things laid down
Hey y’all, for 600 followers here is some weird urban magic.
He blinked at the tiled ceiling, crossing into wakefulness from something…not. There was a clamor of noise buffeting him, just outside the half-drawn curtain hiding him—a tiny besieged encampment against a hurricane in the hall. The sheets crackled hard against his hands, more like paper than cloth, a sharp smell making the bone between his eyes ache, and it took a long moment before he could sort out the overload and look around. From where he sat, he could see two more beds, one in the room across the hall, curtain half-closed like his own, and one in his own room—a hospital, maybe. He didn’t entirely recall what the word entailed. Didn’t recall much of anything, now that he thought about it. He blinked away the concern and propped himself up on one hand to get a look around at the other residents. Kids, he noted. Very young. Younger than him? He wasn’t sure.
Across the hall was a boy, smooth-cheeked and round-eyed. He had one arm exposed to the shoulder, one sleeve cut away entirely, and halfway down his upper arm, the flesh turned abruptly into brass. The metal threaded itself into the higher tissue, and the boy clutched his arm across his chest in numb shock. The girl in the next bed over was sobbing, the blank sound of someone crying in an effort to soothe themselves, tears leaving glistening trails down the glossy porcelain of her cheeks. Her eyes, when she blinked, were bright and lively, her black hair tumbling in thin dreadlocks around her face, but there was a chink as a bracelet knocked against porcelain—her hand, rubbing across her eyes.
He raised his fingers to touch his own face, but there was no metal or porcelain there, only the warm give of skin. A touch of stubble on his jaw—older than these soft, scared children, then, but no lines, so still young enough—and chapped lips, but all living, perfectly human. He looked down at his arms, sweeping fingers up from the thin skin at his wrists to the curve of his shoulders where they met the paper of a hospital gown. He kicked away the sheet and performed a similar check, up the sinew-and-bone line of his legs, then tugged the hospital gown away from his neck and looked down. All skin over muscle, blood racing at the crease of his elbow and the hollow of his throat.
Far from simply being entirely human, there didn’t seem to be a mark on him. He wondered why he was here. Hospitals were places for the terribly ill or grievously injured, that much he was sure of, and he didn’t seem to be either one. If the noise outside was any indication, they hardly had the staff to spare for him.
