Unflinching

Sometimes, I found her face peculiar.

Not long after my family moved and I changed schools, I stumbled upon a girl my age on my way back home. The road was long but properly taken care of - someone could use a bike to follow the road down from school to my house without cycling even once, and would get there quickly. I didn’t have a bike, though, so my trip home is more of a long stroll. Halfway through this road, there is a field with a large tree on one side, and a short way to a cliff from another. One could sit under the tree’s cooling shade and still marvel at the sky on the other side. It is there I found her.

She was holding up sandwiches to the sky.

My younger self - the curious cat he was - greeted her and startled her, the sandwich went to be food for the ants. From then on it was a routing to find her there after school, and sat there with her while she stared at the sky. She always has a peculiar expression when she does that, and I noticed that she kept bringing three portions of sandwiches and never once offered it to me. That wasn’t all we did though; we played our fair share as an eight-year-old.

“You know,” I broke the silence on an otherwise unremarkable day, “these ants - they carry food bigger than their own body.” 

“Huh, you’re right,” she responded, for once paying her attention to the sky, “and there are a lot of them too.” We intently observed the line of ants for a while - their individual movement, their harmonious march, their varying food pieces. 

“I wonder if they’re bringing food for their families,” I uttered without much thought. At such a remark, her peculiar face returned. She retreated to the tree shade and once again was fixated at the sky.

I didn’t have any friends at school for a long time, and she was the only person my age that I spent time with. One day she wasn’t in the shade anymore, and I miss her even now. It wasn’t long after her disappearance that I started noticing something different about me. I heal. I mean, my wounds heal really fast, even though I can still feel the pain. After a bit of experimentation, I also discovered that I could make the wounds disappear whenever I wanted - immediately or otherwise.

One fortunate day, the class bully was on a rampage since his usual target was absent. I was able to get under his radar for a while now by not standing out, but that didn’t work anymore. I was dragged to the corner of the school where most people won’t be able to see - the only witnesses were the goldfishes in an almost-ground-level pool. A few slaps to the face, and a final, powerful blow to the gut and the bully walked away, while I tried to pick myself up, enduring the pain. Before I was able to heal, I happened to look into the pool of goldfishes.

That’s when I found her.

Her peculiar face - a blurry image of her was on the pool’s reflection. She disappeared once I healed, leaving only my own face amidst the ripples. That’s when I finally realized what was so peculiar about her, and how to see her again. I started wounding myself in front of the mirror - the bigger and slower the pain, the more I saw her. The more painful the wound and the more I tried not to show it, the more I saw her. I kept healing and stabbing and healing and stabbing until a shriek invaded the room, and my knife was taken away from me; a knife fully bathed in blood.

I continued my attempt in secrecy, and I felt that I was close to seeing her fully, but after a while the mirror showed less and less of her. I felt less and less pain from the wounds I inflicted. I was in high school when I realized - I no longer feel pain.

Then came a new realization - my healing power doesn't just work on me; I figured it out when I accidentally stepped on a snail. When I paid full attention to it, its body started healing and went back to its former state. I did more experiments - slitting a cat open, stepping on a snake’s head, and so on. As long as it didn’t die, and it was within a certain vicinity, I could heal the animal. Naturally, the experiment needed to expand to human subjects.

Pocket knife became an extension of my hand; worse comes to worse, I could always stab it into my stomach to hide it. Every now and then, I would find a girl defenseless and alone, and with such an opportunity I swiftly strike. They could heal, which was a relief. Sometimes I would see her peculiar face on these random girls, simply from a quick cut. Sometimes from a deeper one. Sometimes not at all. At first I would only very rarely do this, for fear of being caught in the act and charged for assault. I quickly learned that if there were no wounds, there were no assault.

This went on for a while, until a sizable number of people were aware of what I was capable of. They begged for mercy; they would do anything for me to stop. Surprising how many kept to their words; from buying lunch to giving me a ride anywhere. It was like the city was within my grasp. I missed her still, but I could no longer see her in the face of those I hurt. They all turned into faces of terror, which was tasteful, but ultimately different from her. She had left town, I thought, and I saw it fit to move to another.

I really, really miss her. So I hope you understand that, what I’m about to do to you, is nothing personal.