Jenna Reed, St. Jude's new intern, boasted a miraculous gift—performing surgeries without anesthetic, leaving patients pain-free. The truth? She was a parasite, funneling their agony into me. As her fame grew, patients paid fortunes for her procedures while I endured the consequences. Phantom pains left me bedridden, my body failing—hair falling out, bones protruding, every movement agony. When the hospital fired me over complaints, I confronted her. They all pitied me, thinking me insane. Jenna just snapped on gloves, coldly dismissing me: "Save the drama, Claire. I’m prepping for a brain resection." Five minutes later, a vessel burst in my brain. I died instantly. Then—I woke up. Back on the day Jenna became a star. This time, I paid my way to the front of her line. "I’d like your ‘painless’ procedure too," I said steadily. … "Are you kidding me, Claire?" Jenna Reed, the hospital’s brand-new intern, looked me up and down with a sneer that sent a chill crawling up my spine. I forced myself to meet her gaze, refusing to flinch. "I have stomach problems," I said, my tone even. "I was hoping to experience your famous painless gastroscopy. Is that a problem?" On her very first day at St. Jude's, Jenna had made the audacious claim of performing painless procedures. To prove it, she'd done a bone marrow aspiration on a walk-in patient, right there in the open. She used no anesthetic, and her technique was horrifyingly clumsy—a textbook example of what not to do. I watched, my heart pounding, but the patient didn't so much as wince. Moments after she finished, a lightning bolt of pain shot through my own right femur. I collapsed, my leg refusing to hold my weight. Jenna, seizing the opportunity, took over all my scheduled surgeries for the day. That was the day she became a legend. Her rise from intern to chief resident was faster than a rocket launch. But while she was being celebrated, I was in a hospital bed, being ripped apart by waves of agony. One moment, it was my leg. The next, a stabbing pain in my heart, followed by the searing burn of a perforated stomach. I had always been the hospital's rising star, a pillar of the surgical department. When the hospital director, Dr. Finch, heard I’d collapsed, he came to examine me himself. The results? Nothing. Every test came back clean. Dr. Finch's face went cold. "Claire, I know we've been loading you up with work lately, but that's because we believe in you," he said, his voice laced with disappointment. "To think you'd fake an illness and push your responsibilities onto an intern… You've let me down. You've let us all down." I tried to speak, to defend myself, but a sharp, cutting pain seized my throat. I glanced at the surgical schedule. At that exact moment, Jenna was performing a laryngoscopy on a patient with severe throat inflammation. There’s no such thing as a coincidence that perfect. The connection was undeniable, but in my previous life, no one—not my colleagues, not the patients—had believed me. A dark resolve settled in my heart. This time, I wouldn't make a sound. I would play the long game, uncover the truth, and avoid the same fate. As I expected, Jenna refused to perform the gastroscopy on me. She let out a cold, humorless laugh. "Claire, let's be honest," she said, her voice dripping with condescension. "We both know you're not here for a check-up. You're here to steal my technique." She leaned back, crossing her arms. "If you want to waste time, be my guest. But every minute we stand here is a minute another patient has to wait. Their pain will be on your head." Her words were a spark in a tinderbox. The other patients who had paid a fortune for their appointments turned on me. "You're a doctor!" one man shouted. "You're always telling us to 'tough it out.' Why can't you handle a little discomfort?" "You must make a good living," another sneered. "If you want a painless scope, pay for a capsule endoscopy. Stop wasting our time!" Suddenly, a middle-aged woman lunged forward, and the sharp sting of a slap exploded across my cheek. CRACK. "My son has been clutching his chest in agony all afternoon!" she shrieked, her face contorted with rage. "If anything happens to him, I'll hold you personally responsible!" Her violence broke the dam. The crowd surged forward, a wave of fists and feet. While they were distracted, Jenna coolly ushered her first patient into the operating room. A moment later, an excruciating pain erupted in my chest, as if a pair of forceps were stabbing me again and again. My legs gave out, and I crumpled to the floor, my head cracking against the leg of a chair. Warm blood streamed down my face. The sight of my own blood made the mob recoil. "Look at her, faking an injury! She has no shame!" "We just pushed you! We didn't touch your chest! Don't you dare try to pin that on us!" Just as the world began to fade to black, I heard a little boy's voice ring out, clear and bright. "Mommy, Dr. Reed is amazing! I didn't feel a thing, and the pain is all gone!" The crowd immediately swarmed around Jenna, showering her with praise, leaving me forgotten on the cold floor. As patient after patient went into her room, new agonies bloomed across my body until, finally, I surrendered to the darkness. I woke up in a quiet hospital room. My best friend, Gloria, was sitting by my bed, her face etched with worry. "Your phone," I rasped, my first thought a desperate one. "Give me your phone." Gloria had also been one of Jenna's patients today. It was all part of my plan. Knowing Jenna would never let me observe her, I had asked Gloria to go in my place, a tiny spy camera hidden on her person. The footage on the phone made my blood run cold. Gloria didn't have a serious condition, just a sprained ankle from a few weeks ago. Jenna didn't bother with an X-ray or even a basic examination. She went straight for acupuncture. But she wasn't using proper needles. My temples throbbed as I watched her grab a thick suture needle and start jabbing it into Gloria's foot. She was hitting all the wrong points, a chaotic, reckless assault that could cause permanent nerve damage. It was pure malpractice. I struggled to sit up, but my right ankle was completely numb and useless. When I tried to move it, a fire shot up my leg, leaving the whole limb tingling and dead. I grabbed Gloria's hand. "What did you feel when she did that? Does your foot still hurt?" Gloria sighed, a look of bewilderment on her face. "That's the crazy part. It was a huge needle, but it was like my foot was completely numb. I felt zero pain. And she didn't even touch the spot that was actually sprained. But here's the thing, Claire… my ankle is completely healed. The pain is gone." I sank back against the pillows, my body feeling like a collection of broken parts. I forced my mind through the haze of pain, piecing it together. Jenna could somehow transfer a patient's pain, and even the post-operative side effects, directly to me. The damage she inflicted on my body was real, but it was invisible to any medical scanner. And because I was her… her vessel, she couldn't perform any procedures on me. That's why she had refused. My mind reeled. How could something so bizarre, so monstrous, be real? Then, another thought struck me, a desperate gamble. I dragged myself out of bed and went straight to Dr. Finch's office to submit my resignation. He stared at the letter on his desk, his fingers drumming a slow, angry rhythm on the polished wood. After a long silence, he looked up, his eyes filled with a deep, profound disappointment. "You're quitting because I accused you of faking an illness? Or is it what Jenna said? That her promotion threatens you, and this is your way of blackmailing me?" Without another word, he stamped the papers and waved a dismissive hand. "Get out." That same day, the hospital's official social media page posted an article. It was a glowing announcement, congratulating Jenna Reed on her promotion to Vice President of Surgical Operations. The comments section was a flood of praise for her, peppered with insults aimed at me. Someone even posted a video of me collapsing at the clinic. "What kind of doctor stoops this low?" the caption read. "She's so desperate for patients she'd sabotage someone else's treatment!" Overnight, I became a pariah. The internet wolves descended, calling me unethical, incompetent, a jealous hack. My phone number and home address were leaked. I received a deluge of hate mail, death threats, even photoshopped images of my own tombstone. I had no choice but to move in with Gloria. My reputation was in ashes, but I couldn't afford to care. Staring at the new surgical schedule Gloria had smuggled out for me, my palms began to sweat. Tomorrow, Jenna was scheduled to perform a gastric suture on a patient. I was no longer an employee. I was no longer even in the hospital. Let's see if you can reach me now, Jenna. The next day, Gloria set up the camera, pointed at a live feed of the local news channel covering the hospital. I sat on the bed, my eyes glued to the clock, waiting for 10 a.m. When the alarm blared, nothing happened. Tears of relief streamed down my face. I had found it. The medium for the transfer had to be my physical presence in the hospital. I was free. But my relief lasted only five minutes. Then, the agony hit. A convulsion wracked my body. My stomach felt like it was being roasted over hot coals, a searing, fiery torment. I could feel the phantom needle piercing my flesh, the pull of the thread. A cold sweat beaded on my forehead, and the pain was so intense I didn't even have the strength to scream. A moment later, blood welled up in my throat, and I choked, spitting a crimson spray onto the bedsheets. Gloria rushed to my side, forcing a painkiller into my mouth, but it was useless. It was like trying to put out a forest fire with a water pistol. The torture lasted for thirty minutes before it began to subside, leaving me a trembling, hollowed-out wreck. I knew I wouldn't be able to eat anything. The nausea was overwhelming. Just then, a notification popped up on Gloria's phone. A top local news story. [Medical Miracle: Patient Eats Minutes After Stomach Surgery! A Genius Is Born!] The patient, a middle-aged man, looked euphoric. There he was, on camera, not a hint of discomfort on his face. He even grabbed two bottles of hard liquor and chugged them down for the reporters. "Dr. Reed is a living saint!" he boomed, his face flushed with excitement. "No anesthesia, and I didn't feel a thing! Any other surgeon would have me on a liquid diet for months, but Dr. Reed said if I mess it up, she'll just fix me again, pain-free! Now that's a doctor who serves the people!" Watching the news, a bitter chill of hopelessness washed over me, wrapping me in a shroud of despair. Why? I wasn't in the hospital. How could she still be doing this to me? My body was too weak to move, so I had Gloria arrange a video call with a journalist. I had chosen her carefully. Her name was Isabelle Vance. Years ago, she'd gone undercover in a human trafficking ring to expose them. She had even gotten herself committed to a psychiatric ward to uncover patient abuse. She was relentless in her pursuit of the truth. Over the call, Isabelle studied my pale, haggard face, her brow furrowed. "So, you're claiming that Dr. Jenna Reed is using some kind of… supernatural means to transfer her patients' pain onto you, all to build a reputation as a medical genius?" She replayed the video of me convulsing in agony, her sharp eyes missing nothing. Finally, she nodded. "I can't stand by when someone's life is being destroyed for another's gain," she said, her voice firm. "But that doesn't mean I'm on your side yet. I will help you find the truth, but I reserve the right to believe you might be setting her up." That was all I needed. I was running out of time. In two weeks, Jenna was scheduled to perform the brain tissue resection on the billionaire's daughter. If I hadn't found the truth by then, I would die all over again. Tears of raw fear streamed down my cheeks, my body shaking uncontrollably. I saw a flicker of sympathy in Isabelle's eyes before she ended the call without another word. The days bled into one another until it was the night before the big surgery. Isabelle was now a true believer. She had hired an informant to pay the exorbitant fee for one of Jenna's procedures and had watched from Gloria's apartment as the surgery began. The moment the informant's minor procedure started—a simple suture for a deep cut—I had screamed out in pain as faint, bleeding pinpricks appeared out of thin air on my own arm. But we were no closer to understanding how. We couldn't find the mechanism, the key to stopping it. Despairing, I told Gloria to start looking into funeral plots for me. Hearing this, a look of fierce determination hardened Isabelle's face. The next morning, she marched into the hospital with a camera crew, broadcasting live. "Dr. Reed!" she called out, her voice projecting through the crowded lobby. "A medical gift like yours should be shared with the world! By monopolizing this technique, how many people are being denied a chance at a painless recovery?" Her words struck a chord. Other doctors were resentful that their own waiting rooms were empty. Patients were frustrated that only the wealthy could afford a spot in Jenna's schedule. A murmur of agreement rippled through the crowd. Isabelle had given them a voice. "That's right! This is a public hospital, for the people! How can you be so selfish?" "Is the billionaire's daughter's life more important than my grandfather's? What are you trying to say?" Trapped, Jenna's eyes shot daggers at Isabelle, but with the billionaire himself standing nearby, she forced a strained smile. "This technique was taught to me by my mentor. I... I don't know how to teach it." "Then let us record it," Isabelle countered smoothly. "Let the other doctors learn by observing." Jenna was cornered. Everyone was watching, and even the billionaire chimed in. "She's right, Dr. Reed. A breakthrough like this should benefit everyone." Through gritted teeth, Jenna nodded. Isabelle called it 'recording a lesson,' but the moment the camera was in the operating room, she started a live stream. The world watched as Jenna prepared for surgery. She didn't even sterilize her scalpel. Dr. Finch and the billionaire both flinched. And then, her next move made jaws drop across the globe. She sliced open the girl's scalp. As she did, a splitting agony tore through my own head. I stared at the screen, my vision blurring, forcing myself to focus on her hands. As she reached for the resection tool, I saw it. The one tiny detail I had ignored from the very beginning. I finally knew. I knew how she was transferring the pain. The truth had been right in front of me the whole time.
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