He sat in the waiting room rubbing his forehead until it turned red. The front desk girls disappeared behind a door with a lock on the inside. They came back with water but he knocked it out of her hand. He kicked the trashcan by his feet. . It hurt him too much to swallow, let alone fill out the paperwork that rolled off his lap, or to scroll on his phone under his thigh. Sweat soaked his shirt. Veins across his head throbbed. The desk girl watched his entire forehead contract and swell.
"Doctor? Doctor?" He pleaded.
"He's on his way."
It was midnight. He had to drive an hour to get to the eye clinic in the middle of nowhere. Where the radio towers are lit, but no one knows who owns them. Where cellphones can only connect to one wifi- REDEYE.
The eye doctor came in, his glasses on. He wore pama pants and a black jacket. A silver necklace peeked out from the color. The desk girl asked him if tey could take him to the county ER. The eye doctor didn't like that idea at all. He waited a second before responding to her. "No..."
He put a pod into the coffee maker and breathed in the steam. He shut the wifi off his phone and shut it down. He turned around and kept his eyes locked into her librarian glasses. "That hospital is no good. He's much safer with us."
"Docter, his head is in pain. He should be in an ER."
The Doctor pulled her scrubs by the shoulder. His eyes widened, magnified by the wire lenses.
"They don't have the equipment that we do. Prepare the REDEYE X01."
The Doctor smiled at his patient.
"and get him strapped to an examination chair."
"Oh god, what's happening to me?" He slammed his eyes shut. "I can still see. Why can I still see?"
"Sit him down. Restrain him."
"Doctor, why?" In all her years at the clinic, she'd never seen the doctor behave so strangely.
"Because the REDEYE can hurt."
The man rubbed his outside eyes. Tears streamed down his face at first. The more he rubbed them, the worse they got. The veins became inflamed, the corneas were scratched by his contacts. Black specks floated in the color of his eyes.
The more light the doctor focused , the more red fluid bled over the higher sclera. The doctor cleaned it up, and dropped chemicals into his eyes.
The man kept his hand pressed against his forehead. It hurt to open his eyes. The light made him choke.
"Prepare the slit lamp."
They screwed the man's head in place, and adjusted the headrest. Magnifying scopes turned. Tiny glass crystals pointed at his iris. They transmitted the live tissue onto a screen. It looked like a moon full of trenches, scales, and cheekbones.
"They look normal, doctor."
"It's head. It hurts so much."
"Get him into the REDEYE."
"Doctor, we haven't tested this on anyone before."
"Yes we have... I tested it on myself."
"No one has trained me on this... I didn't even know we had it."
"It' s easy to use. Just loosen the knob, it makes strange noises, but it will be fine. Just make sure the dimensions are at the line before you power it up."
The desk girl took one look at it and she took her glasses off. She was responsible for checks and insurance cards. She trained on a few machines. It was fun most days when she did get to use them. This thing didn't look fun.
"Just sit him down and put his head into the black box."
She undid the headrest, and brought the man over.
"Put his arms in the bindings. We're going to need them."
She sat him down, tightened the straps, and pushed his back until his head entered the box.
The doctor turned it. Something inside revved up and began to spin. On his screen he saw it. A black spot before his forehead. He pressed a key, and another component started to spin. A laser shot through his skull. On the screen, the image went through the bone and floated in the gray matter.
"Just as I suspected." The Doctor said. "Come look, nurse."
He pointed with a pencil. It looked like an undeveloped baby- one too early to be cognizant, too early to have a spine. A large round thing floated in a mass of compressed tissue.
"Oh my God, is that..."
"Turn on the REDEYE Drive."
"What will that do?"
"Just turn that knob, focus on the millimeter switch, and make sure you turn it slowly. If you hear a beep, open that hatch and turn on the disposal. When you're done, activate the rinse line."
"Doctor, he didn't sign the insurance forms. We can't use this."
"If we don't, there will be permanent brain damage. That thing needs out."
The man inside didn't even hear them from the sound of spinning cylinders. The laser turned off, three more came on. A static drill came forward, then it began to spin. It advanced eyelash by eyelash until it finally broke the skin.
The disposal under the hatch gargled. The desk girl adjusted a toggle stick. She moved it with the most gentle push of the fat under her thumb.
"STOP" The Doctor slammed the wall.
They undid the holds and pulled the man out.
The lasers burned a hole in his forehead. Right in the middle something squirmed. The Doctor used a hook and forceps to dig into the forehead, and pull it out. The third eye pulsed, but it did not open.
The man's two eyes swelled shut.
"Yes, I finally found it." The Doctor peeled it open, and looked into the marbled smoothness of the third eye.
The desk girl vomited in the sink.An exhaust pipe spat bits of bone and vessel into a garbage can.
The man sat on the examining chair, blinded, fatigued. Ready for this to end.
The Doctor dropped fluid from a vial. The third eye shifted. It followed the lights at first, then focused on the faces. The man moaned a short but shrill burst of terror.
"Can you see me?" The Doctor asked.
"That's you... I can see your glasses."
"And... what else can you see?" The Doctor looked into the third eye with trembling lips.
The man almost said something, but then he choked on his own mucus.
The iris of the third eye constricted. He saw things... somethings standing behind the Doctor and the desk girl.
Behind the Doctor stood a huge fat red eye.
The desk girl hyperventilated and ripped her surgical mask off to get air. She had a naked man with no face yelling at her.
"Doctor, oh my God, you need to listen."
"Don't let it focus." the Doctor said.
The eyeball rose from the hole in his forehead.
"No! It sees us!"
The Doctor took off his hoodie and dropped it over the man's head.
"Doctor, what was that?"
"As I always suspected." He touched the center of the desk girl's forehead. "When you're born, there's a soft spot there, the fontenelle. That's where the third eye used to be. Long ago, we all had one that grew before the skull hardened."
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