My first thread! A scene from a short story

[Sultana]

Hello there!
I don't get to do much creative writing these days, tech-y stuff pays the bills. But due to crazy things going on around me lately, I felt compelled to write this scene, and perhaps later build a story around it.
My preferred form is the short story rather than poetry, didn't see too much of that here (TFP lit). I hope it's not too long, although if it doesn't keep your attention all the way through, that's my problem.
This is basically the origins of a "superhero". Heh, yeah, I play City of Heros.

By the way, it's more than a bit...graphic (visceral, not sexual), so consider yourself notified.

I'm kinda nervous about posting this, but here goes:
***
The Death and Birth of Digitalis

Harsh fluorescent lights flickered overhead, casting wan shadows on Angela’s blank face. Only one well-schooled in physio-psychology would recognize that her perfect lack of emotion was a tip-off to the tumultuous roar raging inside.
Few others at the clinic achieved such a level of control. A mousy-haired woman in the corner ceaselessly raised a tissue to her face, over and over again, to daub at her eyes, her nose. She clutched her dull black purse to her chest, as if it could protect her. If she had reason to be here, it was already too late.

Grey plastic chairs leaned listlessly against each other as Angela approached the front desk. Yellowed plants wept dried leaves onto outdated reading materials—“Net Terrorists Destroy United Bank Financial Records, Millions Left Bankrupt” and “Middle East Continues Rebuilding, Pact Secure”.

Angela didn’t care about bankrupt millions from 14 months ago, nor about the peaceful Middle East. She didn’t care about anything now. All she could feel was the cold slowing of her arteries, invisible cruelty ravaging her sluggish heart. A poison crept through her, agonizingly turning once-vibrant musculature to grey meat, and if she didn’t keep absolute control of her fear, it would quickly finish her.

Carefully, carefully, she walked the faded linoleum path to the attendant’s desk. With every measured step she fought the urge to break into a run to the desk and babble incoherently.
“Please help m..me”
The attendant, a 40-ish woman with an air of authority and a painfully slender figure barely glanced up as she asked, “Do you have an appointment? Who is your insurance provider?”
“Please. Help…” Angela started again, trying to contain the rising panic, but it leaked out into her voice.
The attendant paused for the briefest of moments before snapping her head up to focus intently on the figure before her.
“What’s wrong, hun?” she queried sharply, but carefully. “Do you have uncontrolled bleeding? Are you able to breathe? Do you have chest pain?”
At the third question Angela nodded her head, unable to trust her voice. Tears squeezed from her eyes.
“Been…poisoned. Hema…toxin. Digitalis.” she gasped.
The attendant exploded into action, barking orders and improbably vaulting over the desk, knocking over a coffee cup as the pain peaked and Angela’s vision faded. Before the world went black, she remembered the image of another cup, a slick oily substance pooling on top of the coffee within, and the bitter, burning stain in her throat after she swallowed, too late guessing what happened.

When her sight cleared, she was staring at water-stained ceiling tiles. For a moment she wondered why there would be ceiling tiles on the clinic’s office wall when she gradually realized she was lying on her back as indistinct figures whirled around her, muttering incantations.
“Scans indicate at least 45% loss of function in the main cardiac muscle…”
“…more oxygen!”
“It’s spreading too fast! We’re cutting it out, it’s going necrotic.”
“Use the Surgeon.”
Tubes filled with yellowish fluid sprouted from her arms, neck, and chest. She was still alive—she knew because she felt each struggling contraction of her heart, still going through the motions, fighting against hope to force the cooling blood through her body. It seemed little more than an academic exercise at this stage.

The gurney she lay on jolted suddenly as the fading figures wheeled her quickly into another room. This one was brightly lit, painfully so. Angela was positioned under what looked like the thorax of a giant metallic spider, with different tools on the end of each merciless stainless steel arm--drills, clamps, needles, and…vises. Her eyes fluttered when without warning a frigid, vile-smelling liquid was slopped between her breasts. Some of it splashed onto her face. She hadn’t realized until then that she was unclothed. It hardly mattered. She thought she could not feel any more vulnerable then she already did.
She was wrong.

A hard, unforgiving plastic form was hurriedly taped to Angela’s face, a tube forced down her throat. A sharp pain pierced the base of her skull. Words swirled above her.
“…takes several minutes to take effect, she doesn’t have that much time!”
“But we have to, no one…”
“The neural shunt will keep her from moving from the neck down.”
“If she feels pain, then at least she’s still alive.”
“God help her.”

The voices faded, door slid shut, and the spider’s arms instantly converged on her inert form. Her eyes widened involuntarily as a blade-edged digit quickly split her from clavicle to waist. It was so fast she almost didn’t feel it. Almost. Panic took over, and she panted heavily. She couldn’t control her terror any longer.

Other legs with clamps and tubes were positioned to immediately work on the severed skin, muscles, and veins exposed by the incision. Angela’s torso was instantly and meticulously invaded by an army of expert mechanical fingers, working ceaselessly and without pity to find and excise the damaged, poisoned portion of her intimate anatomy. A larger set of arms with a vise descended to land forcefully between her now-exposed ribs. A visceral scream tore from Angela’s brain as the heavy vise wedged lengthwise between the halves of her ribcage and relentlessly spread her thoracic cage to offer unobstructed access to her inner core, where the poison has coiled around and through her heart.

Another bladed arm dropped down. This blade’s edge was finer than anything Angela could have imagined. The arm hesitated for a fraction of a second, while the spider’s brain calculated the most effective angle of attack. It stayed suspended in the air for a moment, for a lifetime, a mote of dust in a battle. And then it dove, plunging irrevocably into her struggling heart. Like a true priest of the sword offering forgiveness, it sliced into the flesh, separating dead tissue from the living as Angela’s straining eyes rolled back into her head and red-tinged darkness overtook her.

***

“At least she’s breathing on her own…” the voice faded away as the patient in the hospital bed began drifting into consciousness. Her mouth and throat were sandpaper dry, and she reached up weakly to paw at the violating tube.
“Now now missy, you’ll be wanting to leave that alone. Don’t want any alarms going off, do we?” a breath, palpable with nicotine caressed her ear. The patient coughed lightly.
“I’ll have to put those restraints on you, don’t want to have you sticking a hand in that hole in your chest and messing up all that work the Surgeon did.” The patient’s eyelids opened a crack and she tried to focus on the source of the voice.
“Ahh, looks like you’ll be here for the party this time.” Floating up into reality, the patient realized that something wasn’t right. It wasn’t just the slick, ominous voice insinuating itself into her ear, nor the soft cloth encircling her wrists. Fighting to regain herself, her eyes finally opened completely and focused in the dim light of the life-support machines in the otherwise darkened room. She hadn’t imagined the voice, she wasn’t alone. As she scanned the room for signs of familiarity, a blue-light reflection caught her eye.
***

Rest of the story synopsis:
The guy tries to attack her, removed the clear plastic shield in her chest (the hospital was trying to graft skin over it, but his attack ruins that possibility) to expose what’s left of her heart to get her to cooperate, instead, she kills him with “focused psychic digitalis”, making his heart beat so hard and fast that it explodes in his chest. That’s when she assumes the identity of Digitalis Muse.

Later when she’s fully recovered she’s discharged from the hospital with the now-removable clear plastic shield in her chest. As one of the symptoms of digitalis in the body is increased blood flow, she has a permanent red bloodstain around the window of her heart. The Surgeon machine was not able to remove all of the poisoned heart muscle without killing her. They may try for a heart transplant in the future, but the poison has integrated itself so thoroughly in her aortas and circulatory system that it would likely poison the new heart too. She needs some of it in her system to continue to survive, as there’s not enough left of her ruined heart to beat independently. It even affords her some other super-human abilities. And she realizes that when the shield is in place, she won’t hurt anyone, but if she removes it (which makes her vulnerable too), she can hurt and even kill people. She goes in search of the person who did this to her.

[tecoyah]

That is a really good read.....PLease continue, I enjoyed it very much.

Thanx

[Sultana]

Thank you so much. Heady praise indeed, coming from you (having read your poetry here).

[doodlebird]

wow. intense. i almost had to stop reading! the cracking open of the rib cage part was might effective. i felt a pain in my own chest. well done!

i'm with tecoyah... we'd love to see the continuation when you're ready for us to read it.

[Sultana]

Wow, thank you! Working on a short story takes so much time, but I will post more when there's enough finished (episode II...;P).
Something I learned about digitalis poisoning...one of the possible side effects is that the victim may see everything blue! Isn't that crazy? Certainly will be using that.

[amonkie]

Sultana - it sounds like you've got a lot of great ideas for this ... I can sense your original ideas, and that makes this a refreshing read Looking forward to more!

[Krycheck]

Wow. And to think you write tech manuals. Someone needs to put there talents to better use.