Beneath the Skin

Valerie can feel the suit buzzing beneath her skin.

It's like pins and needles, like her leg has fallen asleep. Except it's not just her leg.

She wants to wake up.

In this metaphor, waking up means taking off the suit.

So she does.

She summons the suit from whichever place it is that it hides in when she's not wearing it. It just takes a thought, and she's covered in black and glowing red.

She begins to strip it off.

Her helmet goes first. It lands with a thud on her bed. It's quickly followed by her gloves. The rest of it isn't made to be removed, but she takes a pair of scissors and starts to cut it open.

The scissors break.

The next time she tries, she's borrowed an industrial strength cutter from Danny's parents. They didn't ask why she wanted to use it. She wouldn't have been able to answer if they had.

Helmet and gloves go off, and soon the rest of her suit follows.

It lays on her floor, still glowing for a few seconds before the light dies out.

She can still feel it buzzing beneath her skin.

Valerie tells herself it's just phantom pain. An illusion caused by wearing the thing for too long.

However, she's not very good at lying to herself.

She tries to summon her suit, while keeping close watch at the discarded pieces lying on her floor.

They don't move.

That doesn't stop her from becoming covered in black and red armour.

The abandoned armour still lies on her floor.

It doesn't make sense. The material to the suit had to come from somewhere.

The new pieces feel the same as the old.

However, she doesn't.

She feels tired, and hungry. She's breathing heavily, and her pulse is pounding in her ears.

The new suit glows, and the world spins with vertigo.

The suit was horrible (intimate) enough without knowing it was recreated by her own energy, rather than that of a ghost.

The constant hum within her soul is weaker than it should be.

She wonders how much she just hurt herself.