I awoke on a cold metal table with a terrible headache and jumbled memories in a body that was unfamiliar to me. A man I didn't recognize stood over me with an expression of incredible wonder, and perhaps a little bit of pride. "My name is Victor," he announced gleefully. "Welcome back!"
Looking down at my naked form, I didn't recognize a single thing. The arms and legs sewed to my torso certainly weren't mine, as they were slightly mismatched in both color and length and marked with knicks and scars that I had no memory of obtaining. One of my feet looked nearly two sizes bigger than the other—they couldn't possibly be mine, because I would never let my toenails get so cracked and overgrown. The breasts didn't even match—one was small and perky, the other round and full. Three of the fingers on my left hand were bent at awkward angles, clearly broken, and one of my thumbs was missing a fingernail. I flexed my hands and feet experimentally, surprised when the body parts responded to me as if they were my own.
What the hell happened to me?
Once, as a little girl, my brother had taken my porcelain doll and smashed it with a hammer into a million pieces. I did my very best to glue the pieces back together, but it was a hopeless endeavor from the start. My cherished dolly was ugly, fractured, and needed to be put out of her misery. So, I buried her in the backyard and held a funeral. It seemed like the only proper thing to do.
Now, I was the broken doll. I didn't have to look in a mirror to know that I was hideous.
"I'm an abomination," I cried. Metaphorically—no actual tears descended from my eyeballs.
The young doctor had the good sense to look offended. "No! Quite the opposite, my dear. You are a scientific miracle, a product of hard work and sleepless nights. You are perhaps the most unique female creature to ever walk this world."
I bristled at his use of the word 'creature'. "What did you do to me?" I demanded.
He clapped his hands together, and the thunderous sound made me jump. The man seemed to be running on adrenaline; I believed him when he said he'd had many sleepless nights. "I saved you! You had the misfortune of encountering a serial killer in your past life, one with a nasty habit of beheading young women. Lucky for you, I found your head in the gutter and brought you back to my lab. Most of you was unusable—hacked to pieces, I'm afraid— so I obtained the rest of the body parts from the morgue."
Victor's explanation did little to reassure me. Flashes of my killer floated back to the surface; a dark-clad man with silent footsteps and a cruel smile, following me down an alley on the wrong side of town. I remembered his gloved hands around my throat, choking back the scream that might have saved me. It was stupid, so incredibly stupid, to walk down that alley in the middle of the night. Perhaps this was my penance for being so stupid.
Victor's enthusiasm was not deterred by my distress. "I haven't even told you the best part: there is another like you. A man. Your perfect equal in every way."
"Really?" I was cautiously hopeful at the thought of not having to be alone in this nightmare.
"He was my first successful creation," Victor continued with great fondness. "I designed you specifically for him—you will be his companion; you will walk the afterlife by his side." Victor was apparently very excited about his two creations coming together for the first time. He couldn't get his next question out fast enough. "Would you like to meet him?"
Oh, my. I was nervous about stepping into such a commitment. But my previous life was over. What else was I going to do? Victor was still waiting for a response, so I nodded.
"Come," he said, offering me his hand. He helped me down from the metal slab that was the site of my rebirth. "I will take you to him."
Victor's house was ginormous in a vertical sort of way. As we climbed higher and higher up a spiral staircase, I got the sense that we were in a tower of some sort, and I wondered how far away from civilization we actually were. I imagined a mad scientist would need a great deal of privacy to perform his experiments, lest the townspeople catch wind of his vaguely illegal activities.
Victor led me down a dark, ominous hallway lit by candlelight, the destination being a wooden door at the very end. He knocked once, to alert whoever was inside that we had arrived, and then pushed open the door without waiting to be invited in.
I gasped when I beheld the person behind the door: it was the male version of me. Only, he was a lot more terrifying to look at.
I didn't know what to make of the green-skinned giant that was apparently my betrothed. He was big and bulky, but in a clumsy sort of way, as if not quite accustomed to his incredible size. His muscular limbs were stitched together just like mine, but the patchwork was sloppy and uneven, suggesting Victor didn't have as much experience at the time of his operation. It was difficult not to stare at the two bolts sticking out from either side of his square forehead. He smiled at me sheepishly while I approached.
"What's your name?" I asked him, to which he merely grunted in response.
It was Victor who answered. "He, ah, doesn't speak. I'm still working on that. The most he can do is mumble."