Everyone else was in a panic, screaming, putting pressure on the stump and demanding a first aid kit, or several of them. Some of them were even crying. They were fragile people, but she could understand why they'd be so shocked. But it would be less embarrassing for all of them if they just calmed down.

It was a good, clean cut. High on the leg, with perfect follow through, even after missing the piece they really wanted – her torso. She fell back, a leg flew up, but the person was unshaken when they watched her stumble, even while ruining their chances of completing the job in one movement.

So the stomach wasn't cleaved and the spine wasn't cut in two, with no expected show of the legs giving out without a brain to give them directions, stomach piling out a flood of blood. Just a leg. And what was a leg, really? In these modern times, it was nothing more than bone and skin that one had gotten in the habit of relying on for balance. It was something familiar to the self. Well, it wasn't like the leg had been shattered. If the people in the room were so enamored over it, they could put the leg in a display, if they liked.

She watched security chase down…whoever it was that wanted to sever her in half. She'd have so much time later to think about who they were and what she'd done to earn a mark on her head. She did love answering questions. So few answers were definite and set into stone. Most answers had plastic in their spine, able to bend to pressure, reshape itself to circumstances. Adapt.

This was not loss. It was an opportunity. A blatant challenge. How would she carry on without a left leg? What would she do in life?

The others had already made their own predictions of her, whether they knew it or not. Shouting like children, running blind and aimless over something that hadn't even happened to them.

The bandages wrapped around tight, the white soaking up blood and drying it out, spots on the tips appearing like buds on a flower.

Holly sighed, closed her eyes, and smiled.

A missing leg.

If only life could always be so interesting.