Episode 12: John Doe

So there was screaming. That’s how it started.

In the room — one of those white, blinking kinds that smells like bleach and static and something dying in the walls. Someone was strapped down. Someone else was talking too calmly. There were machines. Needles. Silver bags of blood hanging from hooks like ornaments from a Christmas no one would survive.

I was on a table. I wasn’t screaming. Not yet.

I couldn’t remember my name. I could remember hunger. I could remember the sound a neck makes when it gives. I could remember teeth. My own. Someone else’s. I could remember being fast and broken and free.

But now I was 15. That’s what they wrote on the tag on my toe.

Subject Fifteen.

I couldn’t move. The straps bit harder than I ever had. There was another kid beside me. He was the one screaming. His wrists were purple where the cuffs dug in, his eyes silver where the blood came from. Not a metaphor. Not magic. Just silver, leaking from him in a slow spiral into me.

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

I didn’t know how long it had been. But I could feel something burning under my skin. A furnace trying to remember how to be a heartbeat.

“My name is Beck,” the kid next to me said. He wasn’t talking to me. He was talking to the wall, or the ceiling, or the part of the universe that lets this happen.

“Please,” he whispered. “Please don’t let me die like this.”

Nobody answered.

Of course nobody answered.

There was a mirror in the room, the kind that lets them watch you rot from the other side. I couldn’t see who was behind it. I couldn’t see my face either. But I saw the veins in my arms, dark and branching like roots underwater. I saw my skin go gray. Not dead gray. Something else.

I didn’t get claws. I didn’t get wings. I didn’t light the room on fire with my thoughts.

But I got quiet.

And I got stronger.

They kept the lights too bright. Maybe because they thought it kept us docile. Maybe because it helped them forget that we used to be people. Maybe because they wanted to see us turn.

The door opened once. A man walked in. He wore a white coat over black armor. His badge said NAAF — New American Armed Forces. His face looked like someone had tried to erase it with war.

He didn’t speak to me. He looked at the numbers on the machine. He looked at Beck.

“He’s draining too fast,” the man said.

“Silver-blood tolerance is low in this one,” another voice said behind the mirror. Female. Flat. Scientific. Like reading a weather report about the end of the world.

“Give him five more minutes,” the man said. “If he codes, harvest the marrow.”

Beck screamed again. It wasn’t a big scream. Just a “no” that never got past the back of his throat.

I wanted to reach for him. Not to help. Just to understand.

But I was still strapped down.

They left again.

And I remembered my sister’s face. Not all of it. Just the part where she was crying. Just the part where I told her I’d come back. Just the part where she ran while I stayed.

I hadn’t remembered anything real in months. Only bites. Only hunger.

Now I remembered her name. Marla.

That’s when I knew the cure worked.

That’s when I knew I’d been a monster. Not metaphor. Just mouth.

Time broke. Maybe I passed out. Maybe the lights did. Maybe one of us died.

But eventually, the room returned — with static. Crackling through the intercom like God clearing His throat.

A man’s voice. Calm. Too calm.

“They rescued the girl. The Under Dog captain. Barely. They slipped out just before we reached the eastern corridor. Silvers pulled her out.”

Another voice. Older. Deeper. Like stone over bone.

“Damn shame. We needed her as bait. Could’ve helped us cure a dozen more.”

Then came the sentence that changed everything.

“We have to find the Silvers’ base. It’s the only way to end this.”

The static cut out.

I didn’t scream.

I didn’t say thank you.

I just stared at the silver blood still dripping into me, and wondered how many more kids were going to have to bleed so I could remember my name.