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Entry tags:
try to escape
Trigger warning for self-harm or at least the ideation of such.
You dress in the dark.
You do quite a lot in the dark, actually. Your entire waking routine is planned in the number of steps from your recuperacoon to your closet, your closet to the ablution block. You know the cool, square shape of the tiles, the threadbare edge of the bathmat, the metal frame of the shower as they brush over your feet, and you know just where to turn the faucet handle to get the water the right temperature.
You rarely let it set there. There are nights when you make the water freezing cold, and you fold down on yourself, curl into a ball and listen to the water fall over you. It’s never cold enough on nights like this, or maybe it’s just that it doesn’t taste like salt, or that when it hits the tile, it’s with a hard, resounding crack rather then the slow, gentle roll against the sand that you remember. You used to break down on evenings like this and spend an hour trying to clean watery purple stains from the grout. Not that you were ever sure there were really stains, but the fear that there might be kept you there until your knees ached where you were kneeling on them.
You do not break down anymore. You aren’t even sure you could if you wanted to, which you don’t, so you suppose it doesn’t really matter.
And then there are nights, more frequent then these others, where you turn it all the way up and stand absolutely still in the vicious angry heat that follows. The water scalds down across your shoulders, makes your skin sting and crawl and the air gets so thick with steam you have wondered if you could breathe it through your gills instead. Not that you try. Opening your gills is another thing you do not do anymore.
You have raised welts on your back doing this before, but by now you’ve learned when to stop without having to see the ugly purple flush the prickly heat brings to your skin.
When this is done, you have to wait for the mirrors to clear up, so you pitter around your respiteblock. You dress in the dark, your shirt, your scarf, your gloves, then everything else. You practice trying to see by smell which you are not very good at, and reading by troll Braille which you are only slightly better at. Mostly though, you sit at the curtained window and listen to the sun set, and the wind blow, and the unsteady groan of day monsters in the distance. You compose stories to tell your moirail the next time you have to perform. Sometimes you sharpen your knives, and the dry rasp of the blade against the stone comforts you in a way that makes you want to peel your flesh from your bones and escape.
The only light in your hive that works is the one in the ablution block, but it is always brilliantly white, a bare bulb hung in the middle of things. Your eye takes awhile to adjust, but you know the exact drawer where you keep the knife you have chosen for the eventual occasion when you put it out, so that’s okay.
You have had a number of scares, nights where you were sure there was a purple ring forming around your iris and you panicked. Tonight though, it is just as grey as ever and you breathe a slow sigh of uncomfortable relief and put the knife back in its drawer.
With the light on, you tie your scarf a little tighter and pull the hem of your sweater down so it’s even on both sides, and when you have remembered once again how to smile like you’re happy, you slip down the stairs to find your moirail and have breakfast with her.
You dress in the dark.
You do quite a lot in the dark, actually. Your entire waking routine is planned in the number of steps from your recuperacoon to your closet, your closet to the ablution block. You know the cool, square shape of the tiles, the threadbare edge of the bathmat, the metal frame of the shower as they brush over your feet, and you know just where to turn the faucet handle to get the water the right temperature.
You rarely let it set there. There are nights when you make the water freezing cold, and you fold down on yourself, curl into a ball and listen to the water fall over you. It’s never cold enough on nights like this, or maybe it’s just that it doesn’t taste like salt, or that when it hits the tile, it’s with a hard, resounding crack rather then the slow, gentle roll against the sand that you remember. You used to break down on evenings like this and spend an hour trying to clean watery purple stains from the grout. Not that you were ever sure there were really stains, but the fear that there might be kept you there until your knees ached where you were kneeling on them.
You do not break down anymore. You aren’t even sure you could if you wanted to, which you don’t, so you suppose it doesn’t really matter.
And then there are nights, more frequent then these others, where you turn it all the way up and stand absolutely still in the vicious angry heat that follows. The water scalds down across your shoulders, makes your skin sting and crawl and the air gets so thick with steam you have wondered if you could breathe it through your gills instead. Not that you try. Opening your gills is another thing you do not do anymore.
You have raised welts on your back doing this before, but by now you’ve learned when to stop without having to see the ugly purple flush the prickly heat brings to your skin.
When this is done, you have to wait for the mirrors to clear up, so you pitter around your respiteblock. You dress in the dark, your shirt, your scarf, your gloves, then everything else. You practice trying to see by smell which you are not very good at, and reading by troll Braille which you are only slightly better at. Mostly though, you sit at the curtained window and listen to the sun set, and the wind blow, and the unsteady groan of day monsters in the distance. You compose stories to tell your moirail the next time you have to perform. Sometimes you sharpen your knives, and the dry rasp of the blade against the stone comforts you in a way that makes you want to peel your flesh from your bones and escape.
The only light in your hive that works is the one in the ablution block, but it is always brilliantly white, a bare bulb hung in the middle of things. Your eye takes awhile to adjust, but you know the exact drawer where you keep the knife you have chosen for the eventual occasion when you put it out, so that’s okay.
You have had a number of scares, nights where you were sure there was a purple ring forming around your iris and you panicked. Tonight though, it is just as grey as ever and you breathe a slow sigh of uncomfortable relief and put the knife back in its drawer.
With the light on, you tie your scarf a little tighter and pull the hem of your sweater down so it’s even on both sides, and when you have remembered once again how to smile like you’re happy, you slip down the stairs to find your moirail and have breakfast with her.