SSCS 03: Installment 19 of 35
Those Monsters We Have Dreamed About
This is Installment 19 of this year’s SSCS. If you want to start at the beginning of ‘Those Monsters We Have Dreamed About’, go here! If you want to know what the heck an SSCS is, go here!
Previously…
My arm was stiff, though, aching and burning somewhere deep. Now that it was bare, I turned it over, and found, hooking around the back of the elbow, an angry red scar that hadn’t been there before. It traced a long line down toward the outside of my wrist, the edges looking like they’d started healing days ago, but with a faint mottling, a foreign texture I couldn’t place.
…Those Monsters We Have Dreamed About
Installment 19: 21.0215
I should be terrified, I thought. But instead I was weirdly relieved. I’d felt a horrible pain in my arm twice, and now here seemed to be proof that it wasn’t all in my head. I wasn’t just going crazy, blacking out and losing time, and seeing weird things on the streets. At least…
“Nina,” I called. “Will you look at something for me? I’ve got a bad angle.”
“Hmm,” came, muffled from the other room, but then Nina came around the door into mine. She’d been faster than me, already in a ratty t-shirt and pajamas, and was tying off the braid on her second pig-tail. “What’s up?”
I held my arm, wrist twisted up to show her. “Does this look like it’s healing okay?” I kept my voice as casual as I could. Nothing strange happening here. Just…maybe I could claim it was a burn? Assuming…
She winced, and I drew in a quick, relieved breath, covering it with a tight smile.
“Ow. Umm.” Plenty of factory jobs were hazardous, and Nina knew my last job sometimes had me working with dangerous equipment, so that was her only exclamation before she squinted at it helpfully, inspecting the full length of it. “Yeah, I think so. Is it…” She stopped short of touching it, and I nodded when her eyes flicked up to mine in question. She brushed the bit near the elbow gently and then near the wrist, finger tips and then with her own wrist. “It doesn’t feel warm or anything. Does it hurt?”
“No. Not…” I shook my head. “Only a little, randomly. Thank you for checking it.” I lowered my arm, tugging at the sleeve of my undershirt, which was too short to cover anything.
“No problem. Night.” And then Nina was gone again.
I shut my door and turned back to my bed, sitting down with a thump. Okay. Not crazy. That was good? I pulled off the rest of my clothes that I’d been wearing for who knew how long, but then felt too tired to do more than that and flopped back on the bed. Not crazy.
Okay. Be sure. I pulled up my knees, turned them side to side to inspect what I could of my legs, curled up to check my breasts and belly, and pulled my other arm across to look at what I could. No other big scars. Not even, as far as I could tell with my tired foggy eyes, any strange angular lumps like on Jack’s ankle.
Just a weird, sore arm, and not knowing what day it was. Yeah.
***
When the light speared in through my ratty curtains, I flinched away from it, confused even though I was still mostly asleep. Then my stomach gave a lurch as I realized it had to be late for the sun to be shining in. Usually it was still dark out when I got up. Usually I remembered to set my alarm. Almost, as I was leaving, I forgot to grab my indigo tunic with the sharp heft of the dandelion plate stuffed into the pocket. Again, I did forget the rice box Nina had got for me until it was too late, standing at the crowded bus stop with my stomach growling about missing breakfast. But it was too late. The Minister might be coming today.
Or maybe tomorrow, or had already come yesterday, but I couldn’t risk the chance it was today. I couldn’t be kicked out of this factory too. Or…I remembered something Elka had said on my first day, ‘Or else we’ll all-of-us find the manacles waiting, no matter how long since we made our posting.’
Again, this should be exactly the time when I start feeling really, really terrified. But I’d had too little sleep, only had just enough energy to cram onto the bus with everyone else when the next one pulled up to our stop. Because I was late, it was really crowded, and I had to find a place standing, hanging onto one of those metal poles that you try not to think about how many other people have been grabbing it. It kept my arm up at eye level, though. Poked in the ribs by the dandelion plate and leaning my tired face against my hand, I could just see the bits of the red scar where it trailed up to my wrist.
There was definitely a strange texture to it, which its proximity to my face and the light stabbing in through the bus windows seemed to amplify. It looked like the whole length of it was imprinted with something that looked like thin, tiny little feathers, or maybe like dandelion petals. Like somehow I’d been both careless, and meticulously repetitive with the texture plate right now hanging heavy in my pocket.