Warning; Scales is a body-horror serial and, at times, terrible terrain for the mind.
Morning broke in much the way that it always does.
The same anxiety sitting in my belly like a dragon breathing a fire into a coal hearth. It isn’t efficient, but it works. I’m up faster than the dread can catch up in my bones. The aching, however, never left.
Within the joints it feels like sand fills their gaps and dehydrates any hope of their movement capabilities. My hands locking up around a coffee cup, clasped and praying the warmth will loosen the grip.
At some point, grief becomes routine. It is just the way of it as it hangs in the air. Humid and damp as the water attaches itself to each hook that once held precious things.
A cold nose nudges my elbow, snapping me from a disassociation with the steam from my coffee, pondering the noted differences between the words ‘vapid’ and ‘vapor.’
“Alright Princess Ahmose, you ready to emerge from your tomb?” I asked Lily.
The process takes a few hours. Carefully removing the wrappings and gently washing the blood, puss, and grime from her body. Her tail shining bring at the tip with a polished, ivory bulb. Like a spring onion pulled from the dirt.
“I see you got to something, still.” Pointing at the tip of her tail, bone exposed just enough.
Slowly, arduously, the bandages and gauze keeping together what remains of the last precious thing I have are removed. Fur and skin like a patchwork quilt, sewn with a dull, too large needle. But she’s here.
The familiar chorus of ‘tip-tapping’ nails on laminate-wood flooring ricochet from paws to wall, to ceiling.
She’s alive. And she’s hungry.
“Let’s find us another chicken, shall we, girl?”
Lily’s answer comes as a quick ‘huff.’ As if she’d been waiting to hear me say that.
“Alright, but we have to make a pitstop first.” I said. “We should say ‘hi’ to your Dad on the way…”