOT WHAT IM CONCERNED ABOUT." Daren shouts at him. "Is there some kind of healing magic that can fix this?"

William checks his watch. "My master won't be here for a few days. Your fingers have to be amputated soon to prevent gangrene. That's the good news."

"Good news?" Daren grits his teeth and hangs his head in defeat. What's the bad news?"

William rocks back and forth, trying to decide if he should tell him or not. "Here's the thing. I have all the equipment to perform the procedure, but I don't have any anesthetics. You'll have to endure the pain."

"Is this some kind of sick joke?" Daren says, his eyes wide open in disbelief. "You're a doctor. How can you not have anything for the pain?"

"Drugs are highly regulated. The best I can give you is some Tylenol."

"That's BULLSHIT. Your master is powerful, right? Why can't they steal the drugs?"

William waves his question away with his hand. "I can't expect him to bother himself with such minor things. Besides, you can think of this as another test."

"Wait. If you have everything for the surgery, then you must have blood so your patients don't die."

"That's correct."

"Aren't those harder to get?"

"Not necessarily. Right now, what I think you're going through is denial. You need to accept your fate. There was a time when humans had to endure these procedures without the assistance of anesthetics."

"Fuck you." Daren knows that this was all planned out. He purposefully never kept anesthetics here for this specific reason.

Daren thinks about the three tests. The first one was to see if he had what it took to kill someone. The second was a test of willpower. But this last one seems like it's for shits and giggles. Just a reason for them to torture him. To break his mind. He thoughts confirm this when he stares into Williams eyes. There's no hint of remorse for what he is about to do, cold, dead, lifeless eyes.

"Tell me the truth." Daren glares at William. "Your master plans to get here right after the surgery. Isn't that right? And he has the power to heal these wounds."

"That's correct."

Daren is having a hard time holding his rage back. But he knows he can't do anything to prevent this from happening.

"Tell me what's wrong." Willaim speaks to him in a calm voice. "As your doctor, it's my responsibility to make sure that you are feeling okay physically as well as mentally."

Daren has no words to express his feelings. 'This guy likes toying with his victims. He's just trying to rub it in. Pretending to care.'

"We should get started as soon as possible." William stands up and coaxes Daren out of his seat.

Daren doesn't fight back. He knows he doesn't have a choice. All he can think about is what's going to hurt worse. His fingers, or his toes. 'I suppose that my hands and fingers have more nerves in them.'

William helps Daren walk down to the basement. It's dreary and dark, and there's also a musky smell. William turns on the lights. What lays in front of Daren is his is his worst nightmare.

An operation table, complete with restraints with scalpels laying next to it on a table. "Lay down." William commands him. "I'll try to make this as quick as possible."

Daren knows that's a lie, but he does as he's told. He lays on the table as William straps his wrists and ankles down. The last restraint going over his stomach.

"Bit down on this." William places a block of wood in his mouth o he doesn't bit his tongue off. He picks up a scalpel and smiles. "Ready?"

All Daren can do is watch in fear as he examines his frostbiten fingers. "Let's put on some music." William turns on a radio that sits on a nearby table. Loud death music starts playing, echoing throughout the basement.

William walks over to a mini fridge and grabs a few bags of blood out. "I think these are the right ones." He says as he sticks a needle into Darens arm. "You're blood type B positive, right?"

Daren doesn't know, so he doesn't nod or shake his head. William shrugs his shoulders as he hangs up the bag of blood. "You might want to look away for this."

Daren looks at the ceiling, waiting for the inevitable as he prepares for the intense pain by bitting down on the block of wood. "Here we go!"

William starts off by making an incision above the frostbiten skin. Cutting right where the knuckle joints are. "Aaaaaaaaaaahh!" Daren screams, his eyes almost bulging out of his head. Every muscle in his body tenses up as William slowly cuts off his pinky finger.

Cutting through the muscles and tendons, William seems to be enjoying himself a little too much. Daren glances over at him but dares not to look at his hand. Seeing the grin on Williams face horrifies him even more. He starts wondering if he is helping or killing him. But these thoughts do not last long. The pain he feels makes it difficult to think about anything else.

When William finishes cutting all the flesh surrounding his bone, he grabs a knife and places it on the knuckle joint. He slams it down with his hand against the dull side of the blade with enough force to severe the finger from Darens hand.

Daren screams again. He never imagined that anything could be this painful.

William stitches up the wound, using extra flesh from his finger to close the wound entirely. "One down, four to go."

Daren fades in and out of consciousness as William cuts off the rest of his fingers. For Daren, it feels like an eternity passes.

William slaps Daren in the face to wake him up. "The good news is that I'm done. The bad news is that I have one hand and two feet to go." William says when he gets Darens attention.