Chapter One

I peel my eyes open and I instantly regret it. There is a blinding light directly above my face that makes me wince and sends sharp pains through my head. The light is too bright. I quickly snap my eyes shut to try to give them a break from their sudden assault, and start to focus on the inside of my eyelids. Once my headache subsides to a tolerable level, I try once again to open my eyes, this time going slowly so they have time to adjust. There are four small walls surrounding me that are stark white and bland. As I look around I see a very empty room save the small metallic table to my right. The table resembles that of a surgeon; holding two small scalpels, a large bowl with what looks like gauze pouring over its sides, and three small capsules- each with either a blue, green, or lilac piece of tape stuck to the lid.

As I look around the room, I start to realize how bone achingly cold I am. Whatever I'm laying on is ice cold and biting through the clothing on my legs and straight to my bare arms. I use my fingers to feel what's beneath me, and familiarization floods my mind. I'm on an operating table. I can tell by the smooth surface, but I can't remember how I know what an operating table feels like. Strange.

I try to muster the energy to lift my head and look at my body but it feels as if I'm trying to pull it from deep under water, it's heavy and lethargic. No matter how hard I try to raise it, I just feel as though there is a force pushing against me. I try to lift my hands and instantly halt with terror. My wrists are strapped down and I don't know what is holding them down because I can't lift my head. I pull and I claw at my restraints, but no matter how hard I try, I can't wrangle free. I try to do the same maneuver with my legs but I know it won't work because I can feel the tight rubbing of the restraints around my ankles, just like my wrists.

I begin to panic.

My eyes search the room greedily trying to find a way out, or at the very least, my captor. I can only see the things to my immediate left and right and directly above me clearly; everything else is very blurry, but I can see the form of a doorway in front of me. I close my eyes and try to remember how I got into the mess and only one thing comes to mind, Jane Isaiah. My name is Jane Isaiah.

That's all? I think, frustrated. The only thing I can think of is my freaking name? Suddenly, a few things flash through my mind, a loud POP, a blood-curdling scream, and an unfamiliar voice yelling, actually more like pleading, my name. Instantly, my body responds to the moment of insight, goosebumps cover my arms and I can feel my pulse spike in response.

What the hell was that? I try hard to suppress the memories because, quite frankly, I don't understand what they mean.

I try once more to lift my head, and this time its a little bit easier. I can feel whatever drug that was influencing me beginning to wear off. I look down at my body and see that besides the leather buckles holding me down and the blueish hue my cold legs have taken on, I am unscathed.

Well that's strange, aren't kidnap victims usually hurt? Or at the very least, don't they usually have marks from their attempted escapes? I think to myself. Every new detail of my predicament is making me more and more uneasy. Something isn't right here.

Instead of pondering over how I got here, I begin to try and find an escape. I can now see clearly that there is a door in the wall in front of me, all I have to do is get off of the table. I look down at my hands and try desperately to unbuckle the leather straps that are holding me in place. I shift my body to the right so that I can get some leverage and I begin bending my fingers towards my wrist. Slowly, I slide the tongue of the belt under the metal buckle with my middle finger, then after several tries, I push the post out of the notch in the tongue, and finally I get my right hand free. I begin to methodically pull my left hand and ankles free of the straps until I am completely free of my restraints.

As I pull my legs around and let them hang over the table, I feel a sharp sting on my wrists. I look down and see that I have rubbed them raw from my escape and they are now bright pink and bleeding. I shake my hands quickly and try to ignore the pain I feel everytime I move my wrists. I hop off the table easily and look down at my arms and legs. As I study myself, I see that I have athleticism and easy grace, while my arms and legs are lean and hard. I am dressed in nothing but light grey, cotton pants and a tight fitting, matching grey tank top.

I decide my best bet is to search the room for hints as to why I'm here before I try to leave and walk right into my captor's trap. I walk over to the surgeon table and take a look at its contents. I scan the surface and see the same two scalpels, bowl, and the three capsules with tape as before. I lean over and see that my assumption of what was in the bowl was right, the bowl is filled to the top with gauze. I slowly reach for the gauze and lift its many layers until I get to the bottom of the bowl. The further into the bowl I get, the more I realize that this gauze isn't all as clean as the top layers are. I move closer to see what is causing the pinkish color in the gauze, and when I find the culprit, I freeze.

I see pink shreds of flesh stuck to the gauze and the sides of the bowl, while blood is slowly soaking through everything like ink, but the bloody mess isn't what's scaring me. In the center of the bowl lays a single eyeball. The eye isn't entirely intact though, and it takes me a second to realize that it's actually only a piece of an eye. Half of the eye is torn to shreds and only a bit of the iris is even decipherable, but I can see that its cool grey hue matches my own. I take a minute to regain my composure before I finish looking through the rest of the table's contents.

I scan over the table again, this time trying my hardest to avoid the large bowl and its contents. Suddenly, I notice a small square mirror laying flat beside the scalpels that I hadn't noticed before. I pick it up and gasp. If I were not afraid of someone coming in and discovering me free of my bonds, I think I would've screamed.

I see my long brown hair cascading over my shoulders in loose waves, my olive toned skin with a few scattered freckles, my soft facial features, and light pink lips that are now turned down in disgust. Where my once grey eyes were, are now replaced with frightening fragmented eyes of many colors.

As I lift the mirror closer to my face, I begin to study the strange sight harder. Not only are my irises all different colors, but they are completely different pieces of eyes altogether. It looks as though someone has stitched different eyes together and created a sort of patchwork creation of a blue, green, and… lilac.

I look over at the empty capsules that have been sitting on the table and I can't help my eyes from roaming to the colors of tape on each lid. All at once, my hands start to shake violently and I drop the mirror to the white tile floor where it shatters into a million shards, resembling my composure. That eye in the bowl doesn't just resemble my grey eyes, it is my eye.