Note: Many of you will find this disturbing as pretty much the entire story is about self injurers. Also, about the cigarette - the guy with it is just smoking, but she's thinking about people who burn themselves.
This is for Kyte's Give Me Your Eyes contest.
Edit: this has been edited a lot. I decided to listen to you guys and take out the fact that the others cut. I had it that way because of the contest but I think this way works too.
Please read this version and let me know your thoughts!
All There Is
Look both ways, make sure no one's watching. Turn the knob – don't let it creak – slip inside. Strip to your underwear, look at your pale thigh, at the faded scars. You're legs are white beneath the fluorescent light, but they're covered with red lines, the mark of your Savior.
Reach under the sink – past the shampoo and the conditioner and the body wash – get one out. Take it out of its case, but don't put it on the stick – you're not shaving. Don't let it touch your fingers – too easy to slice, too easy to notice.
Bring it to your leg. Cool and loving, sharp and forgiving, pressed up against your skin. Slice. Tiny beads, dark red, a necklace for your leg. Wait – it'll sting soon.
Slice again and again until that's all there is.
-----
All around you are people. They push and shove you, pressing you into more who do the same. They're all rushing off to wherever they have to be – an empty apartment or an empty office – and don't look back at the person they forced out of the way.
You push through the crowd slowly, shying away from every touch, but it's impossible. Arms and legs are entangled and you find it repulsing but there's no way out so you push on for a while.
After twenty-three buildings pass you step off the sidewalk to catch your breath. The bodies are still pressing but only on one side, pushing you further into the road, past the parked cars and into the traffic. You turn so they're only pressing against your back, and you brace yourself.
If you get hit by a car and end up in a hospital the doctors will see It.
You were looking down at your shoes but now you look up. You raise your arm to signal a cab so you won't have to go back into the crowd. With your hand half-raised you stop, your eyes locked on a girl across the street who could be your twin despite the pitch black hair and tanned skin that doesn't match you at all. She's standing at the edge of the road in her baggy gray sweatshirt and she looks so lost and empty and just like you. Everyone else seems to be blind to her, but that's what makes you look.
She raises her arm to signal for a cab, and her fingers clutch her gray knit sleeve to hold it up. You don’t pay attention to what you're thinking and your thoughts go where you don't want them – to what could be under her sleeve: the same thing that's under your skirt.
The cab you had been signaling pulls up in front of you, blocking the spot the girl had been. You blink a few times, get out of your daze, then step inside.
-----
The cab's not as crowded as the road had been, but it smells. The man in front doesn't apologize for this. "The woman just before you had four kids and three cats," he says in explanation. You nod but don't say anything. It's not the smell of children or of cats that's bothering you.
"Do you like cats?" he asks after a moment, trying to break the silence. You don’t say anything, just continue looking out the window, hoping he'll be quiet.
"Miss?" the man asks again, and he lifts his eyes from the road to look at you through the rearview mirror he's turned in. Your hand automatically goes to you leg, presses against it, and you try not to wince.
He turns it in to watch – he's a freak – he's a spy – he wants to know your secret…
You turn the wince that slipped through into a smile, then look out the window. All the people on the street who are walking faster than you're moving, but you'd still rather be in here even with the smell. Every second you sit there costs you more and more money and you're wasting your time, but you'd rather be broke and late than be out there where everyone's so close.
The man reaches into the seat next to you, the one you can't see, and rummages around for a moment until he finds what he was looking for. "You mind?" he asks, holding up a carton of Camel cigarettes and an orange lighter.
You go to shake your head, no, you don't mind, but it's already shaking. Your whole body is shaking and you can't stop it so you try to make it look like you're in control, you're always in control.
You get your body under control but you can't make your mind listen. It shows you pictures of people putting a flame their skin and waiting, letting it burn away.
The lighter's not your Savior but you know it's someone's Savior and that scares you.
-----
You get out of that cab as fast as you can.
"Are you all right, Miss?" he asks when you tell him you want to get out. It's in the middle of the road but you're not moving so you nod and open the door.
"Hey, wait!" he says as you're halfway out the door, your purse flying along behind you. "That's fifteen ninety."
You stare at him for a moment, with his cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth and his smoke filling up the cab. You shake your head, blink your eyes. He stares back at you expectantly, so you grab a few bills from your purse and shove them into his hands, pulling back quickly before the Savior can come near you.
-----
"Please, sit down," the woman says to you, gesturing to the chair in front of her desk. You stand at the doorway uncertainly, looking around the room, searching for any Saviors. You've seen too many ghosts of them today and you just want to get away from them all.
The office is huge. Behind the woman are two windows, wide open to reveal the sounds and smells and lights of New York. Along the walls are gleaming silver cabinets with white papers covered in ink overflowing from them. On her desk is a computer, keyboard, glass of water half drunk, and a nameplate.
No Saviors in sight.
You go over to the chair and sit down, perching on the edge. In your hands is your resume, covering your black pencil skirt – even more protection from people seeing It.
Her eyes land on your leg, and you have to breath in deep, remind yourself that she's looking at the papers, not what's underneath. She's smiling at you as you raise your arm, hand over the papers. You pull back, bring the glass with you. It crashes onto the desk, glass shattering, water flowing everywhere.
The Saviors had been hiding.
"Shoot!" she shouts, jumping up and raising her arms up. She starts shoving the bits of jagged glass into a pile, the water sloshing around in a puddle on the wood, and you just sit there, unsure of what to do.
"Uh, up there," the woman says, nodding her head towards a cabinet, her hands busy scraping together the remnants of her glass. "Paper towels, fourth row up – please hurry!" She's pulling away her keyboard and computer and patting down her skirt – all soaked in water – desperately.
You nod, rip your gaze away from the Saviors, stand up from your seat. You instantly ache for the comfort of the padded chair once more, the secure arms guarding you, but you push forward. You walk to the cabinets, search through the fourth drawer, take out the paper towels.
She reaches out for the paper towels the second you get back to the desk, pats her skirt and computer dry. "The trash, right over there," she says, nodding to her left. You look over, then walk over to grab it. Inside's a banana and a bunch of crumpled up paper and no Saviors, but she's going to put them in.
You tell her you have to go. She's in the middle of pushing the Saviors into the trash and she asks why, but you tell her you just remembered you had a family obligation – a lie. She sighs but tells you that's fine, that she has your resume, and that she'll call you if anything comes up.
You nod and walk out of the room and away from the Saviors.
-----
You don't take the cab home because you're afraid you'll get him again It's with him. It's not good and you want It gone but It's everywhere…
So you go through the crowd again. They push and shove and control you but at least you aren't confined anymore. You can slip into the road – no car's moving anyway – and leave for a minute when you run out of air.
One big breath in. It has to last for a long time so breathe slowly and don't waste it, only so much left…
You slip back into the crowd, hold your purse close to your body, let yourself be drawn closer to your apartment building.
You pull apart from the crowd as soon as you get there, gasping and wheezing for breath, your hands on your knees, head lowered. "Ma'am?" says the doorman, and you jerk your head up to see him. He's smiling down at you with one hand folded behind his back and the other holding open the door for you but it doesn't look real. He's too clean and press-cut and you wonder if he's actually there.
You straighten yourself and go to walk through the door, but you trip in the doorway, and your legs collapse and your arms go out to catch you, but you're not quick enough. His arm jerks out, and his flesh is warm and strong on yours.
You pull away from his hand then stand up, refusing his help. You don't want his hand on you for too long because it might leave a bruise and you're already marked up enough. You don't hit yourself and you don't want to look like you do.
You offer him a forced smile and slip through the doorway, straight to the elevator and up the seven flights to your apartment.
-----
You reach your floor. The wood echoes under your heels as you clip, clip, clip down the hall, past room 702, 704, 706, finally reaching your number.
The hall is empty, but you still shove the key into the door, slip inside, lock the door behind you. All fast – very fast – because someone could be watching. Someone's always watching.
But your apartment feels empty. The air's still and the room's quiet, but you still sneak into your bathroom because someone could be watching.
The door closes with a click behind you and you stand there, hands on either side of the porcelain sink, cold beneath your fingers. You stare at your reflection for seconds, minutes, hours, not recognizing the woman before you, not understanding how someone so broken could possibly be you.
You reach under the sink and take out your Savior of choice.
-----
The metal is cool and familiar in your hand as you bring it to your bare leg and prepare to redden the pale skin below the lines – the sets of three perfect lines – that you made yesterday.
Slice. Look down at the beads of blood peeking out of your skin, staining you leg red. Wait – it'll sting soon.
Slice again and again until that's all there is.
