[Chapter 7] Youth is Wasted on the Young

Chapter 7: The Next Target

For the Halloween season, this is a story with some horror elements while also being science-fiction. A new chapter will be posted each week exclusively for paid subscribers. If you want to become a paid subscriber, I’m offering a 14-day free trial.

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Without further ado, here is Chapter 7: The Next Target

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Dr. Singh’s confession was like a meteor smashing apart everything Mia thought she knew. She struggled to make sense of how this doctor, a brilliant, disgraced person, was involved with this wealthy benefactor and how it affected her ghost-white friend struggling in the hospital bed and her boyfriend now lost in the jungle.

Yet there was no time to sit down and process everything. The doctor’s sense of guilt had faded and her attention had returned to Lucy.

“His methods have become more aggressive now,” she spoke quickly and started to pace. “When I knew him, he had a cellular degradation but it would’ve taken years to become a problem. Plasma donations were working. It was all above board. But if he’s resorting to stuff like this...”

She looked over at the dialysis machine which continued to do all it could to keep Lucy alive.

“To induce renal failure this quickly suggests his own system is rapidly burning out.”

Singh stopped and turned to Mia with a steely gaze.

“We can’t reverse the damage that’s been done to your friend. This machine is cleaning her blood because her own organs no longer work. It will do its best, but she is on borrowed time.”

“No, I can’t let her go. There has to be something I can do,” Mia demanded.

“Her organs are dead tissue. She’ll need a transplant.”

“A transplant?” Mia mumbled.

“I can get her on the national registry, maybe even fast-track it, but the waitlist for her blood type is still two to three years at a minimum. I’m not sure she has two to three weeks.”

“What do we do?”

“Her parents are being tested to see if either can serve as a living donor, but the odds are always low. If she had a sibling, that would be better.”

“Test me,” Mia didn’t even think. A memory of Lucy laughing in the front seat of her car only a week before was all she needed to make up her mind. “If I’m compatible, I’ll give a kidney.”

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