A Pound of Flesh

Matt

There’s an itch.

Matt doesn’t remember when he started itching. He knows it grew, slowly, like moss on the sidewalk, unnoticeable; worming its way into his everyday life until he can’t stand it.

And try as he might, he can’t scratch it; he drags his nails over his skin so much his dad has asked him if he should call a doctor. It won’t go away. He thinks that maybe he isn’t scratching hard enough- his skin stays pristine white no matter how harsh he goes.

Worst of all- it spreads. From the back of his neck where it started, it spreads to his shoulders, his arms, his thighs. It spreads in overstimulating tingles he still. Can’t. Scratch.

He can live with it, frustrating as it is. He’d learned to adapt, during that endless summer a couple years back. Still, it’s distracting. More often than not, he finds his thoughts trailing off their tracks to circle around the unsolvable problem of how to scratch scratch scratch. He’s playing the guitar and one of his bandmates flick his arm with a playful “how is your arm so pale compared to your face, do you only ever wear long sleeves?” and he has to force down the urge to grab the girl’s hand and use her nails. He’s wandering in the park and a cat tumbles out of a tree and he starts fantasizing about rubbing his back over the rough bark. He’s taking a shower and finds himself turning the water warmer and hotter and scalding to appease that skin that somehow never reddens.

Until, one day, Matt scratches his arm- and his skin curls away like an apple peel.

His breathing halts.

There is no blood. In fact, he doesn’t even feel any pain, despite the glaring fact that part of his skin is detached and hanging as if it is the page of a book rather than a very real very alive piece of his body.

Alright. Alright. Alright??? Alright.

Slowly, sensing panic rear its head, he exhales. 

As careful as he can, Matt takes hold of his hung skin- and tugs.

It’s a lot like tearing the wrapping off a gift. Or- or the shell off a lobster. Or- Matt doesn’t really have any appropriate simile for this, not when he’s watching his skin come apart so easily with his own two eyes.

There is new skin underneath it, he notices, dully. Soft, pinkish, and a lot more alive than the parchment-white shell he’s peeling off.

That’s when his fear finally kicks in.

He dashes toward the bathroom as fast as he can. Frantically, he struggles to lock the door and remove his clothes- and then everything dissolves in scratch scratch scratch and bite and pull and rub trying to get this dead wrap off him.

He shudders when he’s done, his new skin oversensitive to the cold wind. The sight at his feet is disturbing; a hairless version of Gabumon’s shroud, one born of his own back. It takes every fiber of his determination not to retch. Too many feelings press against his skull, confusion and fear and disgust, and it leaves him dizzy and gross.

Joe he thinks, I have to call Joe

He barely notices that the itch is gone.