Breaking Chains

Blood itch

“Patient two twenty-one,” Roger addressed. Celia sat neatly in her chair across from him with her back glued to her chair with one hand in her lap and the other scratching at her side. A blank expression adorned her face, like usual. Despite her best efforts to retain her passive exterior, the good doctor could spot the cracks slowly forming in her armor. The red slightly swollen folds underneath her eyes coupled with a pinkening nose indicated crying, which indicated progress. The last time Celia had cried he had was holding her head in a tub of ice water.

He opened his folder and refreshed himself on the notes he had already reviewed twelve times. Samantha and his daughter had been discovered after his unstable son took it upon himself to rile up the other patients to an inappropriate level of excitement. As a doctor he appreciated the uproar, as it alerted the staff, however, it had taken them hours to calm the patients down. Even now they were still terrified of “Prince Charming”, as he was called, coming to kill them.

“You and Samantha were discovered with glass imbedded in you skin. Samantha had twenty-three shards stabbing her back. You were relatively unscathed. There were two broken windows discovered: one broken by Valentine and one broken by someone else. What happened?” As usual her only response was silence.

A lot had happened, yet it seemed like very little also. The result was the same either way: the pawn bleeding all over her.

“We’ve discussed this two twenty-one. You need to use words to express yourself.”

“Red and white,” Celia said without warning. Roger made a note of it.

“Red and white what?” he asked.

Everything. Everything thing had been red and white. A cold white splashed with hot red.

“Blood is warm,” she said to her lap. Her nails dug deeper as she scratched at her side.

The pawns blood had flooded onto her skin and dyed her dress a boiling crimson. It had coated her like a layer of paint and she could still feel it, the phantom warmth burning her left side. They had scrubbed her raw but they had missed a spot. A tiny speck of blood had remained untouched the flowing waters and ungrazed by the skin stripping scrubbing. She could feel it, a hot burning pinpoint on her body, and it had spread. The speck was festering, eating her skin, burning though it layer by layer and Celia felt every agonizing second of it’s insatiable hunger for her flesh.

“Yes,” Roger agreed. “Blood is warm.”

The pawn had tried to warn her; she had tried to tell her that snow was bad but all in vain. Celia had heard but hadn’t understood. Now, the pawn had paid the cost of Celia’s ignorance and the pawn’s blood was punishing her. That’s why her skin felt as if it was being held in boiling water. The world was about balance and what more fitting punishment than for Celia to experience her skin burning--like acid.

She chuckled.

Oh it was so delicious, the irony. So thick and juicy that the taste of it coated her tongue like mucus and the sick smell of it filled the room. The doctor would smell it soon, he had too, it would smother both of them if he didn’t open a window to let it all out. But then again, that was why the pawn had bled, the window.

“Something amusing?” Roger asked.

He didn’t understand. He didn’t know. How could he not know when he knew everything? The pawn had been right, he wasn’t omnipotent. If he had known then he wouldn’t have introduced them to begin with, yes, how human of him.

But maybe he did know.

Maybe this had been planned, everything, from the spit stain on the floor to the speck they planted on her body. They had left it there on purpose. They wanted it to eat through her and slowly devour her until all that was left was her raw bones but not even those would be spared, no, that would be too good for her. They would burn what was left of her carcass, grind her to powder dust, like snow.

“The snow,” Celias muttered aloud. That’s right, the snow. She had nearly forgotten about the snow. Was it still snowing? Was the snow piling up in the corridor where the window had broken? Was it cutting people like it had cut the pawn? It had cut right through her, sliced her like scissors through paper.

“Patient two twenty-one,” Roger repeated. His words floated out of his mouth and fluttered off in the air before it could reach Celia’s ears. Even if she did hear him she wouldn’t have cared. He couldn’t stop the blood from slowly gnawing it’s way across her skin. Only the pawn could do that.

“I want my pawn,” Celia informed him. He had been talking, saying something unimportant, but she hadn’t been listening. It was something about how she should stop scratching and bleeding. Celia could vaguely feel the warm trickle of blood gathering underneath her nails.  

“Samantha isn’t here,” the good doctor said. Celia heard that.

“Where is she? I want my pawn.”

“Stop scratching.”

“Make her here,” Celia ordered.

“Tell me what happened.” There was nothing to tell. Celia hadn’t listened and the snow had attacked the pawn. “What were you two doing out that late?”

“Walking, listening, watching,” Celia answered, drawing out every word.

“How did the window break?”

“Cracked.” There had been tiny little fissures it the glass, so small and insignificant, yet so deadly. She had seen them, watched them grow bigger with the raging winds and had traced their paths with her fingers. The pawn had hobbled ahead with her funny little walk and hadn’t noticed Ceila’s absence. Not until the little cracks that grown into pythons that slithered all across the window. She noticed then; she shouted then. ‘Celia! Get away from there,’ the pawn had shouted. ‘It’s going to break. Get away!’

“Get away,” Celia whispered. “Get away.”

“Were you two trying to escape?”

Escape? No. Escape was impossible. Go outside and you frozen solid within the hour, and they brought your marble body back to be fed to the furnace.

“No.”

“Did you injure Samantha?” he asked. Not directly. But indirectly.

The glass had beveled and broken. The pawn had been there. The pawn had shielded her. The pawn had been stabbed while Celia was pinned snugly and safely underneath her body. Snow had burst forth to coat them both but Celia had been unharmed, a bit chilly perhaps, but the pawn’s blood soon warmed her.

“Maybe,” Celia answered. Maybe she had injured her. Celia had wanted to feel the snow to see if it burned like the pawn told her; perhaps she had willed the glass to break. Now she knew that it wasn’t snow that burned but blood.

“You should stop scratching.” No, the blood was there; she could feel it. She had to get rid of it. “Patient two twenty-one, there is nothing physically wrong with you.” No, he lied. Celia could feel it. “How did Samantha get so badly injured.”

“Shield,” Celia answered. The pawn had been her knight; but she must have forgotten her armor that day because the snow had penetrated her skin and shredded her back like a cheese grater. Celia had been her crutch, letting the pawn lean on her and walk. But the blood had infected her then. The pawn had said to her, ‘Get back to bed. They’ll find you. Get back to bed.’ Celia hadn’t been sleepy enough to go to bed, but the pawn looked sleepy, so Celia decided to take her back to bed. There she met Valentine and Indigo. They stopped the blood from flowing, but then Valentine had to go and rile up all her roommates in a very rude manner.

“Where is my pawn?” She wanted to see her.

“You aren’t allowed to see Samantha.”

“No,” Celia protested. He couldn’t take her pawn away from her. “I want to see her.”

“Not until you tell me what you were doing out that late.” They had been listening to music and dancing. Nothing wrong. They hadn’t misbehaved. Well...there was the kiss, but Celia wasn’t suppose to talk about that. “Tell me what happened.”

How did one lie again? Ah yes. By telling something other than the truth.

“Nothing happened.” The doctor leaned back into his chair.

“I see,” he said.

Short chapter but busy week. :(