SHLICK!The cold tip of the scalpel had just scratched the first layer of the skin on Raka's chest. Fresh, dark red blood immediately seeped out, dripping onto the metal floor of The Toxic Goose truck bed which was vibrating violently."AAAKHH!" Raka let out a suppressed scream, his body tensing up stiffly.Click-whirrr.379... 375... 370...However, instead of continuing her incision, Vanya suddenly pulled her knife back with a harsh curse. The woman in the white lab coat dropped her knife into the stainless steel tray with a loud clinking sound."Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!" Vanya swore, then ruffled her own hair with blood-stained hands. "This won't work! I can't do it here!"Raka stared at Vanya."V-Vanya... why stop...?" he asked panting, then his eyes shifted to stare at the truck ceiling. Raka felt the left side of his chest felt as if it were being roasted on a stove. Thin white smoke continued to come out from the gaps of his heart’s protective polymer plate. "You said... it m

"Luna! Lay him down on that cutting table! Hurry!" Vanya commanded, her voice echoing in the giant room with thick insulation panel walls. The air inside that Cold Storage facility felt bone-chilling, piercing the lungs. Luna, with panting breath and a face pale from the sudden cold air, dragged Raka's body toward a long stainless steel table located in the center of the room. The table was commonly used to cut beef carcasses before being frozen. Above them, hundreds of beef carcasses that had hardened like stones hung from iron rails on the ceiling. The sight was more like a slaughterhouse in a horror movie than a medical rescue site. CLANG! Luna laid Raka down on that extremely cold steel table. The coldness from the metal surface immediately pierced Raka's back which was only wrapped in a torn shirt. Making the young man convulse spontaneously. <

Pump... pump... pump...Luna stood with a pale face, channeling the last remaining oxygen to Raka’s brain through the hose in the youth’s neck. Beneath her hands, Raka’s skin felt as cold as the beef carcasses hanging from the factory ceiling."Circulation is temporarily stable," Vanya broke the silence. "This freezing temperature gives us a maximum window of fifteen minutes before permanent brain damage occurs. We must insert this mutant organ immediately."Vanya turned toward her metal tray. There, the Dragon Heart pulsed rhythmically and autonomously. The metallic black-scaled organ emitted extraordinary heat, producing white steam upon contact with the freezing air.Vanya lifted the heavy heart with both her rubber-gloved hands, then brought it over Raka's gaping chest cavity."Come on, Monster. Enter your new home," Vanya muttered obsessively.Slowly lowering the Dragon Heart into Raka's cavity. However, the organ stopped halfway."Damn it," Vanya swore, pulling the organ back.L

"One last stitch on the vein," Vanya muttered with her eyes narrowed sharply. "Circulation closed. These biological pipes are connected."Vanya took a deep breath, wiping the sweat from her temples with the sleeve of her blood-stained white lab coat.However, before Vanya had a chance to put her sewing needle into the tray, a strange vibration traveled from inside Raka's chest cavity. Vanya's eyebrows rose.THUMP!"What—?!"Vanya jolted back, her eyes widening behind her glasses.The Dragon Heart that had just been installed suddenly pulsed with an unnatural force. The metallic black-scaled organ swelled, enlarging almost touching the remains of Raka's ribs that had been cut.“Oh, no,” Vanya murmured in horror.Luna looked up at Vanya in confusion. To her, a layman, nothing was strange at all other than the surgery proceeding smoothly.THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!The pulse grew faster. The heart squirmed wildly inside Raka's chest cavity as if it had its own consciousness. The organ pressed

"Hello?"Raka's voice echoed, breaking the silence. His voice did not sound hoarse. There was no salty taste of blood on his tongue, no stinging from the acid burns on his arms. And most importantly, there was no cold air freezing his lungs. There was only pitch black. Not a single ray of light pierced through it. The darkness made Raka Adhitama feel as if his eyes had been sewn shut from the inside. However, it wasn't the darkness that surprised him the most. The thing that stunned him the most was the absence of pain. "Is anyone here?" Raka asked again. He turned his head to the right and left, but there was nothing to be seen. "Vanya? Luna? Baginda?" He waited for a reply. There was no growl of a monster. There was no sound of a bone saw grinding his chest. In fact, the sound of the revolver hammer strike that had hit his temple earlier felt like a very dist