They say the worst kind of pain is the one you can't pinpoint.
I woke up with the smell of ether and cheap disinfectant invading my nostrils. The rhythmic beeping of the heart monitor was the only music in the white, sterile room of the Belo Horizonte Trauma Hospital.[1]
For a second—a brief, merciful second—I forgot. I tried to stretch. I gave the command to my right arm to pull the sheet.
Nothing happened.
Or rather, too much happened.
I felt the sheet. I felt the texture of the cheap cotton. I felt the weight of the fabric. But my eyes told me otherwise. Where my forearm should have been, there was only a pile of thick bandages ending abruptly at the elbow.
Panic rose in my throat like bile.
"Dad?" I called, my voice hoarse and broken.
No one answered. The room was empty, except for me and the machines.
I stared at the bandaged stump. The memory of the fall, the rain, and the weight of Goiás returned like a punch to the gut. I had saved him. I remembered that. But the price...
A wave of intense itching ran through the hand I no longer had. I closed my eyes, clenching my teeth. Phantom Limb Syndrome[2], I knew the technical name. I had read about it in veterinary cases. The brain doesn't accept the loss. The neural map is still there.
But this didn't seem neural.
I opened my eyes and gasped.
For a moment, the hospital room darkened, as if someone had dimmed the brightness of reality. The shadows under the bed and behind the door stretched, looking like black oil running down the walls. And, contrasting with that creeping darkness, my right arm gleamed.
It wasn't blood. It wasn't infection.
It was a translucent structure, made of golden honeycombs and solid light, perfectly outlining the shape of the hand I had lost. Where the skin had been torn, the light stitched the air together, emitting a comforting warmth, a feeling of absolute order.
I could move the fingers of light.
"No, no, no..." I murmured, cold sweat breaking out on my forehead. "I hit my head. It's the medicine. It's too much morphine."
I shook my head violently, trying to banish the image. I stuffed the bandaged stump under the pillow, hiding that luminous abomination.
"Get out of my head!" I yelled into the empty room.
The door opened with a snap. The golden light vanished instantly, and the shadows returned to normal, static and harmless.
A tall man, in an impeccable lab coat and thin-rimmed glasses, entered with a clipboard. He didn't seem surprised by my scream. On the contrary, he looked at me with a clinical curiosity that gave me chills.
"Miss Gabrielly," he said, his voice too calm. "I'm Dr. Silas. I see you woke up agitated."
"I want to leave," I blurted out, pulling my knees to my chest. "I want to go back to the farm."
"You underwent traumatic surgery, Dayanne. Traumatic amputation in the middle third of the radius[3]. Significant blood loss. You're not going anywhere."
He approached the bed. Instead of checking the IV or the monitor, he looked directly at the pillow where I hid my arm.
"What did you see before I came in?" he asked. It wasn't a medical question.
"Nothing," I lied quickly. "I saw that I'm crippled now. That's all."
Dr. Silas adjusted his glasses.
"Patients under severe emotional stress, especially those who perform acts of... extreme sacrifice... often report hallucinations. Lights. A feeling of power."
My heart skipped a beat. How did he know?
"I don't know what you're talking about," I forced my accent, trying to sound more naive than I was. "I just want some pain medication. My head is full of crazy stuff. I fell off a cliff, doctor, not a spaceship."
He sighed, looking disappointed, and wrote something on his clipboard.
"The human mind creates barriers to protect itself from what it can't understand, Dayanne. But the physical barrier... the Frontier... it's thinner than it seems."
"Give me the medicine," I demanded, feeling the tears burn. I didn't want to hear philosophy. I wanted to pass out. I wanted to wake up and discover that my arm was still there, made of flesh and bone, not fairytale magic.
He nodded, injecting something into my IV.
"Rest. But know one thing: what you saved on the cliff wasn't just a horse. And what you gained won't disappear just because you close your eyes." As the sedative pulled me into the dreamless darkness, I swore to myself: I'm a veterinarian. I fix animals.
But even as I faded away, I could feel it. The phantom arm pulsed, warm and steady, waiting… as if… just a command to protect something again.
[1] As the name suggests, it is a trauma hospital located in the city of Belo Horizonte, in the state of Minas Gerais.
[2] Phantom limb syndrome is the sensation of pain or other feelings, such as pressure, itching, or temperature changes, in a limb that has been amputated or is missing. It is caused by the brain reorganizing after limb loss, which can lead to continued signals being sent and received from the missing limb. Symptoms include pain that can feel burning, shooting, or stabbing, as well as non-painful sensations, and can sometimes be chronic, though they often decrease over time.
[3] The bone on the thumb side, extending from the elbow to the wrist.