The Risk

By Sanika Karna

They almost forgot a spot this morning. They were covering up the scars and forgot a spot. They told me that I should’ve noticed and told them, but I wanted to see what would happen. Maybe someone would notice, maybe someone would help me.

Apparently I’m more robot than human. Even parts of my brain are robotic. They say that makes my thinking “altered” but I’ve never felt a difference. They probably just shoved some metal up there to get me to shut up.

I was part of an experiment. Not one to make me a cyborg but one to make me the “perfect girl”. The kind of girl who can save hundreds of people’s lives but chooses to sacrifice her own. They chose me even though I never wanted to be chosen. I guess it’s better than the other option. I wouldn’t be writing this if I had picked it.

They say that because of the amount of machinery in me, I’m not truly human. I cant be considered a human being. But I have feelings, I feel pain, I can hurt and I can be hurt. In what universe does that not make me human? In what universe does that make me any less than the ‘imperfect’ girl next door.

Honestly, it’s the fact that I’m almost a machine which makes the humanity inside of me ache to come out.

How am I-

“Donna! Get over here!”

“Coming!” I screamed back.

I walked over to my caretaker. She was supposed to do checkups on me every evening and after it, I wouldn’t be allowed to leave the lab. Guards followed me everywhere, never leaving my side. I was stuck in a never ending cycle like a prisoner. A prisoner who’s given a taste of her old life every day, and who’s tortured into wanting it back more and more by the second.

I glanced to my right, Donna’s hand didn’t have its ring. I guess that’s what happens to home life when you take care of a machine for a living. I wonder how everyone here must be when they go home. Here they all reek of chemicals and formulas to cover me up for longer but what about when they go home? Do they smell like a fresh fire on a winter evening? Or perhaps the mist inside your room on a snowy night? What are they like when there’s no one here? What would they be like if there was nobody there?

That night, I didn’t eat. I didn’t want to look at those guards for another second. Those people who kept straight faces from when I woke up to when I fell asleep. Their smile could light up a room and I’d never know. How do they smile? They torture me and get to go back home

and laugh?

I don’t pray. I don’t really think it makes sense. But that night I stayed up praying and begging to a god I don’t know if I believe in, screaming for him to let someone notice. Let someone save me. Let someone figure it out.

Just then, I heard my window open.

“Shh, I got past the guards in the front so don’t say anything. I’m here to save you.” The man whispered with an untrustworthy and eerie look on his face. Was freedom really worth the risk?

It is, I thought. I went along with him and felt a dooming sense when we got to a secluded area. I wondered if turning back now would’ve been possible. As soon as I turned a little though, he took advantage. Or so I think, because everything went black. The lights are blurring and I think my head is

By Sanika Karna