“Hello and welcome to The Silent History. I am your host, Noah Palmer, and today we have a special guest. She is the most well-known survivor of one of the darkest governmental experiments in our Nation’s history. But after exposing the situation and delivering justice by bringing those responsible to trial, she all but disappeared.”

        A man in a navy sweater sits in the armchair opposite you. He speaks to a camera.

        When you found Noah Palmer’s email, you avoided it like a bad omen before reading it. His brevity and straightforwardness worked, or maybe ten years had softened your resolve to stay silent. 

        “Please welcome, Maeve Emory! You will remember her as Patient 665, or more famously, Patient Eve.”

        He turns to you. “Hello, Maeve. I speak on behalf of everyone watching from home when I say it is an honor to have you here for your first public appearance since the trials.” 

        “Thank you.” Your voice remains even, but your palms sweat; you clasp them together. “Your host is quite reputable. You’ve got nothing to worry about.” Dr. Amy, your therapist, had reassured you that The Silent History was the right place to speak.

        You take a moment to gather yourself and look around the room. There is a small tech crew handling the cameras. You notice their disinterested faces focused on the apparatus they wield and wonder how long it took them to become desensitized to their work. 

        Nonetheless, you are thankful there is no live studio audience, no apathetic bodies to bathe in the still-writhing and groaning pain you’ve carried this long. Look into the camera when you tell them. Let them understand. Do it for the girls. 

        “Do not worry if you need to take pauses, and let me know if you need anything at all.”

        You give a small smile and nod. 

        Noah Palmer shifts a bit and faces you directly. “Shall we start at the beginning?”

        “Sure.” You fake composure, your hands holding tighter now. No, don’t be nervous, relax, relax. It’s been over, for years.

        Noah senses your hesitation and moves to support you. “Perhaps you can start by telling us how you came to be in the center?” He turns to the camera, “For those of you who don’t know, the G.O.D. Center is the Graystone Organic DNA Incubation Center. ” 

        You sigh, your grip loosening, and begin, “I was 20, and I was in college, uh pre-med. By then, the Supreme Court’s ruling overturning federally legal abortions had been in effect for almost six years - most States had already banned them. The initial outrage had calmed down, the protests stopped entirely. People, women mostly, grew exhausted of fighting a seemingly immovable government, resigning themselves to back-alley abortions. Men were appeased. Our bodies and freedom – as long as they had access to them, they were happy.” 

        You pause, breathe in deeply - smells subtly like wood and wallpaper and stagnation. “It was the end of the semester, and I was invited to a party by an acquaintance. I don’t remember how I ended up on the second floor, but I did. I was drunk and the world spun. Though I thought I was alone, deep in the room sat a man.” 

        You stop talking. Noah doesn’t interject, and the cameraman carries on with his work.

        “The rest blurs, and, well, my story is not particularly new. I woke up the next morning in the bed, where…”

        You trail off. Maeve, breathe. You’re not there anymore. 

        “I took a pregnancy test some time after.”

        Look at the camera, Maeve. You turn your head and stare directly into its cold gaze. Get a grip Maeve. You came with a purpose.

        “The despair - the anguish that came with knowing, was suffocating. It took away my future of becoming a doctor. That man, he–” your voice cracks a little. “I, uh…”
        Steel yourself; don’t be shaken.

        “His name was Joshua Paulson. After he violated me, he completed college. He married, had two sons, eventually divorced. He died in a car accident four years ago.” 

        Your eyes pierce the camera lens as you wait.

        “Almost immediately after I realized I was pregnant, I began researching. How could I get rid of this thing? I couldn’t let one man, one night, ruin the opportunities I’d been building for myself. A tsunami of rage followed. I would survive this; who I wanted to become would survive this.

       “Eventually, I stumbled upon a website, a government website, promising to take away the embryo in me. I spent the entire night at my computer. No matter how hard I looked, the information circled. It’s legal, not an abortion, but I wouldn’t deliver a full-term baby? 

        “I scheduled an appointment. I needed answers, help, and I was hopeful.”

        You inhale deeply. 

        Noah clears his throat. “Are you alright? Shall we take a break?” He leans forward, his eyebrows drawn together in…what,concern? 

        “Oh no, no. I’m fine, just…” You pause, “remembering. Where was I? The appointment. I made the journey to the G.O.D. I remember arriving at a white building. Inside, I was received by an enthusiastic woman who handed me a cup of water and sat me down in the lobby. There were other people there, some standing behind the reception area, some in white robes passing by. Doctors, I assumed. It was only after I was enrolled that I realized all those people, other than the receptionist, were actors.

        “I can’t recall our exact conversation, but looking back I realize she answered around my questions. It would have been more convenient if I had realized then, of course. Like any good salesman or politician, she put me instantly at ease so that I had no idea the true intent behind her smile.

        “The minute the pen lifted from the paper, the air changed. The receptionist gradually stopped clicking away at her computer. No one passed through the lobby again. The security guards entered.

        “I was escorted beyond the door and into the facility. From there, I’m afraid there is a gap in my memory, until I woke up to see four girls staring at me, two of which sat on my bed. Oh, how I screamed and thrashed at them.

        “They would later tell me that their reactions had been similar. They too felt ill at ease within the walls, the floor, the ceiling all paneled and so blindingly white. Even the air was white. 

        “The girl who spoke up first was Millie. She had been in the institution for a month, the effects of injections already displayed on her: heavy bags beneath her eyes, hollowed cheeks, rapid weight loss. You probably heard about her in the news. She- I wasn’t- well. I’ll get to that later.”

        You look at Noah who nods at you, solemnly.

        “So we sat down and Millie explained everything she knew. We were underground, imprisoned. There were daily checkups. Every week, an enrichment activity enabled the ‘patients’ to see the sunlight. Millie said, ‘It’s their sorry attempt at keeping us sane.’ 

        “Everything else was unpredictable; you’d never know until they came for you. The institution was built like a labyrinth within a fortress, sentinels stationed around every corner. There was no schedule, just immediacy. Suddenly, a nurse and two guards would be blocking the only exit to the room. It was impossible to escape, even more so with our rapidly deteriorating physical and mental health. They broke our bodies, broke our minds. The only thing we had left in the end was our will. We were damn set on getting out of there. After they excised whatever they were growing in us, we would be free. This hope was the only thing that kept us going. God, how little we knew about the depth of this… evil.”

        A chill sweeps through the room. You breathe, inviting the cold to sit inside your lungs.

       “Eventually, we learned that we were corpses, hosts, kept alive for the needs of the parasite inside us. And of course, our importance was on borrowed time. 

        “That thing, the so-called ‘organic DNA’ was… surgically inserted. It enhanced the baby already there. If you’ve read the reports published after the trials, you’ll understand. We were bones bagged in skin. Eventually, our skin turned gray and ashen, lips pale and streaked with red cracks. Purple and green bruises, like love bites from the needles and IV drips, curled up our arms. And the eyes of the women! They looked at me like roadkill deer looking into the horizon, face forever frozen in fear until decay has its way. 

        “There weren’t any mirrors in the facility, but every now and then you’d catch a glimpse of yourself, a stranger with haunted eyes and a hollowed body, and an awful, protruding abdomen, as you passed by windows and glass doors.

        “That first year after the G.O.D. case finished, the nightmares persisted. Every time I closed my eyes, I’d see them: the girls, the doctors, the pristine white walls standing stark above our decaying bodies, the labs, the guards, the needles and scalpels, and Millie, Millie on the-”

        Your throat closes as if your body protects you from what you’re saying. You clear it. “Whatever that was growing inside us was sucking our life out. And, well, in simple terms, Millie had the worst of it.”

        You look up at the ceiling as you roll the words over, testing which ones you are ready to release. 

        “Throughout our imprisonment, we managed to understand a few pieces of information. The institution was a maze, and we were in the west wing where a dozen more rooms had imprisoned other girls like us.

        “‘This place is bereft of any and all god and goodness,’ Millie had told me, and I thought she was already insane. But she was strong, brave. She was twenty, and almost three months pregnant, the furthest into her pregnancy than any of us. She would have the toughest time withstanding the experiments, as if the baby fought too. God, she was- she…”

        Breathe in Maeve. Now, breathe out.

       “She began to get… really sick when the intensity of the experiments increased. There were so many shots a day, and whatever was in them did not sit well in Mille’s body. She would throw up violently after each injection, and again after every meal. Her hands trembled, and she was excavated down to the bone. She used her IV drip as a walking stick, and sat down whenever she could.

        “Millie looked at me with a certain conviction and desperation as her symptoms increased. Eventually, she became a woman obsessed - obsessed with the idea of getting all the other women out.

        “‘You’re the healthiest, Maeve. Only you can do it.’ Her face was grave as she continued. ‘You have to save the girls, for me.’ I was galvanized, but before we could make moves then, Josie Ann, the youngest of all of us, died. The parasite had been born, killing its host. A nurse delivered the news. 

        “‘Ladies, in four days we will have a day of rest with no injections, just a check up. You will rest in your rooms for the remainder of that day. And I have some unfortunate news. Patient 663 has had a miscarriage and passed away during surgery. That is all.’

        “Her death was disregarded as some minor inconvenience; they didn’t even say her name. Josie Anne. She was a sweet kid, always trying to stay optimistic no matter how hopeless our situation became. She was raised Christian, didn’t do a single damn thing wrong in her life. She’d been raped.” 

        You rub your right hand over your eyes. 

        An unspoken moment of silence passes for Josie Anne and all the girls that were killed there. 

        You begin again, “Yet despite our loss, we had certainly gained a sliver of hope in Nurse Ratched’s announcements. It was the perfect opportunity: a moment of weakness in their security. This would be our only chance, otherwise, we would die here. Those three days passed in a blur of anxiety as Millie and I established the plan. We had a pretty good image of the floorplan between the two of us, but only a vague idea of where the only elevator to the ground floor stood. We were going to have to figure it out, but we had faith, not in god, or a savior, but in ourselves.”

        You sigh, feeling the ghost of the adrenaline from that day twitching in your veins. You feel like you can get up and just take off running again. Outside, a brilliant spill of orange, pink, red expands across the sky. The sun is setting. C’mon Maeve, you’re almost there. 

        “So when the day finally came, we waited, hoping that Millie would be called first. It made sense - she was the closest to the end of the experiment, the finished product. For us, she was imperative to the whole plan; she’d fake a seizure enabling her to steal the key card from the nurse. From there, everything would shift in our favor. 

        “Unfortunately, before any one of us was even called, that monster inside me stirred. I felt my entire body lurch with its force. My pain and screaming was followed by darkness. When I awoke, I was on a moving gurney. Everything spun.

        “Eventually, I was positioned on an operating table, three surgeons stood nearby, facing away from me. Just as I had opened my eyes to this horror, a nurse burst in. She shouted ‘Millie’s collapsed!’ Preoccupied with the latest crisis, two hurried out from the room, no one noticing that I was very much awake. I don’t know what came over me, but as soon as the door shut behind the two doctors, I turned to the only staff member left standing in that room. He held a needle, the anesthesia glistening from its tip. His eyes widened when he realized I now faced him, but before he could scream, I plunged the needle deeply into his neck. When he fell, clarity slammed back into my body. In my frenzy, the first thing I thought to do was to cut the damn parasite out of me. I did exactly that.” 

        Noah shudders. You notice.

        “Remember, I was a pre-med student. I had some basic knowledge, and that coupled with ambition and anger, made me particularly powerful in that moment. Without even hesitating, I stuck the scalpel into the skin of my abdomen and dragged. The pain and dizziness was unbearable, often followed by occasional blacking out, but somehow I managed to reach my hand into my abdomen. I felt around before grasping something hard and leathery, yanking with all my might. There, between my legs, was a leech-shaped monstrosity covered in blood, its teeth thin and long. I remember staring at it until it twitched, pulsed. Bile rose in my throat, and all I could throw up was stomach acid. I felt so clear-headed then. I stuffed my bloody hospital gown into my mouth and grabbed the needle and thread from the tray to sew myself back together, one stitch at a time. I barely felt the pain. I mean - there is a certain moment when your body just shuts that all down. I had reached it.

        “I fumbled on the bloody, crumpled gown and tumbled off of the operation table. I fell right on top of the sleeping doctor, and I’m glad I did, because it revealed his precious keycard, which would enable me to operate the elevator.

        “I dragged myself forwards on my arms down hallways before I could feel my legs again and then half limped against the wall and half crawled along the path Millie and I had memorized.

        “The rest of what happened, you already know. I made it to the right elevator, onto the ground floor, through the empty lobby, and into the street. This part was in the news; a passing car almost hit me, and an ambulance was called. Then, the investigation, the arrests, the trials. Millie didn’t survive; she died before the police could arrive.

        “During the first hearing, a photo of her body lying there on the operation bed, her stomach slit open, came up as evidence. I didn’t know - I - I was shocked. When I saw that her eyes were still open, I got so sick they had to put the trial on hold. They still referred to her as Patient 664 –a tool, an experiment, a piece of evidence.” 

        You look at Noah somberly, and chuckle humorlessly. “You know what the funny thing is? That day I escaped, it was July fourth, Independence Day. I only realized after I got out.”

        You sigh, “After all of this, the G.O.D. center, the trials, everything, I had had enough. And so one day, I simply left. I stayed in touch with my therapist only. I felt that if no one saw me, Patient Eve, Patient 665 wouldn't exist anymore. I could just be Maeve again. So for ten years, I hid myself away. And I probably would’ve for ten more years, or the rest of my life, if I hadn’t received your request for an interview. Thank you Noah, for letting me tell this story.” 

        Later, when you walk out of the building into the chilly air, night has settled fully. When you exhale, you can see your soul materializing before you, as if saying, look Maeve, it’s been ten years. Haven’t we carried this burden long enough? You’ve done what you came here to do, isn’t it time you live again? 

        You breathe and step forward into the night and back into the world.