Page 15 of The Blackened Blade

A small shaky breath leaves my lips.

I was really free…and my body was now no longer a reminder or something I had to turn away from.

I slowly reach for the soap and try to scrub all the emotions of the day and the past away, taking a peaceful moment for myself.

After a few minutes, I drag myself from the shower and dry off. And just as I make my way out of the bathroom, I glance in the mirror, noticing a strange shaped bruise on my right hip, and another forming on my left.

I brush my finger across the small darkened skin on my right, noticing the colour quickly turning to a deep black shade, almost as if the shape was being tattooed on my skin. It becomes darker and darker, with the one on my left hip taking on the same hue.

The shapes begin to take on form, almost creating a long line before twisting into an elongated backward ‘s’ shape. It’s slightly thicker on one end and bleeds into a thinner tip at the other, with two small sharp curves also slowly appearing there.

I stroke the skin once the mark has finished forming on both of my hips.

They certainly weren't bruises, and I could sense something about the marks. A strange familiarity or deja vu feeling washes over me as I stare at them, but I can't ever recall seeing something like them in this life or my previous one. So why were they appearing now?

Could they have some connection as to why I was still alive, or why I was brought back almost a decade into my past?

What did the shapes mean, and why did they appear on my hips?

My brows scrunch together, too many questions flitting through my mind as I stare at the marks on my skin. Where would I even begin to look to find what they were or what they meant?

It's not like I could just go around flashing my hips, asking other students or teachers if they knew what it was.

No. Something in me tells me that's the exact thing I shouldn't do.

For some reason, I felt that these tattoos or marks or whatever they were, might be something bigger.

I think they might be a small thread connecting to the reason why I’m here now.

And magic able to surpass the bounds of nature and balance was not something I should be discussing around here, especially in a place filled only with enemies and unknowns.

Whatever they were, I didn't feel anything bad coming from them.

Honestly they looked kind of cool, but it was probably best to keep them covered and from prying eyes.

I’m pulled from my wandering thoughts as a bell rings in the distance. I walk out of the bathroom and toward the dresser and throw on some fresh clothes. A white tee and grey sweats. I grab a brush from the drawer, my fingers not enough to tame these long locks.

A small bracelet falls from the drawer as I take the brush out.

I bend to pick it up, taking the small silver and black metal chain in my hands, as a familiar cold shiver runs down my spine.

My eyes narrow at the small chain, a letter ‘M’ charm falling from its black and silver loops.

It had been a gift from Seria, one she had given me the first week we met. She had said she had a matching ‘S’ one, and that she wanted us to share something as sisters.

From then on, I used to wear it everyday, but now the small chain holds a more strange cognition than just a memory or memento of my younger years.

Something niggles at the back of my mind, an eerie familiarity from the cold metal. Another shiver runs through me, placing goosebumps up my arm as something whispers in my ears telling me to throw it away.

I twist the bracelet in my hand, wondering why I had such a strong aversion to a charm I’d worn everyday before I was taken by the Facility.

And that's when it hits me.

I drop the small chain to the floor, as a tremor works its way through me.

How did I not realise straight away?

The same cold feeling that would run from my wrists and into my bones. The same black and silver thin metal that encased my wrists everyday in that hellhole.

---