I could have died here. I wonder how long he waited. If I was still shaking on the floor when he started packing.
You found your mates.
But they don’t want me either.
When the tears stop, I slowly move into the bathroom and slap the light on. The tacky white mirror stuck to the back of the door shows me glimpses as I peel my shorts down, carefully pulling off my sweater.
I unwrap the bandages slowly. Inch by inch, baring my skin to the harsh bulb over my head, not looking.
But I have to face reality. There’s no point in hiding from it anymore.
There never was. I never had a chance.
Slowly, I lift my eyes up. My breath catches in my lungs, nothing coming out as I count.
One.
Two.
Four.
Nine.
I twist.
Eleven.
Fourteen.
Seventeen.
Across my body, seventeen distinct, deep bite marks cover my skin in a patchwork of oozing black.
They’re so much worse than I remember. Six months of changing bandages, of notlooking, not really. Six months of pain, of every faintest touch making my vision waver with agony.
Six months of being poisoned from the inside out. Of my body changing, warping into something unrecognizable.
I run my finger slowly across one on my right breast, gently touching the ragged skin. My fingers come away tarred with black.
And then I lift my chin.
I’ve fought for every day I’ve had.
To survive. Scraping for every minute and only getting pain for my trouble.
But I think I’m done fighting. I don’t even know what the hell I’m fighting for anymore, only that I’ve been doing it for so long that it feels second nature to me.
I stare at the girl in the reflection for a long minute. “You did good, Kenny.”
I don’t go back to bed. I can sleep when I’m dead, spend an eternity locked in my own nightmares. I can rest when I’m locked in that box again, with no way out, trapped inside my own mind. When I’m in a cage within a cage.
Instead, I carefully dress myself, grabbing a jacket from the hook in the kitchen, and I close the door to the trailer behind me, leaving it open as I trudge across the clearing and into the trees.
The cool morning breeze dances across my feverish skin, the shadows clearing away and making room for the dawn as I slowly trek up the mountain.
I haven’t watched a sunrise for six months.
It takes me longer than it ever used to, but I still reach the small ridge in the minutes before the sunrise and settle myself down.
