Work Text:
You’re staring at your reflection in the water again.
You really do need to wash up. Your sister’s visiting soon.
But, you’re stuck again.
How often does this happen? Once a week? Once a month? You don’t know.
You do know that you’re staring yourself down in the waters edge wishing you could mutilate yourself. Maim yourself. Claw off your flesh and start anew.
There’s probably a word for that feeling.
Diseased comes to mind.
Sick in the head. Broken. Flawed.
You just close your eyes and try to sink into the water. Ignore the biting chill all over your body. Everything is wrong.
-/-/-/-
Your sister asks how the wilderness is treating you.
A shrug is your answer.
It about sums up how its been treating you.
You didn’t spend all those years with the local wilderness groups in your childhood to die out here. You know what you’re doing. You’re gonna keep staying alive until, until...
Whatever.
She yaps ceaselessly about her classes.
You listen as you cook, nodding and humming along.
-/-/-/-
You feel like death.
Numb.
Dull.
Doing exactly as the droning voice tells you to do.
Just keep walking.
Just keep moving.
Just don’t stop.
Every step you take is incorrect. Your hips move wrong, so do your shoulders. Your clothes feel wrong.
The voice holds you by marionette strings.
So long as you follow it, you won’t collapse.
-/-/-/-
“What’s your name?”
You don’t have a name.
You spit out the first thing that comes to mind.
“Detah.”
It’s wrong.
But it’ll have to do.
“Isn’t that an anagram of death?”
You’ll figure out something better later.