The Serum

"Now tip your head back please Mrs Miahson" said the Surgeon. At least Orla thought he, or she, was a surgeon. All she knew was that this person was at least called the 'Surgeon'. They were completely covered from head to toe, not one single sinew of skin was left uncovered. To make things even more normal his, or her, voice was totally indistinguishable as to whether it was male or female, not that it mattered. Besides, Orla was completely aware of where she was and the technology available to this 'Surgeon' individual, so it made sense to her that this whole process was completely clandestine.

"What's in it?" queried Orla. A brief pause ensued, before the clinking of surgical equipment filled the silence.

"Please" Orla pursued, "I have to a right to know what's being put in my body, after all I paid you an awful lotta money."

The clinking ceased. The gender-less voice calmly retorted.

"I understand your concern. I must be cautious with who I tell this information, Mrs Miahson. I am the only person in the world who has this formula."

"I just want to know what's in it - what if it kills me? Is that so much to ask?" clapped back an increasingly concerned Orla. Eternal life had seemed a good idea prior to this odd encounter, but now she was sat in the Surgeon's chair ready to receive the serum, she wasn't so sure. To make things worse she hadn't told Mr Miahson and she had a very small window to get home before he did at 3am the following morning. She knew he wouldn't be happy but when he found out they could share their love of dance together, literally forever, she knew he'd stump up the money to make himself immortal too. Orla was a dancer first and anything else second. What excited her most about being immortal wasn't the unending possibilities to gain knowledge or to see history unfold, instead it was the prospect of being able to dance endlessly. However, her dreams of eternal, cosmic gyration paled into insignificance if she came out of this, y'know, dead.

While Orla was lost in her train of thought about never-ending salsas and everlasting foxtrots, the Surgeon proceeded to share.

"The serum is very simple. It is a mixture of basic herbs, things you can buy at the supermarket - things that make it not taste too disgusting. People pay for it, we don't want them leaving here with a bad taste in their mouth. That's bad for business."

Orla was a little perplexed. Surely, the last thing people are worried about was the rich, textured flavours of the serum. If worst came to worst the after taste would only last for a few hours. The problem was, Orla wasn't actually that sure. It was logical for her to make these presuppositions, but this was never-to-be-ceased life she was dealing with, maybe the after taste would be never-ceasing too.

"But," continued the Surgeon, snapping Orla from the roller-coaster ride of her internal panic, "two special ingredients make up the serum. The first, a single cut of a fingernail of any descendant of Gamu. And second, the sap from the tree of life."

Orla laughed. As soon as those words left the Surgeon's mouth, Orla called bullshit and her panic frittered into as much nothingness as mere mortal human. Now, Orla was often regarded as a feisty character, though she personally preferred the term 'boldly inquisitive', so, she decided to verbalise her denouncement of the the Surgeon's ludicrous claims.

"Cut me the crap why dontcha. I bet that's what you tell everyone, hey? I know how this works, I've done my research - I've watched that Black Mirror episode."

This was not new ground for the Surgeon, every time the secret was given away it was meet with instant ridicule, and everyone always mentioned that bloody Black Mirror episode.

People always thought the serum was some kind of fancy scientific discovery - it wasn't. The Surgeon was an actual surgeon, and they were in an actual hospital, but the truth was that he hadn't really discovered the serum per se, he'd more stumbled upon it.

"Mrs Miahson, the fact, nay the irony is that the fingernail of a descendant of Gamu lies on my very own hands, and for that matter everyone else's hands. You only have to read one history textbook to know that everyone is a descendent of Gamu. As for the tree of life, well the tree of life is in the park down the road from my house."

The tree of life's location was quite convenient really. Hidden in plain sight, where no one would ever think to look. God, Gamu, David Icke, or whoever did plant it, definitely knew what they were doing. Despite explaining his accidental discovery the Surgeon knew that Orla wouldn't believe him, because it did sound a little bit ridiculous. And thus,the Surgeon also know exactly what Orla, like every other immortality hungry individual, would say next.

And right on cue, Orla motored away.

"Okay, so if it is true, why have you just told me? You said you're the only person in the world who has it so why on God's great earth would you tell m-"

Before she could finish her tirade induced monologue, the Surgeon clasped her mouth open and poured in the serum. As her tongued numbed, not by any preliminary anaesthesia of any kind, just purely by how much her mouth had been motoring, the Surgeon uttered the same words the Surgeon always uttered when a client was this defiant.

"I've told you because you won't ever remember."

With the serum swallowed, and before the expected frown could draw their now eternal lines upon Orla's face, her eyes shut, and everything turned black...

Orla shuddered back to consciousness. One managed to slowly pry one eye open. It turned out one eye was enough for the shock that came next.

"What! Where am I?" she blurted out. Orla sat up starkly, before realising she was sat in a bed on a busy hospital ward and proceeded to reverse her starkness and slither back to her original slumber position.

Then the pain hit.

"Agh" she screamed. Where was that coming from? Her stomach? She reached down to locate from where this pain was pulsating. As Orla slowly slithered her hand down her chest towards the top of her stomach she was met with a very sharp incline. Was she fat? No, this didn't feel like fat, it was too hard to be fat. Then, it hit her. No, no, no, surely not. She scrambled to de-winch herself from the clutches of her unusually tight duvet and pulled up her top. She couldn't be, surely not. Then the nurse entered.

"Mrs Miahson," the nurse gleamed "how are you... Oh, you've seen it, then?"

"Yes, I've seen it! How the bloody hell did this happen?" snapped Orla.

"I'm afraid that's just a side effect of the procedure" responded the nurse.

"A side-effect? What do you mean a side-effect?"

"Well your operation was a success, but it's common for there to be a bump." explained the nurse.

"I don't think it is normal, I've never heard of it" Orla claimed in her boldly inquisitive manner.

The nurse laughed "It's not like you're pregnant, it's just a bump. Now get up, you're ready to be discharged."

Orla was incensed. No, she wasn't pregnant, and yes it was a small bump, and further yes she did have a propensity to over-exaggerate and worry. Before she could utter another word of disgust, the nurse turned back to her.

"Oh, and the Surgeon says to make sure you pop the bump when it's ready - he says that's very important Mrs Miahson."

Orla was again perplexed, "what? Pop it? How will I know when it's time?"

Without an answer Orla was gleefully shoved from the ward and into the corridor of the hospital as another patient was wheeled in. Orla paused. What on earth had just happened, how on earth did she get here? She didn't even know where this hospital was. She began to breathe heavily, was she immortal yet? How would she know if she was? What if she wasn't? What if it hadn't worked? Why was the bump? Was she dying? Is she dead? Is this hell? Is hell a hospital? Or was this heaven? Is heaven a hospital? Orla's mind raced as she ran through the automatic doors of the hospital entrance. As the breeze slammed into her face she calmed down, she looked around, and realised she was at her local hospital. But how? She'd driven all the way down to the south coast to see the Surgeon, how did she end up back home? She had so many questions, but quickly resigned herself to having absolutely no answers.

Later that night Orla lay in bed alone. Well she wasn't quite alone she had a tall glass of her favourite South African red beside her. Despite her supposed new found immortality, Orla was unbelievably tired, yet she wanted to wait up for her husband to return home, as he often did in the early hours of the morning. Mr Miahson was a vet who specialised in tropical animals, so often worked abroad. Orla had never wondered how he became a vet of specifically tropical animals, seeing as they lived in the country where there was unbridled excitement if someone saw a fox in their back garden. Alas, it mattered not, and Orla soon fell asleep with her tall glass of red only a little shorter than it had been whence first poured. As she fell into a deeper and deeper slumber, she began to dream. Orla dreamt of her husband coming home, wearing his khaki outfit. He'd whisk her off her feet and...

"Agh" Orla woke up. The bump was now throbbing. Orla lifted up her shirt and looked down. It had formed a kind of head, like a zit but not quite a zit. It had a kind of volcano type structure to it, a large head surrounded by these overhanging arches of crusted skin.

"This must be what she meant when she said it was ready to pop" muttered Orla to herself. She filled her lungs with air and exhaled. She hated zits, she hated anything that popped, and this thing, this bump made her very uncomfortable.

"One, two, three" squelch. The bump let out a single large dribble of puss before a white pin-shaped thing pinged out of her.

"What the hell is this?" whispered Orla. She didn't to touch it. She grabbed her tweezers from her nearby make-up pouch and carefully withdrew the white pin like a deeply wedged splinter. She lay it down on her bed it was a lot longer than Orla had anticipated, and it had this kind of metallic shimmer to it. She slowly moved her hand towards it, she caressed it gently with the back of her hand, as if she was checking to see if it had a fever. It was warm. She picked it up and weighed it in her hand. It was light. She looked down at where the bump had been and there was no mark, not so much as even a scratch left on her. She could feel it getting warmer in her hand, assuming it was just some sort of friction from holding it for too long until it began to scold her palm. She took a sharp intake of breath and dropped the pin back onto the bed. It singed a small burn mark into her duvet.

"Shit" muttered Orla. As she stood it beeped again, and again, and again and continued to beep, faster and faster, causing Orla to panic, faster and faster, until the pin began to expand. The pin continued to expand as Orla ran into her on-suite bathroom and shut the door with a new found speed. She ran the cold tap, placed her burnt hand under it and sat on the adjacent toilet seat. She rubbed her eyes with her un-burnt hand.

"This must be a dream" she murmured.

THUD.

A loud collapse came from outside Orla's en suite.

"Hello?" a muffled voice came from outside the en suite. Orla turned off the tap. A few moments of silence passed before the voice knocked on the door.

"Hello, who's in there?" asked the voice.

"Leave me alone. Please don't kill me." Of course, on the day Orla became immortal a burglar broke into her house, as if things weren't strange enough already. Shit, thought Orla, there was no lock on the en suite door. As soon as that thought shot through her mind the door handle clicked and slowly opened. Orla closed her eyes and braced herself to lose her life as soon as she'd paid to keep it forever.

"Orla?" said the voice. Orla opened one eye. Her eye widened. So she opened another. She couldn't believe her eyes. It was impossible that this person was standing in front of her.

"Who are you?" stammered Orla.

"Obviously, I am you." said the voice.

"That's impossible, you can't be."

"Well I am. Orla Savannah Miahson, born 27th June 1989 to Irene and Rene Bunton. The last liquid to knowingly enter your system was a South African red, Grangehurst Pinotage 2008"

"Knowingly? Wait, how did you know that."

"I know everything about you, Orla, I am you."

"Impossible. Okay, what am I thinking right now?"

"You're thinking, how is this possible?"

"Okay, well how is this possible, the serum, I thought it made me immortal not another me?"

"You are, we are immortal. I remember everything you've ever remembered. I know everything you've ever known. I'm Orla Miahson point 2, a more intelligent model."

Orla pushed past herself and went to look at the now gigantic pin.

"This must be a wind up" she muttered. She looked inside the pin and a piece of paper was attached to the inside. She pulled it out and opened it.

"Orla, attached are some rules I would try your best to abide by now that you are immortal. These are just some things from my experience. Oh, and I've attached your receipt. Best, The Surgeon." Was that it? No warning that an exact replica of herself would pop out of her stomach at 2:45am?

"How are you here?" Orla asked herself.

"I'm not too sure. I just woke up inside of that big pin about 5 minutes ago, reminded me of when me and Julie Johnson -"

"-camped at Frankston Ridge for my 13th birthday" finished the original Orla. "What do you know about the pin?"

"Well I know that it was in the handbook we read before you had surgery. It said it'd just be a small incision covered over by a wound so no one in the hospital would suspect anything other than some routine surgery. But of course you, being me, being us, you, Orla, didn't read it. But as the second model my memory is photographic" explained Orla mark two.

"Was there anything in the Surgeon's handbook about this happening?" Orla asked herself, something she never thought she'd do.

"No, this is quite unusual. I don't think was supposed to happen."

"Right" said Orla, "well, here we are then."

"Yes, here we are. Shall we dance? I love to dance" said Orla mark two.

"No, I'm okay. I think I'm going to go back sleep and hope this was all a dream. You can take the sofa." And with that Orla shoved herself out of her bedroom and lay in bed. She closed her eyes and then a thought popped into her head. She leapt from her bed and opened the door. Orla mark two was standing directly outside it, unmoved.

"Do you not sleep?" Orla asked herself.

"I've only just woken up" said Orla mark two.

"Right, anyway, you said you remember every memory?"

"That's right!" Orla mark two beamed.

"God, your nothing like me, I'm never that chipper when I wake up."

"We are!"

"This is so weird" murmured Orla. "Any memory, right? So you remember what he put in to me, the Surgeon?"

"Of course. It's a mix of herbs, the fingernail of a descendant of Gamu, and the sap from the tree of life" answered the new Orla.

"Piss off... No wait that does sound familiar. Are you sure?"

"I'm sure - it's in your memories" Orla mark two tapped her forehead and a hologram of the Surgeon beamed from a small incision.

"Two special ingredients make up the serum. The first, a single cut of a fingernail of any descendant of Gamu. And second, the sap from the tree of life. Mrs Miahson, the fact, nay the irony is that the fingernail of a descendant of Gamu lies on my very own hands, and for that matter everyone else's hands. You only have to read one history textbook to know that everyone is a descendent of Gamu. As for the tree of life, well the tree of life is in the park down the road from my house."

Orla mark two tapped her forehead again and the hologram seemed to shoot back into her head.

"The new you is pretty neat, huh?"

"Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god" exclaimed Orla.

"What?" questioned Orla back to her older self.

"Do you know what this means? You, me, us, you - we have the serum, we know what's in it, do you know how rich I'm, you, we're going to be? We have the secret to immortal life!"

As the Orla's began to celebrate, a small thud shrouded out their excitement. The two Orla's turned, a man dressed in khaki stood behind them.

"Honey, oh um, honey's, I'm home..."