A smile pulled on her lips, even as she reminded herself to talk to Dr. Hershey about the risk of the illness being hereditary. There was a chance that she could have a family of her own now, and she found years of suppressed dreams suddenly flurrying up inside of her as she imagined a white picket fence and serving lemonade to her blue-eyed kids.
She finished up in the shower, catching herself humming along to a tune she’d heard on the radio last week as she stepped out and dried herself. How much would her life change now that she didn’t have to spend so much energy pretending everything was all right?
When she wiped the mirror free from steam, the wide grin on her reflection seemed so alien, yet so right. She couldn’t remember when she’d last felt this happy—this hopeful.
Happily planning her future she brushed her teeth, humming around a mouthful of toothpaste with sheer joy. She continued the cheery tune while rinsing out her mouth with water from the tap.
It was when she straightened back up to grin widely at the mirror that she noticed it.
The faint shimmer on her forehead cut the melody short, her expression faltering as she leaned in closer. There in the middle of her forehead, where Marathin’s hot hand had touched her just before her orgasm, was a round, silvery mark so faint that it almost blended in with her pale skin. If it hadn’t been for its shimmer, she might not even have noticed.
But there it was, approximately the size of a walnut with odd symbols following the curved outer line branded into her forehead.
Was it another delusion? Had their nature simply changed?
Panic tightened in the pit of her stomach, and she staggered away from the mirror. No! This was too cruel, too unfair. Maybe it was just a normal side-effect that would disappear over time? Marathin would be able to tell her, to help her... and if there was any sliver of justice in the world, he might still be in his office doing some after-hours paperwork, because if he wasn’t, she wasn’t sure how she’d make it through the night.
Spinning around, Selma ran back into her room and fumbled into her clothes before trying the door. It was unlocked.
She thanked every deity she could think of for having been moved off the at-risk list as she ran down the empty hallways to the staircase leading to the doctor’s office. It was a bit later than she’d realized; darkness stared back at her through the windows she hurriedly passed, and the upstairs offices seemed deserted for the night.
Selma didn’t slow down until she came to the hallway housing Marathin’s office, and she could have fainted from relief when she saw a small stripe of light shining out from underneath his door.
With about the same desperation as a thirsting man stumbling upon an oasis in the desert, she threw herself at the door, knocking quietly but with an urgent rhythm.
“Dr. Hershey!” she called, knocking again. “Marathin, please, I need your help!”
No reply came through the heavy wooden door, so she hesitantly turned the knob.
The door opened, and she had a moment of reconsidering practically breaking into his office like a desperate drug addict, but the alternative—a night of not knowing whether she was really cured—drove her to step in and close it behind her.
“Marathin?”
There was still no reply, and the man himself didn’t seem to be in the room. But some paperwork was scattered over his otherwise neat desk, and the light coming from his computer screen indicated that he probably wasn’t far away. She walked closer, glancing to see if he’d been away long enough that it had locked his user profile.
It hadn’t, and she forced a deep breath through her lungs. He’d be back soon, and he would help her.
She sat in the same chair she had earlier that day, brushing her hands through her still-damp hair and letting her gaze wander. She hadn’t noticed the many tribal-looking sculptures adorning his shelves among the thick books the first time she was here, and in the limited light, they were almost frightening.
She looked at the papers on his desk instead, wondering what her file now said about her and the treatment she’d been through.
Maybe the file was hers...? Feeling just a little guilty, she leaned closer, glancing over the pages of what appeared to be hand-written entries on top of a medical file. A file with her name on it.
No longer concerned about breaching any ethical standards, she moved to the other side, leaning against the desk as she let her fingers dance over the neat handwriting.
What she read made color fill her cheeks; the first page was a detailed description of her reaction to everything he’d done to her that morning and she quickly flipped the page, not entirely sure she wanted to know what else he had to say on that subject.
She let her eyes roam the next sheet for something less mortifying, but when she spotted a small diagram lower down on the opposite page, her heart skipped a beat and blood rushed in her ears.
It... it was…
She bent even further over the papers, staring at the small circle and the symbols within it. It was an exact copy of the image she’d seen on her forehead.
He’d... put it there?
The realization struck as a bolt of lightning, and numbness spread through her fingers where they pressed against the drawing. She didn’t know how, but he’d marked her.
Selma shook her head, trying to clear her confusion. Why would he have done that? Even if she ignored the how, it made no sense. She brushed a hand over her forehead, eliciting an odd pulsing sensation against her fingertips when she touched the mark.
