Unsupervised Science Time

word count: 300

“Doctor, you’ve got mail, here’s — my god.”

The wizened old fool peers up at him through spectacles fogged with fifty years’ worth of dust. “What?”

Fido can barely work out any more words than an unintelligent uhh, because sitting in the middle of the room — a round, circular laboratory that had no business being so round and circular — is none other than the sinewy figure of Miss Hannah Bright.

Belated correction: the sinewy figure of Miss Hannah Bright, the front of her chest carved open neatly to form a small opening, overflowing with lurid pink blossoms.

Even as he stares, the Doctor shuffles his way towards the body, plucks a stray flower from the floor and stuffs it unceremoniously into the hole. “Looks healthy, doesn’t she,” he muses loudly. “I used all my good silver for her spine. Cost me hell, but, well, only the best for my girl…”

“…Doctor,” Fido manages to say. “Doctor. Did you rob her grave?”

“It’s not robbery if it’s my property.” The Doctor pauses in what has to be the most bizarre, utmostly uncomfortable situation Fido has ever been in. “Sounds smart. Quote me on that.”

“No! What could you possibly want to achieve from — Doctor, she’s been dead two years — ”

“ — and she’ll be awake in a minute.”

Fido splutters. “And what?”

As if on cue, a mechanical tremor starts to rumble its way through the woman’s body, her artificial limbs jangling like windchimes in a horrible display of superficiality. The two of them watch — one in abject horror and the other with glee — as what was once the corpse of Miss Hannah Bright wobbles to her feet, the flowers in her chest writhing and bursting with excess energy, and opens her eyes — two glowing marbles in the shade of the most ridiculous pink.