Dr Knives (III)

The strap creaked tighter, and along a distant corridor, a door clanged.

The boy, if indeed he was a boy, flinched at the noise, but barely, because the leather bonds held him fast.

"Is there someone else here?" His voice sounded echoey and shrill in this bare room.

The lobotomist made reassuring noises without actually answering the question.

The lobotomist knew he was moving too quickly, but he couldn't risk this one disappearing, as these sort often did. Preyed on, one way or another. Dead maybe, or trafficked or else gone home to their families, or supported into housing... There were many ways young runaways could vanish. Did their peers worry overmuch about them, with so much bandwith gobbled up by survival?

This was his excuse for his own recklessness, and also now he comforted himself that no one would notice another one disappearing.

He'd given his name as Taylor. The lobotomist hadn't checked this. He didn't especially care.

He wondered, in a vague way, why a boy had chosen to put a pink streak in his hair. It was not the sort of thing men of his own generation were likely to do. Perhaps this was why Taylor was living rough. His father might have been angry and unaccepting of anything deviating even slightly from social norms.

Or maybe "Taylor" was actually a girl, but pretending to be a boy believing she would be less likely to experience assault. This hunch, when he gave it a half-hearted analysis, was not really anything to do with the colour in his hair. It was the slightest tilt toward girlishness in his features.

He'd seemed narrow and lean, with no hips, no curves... But this could have been youth and malnutrition.

He was sure the brain in there was an absolute mess. Trauma, rejection, confusion... And smack bang in the middle of pubescent restructuring, too. The lobotomist could hardly wait to get his teeth into this one.

He tested each buckle; Taylor could hardly move a half-inch. Next, he adjusted the contraption on his own head. With no assistant, he had to be extremely self-sufficient, and a single pair of hands was hardly enough. It also gave off suitable Doctor vibes, like the white coat. He hadn't been able to get all the stains out, but he still felt it lent him a certain gravitas.

The scrub-up of himself, the equipment, and the room was for the same reason, much more so than mere hygiene. A whiff of antiseptic and a white coat, and people devolved into putty. Obedient to a fault. You can't contradict a doctor.

"Aren't you going to, umm, put me to sleep or something?" Taylor asked, his voice shaking.

The lobotomist smiled, like a shark.

"Whatever for?"

snick snick

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Thank you for reading!

Thanks also to Vocal for giving this one Top Story:

If you'd like to have a gander at the others in this series:

For some reason Vocal won't embed the second one, so:

Dr Knives (II)