The Future's Donor
Thriller | Horror - Two centuries have passed when Marco wakes up from cryosleep in an unfamiliar room.
Marco felt the frost take root and settle atop his skin. He shivered from the chill.
The world beyond the thick glass before him was becoming a distant memory. An unsettled drowsiness emerged and took hold as the drugs kicked in, the kind you experience when you doze off watching TV, only to be startled awake a half hour later dazed, confused, and uneasy.
He had chosen this: the cold, the sedation, the faith in a second chance of life in an unknown future. He was told by many that he was crazy, but then again, all those who thought or said it weren’t the ones dying from pancreatic cancer. Marco knew it was jealousy.
They couldn’t afford cryosleep.
His parents would have disapproved. The rosary beads threaded through his mother's hands as the morphine dripped into her veins to numb the ravages of lung cancer. The crucifix never left his father’s neck, even as the hospice nurses bathed him.
He held both of their hands in the end. At different times, each of them said, “It’s ok. I want to go.”
Their deaths jolted Marco like the frigid water of the Great Lakes, hijacking one's senses after jumping in. A fear that drove him to accumulate as much wealth and power as possible.
He didn’t want death to win.
A deep cold bored into his bones. He wanted to shiver, but the cocktail of sedation medication aggressively shut down his sympathetic nerve system. His eyelids were as heavy as lead, and his thoughts evaporated like water in the sun. He drifted into a void of bitter blackness.
The empty darkness turned grey—the profound cold to a burning heat. Marco tried to move but had no sense of himself, let alone his appendages. His eyes wouldn’t open.
His mind raced. He wanted to claw his way out from within himself. Exhume his soul from the damnation of this body. To remember even what it felt like to have one—the coarse and crisp feel of a hundred-dollar bill in hand, the tight squeeze of brand new leather dress shoes.
This was how it happened.
He was told as much. It takes time for the body and mind to reacquaint themselves. The deeper and longer you were in, the slower it would be. He attempted to speak, but only moist air came out. Fear fought against his logic.
A dull searing of pins and needles surfaced under his skin. Marco recognized the familiar tingle. Now, he writhed in the uncomfortable wait of the electric current sprinting through his nerve endings, recoding their path and all of his appendages' sensations.
The sense of space and touch returned. A hot sweat. A cold, wet mattress. A thick crust sealed his eyes shut—any effort to open them made it feel as if his eyelashes would rip out and take his eyelids with them. Something pinched at his ankles and wrists.
Handcuffs?!
His muscles tensed as he strained against the cold, rigid restraints—the sharp metal edges burrowing into his skin. Weak and spent, Marco surrendered and sank into the stiff, damp mattress held by a squeaky metal frame.
Labored breaths. Heart pounding against the chest. A dull pain in his left leg.
He focused on that pain and wondered at its source. Marco slid the leg across the covers towards the edge of the bed. It felt lighter, shorter.
His left foot was missing.
Like a hypnagogic jerk, Marco neglected his bondage and jolted forward in an attempt to reach it. The restraints yanked him back into the bed. He tried again and met the same end. His wrists were chaffed, his chest expanded rapidly, and his mind was still trying to process sleeping through time.
He couldn’t grasp what was real or imagined. He needed to see.
A metallic flick of flint and a deep inhale startled him.
“It’s gone.”
A woman’s sharp and indifferent voice pierced through him. A cold shiver trembled down his spine and then returned through the quick contractions of muscles up from his legs.
“Would you like to see?”
The smell of cigarette smoke tickled Marco’s nostrils. He only liked the scent when his mother smoked outside and in the cold. He remembered nuzzling into her shoulder on one of those chilly nights on the porch, smoke dissipating in the air like a dream after you wake.
The floorboards creaked under light footsteps. Fight or Flight piloted him as his muscles tensed, and he tried to pull away. A gloved hand braced his forehead as a wet cloth pressed into his eyelids. The cloth's slight pressure and gentle rub broke through the rind encasing his eyes.
“There you go.”
Marco opened them and leaned up from his belly. A wrapped and bloody stump greeted him on his left leg. He attempted to scream, but his vocal cords refused to vibrate and echo his terror. All he could do was shake and pull helplessly against his restraints.
“It's been two centuries. You got another hour before you can talk.”
She crouched to his level and glanced at her analog wristwatch. She took a drag of the cigarette. Smoke billowed from her nostrils and mouth. She smiled at his dismay like she had seen it hundreds of times before.
“We’re lucky your unit’s power cell wasn’t damaged.”
Marco couldn’t believe two hundred years slipped by. He didn’t think it would take long to find a cure for cancer—Large Language Models, which he heavily invested in, accelerated business and breakthroughs. A tiny fusion reactor successfully worked in a lab. Technology was progressing at a breakneck pace when he went under. What happened?
“The world is not what you imagined.” Her words brought a chill to his spine.
His mind screamed at him!
Flee! Flee! Flee!
He ignored its pleas as he gazed at the woman’s young but worn face. Her calculated eyes filled with horrors Marco could only guess at. The stylized eye shadow and thick mascara attempted to hide the cold reality she faced.
Her hand grabbed his left wrist and found his pulse. She blew smoke into Marco’s face as she peered into her watch and counted his heartbeats. He coughed.
“Focus on calming yourself.”
Calm. Why?! WHY?!
His mind darted from one terrified thought to the other. He tried to scream again but only felt an itch. His face was red. His neck strained as he forgot to breathe.
“Breathe.”
Marco gasped.
The woman stood up and returned to the shadows without a word. In the void of darkness beyond, a door slammed. Her footsteps faded. Marco waited for his eyes to adjust as his shallow breaths wheezed.
The space was a dark and dingy single-room apartment—rust stains and chipped cabinets in the kitchen illuminated by a single fluorescent tube flickering as it dangled above the sink. The toilet was out in the open and lacked a seat. He could barely make out the outline of the door the woman must have left in.
He yanked at the restraint.
Pain Death! TRAPPED!
The metal frame rattled under his weight.
PAIN! DEATH! TRAPPED! CALM! Break! BREAK! BREAK!
Marco shook and lurched, whipped and wiggled. The metal frame clamored. Its steel pegs at the base slapped against the old wooden floor, but it did not break.
Breathless and weak, Marco sank deeper into the clammy, wet prison of the old mattress. A trickle of blood seeped out from his bandaged stump and stained the already filthy sheet under him. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go.
Trapped! Trapped! TRAPPED!
He felt sick. He tilted his head to the left and vomited. The bile spilled out onto his shoulder and soaked into the mattress. His eyes rolled back into his head as he embraced the black void.
The door slammed shut. Marco jolted awake, a fever burning within him. Above was the woman—a glass of brown, murky water in her hand. She wasn’t alone. Two companions in ink-colored scrubs worked around a large cart to his right.
“Drink this.”
No.
Voiceless still, Marco shook his head. Whatever was in that glass was not water. It looked like poison. The woman palmed his forehead and pressed his head against the soggy pillow.
NO! NO! NO!
He did not have the strength to push back, so he kicked and kicked.
“Drink it and speak.”
The woman kicked back and hit his bloody stump.
AHHH!
Like a tsunami hitting a rocky cliff, the pure agony smashed up Marco’s nervous system. The shockwave of it pulverized any resistance he had left.
She brought the dirty glass to his mouth and forced it between his lips. The metallic water permeated through his teeth and spilled into the back of his throat. Macro couldn’t help but swallow. He nearly choked on the gritty liquid.
After he finished, the woman set down the glass and grabbed his arm again. She pulled out an old-time piece and measured his pulse. Her lips quivered slightly as she quietly counted.
Her shoulders sagged as she sighed, “We’ll need a sedative.”
The other man in scrubs dumped broken ice into red coolers. “You just gave him the numbing agent.”
“Yeah, well, he’s too anxious.” She released his arm and walked over to the cart. “He’ll bleed out before we finish.”
The man beside it pulled a vial from a black medical bag and handed it to her.
He said, “That’s all we have left.”
“I know.” The woman replied.
She pulled a needle out of a container and stuck it into the vile with a frustrated effort. Marco noticed medical tools scattered on top of the cart. The kind he would think would exist in an operation room.
Escape! ESCAPE! ESCAPE!!
Salted tears fell from Marco’s eyes. The burning ache of the stump withered, the pinch around his wrists dulled. He wanted to return home two hundred and ten years ago when his parents still lived. Maybe, even deeper in time, when he was barely six, and the concept of death didn’t exist, and pain, well, it was a boo-boo and easily fixed. He cleared his throat.
“What are you doing to me?” He croaked in a voice that didn’t sound like what he remembered. It was raspy, harsh, and hollow.
The woman pulled the needle out of the vial. Her eyes met his.
She smiled, “You’re giving someone a chance to live.”
A bright flash illuminated the room, revealing all its flaws and rottenness. The men in scrubs pushed the bright overhead light closer and adjusted it above him. The woman knelt beside him, needle in hand. Behind her smile was a dispassioned and strategic mind that unnerved him.
“I don’t understand.”
Her smile faded. She grabbed Marco’s right arm under the elbow as she brought the needle closer to his skin. Adrenaline took hold as he kicked and squirmed like a cornered animal.“NO! NO! NO!”
The woman stepped back as the men in scrubs rushed over and oppressed him with their weight and strength.
“NOOOOO!!!!”
One punched him in the gut and then pressed down on his shoulders. The other grabbed his arm and held it firm.
“Why are you doing this!!??” Marco groaned.
The woman shoved the needle into his skin and jammed down on its plunger.
“PLEASE, DOn….”
The sedative was in. She sat back and rested her chin on her free hand. Her eyes glistened.
“Your organs. We’re taking your organs and giving them to someone else.”
“W-what?!
The men in scrubs let go and returned to the cart. They put on gloves and face shields. The woman grabbed Marco’s arm and held it firm. She drew his attention back to her eyes.
“Our world is dirty. Yours was clean. What’s inside you is worth more than water or gold.”
“No. Please.”
Tears leaked out of Marco’s eyes. A wave of shakes started in his legs and moved up his body.
Energy drained from his soul. If he even had one.
“I-I…I have cancer an…and…money.”
The woman let go of his arm and stood up. There wasn’t an ounce of pity in her eyes.
“Your heart, lungs, and kidneys are all fine.”
It felt like someone had set a giant bolder on Maroc’s chest. The pressure made him think he couldn’t breathe. He hyperventilated. A thick heaviness slowly seeped into his skull. He didn’t have long.
“I-I…have money.” He whimpered.
“Not here, you don’t.”
His body relaxed—the sedatives seducing his nervous system to stop reacting to the terror held within his mind.
“Plea….please..don’t.” He begged.
“My client has paid for your organs and paid well.” She retorted. “You would’ve done the same.”
The woman walked over to the cart and returned the needle. The men in scrubs, sharp tools in hand, hovered over him and waited.
Marco peered into their emotionless eyes through the plastic shields. Their faces darkened. The bright light dimmed. His blinks slowed. He listened to his shallow breaths, a rhythm slowly downgrading.
“Plea…” He whispered.
He couldn’t fight it anymore. His eyes closed. His heart slowed. He wished the coming darkness was comforting.
Death wins.