Exsanguination

Originally posted on Tales of the Parodyverse by Manga Shoggoth.

Parodyverse characters copyright (c) 2006 to their creators. The use of characters and situations reminiscent of other popular works do not constitute a challenge to the copyrights or trademarks of those works.

I knew this day would come.

Your name gets put on a list, shuffled around, and eventually the powers that be take notice of you.

I look at the letter in my hand. A crisp, white, official envelope, pre-printed stationary with a logo the colour of blood, and a bland request to present myself for processing at a given place on a given date.

There is no escape. After all, they know where I live.

The worst of it is the waiting. I arrive at the rendezvous, a shabby building that was once a church hall, but has now fallen into ... bad company. The late evening shadows give the outside of the hall a sinister aspect, but the inside is perversely clean and well lit. It would almost seem benign, if not for the odd chemical smells that pervade the atmosphere.

At the front of the hall are several rows of cheap metal chairs, some of which are already occupied by silent figures, all awaiting processing. To one side is a computer terminal, a silent reminder of Big Brother. To the other side is a line of curtained booths.

The chairs face forward to the entrance. Behind the chairs, arranged in a rough U shape, are a set of rude cots. Each of the cots is occupied by a body, some moving slightly, others deathly still. At the very back of the hall broods a dark doorway.

All around move the attendants, all female, and all wearing the same plain uniform. Utilitarian and dark blue, emblazoned with the same blood-red logo.

Presiding over all is a portly woman who should be dour-faced, but instead has an inane, impersonal smile on her face, a harpy welcoming her victims.

I sit amongst the figures, fidgeting slightly on the rigid chair. As I watch, my fellows (although there is no fellow feeling, not here and not in a place like this) are called to the cubicles. They then return to their seats for a short period, before being called and led in silence to the cots behind us. As they depart, more victims enter the hall to take their place.

None of them come back.

At last my name is called.

Inside the booth waits another female in the same drab uniform. She effects the same impersonal manner as her supervisor, and fires questions at me with the inflections of one who has done this so many times that the action has lost all meaning.

She demands my name and my address (as if they didn't already know), and shows a strange interest in any foreign journeys that I have made. She also asks come quite impudent questions about my personal life, going as far as to suggest that I might have a drug habit or have been involved in ... inappropriate behaviour for money.

Whilst performing her interrogation she grabs my hand and pierces it with some form of blade. She takes a sample of the blood for some sort of test. What chills me is that she does this without a pause in the stream of questions.

At length she finishes. The answers to all her questions have been recorded on a sheet, which I am forced to sign and date. Then I am sent back to the chairs to await my fate.

During my initial interrogation the pool of victims has diminished. Almost immediately I am called to the back of the hall, where the forbidding cots are arranged. I am led, like a lamb to the slaughter, to one of the cots, and made to lie down.

Another female - younger, but with the same impersonal air - places a form of cushioned restraint on my arm, inflating it to a tight fit. As she does so, she peppers me with the same questions that I have already been asked. Name, address and travels.

Eventually she ceases her questions, and - still impersonal - starts to apply her tortuous arts. A cruel needle is forced into my arm, and I am forced to clench and unclench my fist. The restraint restricts the flow of blood into my arm, and my muscles scream in pain. Small phials are applied to tubes connected to the needle, and a shock of agony runs up my arm as each is applied.

Even when my torturer turns her attention to another victim I am not free - she keeps me under her stern gaze, making sure that I do not cease the painful clenching of my hand.

At length I am offered a brief respite. The needle is pulled from my arm, and a gauze patch placed on my arm. I am forced to hold this in position, leaving my arms twisted in an unnatural position. Now the muscles in both arms scream their protests.

Finally, the attendant roughly places a dressing on my injured arm. I am forced from the cot and led through the dark, forbidding portal at the back of the hall to the room beyond. There is one final torture to face.

I hate strong tea!

Footnotes:

I expect you can guess what I was doing when I thought of this one. Perhaps it is a little unfair on the National Blood Service, even though I complimented one of the assistants on her "wonderfully sardonic bedside manner".