Chapter 25 Stefan
TWENTY-FIVE
STEFAN
BIRKENAU (AUSCHWITZ II)
The straw mattress scratches through the thin fabric shirt they left me in.
It reeks of musk and sweat. I want to turn onto my side but can’t.
There’s no room. And the barrack walls spin around me like a never-ending carousel.
My head is heavier than a boulder and my limbs don’t work, but also move without my control.
I stare toward the hanging lightbulb as it dangles back and forth.
There’s no wind and no reason for movement. Like my limbs. No reason.
Someone coughs, maybe nearby, or across the barrack. Could be a million columns away. But I hear it. It’s wet and rattles like a bottle of pills. It’s the same cough that came from the doctor before saying, “Tonight, you’ll stay awake. Tomorrow night too.”
“Him,” someone says. “Bring him to the exam room.”
My eyelids twitch as masculine fingers jab toward me. At least I can close them. Unlike before when they taped them wide open. As far as they could go. Pulled until lashes tore and skin split. Even now, with the tape gone, I feel the pluck and sting every time I blink.
A man yanks my arm out from beneath and pulls it over my head until I’m forced to flip onto my stomach. My chin hits the wood of the bunk frame, my neck cranes back. I can see the dangling lightbulb and its dirty fraying cord.
A needle prods the thin skin of my forearm. Then a slow suction of more blood, stripping drop by drop from my veins until my body drains.
The ceiling creaks. Damp wooden beams with cross hatched supports. Like a stable or barn. This was probably a stable once.
A barn. Barns were for privacy.
Love making. Passion.
I can hear her voice in that barn. “I love you,” she says, stroking her thumb along my cheek. “So much. No one can take that away from us. No matter how much they try.” Her cheeks are pink, lips pale from kissing me so hard. The sound is so close, so real. That barn. Our spot.
I clench my fist around the blanket to cover us—me.
Just me.
The thin, coarse blanket rubs against my knuckles.
It burns. The man who jabbed me with a needle scoops me up as if I’m a bag of sand and drapes me over his shoulder.
Must be a big shoulder. My legs and arms hang, wavering like the lightbulb until he dumps me onto a metal table.
The staff or nurses, whoever keeps this place running, keep bringing me back to this cold metal table.
Last time I was on it, the doctor said, “Sit very still as we attach these electrodes on your scalp. The forced stimulus and inter cranial pressure might just give us the answers we need.” A switch clicks and my body convulses, shaking my brain around like a rattle.
I can’t breathe. I can’t feel my pulse. Please stop!
No more zaps. No more. No.
“No,” the word utters from my dry throat. No sound, just air, but something. The light changes, blinding me from the memory.
A blur of a white lab coat floats toward me, the doctor’s black hair stark in contrast.
“What are you already saying no to?” A monotone chuckle titters around me—the unamused person, unfazed from my breath of a statement, is somewhere to my right. Out of sight.
“You’re still shaky I see. Well, we just have one more test to run today. Then, you’re done.” It’s the doctor again. “Sample the spinal fluid first.”
Done. The end? No more. I can’t be done. I can’t go anywhere or nowhere. I need to stay here until she comes back. She needs to know where to find me. I’m supposed to protect her. I can’t if she can’t find me.
I can’t if my body is numb.
Or if I can’t speak.
“Examination room. Go,” a brute female voice snaps from outside the room.
Hands are all over me, flipping me onto my side, facing away from the door. I already know what’s coming next. Another needle, injected to extract spinal fluid. A groan rumbles through my throat as nails pinch into my arms. The pain—unbearable. Why is it I feel this but not my limbs?
Please God, make it stop. Please.
I inhale sharply then hold onto my breath, hoping the pressure in my lungs will ease the pain. It does nothing. The air escapes through a pinched whine. I clench my teeth, bite my cheek to displace some of the pain, waiting until the metallic taste of blood fills my mouth.
The needle slips out as if with care rather than the stab they jolted me with.
My back throbs as they sling me onto my back.
The pain subsides just enough that I wince through slit eyes, struggling to stare beyond my feet against the blaring white light, but I manage to see her angelic eyes, staring back at me with grief.
Is it truly her? Or is she the last thing my mind goes to before…the end.
Her name flickers on my tongue. I want to say it out loud, feel it, hear it.
Rosalie.
A beautiful rose.
The doctor. He’s back in sight. Holding a syringe, flicking the needle as clear liquid sputters from the tip. “Wh—what is that?” My words have no sound, no use. He moves to the side, out of view, leaving Rosalie close enough to touch if I could lift my arms and reach out to her.
Her chin is quivering. Her jaw is tight. Eyes wide and unblinking. I don’t want to know what she sees while looking at me—how horrible the sight must be. After what this doctor has done to me, what he’s put me through, somehow keeping me alive just enough to sit here and take more.
That syringe could be lethal. He said there would be an end. He made it clear.
“Do you have something to take notes with?” the doctor asks aloud.
Rosalie shakes her head. He’s talking to her. Why is he talking to her? What does he have to do with her? Of all the people in the world, why…why her?
His arm stretches past me, over to Rosalie with a notepad clipped to a board, a pencil dangling from a string. “Now, every detail matters here. This is very important.”
Without moving her stare from my face, she lifts the clipboard and pencil, then positions her hand over the notepad. Her eyes are lightless. I don’t understand.
The needle jabs into the flesh beneath my elbow, a cold liquid pressing into my bloodstream.
“You’ll need to keep an eye on the clock for this one. As you know…every second matters,” the doctor says.
Rosalie flinches, and her hand becomes unsteady as she presses the tip of her pencil to the paper.
She takes in a shuddered breath. She only does that when she’s terrified.
I don’t know how long I’ve been staring at her—the love of my life.
Her lifeless expression. Pale pallor of her cheeks.
But it’s now that my heart grows a second pulse.
Bum-bum bum-bum bum-bum.
My breaths struggle to keep up.
My heart and lungs battle for life.
Currents pump through my veins. It’s as if I’m running and leaping. But no exhaustion. No weakness.
The nerves in my limbs ignite, burn. The feeling—too much, overwhelming, like a second skin I want to scratch away. A growl rumbles through my chest as I heave in air.
I twist my head, able to see over my shoulder now. The doctor, his hand pinched around his dimpled chin, watches me as if I’m a pin-less grenade, and a dud—like he’s safe from the explosion that almost—never—happened.
A tremor shivers through my arms. My muscles spasm. I feel it all. I clench my hands into fists to squeeze against the pressure.
Breaths thicken.
Teeth gnash.
I thrash violently off the side of the table, into the doctor.
I clobber my hands around his neck, scratching at him.
For one second. Just one…
I thought I could take him down with me.
I was wrong.
He tosses me to the side like crumpled paper. Right into her small frame at the bottom of the table.
Rosalie.
And I’ve just nearly knocked her to the ground.
I clench her arms, holding on to her…too tightly.
But I can’t release my grip. I can’t let go. My veins throb like they might burst from my head.
Shouts, whistles, sirens, bells, and high-pitched screams explode from every corner of the room.
Hands grab me. Take me down. Tear us apart, again.
My back slams against the table, hard. My head bounces. Whips of leather slap against my arms and legs. Then tighten. And tighten more.
Metallic zings through my mouth. Not from blood.
More screams. Sirens. Whistles.
Air, sucked from my lungs.
Nerves throbbing.
Veins exploding.
Heart pounding.
Drowning.
Muffled sounds.
Rosalie.
Her eyes.
They’re all I see before the walls close in and the ceiling meets the floor.