Frank woke up from another unnerving dream. He put his head in his hands and rocked his body back and forth. When would this end? His back stung. He got out of bed and went to the bathroom. He lifted his shirt over his head and turned his back to the mirror. Twisting his head around, he saw three long scratched right below his right shoulder. Beads of blood began popping up from them. Frank squeezed his eyes shit, wishing the scratches away. He would not this take over his mind. He opened them, hopeful, but the scratched were still there and starting to swell. Terror-stricken, Frank rushed to the guest bedroom where Gerard slept. Frank shook Gerard and he snorted awake, dazed. His hand searched for the beside lamp switch and asked Frank,
"What? What's wrong?" The lamp turned on, barely filling the room with mild, yellow light.
"I'm bleeding again," Frank said, trying to hide the urgency in his voice, turned around to show Gerard his back. Gerard rubbed both his eyes while saying,
"You're now blee-" he stopped mid-sentence when he lifted his fist from his eyes. Three bright red parallel scratched were strewn across Frank's back. Sleepiness escaped Gerard.
"Who did this to you?" Gerard asked, immediately regretting the words of the stupid question as they left his mouth.
"She did it," Frank said bluntly, conviction clearly in his voice, referring to his mother.
"Frankie, no, your mother is long gone. You told me yourself. You were taken away by the DCF."
"Then how do you explain these?" Frank said pointing to the scratches.
"Frank, you must have done it to yourself," said Gerard, suddenly realizing what Frank had done.
"…but…" Frank was speechless. He looked at his hands. Then, looking closer, the tips of his three middle fingernails on his left hand were red with his own flesh. Frank's mouth gaped open. What was happening to him?
