((Erika Stieglitz continued from Red of Tooth and Claw))
Biting down on a stick helped, relatively speaking. Instead of hearing involuntary gasps and cries of pain, she heard the sound of the wood slowly giving way between her teeth. A low, intermittent crackling every time she forced the needle through her skin, and again when she drew the stitches closed.
It was easier to do this on Hel, even though their wound was worse than this. The practice probably helped, even if she was still stitching flesh the same way she’d sewn clothes. In the same way she saw what damage the near-miss could have done to Hel’s midsection, working on her arm made it absolutely clear how close she was to having a spear run through her lung. The thought gave her jitters in a way somehow more intense than the pain of the wound itself. Stitching it shut seemed to help that feeling go away, if only by overwhelming it with more, different pain.
Once she’d cleared the house and ensured she was alone, she’d taken up a spot on the floor of the bedroom, across from a mirror that hung on the wall. She wondered what kind of person had scrutinized themselves in it before they’d all arrived. Were cultists picky about the way their robes hung?
At first her eyes had only been drawn to the blood on her clothes, and the cut on her arm. Fixated on the way that Blake’s her jacket had hung loosely on one shoulder. Avoiding the sight of her own eyes, in the same way she’d habitually drawn her gaze away from people growing up. Not wanting to be recognized, a mix of overstimulation and shame, forcing her to crane her neck downwards. As if the moment she got a good look at herself, she’d see something that should have remained hidden.
They were still pale blue, and they seemed paler with the dark circles underneath them. In her image she’d almost expected to see the fear she constantly felt. Perhaps some nightmarish, broken imitation of herself. Change in a direction she’d never anticipated, never hoped for. A twisted warping of the difficult relationship she had with her reflection.
When she’d stopped being scared of it, the act of looking for changes in the mirror had been an exercise in learning to smile. Thinking she was stuck for weeks on end, only to catch an unintentional glimpse walking past her wardrobe and suddenly thinking to herself,
oh, there she is.
That usually came with the short glimpses and side-eyed glances at reflections. At first, if she looked at it dead-on, it was too easy to see things she thought were wrong. Her growth spurt came early, early enough to give her things to fixate on; hands, feet, stature. How her shoulders sat relative to her hips. Of course, no one else seemed to notice. After some time and a move to a new state, the switch flipped for everyone else. No one mistook her for a boy anymore, even if the mirror could find every reason they might.
It took awhile for that to sink in, that things were actually working out after a childhood spent dreading what was to come. Once it had, it started to get kind of exciting. She couldn’t help find herself smiling, every time she found herself in the reflection. Every time she thought ahead, to how she’d look at twenty, thirty, forty, fifty.
Worries about the future failed to intrude on her mind then; negative thoughts about where aging led or where the world would be at that age failing to find purchase. All it took to ward those things away was the thought that yes, she really was a person who existed. She really was the kind of human she wanted to be. It wasn’t just a dream. Trading the pain she used to feel for the pain of a needle every week was more than a bargain.
Erika winced, biting down harder on the stick as she ran the sewing needle through her arm for a fifth time.
When she glanced up from the cut to her eyes, she looked for the signs of a murderer. Past the bloody shirt she’d torn off and left on the floor, beyond torn sleeves of the jacket she’d appropriated from the cadet she killed. What were her actions doing to twist and distort her image, she wondered. Did killers have a tell? Some sign they weren't normal?
Some folks seemed to think so. Erika recalled faint memories of vox pop interviews following school shootings, and the earlier SOTF kidnappings. You could tell in their eyes, they’d say. Something always seemed “off” about them, you know?
Erika knew she wasn't like hat. It was hard to even think of someone she’d had much of anything close to a conflict with at school. She smiled a lot, and goofed around. That was what people knew her for.
“She was always so good natured. The person would shake their head, and shrug. “Hard to imagine she was even capable of something like that but I guess you can never tell.”
Stitch six. Her knees trembled. These needles weren’t meant for this.
I’m not meant for this.
She missed what pain used to be. A twenty-five gauge hypodermic needle, pressed swiftly into her thigh. Familiar, and the worst she ever dealt with on a regular basis. All to be herself, to stay herself.
Now it was a little mending needle, all the way through the edges of a deep cut along the outside of her right arm. Interrupted stitches, tight but not too tight. The brown-red of blood washed away with the orange stain of Iodine. All to keep panic and nightmares of waking up feverish from infection at bay. To stay alive, to keep doing what she had to do. To be someone else.
The seventh stitch hurt like the others. She glanced from the mirror towards the door. Her rifle was nearby, pointed towards it in case someone approached. Of all of the moments to catch her unaware, this would’ve been the worst. She wasn’t sure she could even fire in time with both hands occupied like this. It was reassurance, more than any guarantee of safety.
Choker necklaces were a really easy feminine coded thing to wear. The first one she got was kind of awkward and not really her style, but it still made her feel good. Gradually she started making her own adornments, and they’d invariably become part of her look in the way her bracelets and charms had.
All of those cute things she wore, each with its own little bit of meaning, now lay in a pile somewhere off in the woods. In their place, only the collar. A cold reminder of how safety could now only ever be relative. The danger she was in was absolute, all-encompassing. If anyone other than her still drew breath on this island, the fight wasn’t over. The threat wasn't truly gone.
Eight didn’t hurt as much, and she didn’t bite down as hard this time.
People got used to that, being in danger all the time. She’d met veterans at the shooting range, and occasionally competed against them. A lot went there to unwind, while others were there to keep their skills sharp. Both ultimately for the same reason - they’d left home one way, and came back another. It didn’t matter if they were men in their twenties or their fifties. The ones who’d seen combat all had the same look, the one Erika was beginning to see in her own eyes. An alertness that never seemed to fade. It was starting to feel like she’d never know what it was to be calm ever again.
Of course, society viewed those people as heroes. Perhaps erroneously, if the looks those men gave when people said “thank you for your service” was any indication. They always seemed so uniformly uncomfortable with it. Their lives weren’t so much desperate heroics as they were moments of white-knuckled terror punctuating long stretches of unimaginable boredom, from what she’d been told. That wasn’t an easy thing to try to convince a society that desperately needed heroics.
What she had done was on tape. No one could look at what she’d done and not see how desperate she was, how panic and cowardice easily cut a path to ruthless, wanton violence. No one would mistake who she was or what she’d done. If she survived, the world would present itself to her with just as cold and hollow a visage as the one she occasionally glanced to now.
Nine. She wanted to be able to look at herself again and smile.
No one else would. Would her parents?
Oh God.
As she tied the last suture, Erika let the stick fall from her mouth. She looked around for the familiar, omnipresent shape that stood out everywhere it was found on the island. As she hoped, the room’s camera was fixed on her, and it wasn’t far. She didn’t want to get up, not while her arm still throbbed and her legs still trembled.
Erika looked directly towards the lens, the pain showing through her eyes. The more she thought about it, the more she wasn’t sure whether or not her parents would want to look at her again.
What if they don’t recognize me?
“Mom… Dad…”
Her voice wavered. She didn’t know how loud she had to speak for the camera to pick it up.
“I… I’m sorry. I just want to go home. I don’t want to be like this, I didn’t want to hurt anyone. I have to, I wish I didn’t, but I have to. You know how I get scared sometimes, I think about things I shouldn’t. Here, it’s - it’s all the time. People are trying to kill me, and they should be.”
Erika clasped one trembling hand in another, and brought them close to her.
“I know I don’t have a choice, but even though I know I didn’t cause all of this - I still hate what I have to be here. I hate that I can do these things. I think you guys will probably hate me for what I had to do. I know you probably wanted me to take the high road, you wanted to see me helping people. I wish I could have.”
She let out a shaky sigh, and continued.
“I get it, if you do. Hate me, I mean. I hope you know I - I always wanted you guys to be proud of me. I imagined one day you’d like, stop worrying and just be happy. Like maybe you could move on with your lives, you'd maybe come visit me in my tiny house occasionally, we’d hang out and stuff, but things - things would be good enough. You wouldn’t have to keep wondering if I’m okay all the time.
But if it's too much, like - I get it. If you can’t love me anymore that's fine, just don’t blame yourselves. Move on. Love something else, something like what I wanted to be. Maybe something better. I’m not gonna ask you for more than that. I miss - I love you.”
Erika turned back to the mirror. It was weird even hearing her own voice, haggard and uttering sentiments that barely felt real. A curious sort of serenity washed over her, as it set in that she’d made it through treating her wounds. Nine stitches, holding together a neat black line just above her right elbow. After wrapping some gauze around and taping it together, she removed the bloodstained shirt she wore and swapped it out for her last spare article of clothing.
A button-up green plaid shirt with short sleeves, something she’d only felt brave enough to wear in the last year or so. In place of the cardigan she usually wore it with, she made use of the cadet jacket once again. With one sleeve heavily torn and bloodstained, Erika opted to remove them altogether, tearing both sleeves off at the seam. It was less protection from branches and debris now, but the jacket would still serve as a handy place to keep ammunition.
Standing up, she felt markedly less dizzy than when she’d slumped down. Her arm still stung badly, but the pain wasn’t the radiating, unpleasantly wet feeling of a deep, bloody cut anymore. She took one last look at the mirror, the difference she'd been looking for finally spelled out in the cold gaze that stared back at her.
There I am.
She picked her rifle off the floor, followed by her duffel bag. Unless it was raining, she had no use for a roof over her head here. She paused at the doorway, turning with a furtive glance towards the camera.
"I chose to live. I won't ask for forgiveness. I've only done what I needed to survive. I'm not sorry for this. I didn't cause this, it isn't what I wanted. Not now, or ever. None of them deserved to die.
But neither did I."
((Erika Stieglitz continued in I'm telling these tears, go and fall away, fall away
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