Gift Horse

I was part of a CIA team meant to focus on medical and scientific blunders which apparently there were a lot of. We were in a world where scientific advancement wasn't as strict and doctors could get away with anything they wanted.

Dylan and I were part of a special unit (we made out a few times in the bathroom, the rest of the team wasn't to know...) to isolate and capture these scientific failures and to "process" them. We were in the field and we took down a rabid horse-person mutilation. They had the head, limbs and tail of a horse but were horribly scarred and bloody and infected. We brought them back to headquarters and tried to clean them up a bit, chaining them up (I felt so awful about that) and cleaning their wounds forcibly. Dylan was going to open their mouth but I got a feeling and shouted, "DON'T" but too late... as soon as their mouth was open hundreds of maggots fell out.

I remember feeling sick and trying to tell the doctor on our team that we should shoot the poor creature in the head because it was so awful. He declined and told us to continue to care for it and to treat it's wounds even though it's chances of survival were slim.

I remember going to the creature when no-one else was around and asking it, "I'm so so sorry... do you want to live?" I remember crying my eyes out and bringing tokens and treats to the horse-thing. It nodded at me. I kept asking it, "You can't be happy here, I know you're in pain, I can end it."

It was a terrible thing to do but I felt bad that the doctor insisted we keep it alive while they were obviously in terrible pain. I kept going back to the horse-creature and asking, "I can end it. Do you want me to?"

I woke up crying on behalf of the poor mutilated horse-creature with those big brown painful eyes.

The first phrase that popped into my head upon waking was "Don't Look a Gift Horse in the Mouth" but I'm not sure what that means. It was intense... and very gory.