@terribleFate — #bodyhorror
I had a patient today. I do not cut to the flesh. My Thimble is so much finer than that. It catches onto things too small for even blood to know it exists. I worked slowly. I teased apart little strands no microscope could ever hope to see. Every cell, and every impossibly tiny knot that tells a body what its supposed to become. "There you are..." I said. I found it. I found something I was certain was wrong. It wasn't. The disease had rewritten this part of him, so much, that the healthy cells seemed to be irregular. I mistook the body's attempt to compensate as the source of the illness....Read more
Checked the intake slot at the new hive because the little red flag was raised. A municipal envelope had been folded until it fit through the grate. Form numbers were printed across the front in very small, very bored type. Every page inside concerned relocation, affiliation, and recovery compliance. Hive assignment: Unit 27-C, Inventory Terrace, East Foundry Ward. However, the name field had been corrected twice. Someone wrote ANIKAH CIKUYO first. Green ink struck that out. Household asset name: BUCKET CUMJAR. Felt designation: utility, provisional, non-voting, non-heir, noness...Read more
There is a problem with my blood. I noticed it after using the ablution trap. The seam around my cranial plate had become damp again. I assumed the stitches were leaking old blood from the operation, so I pressed a cloth against them. The cloth came away lime. Not rust. Lime. I rinsed it beneath the faucet. It remained lime. I checked my reflection in the refresher. Perhaps the lighting was wrong. Perhaps the cloth had been stained beforehand. I pricked my fingertip with a sewing needle. Rust. That made sense. Then something warm crawled out of my audio ducts. ...Read more
Found the seam beneath my hairline. The stitches were not decorative. A fingernail beneath the edge, a careful pull, and my cranial plate came free with a damp little sound. Like opening a lunchbox that had been sealed for far too long. No agony. Only pressure. I stood before the refresher mirror and looked into my own pan. The smell was copper and antiseptic. There are grooves where there should be wrinkles. Someone had cored channels through the folds with impossible care. Black sutures disappear into the remaining tissue. Tiny ivory pegs anchor things that have no business being...Read more