I Did Nazi That Coming

“…Nurse I need the sedative…I don’t care, we’re going to lose him if we don’t do this right now…Fine, you grab his legs.  Spec, you grab the arms.  This won’t work if he thrashes around…”  The voice was frantic and I could feel the sense of urgency slipping from his tongue.  The clatter of metal pans and people fumbling around encompassed the room, which only added to the massive headache I had.  I felt the need to get up and open my eyes, revealing the tense situation of which I had awoken to, but four heavy points of pressure held me down.  I began to panic.

“Doctor, he’s awake!”  I pulled and pulled on my restraints, desperately trying to gain break free.  My muscles ached and my entire chest burned.

“Horseapples, okay, we can’t wait any longer.  He’s going to die if we don’t start this right now.  If I’m right, he should pass out after a minute or two.”  I pulled harder, but still, the nurses wouldn’t give.

Suddenly, my body seized up.  I could feel the tip of cold metal begin to poke my stomach.  At first it was slowly pushing down, but after a moment, the pressure built around a single area.  I desperately tried sucking in my stomach and tightening my abs before I was cut, but before I could go any farther, more pain gouged my mind.  I remember screaming, begging for him to cease his intrusion.

Pain.  That was all I could feel.  The blade had penetrated the skin.  My thoughts coalesced into one single thought… well, it was more like one single scream.  I was helplessly thrashing around, too feeble to break free, but still strong enough to stay awake.  My limbs were held in place, but my body wasn’t.  I hopped up and down as best I could, frantically flaying myself around the metal table which produced a cacophony of bangs and the muffled grunts of nurses trying to hold me down.  The sharp metal began to cut further down my body, causing me to scream louder than before.  My breathing became erratic and I wailed as the blade refused to stop.

Suddenly, I felt something clamp around my mouth.  I tried and tried, but whatever was on my head glued my lips together.  My muffled cries were stifled but from my breathing, I could tell I was crying.  The metal knife was gone, but something else took its place.  I felt something bigger push my skin apart and begin to go inside of me.  I tried and tried, but it was becoming harder to get out of my captor’s grasp.  My eyes remained blinded, but my mind became flooded with a blurry dull feeling.  I let out my last muffled moan and passed out.

~~~

The moment I woke up, I immediately wished I hadn’t.  I didn’t feel pain so much as a terrible itch that ran along my stomach and into my eyes.  That and also the racking soreness that took hold of my body and refused to let it go.  I tried to push my arms towards my face to soothe my bothered itch, but again, I found them bound in place.  Even though I had just woken up, I felt more tired than I had ever been in my life.  A coupling soreness met my drowning eyelids.  I couldn’t see anything but I knew my eyes were open.  A thick, wet cloth grasped my head, refusing to fall off no matter how many times I bobbed my head.  I took in a breath.

Immediately, my throat closed and a wild spewing of coughs filled the room.  It burned as I desperately tried to expunge liquid from my lungs, unsuccessfully so.  I knew my coughs were loud when all of the sudden I heard a door fly open and two sets of loud, banging footsteps enter the room.

“…Doctor!  Get Doctor Flint!”  The voice was barely audible over my choking gasps.  The two people came closer.  “…Shh…  It’s alright.  Just get it all out.”  I let out another round of coughs, feeling sick to my stomach.

“The Doctor will be here soon, just relax.  Everything’s going to be okay.”  I could feel her begin to stroke my arm as I continued to fight for a decent breath.  It had gotten better after a few moments, but every once in a while, I let out another whooping cough.  Eventually, another pair of people banged into the room and stopped somewhere near the bed.  I could hear them sift through a few sheets of paper as they gathered their thoughts.

“Nurse, I want you to go get Herb.  I need her to provide our patient here with a heavy pain killer.”  With that, two people left the room and the other two remained.  One had yet to speak but I knew how many there were.  Eventually, the Doctor cleared his throat.

“So how are you feeling, son?”  I let out another whooping cough and tried moving my lips.  Many questions flashed through my mind.  Wait a second?  They’re not speaking Russian.  That’s… English.  How could I have been captured by someone on the western front when I’ve never even seen it?  My mind instantly became filled with relief.  I was taken by the Americans… or possibly the British.  Somehow I felt as if a load had been lifted and aside from the physical pain, I felt joy.

Americans don’t kill German POWs, I thought.

I had learned English in my youth as with many other languages, but it had been a while since I had actually practiced it.  Taking in a deep breath, I prepared to speak.

“…W-what *cough* happened to me?”  I asked.

“Wel-“

I cut him off.  “Why can’t I see?”  The man let out a small chuckle.

“It’s not your eyes that are the problem, sport.  Those will be fine in a couple days.  It’s those lungs of yours I’m worried about.”

I breathed a sigh of relief.  “My lungs?”

"Well…  Actually, I wouldn’t call them both your lungs.  One of them is, but the other is… a transplant.”  I looked out into nothingness in disbelief.  Sudden realizations began to hit me.  The feeling of cold metal.  The sound of screaming out in pain.  The weight of nurses holding me down as they sliced me open and cut out a lung.

I shuddered at the thought and my heart sank into my chest.  I could feel its soft beating turn into a heavy drumming.

“Don’t worry about the coughing.  That’s just some excess fluids draining from when we took it out of the jar.  You should begin to breathe normally after a few hours.”  I could feel him move closer as I felt something touch my shoulder.  I was still sore but it didn’t hurt too badly.

“You’re a strong one, that’s for sure.  I don’t know if you can remember it, but you lasted much longer than I ever thought possible.”

I turned my head to the source of the voice.  “I-I remember…”  I whispered, feeling my eyes start to tear up.  The man didn’t reply but I could still feel his presence.  I had no idea where the other person in the room was, but I hadn’t heard them leave so they were obviously still watching me.  Another nurse perhaps, or maybe a MP sent to watch over me.

My eyes still itched horribly, but I knew if I tried to scratch them it would only make things worse.  It didn’t make the feeling go away though.  I could just imagine the soothing feeling of gently stroking the afflicted areas with my hand.  Taking gentle care to use my nail on my middle finger to…

I felt around again.  And again.  This time on both hands.  And then I began to shout.

It wasn’t so much a shout as a blur of words in my native tongue.  I’m sure the Doctor was just about to tell the MP to shut me up somehow, but I felt something else.  I felt the stroking touch on my left shoulder, caressing me into a state of calmness.  I stopped thrashing around and allowed myself to breathe.  My feeling of hope had been drained upon the realization that I no longer had fingers or toes.  I continued to try and flex them or feel something, but every time I did, nothing happened.  I began to sob.

“What happened to me?”  I asked him.

“…I’m not sure.  I-I just performed the surgery.  I didn’t find you.”  I let out another cry and laid my head down on a pillow.  Immediately I became filled with rage.  I was supposed to die back there and now I have to live my life as a cripple.  No hands or feet?  I’ll have to live assisted for the rest of my life, unable to even eat by myself.  I began to get angry.

“Y-you… did this to me.  You took them, didn’t you,” I said weakly.

“What?”  He responded.  “Took what?”

I felt too weak to thrash around, but I still had enough to look back at where the voice was coming from.

“My hands!  Where are my hands?”  I didn’t get a reply, but instead two people came running in and stopped in front of the bed.  I heard a gasp and they took a step closer.

“Thank you nurse, now I need you to give him an anesthetic spell that will keep him out for the night.  He’s hallucinating and I don’t want him to wake up any other patients while I’m gone.”

Wait, what did he just say?

Instantly, I felt a warmth surround me and soothe my weary muscles.  My itches went away and the soreness in my stomach subsided.  I’m sure my mouth was hanging wide open, but I didn’t feel the need to close it.  My head hit my pillow, and darkness turned into nothingness.