“I’m so glad you could join us tonight. We don’t get a lot of visitors to our little town, and if I’m honest, that’s been a good thing up to now.” Her lipstick was too bright red and slightly smeared as she leaned closer to me, only enhancing the look of madness I saw in her eyes. “But I think we’re finally ready to share our gift with the outside world. There’ve been some missteps, to be sure, but I think you’ll find the treatment is a lot less painful and more agreeable than it used to be.”

I realized she was talking to me with the same sing-song monotone that some doctors used when they were getting ready to give you a shot or do something else unpleasant, and then I glimpsed the piece of metal she was pulling from a nearby tray. It looked like a sharp-edged ice cream scoop. Hands were pressing against my face now, holding my head still despite my struggling.

“Oh God no. Please no. I won’t tell just please just….AAHHHHHH!”

I blacked out for a moment from the pain. Out of instinct I had closed my eyes, but it didn’t matter. The biting edge of her instrument sliced through the lid and scooped out my right eye all in one smooth motion. She was finishing the second as I came back to wakefulness long enough to let out another wail of pain.

“Ssshhhh, I understand. That’s the bad part. Don’t you worry. All the pain will be gone in a moment or two.” I couldn’t see any longer, could barely reason at all through the pain and insanity of it all, but after a moment I felt an intense heat as though someone was pouring molten lead into the freshly-excavated holes in my skull. I tried to thrash, but my head was still being held fast, and after a few seconds the sensation began to fade to tingling coolness and then to nothing.

I found myself wishing I could just black out again, or if not that, just go ahead and die. It had to be better than whatever they had in store for me. I flinched when I felt a soft, cool hand on my forehead. Then the doctor’s voice was gently murmuring in my ear.

“There there. That’s it and all. The brood is set now. And don’t you worry. You’ll wake back up with your pretty eyes just like they were. You can tell yourself it was all a bad dream if you like. Just so l0ong as you don’t look too closely or deeply, that is.”

****