She Cut Her Arm - A Fan Arcus Entry

MrMcKonz

Arcus 3232

She had cut her arm very badly. A thick gash wrapped around her forearm pulsed while she clutched it with her opposite hand. She had gotten it while on the clock at her groundskeeper job. A taught branch broke and snapped back, slicing her with its long, hooked thorns while she was holding back the pesky limbs of a particularly sturdy bush. She noticed her pulse underneath her thumb was in sync with the ropes of blood draped over her skin. The cut was deep, enough to distinguish the layers of flesh that lay beneath. It felt like an eternity while time slowed down enough for her to study the wound and consider what to do next. Luckily her co-worker had already called an ambulance before running over with a towel.

Sitting in the hospital, it would have been easy to blame herself for her predicament. She shouldn’t have been multitasking while holding back such a sharp branch. She should have been paying attention. Her friend sat beside her and quelled those self-deprecating thoughts, while he joked about how much time she’s gonna get off now, and teased her about all the shifts he’s going to have to pick up for her, all with a warm smile. Later, her family arrived with balloons and bright eyes full of both concern and relief at the state she was in, and her relaxed disposition.

The first thing she noticed when the stitches were taken out was her scar. The cut was particularly deep, so the gnarled twine of bright flesh was very noticeable. It was fascinating to her. It looked as though some tiny hands had grabbed her arm and squeezed her skin until it oozed between their fingers. It was fascinating how her body repaired itself in such an imperfect way to leave a mark that tells the story of a day as a groundskeeper.

She looked at that scar with the same fascination every time she returned to the campfire. The same wonderment of discovery, as if she had been seeing it for the first time. In a way, she was. Something had been toying with her mind since she had arrived at this place. Like a fog making things disappear, only to leave things rearranged once it dissipates. Feelings of belonging and kinship are mashed into fear and angst. She doesn’t know where the former ever came from. She can’t remember. But that silvery line of scar tissue brings her back. Back to her life as a groundskeeper.

Many things didn’t make much sense in this realm; one thing in particular that confused her was how she only had one scar. She had suffered much more than an air-cutting shard of wood. She had been stabbed, slashed, broken, cut open, sewn shut, thrown, shattered, and more. But none of them left any sort of mark. They had been undone by the time she’d returned to the campfire. This discrepancy was a small, barely perceptible glimmer of hope that she had held onto tightly. It reminded her that she is flesh and blood. She is somebody. And she deserves just as much as any other poor soul inhabiting this place to feel that way.

This kept her fighting. She kicked and screamed her way to survival. No matter how many times the flame had been extinguished, that scar struck a match that kept her heart beating; pumping the blood of a survivor.

But paradoxically, as very few things seem to do in this place, the scar began to fade. There’s no telling how many trials she had endured while this etching of a life was ground away by whatever confusing influence time could possibly have here. Until finally, she woke up at the campfire, and saw nothing. Only a glassy strip of skin that could be confused with a trick of the light.

That’s when all memories of life before the fog faded away. That’s when she was extinguished. That’s when the entity grabbed her, and tossed her into the void.