My appearance has changed slowly these past several months. In a way, I am the most human I have ever been. In another way, I have become grotesque, a mockery of my physical flesh.
But this is what I am. Under the skin. Under the blood. Under the adornments and the inconstant hair.
What was token markings before are now permament scars. The smudges on my hand and face are now the twisted and living churning of melted flesh long healed. Sometimes blushing red, sometimes unnaturally dark, sometimes new wound light, never normal.
The whole of my right hand is scarred this way, palm and fingers. Hand, arm, and the crowning aegis of the shoulder. The front corner of the torso, leading up the neck. The right side of my face, into the hairline, destroying the ear, blinding the eye.
It’s fitting. As much searing as I have endured in the Waking the marks have to show up some time, some where. Now that I’ve been ripping off the lies I used to sedate comfort myself, what I am is surfacing.
The eye is clouded over and dead. Visually. I can see with it, but not visually. Unsight.
There is also a change in my “usual” clothing. But I do not want to discuss that. Instead, I shall note I am becoming the thing I fear. And I am at peace with it.