Sleep, when you think about it, is like a false death or a little death. Unconsciousness extends to hours of bliss or nightmares, leaving one ignorant and inert, unaware of where one is. The awakening is what breaks the said 'death', pulling one out of the depths of their own mind to throw them into the real world. For a moment or so, I often think about it, the lines must blur; life and death, slumber and consciousness, real and unreal. From this moment rises a new you, one who is slightly different, slightly renewed.
I always understood sleep in that manner. You wake up with a bruise you didn't have before, you wake up with a new pimple, you wake up with more hair on your pillow than yesterday, you wake up feeling more tired than you did when you went to bed, you wake up from a vivid dream of a life so much better than your reality, you spend the rest of the day trying to forget it. I think of waking up as a door to a new day. What you'll find in that new day is shown when your eyes open, its symptoms etched onto you. I've lived through life enough to expect some things from how waking up leaves me feeling.
The 'mark' left me confused. For a good 5 minutes, I sat and recalled what had happened that night. Was I with someone? Was I drunk?
Who was I kidding? I hadn't been drunk in forever. That line of thought is for people who have friends to go out with.
I was sober. I came home alone, had leftovers and went straight to bed. Nothing that explained a strange tattoo that looked like a cursive 'U' or 'V' could have happened. I tried wiping it off, washing it out; nothing worked. It stayed there, dark and crisp, a part of my skin. It didn't hurt or even have any visible redness around it, almost as if it had always been there. But I knew it hadn't.
I might have been able to get it off my mind if I had anything to do, but it was a day off. All the time in the world to think about it. But what was the point? I couldn't get to any conclusion anyway. How did it get there? Who did it? What was the purpose of it? All questions hung before me like carrots on a stick too high for me to grasp.
I ate cereal for breakfast, even though I told myself to make something nice for once. I stayed at the table for way too long, staring blankly at whatever my phone showed me, locked in a hypnotic stillness until the clock threatened with hours slipping out of my grasp. I heeded, moving around to go about the chores that I had perfect excuses to avoid throughout the week in a lethargic pace. And when my mind found no place to rest, it wandered down to the mark on my wrist.
I wondered what it could mean. Maybe if I had known, I would have thought of something to do. Although, even if I did, there was nothing I could do.
Clouds took over the sky right around noon, just when the clothes were done washing. The gloom must have taken over me as all I did for who knows how long was pace around the tiny apartment I reluctantly called home before ending up standing before the window, staring out. Grey, wistful swathes hung over the big city; city of the future, city of dreams— all those names and a single, cloudy day dwarfed it before its sombre glory.
The longer I watched those clouds, the more anxious I grew. For what reason, I couldn't tell. Nausea rose upon me, sweat threatening to spill through my skin but not doing so, paralysed in a state of limbo, just like the weather. My insides felt corrupt, leaving an intense drive to spill it out somehow, erase it, cleanse myself of it.
The houses around were quiet, the only sound in the neighbourhood being that of some vehicles passing by occasionally. For once, I lamented the quiet. I had always wished so desperately for it, cursing the kids for all their screaming, laughing, crying, shouting, stomping and playing around the neighbourhood. I was never a bitter person. I never hated children. But the quiet I got to enjoy on days like these was something precious, and anyone to break it made my blood boil. And now, for some reason, I found the quiet nerve-wracking.
The clock seemed to tick louder in the deathly silence, forcing me to do something about the wet laundry festering in the washing machine. Like a marionette, I got to work, hanging and laying the clothes on whatever surface provided the passage of air around them. The clothing rack wasn't sufficient. I would've made lunch, but the nausea made me stay out of the kitchen. I never liked to cook anyway, but takeout was slowly eating away at the peanuts I earned. Going out with colleagues was no better. Somehow, it always ended with me paying for everyone. Fastest way to end my appetite. I was never a miser but constantly ending up with empty pockets after every outing would make anyone resentful.
I couldn't see the Sunset. All around me were tall buildings blocking the Sun at its best hours. Sunset to me was a splash of greyish orange towards the west. Today, it was dull purple, the kind that makes your mouth twist in a snarl, almost like a large bruise or mold sprawling across the sky. It made me want to reach up and tear it down, and the thought alone made my fingertips tingle with disgust. The sight of that nasty shade slowly fading as the dark veil of night spread should have made me relieved, but it only made the sense of doom settle further into the cavity of my torso.
How deceptive time is, rushing forward with no mercy when it wishes and slowing to a suffocating halt when it wishes. I didn't realise when the day passed, but when my eyes landed by chance on the clock proudly counting down each last second of my life, I could only beg for it to speed up. I didn't want to suffer, I didn't want to die— at least not so soon. But death was sweeter than the agony I was put through for reasons I couldn't dare ask about.
It came to me all of a sudden but not at the same time. I expected something, something bad, for sure, when the mark on my wrist began to tickle under my skin. Not long after that, it itched and burned. I scratched and scratched and scratched until blood came trickling out around it, but the mark remained unharmed, pristine. I knew it was over for me then, when my nails, all bloody and full of dead skin, would simply glide over the warm, wet liquid coating my forearm.
My vision was blurry from tears, which obscured the figure that seemed to manifest in the middle of my living room. I kept scratching, growing positively desperate to get rid of the mark. It stayed, pitch black ink engraved into my flesh. I broke down and slid to the floor as the looming figure, cloaked in white and gold, approached. It probably had a head and a pair of arms, but it didn't use them to lift me off the floor. I kept my head hung, even as screams erupted from my throat; I didn't dare look up.
I didn't realise when the lights went out— or perhaps I had never turned them on the whole day— but it was dark. At least, it was supposed to be. Besides the lightning that shrieked between the blanket of clouds pouring down rain, there was a bright, off-white glow so strong it could blind me easily if I hadn't been staring at my arm the whole time. Even in mid-air, I was below the cruel deity that inflicted that pain on me. When the mark burned so hot it began glowing through the bloody mess I had made of it, I gave up, dropping my spent hand to my side.
Why was it doing this? What did it have to gain from me? Why did it choose me? I hoped my eyes conveyed those questions as I lifted them to gaze upon it. I fought the light through newfound tears only to see indifference in the fully black eyes, a void so vast yet tiny enough to be held within the walls of my home. There was no malice in those 'eyes', only an aloof responsibility. For me.
My ribs cracked under the invisible pressure, the rest of my insides flaring up— muscles turned magma and organs, lava. My throat had never felt so raw before as it did in that moment until it was silenced on its own. I pitied myself for the failed whistling sounds my broken throat made, although I didn't have to bear it for long as my ears started bleeding along with my nose and mouth. There was something coming out of me, besides all the blood that splattered all over, something invisible but so very tangible. A part of me— how big, I could not tell. The bright one ripped it out of me, separating the ugly from the ideal.
I understood. I didn't want this to happen, but I understood. The corruption, the impurities had to go, to be thrown out. A horrid night would result in renewal, in the perpetuation of a better, purer form. I may have accepted it in those final moments. The sky had quieted down after a great storm, creating space for me to lament the tantalising click of the second's hand and the sparse, shallow breaths that leaked out of my respiratory tract. I wanted to let it all go, to go unconscious into the gentle arms of sweet slumber. My eyes shifted around to take in the sight of home one last time.
Soon, I would be renewed, perfect. But the stains of those removed impurities would be carried by the place, by the clothes soaking in my blood, and that would be all that was left of the me that existed before the blurring of the lines. That was enough. If I closed my eyes, death was a certainty, but so was the awakening of a new me. A renewed me.
A/N: This is a little something I wrote for a monthly writing prompt, it being "A character wakes with a strange mark on their arm." Credit to @the-kingofdoritos for the prompt!
Unknown Entity: Good choice. Now, this part might sting just a bit- I wouldn’t know since this will be the first time I’ve anything of this sort, but you should be fine, dear!
//Before Shark has any time to respond, the mist flies directly into Shark’s stomach
//Yes, it hurts. A LOT
Unknown Entity: Now, let’s do something about this look, shall we. Starting with the hair~
//The Entity’s magical abilities allows her to pull out her own clothes from mid air
//The Entity finishes her new look with a flash
Unknown Entity: Well, now that that is settled, time to get do what I set out to do and finish what I started all those years ago~
//Unknown Entity is now available to receive asks, for a limited time!
