31 Days of Apex - Day 29 - Skin

No mirrors. No reflections. No washing of hands or scratching of head. If he could stab out his ears so he couldn't hear his voice, he would. He actually tried that once, but when he was next reborn, it didn't make a difference.

It's not really rebirth if nothing's changed. More of a bad dream in that way. A bad dream you feel.

Revenant's home has no features that allow him to encounter himself, especially reflections. When he does find a reflection... It's peeling, and screaming, and crying, and slowly shifting between skin and metal, flesh and wires, pain and silence.

He doesn't know what's worse, the fact that he knows that pain isn't "real", or that he doesn't really feel it. What do you do when your mind is telling you what your body doesn't show?

"Stop screaming, you idiot," he once told a still puddle of water.

"You're not really on fire, otherwise you wouldn't be drowning. And you can't be screaming if your head is severed. And how can you be full of holes if you're getting crushed by the wreckage? Don't you even know what's happening to you?

"I killed a monk once who would have sold everything he owned, which wasn't much, to be as removed from the physical as you are.

"Look at all that skin. It's not holding together so well, is it? Do you wish you weren't feeling it? Wish you could get out? Escape? But you can't, can you?"

A bystander wouldn't have been able to tell if this was said out of anger or sorrow.

"I hate this for you, really, I do. And I hate the people who put you here. I hate how it's all beyond your control, and how I wish I could just tear off your skin and be done with it. Then maybe you'd shut up.

"Maybe, for once, you'd shut up.

"And yet... still you scream."

When it comes to mirrors, we never see ourselves.