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墨書 Inktalez
In the instant the file folder tore open, the scent of pine seemed to twist the key that unlocked the floodgates of memory. I staggered against the metal cabinet, my nails digging deep into my palm, the damp rust mingling with the aroma of pine invading my nostrils. A yellowed photograph slipped out from the stack of documents, revealing a man in a white coat wearing gold-rimmed glasses, holding up a candle atop a cake for a five-year-old girl. The girl, sporting bunny ear headbands, had cream smeared at the corners of her mouth as she grinned with a gap-toothed smile, while beneath the hem of the man’s white coat was a dark red stain.
“April 15, 1998…” I murmured as I read the embossed date, a wave of antiseptic mixed with rusty iron’s metallic sweetness rising in my throat. The rhythm of the rain pounding against the window suddenly thickened, like some kind of countdown. A half-shredded classified document was jammed in the shredder, its remaining lead type twisting in tears: “...the brainstem resection surgery on Subject XJ-01 was successful… memory erasure rate 97%…”
At the very bottom of the safe lay a brown paper envelope, its edges curled into waves. The ink from a fountain pen had bled through two decades on the yellowed stationery: “Xiao Jian, by the time you read this letter, your father should have already died on the surgical table. They discovered that I was tampering with the dosage of sedatives; those children should not have to endure such suffering…” In the lower right corner of the letter was a brown fingerprint, resembling a dried bloodstain or perhaps an imprint left by someone pressing down with a burnt matchstick.
Suddenly, the sound of polished shoes striking floor tiles echoed down the corridor. I spun around sharply; the metal cabinet reflected a distorted image—my back bore a scar like a centipede that was now burning hot, a memento from my appendectomy at eight years old. The blinding shadowless lights above the surgical table, my adoptive father Zhou Zhenhai’s silver-rimmed glasses, and his golden surgical scissors tucked into his pocket flashed like shards in my memory.
“Looking for this?” The shadow of my adoptive father swooped down like a bat, enveloping the entire safe. He shook a glass vial labeled XJ-01; brain tissue floated in murky formaldehyde like a rotting moon. My pupils constricted suddenly—the gray matter was covered in pinhole scars, marks left by twelve electric shock treatments.
“If it weren’t for me taking care of Xia Mingde back then…” He removed his blood-stained rubber gloves to reveal a twisted ring on his pinky finger. “You would have been burned to ashes along with those failed specimens.”
The moment the scalpel plunged into his palm, I tasted iron rust. Blood pearls splattered onto the experimental record sheet; under April 16, 1998, it read: “Xia Mingde’s malpractice resulted in an overdose; resuscitation efforts were unsuccessful. Subject XJ-01 has been transferred to Zhou Zhenhai.” My adoptive father stared at the surveillance screen on the wall, his bloodied lips curling into a knife-like grin: “Do you think erasing memories will create perfect specimens?”
“Every time you injected me with truth serum…” I tugged at my collar; beneath it, electric shock scars throbbed under the alarm’s red light. “I dreamt of scenes where scalpels pierced your eyeballs.”
The alarm suddenly shrieked sharply. My adoptive father clutched his bleeding palm and grinned maliciously as the security door began to lock automatically. I grabbed that vial of brain tissue and hurled it at the surveillance camera; amidst flying shards of glass appeared childhood memories: Xia Mingde shoved me into a ventilation duct while he faced armed men in black, his white coat blooming into blood flowers against gunfire.
“He called out your nickname just before he died.” My adoptive father’s polished shoes crushed the smiling face of the man in the photograph; the metal cabinet reflected his twisted expression. “Want to know what his last look was like? Just like a frog being dissected—his eyeballs popping out from their sockets…”
As I swung the fire axe to shatter the bulletproof glass, blood pearls burst from my palm. The wind from the twentieth floor rushed in, and the USB drive containing the experimental data pressed uncomfortably against my chest. My Adoptive Father approached with a syringe filled with sedative, his shadow cast by the spotlight of a circling police helicopter. His lens reflected a cold light, while the bloodstain on the surgical scissors glimmered darkly in the moonlight.
"You've been running for eighteen years," he said, his voice slicing through the air like a scalpel against steel. "Come here, Daddy will give you one last shot."
As I stepped back, I crushed fragments of paper beneath my feet; pages from the experiment log dated April 16, 1998 fluttered in the wind. In a fleeting moment as the spotlight swept across the rooftop, I caught a glimpse of myself reflected in the glass facade of the building across: dark red livor mortis on my nape perfectly matched the mark on Xia Mingde's death certificate.
"Do you think erasing memories can erase the truth?" The needle of my Adoptive Father pierced through the air. "The screams of those children before they died, those brains rotting in formaldehyde..."
I tilted my head back and plunged into the sea of neon lights amidst the downpour. In that moment of freefall, I finally saw clearly what I clutched in my hand: the autopsy report revealed that Xia Mingde's true cause of death was a three-millimeter-wide penetrating wound at the nape, and the murder weapon was none other than the golden surgical scissors my Adoptive Father always kept in his pocket. Blood pearls dripped along the edge of the report, blooming into a scarlet stain in the rain, reminiscent of the bloodstains on that white coat years ago.
(End of Chapter)
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