But my eyes drifted to the little doors on the wall. Beyond those doors were my momma and daddy.

I cried as I undressed. The first boy who ever saw me naked was Jason, just that one time, the night I found out I would leave behind everything on Earth, and everything included him. I did not like the idea that the last boys to see me naked on this planet would be Ed and Hassan. I tried to cover myself with my arms and hands, but Ed and Hassan made me remove them so they could put the IVs in.

And, oh god, it was worse than Mom made it look. Oh, God. Oh, God. It was cold and it was burning all at the same time. I could feel my muscles straining as that blue goo entered my system. My heart wanted to pound, beat upon my rib cage like a lover beating on the door, but the blue goo made it do the opposite and sloooow down so that instead of beatbeatbeatbeat, it went beat… beat….. beat…

…

…

… beat…

…

Ed jerked my eyelids open. Plop! Cold, yellow liquid filled my eyes, sealing them like gum. Plop!

I was blind now.

One of them, maybe Hassan, tapped on my chin, and I opened my mouth obediently. Apparently, not wide enough — the tubes hit my teeth. I opened wider.

And then the tubes were forced down my throat, hard. They did not feel as flexible as they had looked; they felt like a greased broomstick being crammed down my mouth. I gagged, and gagged again. I could taste bile and copper around the plastic of the tubes.

“Swallow it!” Ed shouted in my ear. “Just relax!”

Easy for him to say.

A few moments after it was done, my stomach tingled. I could feel the wires inside me being pulled and tugged as Hassan plugged the little black box to the outside of my very own shoebox coffin.