case study
baby drabble for @starbornlioness
Vanx sat up on the examination table, kicking her legs back and forth over the edge. She watched Kalyana as she zipped from one side of the room to the other. Kaylana would focus on her again occasionally—either to get a closer look or another sample.
Usually, Vanx hated everything about the Doctor’s office, but by this point she had accumulated a pile of snacks. Blood packs, vertebrae, candy—she got something every time Kalyana stuck something in her ears and mouth, or took some of her fur and blood. Apparently, that was enough to placate the little hell-raiser.
At first, Vanx thought Kalyana was just trying to figure out what made her so perfect. Which made sense, seeing how she was so beautiful, strong, and humble.
But between scribbling chicken-scratch notes and adjusting strange machines (They all had names that were too hard to pronounce to be referred to as anything besides “machines”), Kalyana murmured things like, “No, she doesn’t have those symptoms,” or, “Hm, a genetic mutation does make the most sense.”
It was way too jargony for Vanx to understand, and that unfamiliarity made Vanx think there was something bigger going on.
As she gnawed on her third vertebrae, Vanx started to wonder if she could be sick. That anxiety sits with her for a while, starting to grow bit by bit as time stretched on. Then, all the sudden, Kaylana throws her arms up into the air and cries, “Aha, I have it!”
That startled Vanx, making her jump a little. Her anxieties went from budding to soaring.
With some flair, Kalyana sat herself down on her swivel chair and swiveled all the way over to the examination table. She was happy, if not downright smug—tapping away at her tablet.
“Well, I believe I have finally found a suitable explanation for your little ‘incident’.”
“Oh.” Vanx just blinked, feeling any and all worries melt away. When Kalyana said “incident,” she meant Vanx unhinging her jaw during the general ward’s ice cream social. After the ensuing chaos, and despite her torn-apart cheek muscles and exposed gum, Vanx had told Kalyana that, that was more than natural. It was just something that happened sometimes, usually when she was especially mad or scared. It would heal itself within an hour or two.
But apparently Kalyana was still hung up on last week’s little “incident,” and intent on explaining it even though Vanx had repeatedly told her that kind of stuff happened all the time.
“You see,” Kalyana started like some kind of lecturer, “your genome is like a powder-keg of heterogeneous alleles, which in an ironic twist has allowed a high volume of zygosity–”
Vanx was already staring at her with knitted brows and big eyes that just bled with confusion. At that, Kalyana realized that she was launching headlong into the thesis she had been absentmindedly preparing for the last few hours.
That was for her colleagues (Especially stuck-up Grujo in the burn ward)—not little kits like Vanx.
Clearing her throat, Kalyana started over. “Let me put it like this. When your parents made you, they gave you equal-shares of all their traits. You’re a combination of those traits, but instead of taking parts of those equal-shares, you kinda ‘doubled-up’ on a lot of things. That’s why you have those two rows of teeth—one human and the other, uh.. your mothers.” The only other label Kaylana had in mind was “unknown alien.” “And your jaws can unhinge, even though they definitely shouldn’t.”
Well, that made sense, but Vanx still wasn’t sure why Kalyana was so excited by it. That was just further proof of her perfection. Vanx would call this all a waste of time if Kalyana hadn’t been so generous with the snacks, so she decided to play along.
“Is that why I can do this?”
Kalyana was ready to shout at Vanx to stop, thinking she was going to tear up her face again. But Vanx reached behind herself instead, and with a sick popping sound—as if someone’s joint had been dislocated—pulled her disembodied tail out for Kalyana to see.
As much gore as she has seen, and as little blood as there was, Kalyana felt a distinct phantom pain around her tail-area. That wasn’t as gross or grisly as it was just plain unnerving.
Kalyana still stared at the disembodied tail with a glint in her eyes, obviously curious; however, there was a tremor in her arms, making her tablet shake. She either needed coffee, or already had way too much.
“Well.” Kaylana clicked her tongue, keeping an upbeat tone. “We’ll just add that to our little list of mysteries, won’t we?”
