Chapter 14: Be the truth unsaid
Vlad didn't fall down on the way to the bathroom anymore – he might even be able to take a longer walk, into the corridors, outside his room, but that would mean asking for permission risking a refusal discovering how trapped he really was and possibly crossing paths with other people letting them see seeing the pity the disgust in their eyes.
the fear perhaps
He could even take care of his own hygiene alone, now. Nurse Porter thought he was well enough to do it – and he was. She generally waited in his room while he took a shower, ready to intervene if he felt weak – if he fell, if he started vomiting blood, if something happened and he needed help – but in three weeks she had only needed to come in twice.
Vlad could almost if he didn't feel quite so wrong in his own skin if he wasn't so convinced of his own death already if none of the rest of it had been real believe he was getting better.
At the very least he was getting closer to functioning on his own.
He actually looked into the bathroom's mirror, now.
it was a bad idea
it was still the truth
The reflection looking at him seemed nauseous like he felt like he should feel seeing this knowing and unwell – and, most importantly, it looked wrong.
Human, and yet not.
A step to the left of what should be, of what Vlad used to look like. A lot of little things he could tell – and a larger, more disturbing picture that he couldn't quite put words on.
Looking at himself at the dead thing staring back in the mirror was necessary, because facts were fragments of truth, and only through the truth could you learn more. Just because you didn't like the facts – because you didn't like the truth the fact that your friend had killed you through negligence green hurts "banzai!" the fact that you were a dead man walking the death seeping into your blood staining your vomit pulsing behind your eyes – those wouldn't become any less true.
The pimples in his face were mostly flat now – they hadn't changed much in weeks, seemed to have come to a final stage of some kind – and didn't glow anymore but Vlad knew better than to think it meant he had no ectoplasm left inside his body, however the skin around them had an odd tint to it, something unnatural, a color he couldn't quite pinpoint. It wasn't white like someone too pale to be healthy or red like the fevers that still ravaged him occasionally or even grey like a person too sick to look anything but ashy. A cold color, perhaps, but he couldn't tell which one exactly.
It wasn't normal by any measure, not even by what a doctor would call concerning, though within range for a person, no matter how unhealthy they were.
His hair – grey, almost white like bone with a touch of silver but silver sounded too beautiful too positive for the meaning behind it it didn't feel like silver it didn't look like positivism, but that wasn't new, was it? – almost floated around, too light for its length. Vlad could barely feel it against his scalp, and looking at its reflection only confirmed that impression: there was more volume there than there had ever been, as if his hair was barely restrained by the laws of gravity anymore.
When Vlad opened his mouth, his canines appeared slightly too long – not enough to be sure of anything, and it wasn't like he'd taken a ruler to scale them before, but just enough for him to look in the mirror and see something that wasn't quite right.
If he passed his tongue along his teeth, it didn't feel like it used to.
His cheeks were a bit sunken – that, at least, was something human, something possible for a man who'd spent three months in a hospital bed.
he knew it wasn't the real reason he ate normally and yes he might feel unwell often enough but he hadn't lost weight in the last two months
it still mattered to
not pretend no
but at least know that others might explain it away
There were bags under his eyes not red not bleeding not now.
That too could be explained away – that might, in fact, only be because of the fevers and the sleepless nights and the anxiety.
Vlad didn't mind the dark circles all that much.
Staring into the mirror would reveal more things askew. Staring into the mirror would let him realize that shadows didn't sit on him quite well, that they would hover illogically, that knowledge of light sources and planes didn't allow for what showed on his face and limbs.
Looking too long would make it certain – and Vlad did look a long time.
Reaching up, though – to touch his too-lit too-darkened face, to touch the mirror telling the truth, to do anything that would bring a hand in the frame of the mirror's reflection – that did show the worst of it, perhaps.
The necrosis eating away at his flesh showing the truth of the matter had finally settled started lying too implying it was getting better – and of course, it had done so in a way that wasn't supposed to happen, that shouldn't be real at all. His hands were still black-red, a dark tint starting at the fingertips and fading away across the palms – but there was no grey anymore, and the skin didn't look rotten.
hands dipped in dark red ink with no shadows and no presence
The skin on his fingers was hard to the touch, and yet he could feel and move again still.
None of it hurt.
None of it made sense.
When Vlad looked into the mirror, he his skin hair teeth cheeks shadows looked wrong.
It was him, yes.
It was him in the mirror, and that him was wrong.
Nurse Porter never said anything when she looked at him – didn't look like there was anything wrong with him – but the few times another nurse not-nurse had come in, they'd looked at him weirdly, and Vlad couldn't help but wonder with dread and fear and terror in his entrails if they saw it too if they could tell if he was imagining any of it if they knew or if it was just because of everything else – because of the pimples themselves, of the necrosis, of his general health and the fact that it didn't make sense.