Chapter 01
“Where’s Broomstick?” ( Broomstick is a nickname given to Irene by her classmates).
Irene stopped in her tracks as she was about to open the lounge door. She had heard her nickname being mentioned.
“Broomstick” referred to her messy, stiff hair and her skinny frame, like the stick of a broom.
“Oh, you mean the Iron Wall? Haven’t seen her,” someone replied.
“Iron Wall” was another one of Irene’s nicknames, alongside others like Ice Pick, Steel Mask, and Witch. Irene found it amusing that her classmates could use so many nicknames for her and still know exactly who they were talking about.
Not that she cared much about the nicknames—she thought of them as “Jellyfish” and “Sea Anemone” in return, animals she disliked the most.
The voices belonged to her classmates Onn (the “Jellyfish”) and Maxi (the “Sea Anemone”).
“Why do you need her?” Maxi asked.
“I’m on prep duty for anatomy class today,” Onn replied, shivering in disgust.
Irene figured out what they were talking about. In their medical school, prep duty meant cutting open a cadaver and organizing the organs for class.
Maxi smugly added, “Only the best students, like me, are trusted with this task. And her too, I guess—the Iron Wall.”
Irene didn’t care for their gossip. She opened the door and walked in, ignoring their awkward silence.
“Shouldn’t you at least say hello?” Maxi snapped.
Irene calmly put on a clean apron and gloves. Maxi grew annoyed by her indifference, grabbed her shoulder, and said, “When someone talks to you, you should at least look at them!”
Slap! Irene swatted Maxi’s hand away with her gloved hand and then scrubbed the spot on her shoulder where he had touched her. Her fear of being touched wasn’t obvious to them, but it was real.
“Think you’re too good to be touched by anyone?” Maxi mocked.
She didn’t reply; she just kept cleaning her gloves.
“You’ll never be a doctor!” Maxi sneered. “How can you treat patients when you hate touching people? And you have no empathy. A doctor like you—what a joke!”
Irene remained unaffected. She knew she wouldn’t make a good doctor. Her aversion to touch stemmed from a traumatic event when she was seven. She didn’t want to think about it and locked the memory away.
Maxi finally shouted, “You’re on anatomy prep duty today!”
She paused and glanced at him for the first time. Maxi felt his anger boil as she calmly replied with a slight nod.
“Guess you’ll like it,” he mocked.
“I do,” Irene said.
Maxi was startled. “What?”
“I like it. Cutting cadavers is better than talking to you,” she replied before leaving.
To Irene, the dead were easier to deal with. They didn’t touch her or expect anything from her—they just existed.
Maxi fumed as the door shut behind her, and Onn patted him on the shoulder.
“Let it go, Maxi. She’s always like that.”
Maxi glared at the door as if he could get her to come back and respond, but she never did.
