Beauty; Skin Deep - an Urbis Arcana guest story
This one was a bit unexpected. The writer of this story asked me for permission to write a short story set in Urbis Arcana universe. Not sure what to expect, I agreed.
And I was pretty impressed with what I got.
While the story doesn’t have to be an Urbis Arcana story. But it doesn’t contradict anything in Urbis Arcana universe, either, so I’m pretty happy to call it such.
Some of the people reading this will know exactly who the author is. And those of you who don’t… She would like to keep a low profile, and I’ll respect that.
I hope that someday, she will change her mind. She is a good writer, and she deserves to be recognized for that.
But for now… I hope you enjoy another writer’s look into Chicago that lies beyond the surface of the mundane. As always, comments, criticism and all manner of feedback are very much encouraged. The author will read it.
Beauty; Skin Deep
An Urbis Arcana guest story
The second punch caught the edge of her jaw and sent her reeling against the chain-link fence that skirted the edge of the overgrown yard she now regretted setting foot in. It wasn't fair. There were three of them and even taking turns they would have her bleeding in a collapsed heap in no time. But she had to know, didn't she?
"...little more," she managed to gasp, right before the largest of the three pushed her forward to sprawl awkwardly against the ground. She coughed up a wad of blood and dirt.
"You said you want some more, bitch!?" her assailant cried, wiping a matted lock of hair from her own dirty face with a crazed look in her eyes.
How long was this going to go on? Was anyone going to interfere? She guessed her chances of rescue were lower than she'd estimated. That was fine - not being rescued was part of the plan - but her fight or flight response had kicked into overdrive and she was born to flee. What the hell did a sixteen-year-old parochial-schooled surburbanite know about fist fighting?
These girls were older, tougher, and the largest was clearly strung out on something. Oh, she knew about drugs; joint at a party once, big time drugs, sure. This girl had pupils like black holes and didn't bother to hide the puncture marks. For one terrifying moment she knew she was in over her head. One of other girls brought a thick-soled sneaker down on the back of her grasping hand. The pain that shot through her body was unbearable. And under the pain something stirred.
She vomitted then, runny fluid spilling out of her gasping mouth like the yolk from a cracked egg. Oatmeal for breakfast. She tasted it in the back of her throat and gagged and retched again.
"I fucked him," she forced herself to say through a mouth rimmed and crusted with blood and dried sick.
A chorus of laughter filled the air above.
"No way," a voice cried in disbelief, "No way this bitch is for real..."
"Yeah," she gasped, "that's what I did you dumb s-slut. You big, fat, cock-sucking--"
The kick to her head dimmed her lights and she sank into blissful oblivion.
***
She woke to the sound of sirens and slowly opened swollen eyes to reveal a blurry tableau of faces.
"She's conscious," a disembodied voice called. She couldn't feel her body at all. Everything seemed to be happening a long way off.
"...I fucked..." she gasped and coughed.
"Shhhh, don't move. That's it, good girl."
Sleep washed back over her like a returning tide.
***
After, there were long talks in the hospital. Police officers came and went. They showed her pictures. They talked in hushed tones when they thought she wasn't listening. Her parents were still in Guam but two maiden aunts haunted her bedside and babbled softly at each other in the native tongue she'd never learned. The police asked two questions she couldn't answer for every one she could. Did she know the girls? No. Did she see the assailant? No. How could she see? What was she doing in that neighborhood by herself at night? Don't remember.
Short term amnesia was fast becoming the excuse of choice. The trouble was, she did remember. She remembered the tough-looking trio huddled against the fence sharing a cigarette. She remembered walking up to them with a courage she didn't feel and starting the fight. She remembered the fear, a tense ball in the pit of her stomach, rolling and threatening to bubble over. She remembered the satisfaction, too. The strange satisfaction of knowing that no matter what happened now, it was out of her hands because her hands were not her own and never had been.
She thanked God she couldn't remember how the thing inside had used her own hands to rip them to bloody shreds; her own nails to gouge out their eyes,
She had asked God for many things over the years; dutifully at prayer time every day and every night. But now she found a new question.
"What did you make first, oh Lord, my body or the thing that dwells within it?"
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