He shakes his head and puts on a record.

The song spins up into the air. We dance for a moment, our bodies close, the heat between us returning.

We can’t know that by nightfall, the foxes will be upon us with their rapid hearts and their gnashing teeth. We won’t know how they got in, only that their bodies rush in to fill our living room, a rabid energy to their entrance, the scent of their musks even stronger.

We’ll wake with their teeth marks in our skin, not recalling the attack. We won’t remember a thing, not even the sweet rare pressure of their wild paws on our skin.

BY THE 30TH DAY, THE PAIN IS SO GREAT I can barely walk.

I take a cab to the doctor’s office, collapsed against the busted leather of the back seat, my body grinding against itself.

“Nice day out today,” the cab driver calls.

“Yes,” I force out. Each letter is a grimace.

I can’t notice the sun or the blue sky. I can only writhe. Each pothole shakes the cab and levels a new wave of hell against me.

“Ten coins,” he says.

I count them out slowly in my palm, then crawl from the back seat.

The black doors slide open softly. The office is electric white trimmed with dull gray, the colors meant to soften pain. A set of eyes peer over the counter. This time, the eyes are brown, kind.

“You must be Cassie,” the eyes say.

“Yes, hello, that’s me.”

“Well, hi there!” she says, standing up to slide a stack of paperwork on a clipboard to me.

I stare down at the body chart again. I circle the torso twice. This time, I write the number 10 next to the field marked PAIN LEVEL.

“Poor thing,” she tuts when I bring the chart back.

I can feel her eyes on my knot. The pain keeps screaming in the background, it reduces everything around me.

“He’ll be right with you.”

There are no magazines. Instead, a large television on mute displays a newscaster silently moving her mouth. The red banner beneath her face spells out ANOTHER BOMB DROPPED, 150 DEAD in white text, scrolling over and over again, infinite.

Occasionally, the screen cuts to a plume of smoke swallowing land. They do not show the bodies, which must be buried just beneath the cloud.

“Cassie,” she calls. “We’re ready for you.”

I follow her down the bright hallway, white as perfect teeth, pristine. Here, there are no plastic organs, just the glow.

She passes me a gray gown.

“Why don’t you put this on and the doctor will be right in to see you.”

The gown is soft and warm, but my pain eclipses that. I climb onto the table and curl into a ball.

There is a knock at the door.

“Come in,” I call.

Doctor Kuznit appears: Large, olive skinned, dark hair, green eyes.