Remade by John Bullock

“It burns!” a voice yelled, distant and muffled. “Stop, please.”

The voice sounded familiar, but Sarah couldn't place it. She was dimly aware that the owner of the voice was in some distress, and that it should matter to her. In some way that she couldn't fathom, the voice was important to her. She tried to focus on it, but concentrating was like trying to hold water in a sieve. She felt relieved when the voice receded, to be replaced by an oppressive silence and thick, velvety blackness that filled her world.

 *

Sarah stared in confusion at a familiar scene. Of course it was familiar; it's hard to forget the first time your heart breaks. She knew, of course, that time and experience would beat that soft, sentimental way of thinking out of her, but now, in this moment, she could feel all those raw emotions as clearly and as painfully as though she were reliving them, which, in a way, she was.

She watched herself in that strange way only a dream can allow, as both the watcher and the watched. She was on her way to meet Rob, the love of young life. It had been the kind of romance where the adults in her life had gone out of their way to repeatedly warn her that young love didn't last. She had, of course, remained defiant. The adults hadn't understood. No, that was wrong. That was sixteen year old Sarah thinking. She knew now that the adults had been right. Sarah struggled to right her perspective. Every time she started to lose focus, she would fall into her younger self. Start to be her younger self. She fought to remain her disembodied and life experienced self, for she knew what was coming, and she had no wish to relive it in person. Young Sarah turned a corner and stepped into the indoor basketball court.

And froze.

Rob was kissing Jennifer Conlen. Ice crept up Sarah's spine, freezing her nerves and rendering her unable to move as she watched their hands roam over each other. She wanted to scream at Rob. She wanted to rake her finger nails down Jennifer Conlen's face and tear out her eyes. All she could manage, however, was a pathetic little squeak that escaped her mouth involuntarily. She still cringed at the thought of that squeak. It was the noise of a meek little creature. It was the noise of prey. She'd never made that noise again.

She forced herself out of young Sarah.

 *

The screaming was back, if it had ever really gone. Sarah became aware of figures around her, though they were little more than blurry shapes. They were speaking but their words were no clearer than their faces. “Stop!” the familiar voice yelled again. Sarah still had the feeling that the voice should be important, but her addled brain had no idea why. She became aware of a slow drawn-out cracking sound. It had a sickening fleshy quality to it, and, though she didn't know why, it filled Sarah with dread.

So much so that she was almost grateful when the darkness returned.

 *

She was twenty four, and pregnant.

Again she half watched, half experienced herself staring in horror at the blue line of the test in her trembling hand. Since the phage had wiped out most of the human population, abortion had been made illegal, but a pregnancy at this stage of her career would effectively end it. Enforcer's are put through the most rigorous training of any government profession. So rigorous, in fact, that no expecting woman would be allowed to participate.

No, she was doing it again. This wasn't happening now, this had already happened, it was a memory. It seemed trivial, now, but Sarah could remember the feeling that her world was ending. She couldn't abort the pregnancy, she couldn't continue training while pregnant, and she would be too old to resume training after the birth. She had spent months berating herself for not being careful enough.

When the baby had miscarried, Sarah had been suspected of mistreating herself on purpose and, as a result, being responsible for the miscarriage. It had been the darkest time of her life, but she'd been cleared of negligence, and was able to resume Enforcer training just before the cut-off age of twenty five. It all seemed so... dramatic in hindsight.

As the world began to melt away, Sarah wondered what her life would have been like if she had given birth. Would she have kept the baby, or handed it off to the government? She had never been particularly maternal, but there would have been little else left for her, and mothers held a special kind of status in society.

She imagined herself as a proud mother, as pain returned.

 *

The screaming returned, louder and clearer. Sarah became aware of a pain in her ears and throat, as though the screaming was so loud it caused her whole head to ache. There were other pains, too, and though they were more akin to a dull ache than a searing pain, they had a flowing quality about them, like the first mild surge of the tide washing over your feet, before the tidal wave hits. The pain intensified, and Sarah felt the blackness returning. As it closed in around her, swallowing the world and all that was in it, Sarah just had time to realise, with growing terror, why the scream was so familiar.

It was hers!

 *

'You gave us quite a scare, Miss Chapman.' said a voice from beyond Sarah's eyelids.

'What?' said Sarah, wincing at the pain in her throat and wondering at the hoarseness in her voice. She didn't how long she'd been out, but something told her it was days, if not weeks.

'We're still not sure what they hit you with,' the voice continued, 'but your life took some saving, let me tell you.'

Sarah forced her eyes open. The light was blinding, and it felt like a lightning storm had erupted behind her eyeballs. The figure beside her continued talking, only now there was worry in his voice.

'We had to make some... changes, Sarah. No, don't try to sit up.'

'What … changes?' Sarah half said, half groaned.

Her hand moved of its own volition, resting on her chest, and the shallow protrusion of a foreign object in her chest.

'What are you talking about?' she said with a frantic urgency.

A strange face appeared before Sarah, and it took a moment for her to realise it was her own reflected in a mirror

'Technically, Miss Chapman,' the man continued, 'you are now more machine than human.'

In the mirror, two eyes stared back from a face that had an unnatural smoothness to it. One eye the natural blue that Sarah had had her entire life, sat in contrast to the other eye, glassy and dead. Both stared back at Sarah as her mind raced, trying to take in the situation. As her emotions began to overwhelm her, she tried to speak, but the only thing that escaped her lips before the blackness closed in once more, was a pathetic little squeak.