Stark

She would never move away from here, and now she knew why. It was the fourth day that had been the hardest. The sky was damp and gray. The air was damp and gray. The world was dark and gray. It seeped into her like morning mist and left her feeling all of her sweat, all of her stink, all of her flesh. She felt like meat, and in the mirrors back and front, she looked like it.

She felt raw, exposed, and hewn open. Along her spine were scissor holes of deep blank ink, lacy ribbons weaving like a corset down to the small of her back. The trail picked up on the backs of her thighs, the backs of her calves. She was sewn up the back, inside of herself. She felt too thin in the damp, too pale in the soft light out of the open loft window. She could just make out the shape of her ribs under her breasts, tipped red and sharp from the cold. Her lips were the same pinched-skin red, even unpainted. The bags around her eyes were the same red, with eyeshadow to match.

Against her neck, the new red lines of new gold hoops gave her permanent jewelry. She wanted something to shine, needed it, and the ink was an impulse. Maybe it had been a mistake. Against her flesh, the precious metal lacked its sheen. She looked as half-alive as the city outside the sill.

Then it happened. The cirrus feathers fluttered apart and a wicked scar of white tore across the sky, hot and sharp. The mist was revealed and sent into a swirl. It was escaping that pure shaft, a sword of light in a world without. Old buildings went from austere to shining white and pure. Dull brick shone bright against the gray backdrop. Trees and grass became the deepest greens the girl had ever seen. Her skin, once pale, was transformed into porcelain. She wasn't a corpse; she was a work of china, a doll that someone loved or would love. Hope had a shape and a color and an impact.

She wrapped a blanket around herself and sat in the sill long after the shaft of light departed. There'd be another, or something like it. This was her favorite time to live. This was her home. It was everything about her, right or wrong. It was right.