Unwound

by Yolanda Olson

  letting out a guttural cry. I closed my eyes and crouched down as

  it quickly tackled what was behind me to the ground.

  “I told you to leave,” the voice growled angrily.

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  Turning, I saw what I assumed to be Finnegan’s small figure

  as she was now hiding herself partially behind the body that she

  had so badly crippled with her one blow.

  “Leave before this place is crawling. Now,” she shouted at me.

  I stood and bit my lip. Fighting away the pain of my cramped

  and tightened legs I ran as quickly as I could while I heard the

  familiar sound of tearing flesh behind me.

  Maybe I shouldn’t be friends with her after all, I thought as I

  fought against the pain. Another flesh ripper was not something I

  wanted to anything of or be anywhere near. My fear would

  always over take any emotion I could ever hope to learn if I

  stayed near Finnegan for too long. I would just carry on with the

  gift of the name she gave me and try to never think of her again.

  My legs started to tighten faster on me the longer I ran.

  Eventually they gave out as I knew would happen and I stumbled

  to the ground. I hit the edge of the pavement hard and somehow

  on the way down I was able to save my face from smashing into

  the ground. I could only imagine how much more of monster I

  would look like if I had damaged my face with London around to

  fix it.

  The wind was knocked out of me so I laid there for a moment.

  Little things like losing my breath made me wonder if the lungs

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  she had harvested for me were full and not altered, but I never did linger on those thoughts for too long.

  Pushing my hands against the ground, I got to my knees then

  slowly to my feet. For a moment I stood there and wiggled my

  arms, hands, and legs, bent my knees, and swiveled my neck back

  and forth to make sure nothing had been damaged upon impact.

  Nothing seemed to be out of place or badly bruised. I attempted to take a step forward and my legs refused to budge; it felt as if they had locked. I tried again, and again neither leg would listen to my mental command.

  A wave of franticness washed over me. I wasn’t yet

  completely out of the park of mysterious and dangerous monsters

  and here I stood with stiff legs that would not carry me to safety.

  But I had just been able to bend my knees and move my legs no

  more than ten seconds ago? Was that the last bit of comfort they

  would allow me away from this place? How could I have so

  foolishly wasted such a precious moment in vanity?

  The longer I stood with my legs frozen the more desperate

  and frustrated I became. The only way to be able to get them to

  work again would be to just stand there and hope that nothing that posed a threat would come to me.

  The agony of standing for as long as I had seemed to drag on

  for hours. I watched as the sky became light lavender with rays of 43

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  orange lighting up the morning sky like a supernova. I lifted my

  hand to shield my eye from the brightness of the sun rising and

  watched in wonder as dawn was upon the world as if a match had

  been stricken in the darkness slowly illuminating everything that

  it could. I had only really seen this slightly through the boarded windows in my room but seeing it in all its glory was something

  much more different. In some ways I felt like a newborn baby

  seeing the world for the first time. I could hear the animals as

  they rose from their slumber begin to scurry back and forth. I

  heard the sounds of birds chirping around me but one distinct

  sound caught my attention in particular. I strained to listen to the sound as it quickened and knew what it was. If I had the ability to cry a tear would’ve slowly crept down my face I was sure. And

  then it flew past me and hovered for just a few moments; it was a

  sparrow. My face began to slowly melt into a smile as I watched

  it dance a few feet from me as it went from flower to flower. If

  only I could touch it for just one moment, I thought to myself.

  I raised a hand and it fluttered a little further away from me

  giving me a curious look. Just one small touch; I craned my hand

  toward its small body. It backed away again but this time I was

  closer than I had been a moment ago. I looked down and reached

  for the bird again. I became ecstatic as my leg moved a small step closer. They were starting to unstiffen and move ever so slightly.

  “Thank you,” I whispered as I watched it fly busily away

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  from me.

  Not wanting to take the chance I stood in the spot the bird had

  left me for another hour. I counted the ticks inside of me with my eyes closed, not caring if anyone that went by me thought me

  strange. I wouldn’t lose another precious moment to move

  forward.

  I lowered my face away from the sun and after I had counted

  3,600 ticks I decided to try again and this time my legs moved

  effortlessly. Opening my eye I smiled and looked down at them

  as I took my first few steps. I decided to move slowly as I did not want my legs to lock up on me again, but after a few moments of

  taking small steps, I began to walk as normally as I had before.

  For now I was okay.

  The humans bustled around me busily. As I walked down the

  hard, gray pavement I watched everyone I could without being

  obvious. Some were dressed more importantly than others some

  were dressed like me. The ones that wore similar clothes to the

  only things I had managed to steal for myself looked more

  carefree than the others. I couldn’t tell anyone’s age by looking at them but everyone seemed different and special in their own way.

  I wondered if they all knew how lucky they were to have been

  born in the same bodies they had their whole lives and never have

  to worry about withering away at any given moment.

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  That’s not something I think any of them considered and I

  wanted so badly to tell them all but I knew I had to keep to myself.

  Just because a child and a monstrous misfit had been kind to me,

  it didn’t mean that the rest of the world would be so accepting.

  Some of the last bedtime stories London had told me were of the

  wars that they waged against each other. Honestly I felt that I

  feared no one as much as her, but now that I was out in the world

  I wondered if I should fear them as well.

  As I approached a crossroads I winced with slight pain.

  Maybe it was because my legs had the chance to recharge, but the

  cuts on my feet from her netting were starting to hurt me more

  now. Adjust the weight of the leg that hurts the most and you’ll

  be okay.

  I had to agree with that thought. I waited for the others around

  me to move and I started to walk with a slight shuffle which

  alleviated my hurt more than I thought it would. I liked having

  these helpful thoughts, even if they weren’t my own.

  One thing I did know that came from inside of me and not

  from my borrowed mind was that I needed to find a place to live.

  I closed off any other thoughts that might be abl
e to sway me

  from my new mission and shuffled along as quickly as I could. I

  crossed more roads than I had ever thought possible before I

  found something I would think could be suitable for something

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  like me.

  I stood in front of what appeared to be an abandoned three

  story fabric factory. Most of the windows looked like they had

  been broken and there was a colorful smattering of words on parts

  of the building. The closer I walked the more I noticed the doors.

  They were large pieces of wood hammered shut over the

  entranceway with the words DO NOT ENTER painted across

  them.

  I wonder.

  I put my hands in the middle of the doors and gave a small tug

  and the doors moved. Just like the windows in my prison had.

  Looking around to make sure no one was watching, I leaned in

  and gave a harder tug and one of the planks pulled free. I couldn’t help but feel proud of myself as I stepped into the darkness of the cold factory and placed the board back in place.

  Once it was securely fastened I glanced around me.

  There were large sewing machines around me; larger than the

  ones London used. There were also web like pieces of yarn and

  cotton that looked like they had been abandoned in the middle of

  what they were meant to create.

  Just like I had been.

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  I saw dolls standing around; dolls with no faces. Some were

  broken some were missing pieces. I crossed the room to the

  nearest doll and ran my fingers down its face then I reached up

  and felt my patch that the boy had given me.

  This wasn’t a place of death; it didn’t have that smell that

  would sometimes creep out of any one of London’s workrooms.

  These dolls felt different than I did. They had a damp smell to

  them, but it wasn’t something that struck fear in me.

  Looking down at one of the large tables, I noticed pins and

  needles, tattered design books, and shredded pieces of cloth lying all over. There was a thin layer of dust covering almost every inch of it so I knew that this place had been abandoned for some time,

  but why?

  To me these were discarded treasures.

  I let out the breath I didn’t realize I had been holding.

  I’m home.

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  Four

  I slept soundly that night. I had no fear of anything for the

  first time in what felt like an eternity. I had found my way up to the third floor where there small cots and laid there staring out the window until my insides slowed to a dull whir. I didn’t dream that night either which to me was a blessing.

  When I awoke that dawn I felt a little different. The

  consistency of the parts inside of me weren’t as prominent as they had been so many times before but they were more than enough

  to allow me to become alert again.

  I push myself up to a seated position and stretch my arms over

  my head. I felt a couple of small readjustments in my shoulders

  that for some reason made me feel slightly better. I swung my

  legs over the side of the cot and got to my feet. I felt something soft underneath my foot which I bent down to pick up. It was my

  hooded jacket; I hadn’t even realized I had taken it off. Tossing it onto the cot I glanced around in the dim light of the newborn day.

  I jumped. I couldn’t help it; I didn’t realize there was a mirror

  in this room. I looked away from it for a moment, but my eyes

  kept moving back toward it. Now was the time for my first act of

  bravery and I knew it.

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  If I had enough courage to run from London, I had enough

  courage to do what needed to be done. I turned back toward the

  mirror and began to make my way to it. I wanted to be able to

  face myself and know that even though I wasn’t finished and

  never would be that this would no longer be something that could

  taunt me and make me feel insignificant.

  The closer I got to it the more I realized that this was a full

  sized mirror, not like the one’s she had hung around my room.

  Not broken pieces mended together in odd shapes and angles to

  make me look like a sideshow freak. I didn’t look as distorted as

  she had allowed me to believe.

  Once I was within ten feet of it, I took myself in.

  The hair that she had harvested for me was golden brown, soft

  looking, and wild. It stood up at certain angles but I think that was because I hadn’t had the time to care for it properly. I looked into my face. My eyes or the one I had was large, round, and black. I

  could see the fear in it that she had inflicted in me starting to

  slowly fade. Now I was able to look at the patch that Jared had

  won for me, it was the same color as my eye with a small spider

  web etched into it and he was right about one thing; it did cover

  most of the scarring on my face. Only a small wisp of where I had

  been stitched showed at the bottom.

  My nose made me smile. It wasn’t large and it wasn’t small. It

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  seemed to fit the frame of my face which to me said that she had

  harvested my head from one person. At least one part of me was

  more whole than any other. My jaw seemed strong, but not too

  square. I leaned into the mirror a little closer and saw that my lips had slight scarring on them but nothing too drastic. They were

  slightly full but not painfully so.

  Stepping back I realized that I looked like a young man with

  fair skin. I noticed that I stood with an almost imperceptible

  hunch in my shoulders which I promptly tried to straighten out.

  After a couple of attempts I was able to stand up straight. I made a mental note to myself and my borrowed mind to keep my

  shoulders back and my head held high.

  Once that was accomplished I looked at the rest of myself.

  When I had removed the hooded jacket, I had also removed the

  shirt I wore underneath it. My body looked like it had been

  ravaged by an army of angry centipedes. London had made no

  attempt to hide the scars that were crudely wound from the top of

  my chest around and scattered about my torso. My mind was

  screaming at me to tear my eyes away but I refused. This was one

  thought I wouldn’t take into consideration. I had to look at myself.

  I had to take in all the scars and careless stitching she had done to me to remind myself that escaping was the right thing to do. But

  it also started to form a new emotion inside of me. It wasn’t the

  pain she had made sure I was in a constant state of and it wasn’t

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  the fear that I had allowed myself to feel every time I heard her

  voice, saw her face, or listened to her working. My body started

  to shake and my fists clenched. I knew what this emotion was. It

  was the same one that had taken over her whenever I asked her

  too many questions.

  It was anger and it was powerful.

  I pulled at the drawstring on the pants I had been wearing and

  let them drop to the ground, standing in front of the mirror naked.

  While powerful and defined, my legs too were covered with

  malicious, cruel scars. There was one patch on the left side of
my leg that looked like it had been stretched too far as if she didn’t have enough skin to work with, which slightly exposed what I

  looked like on the inside. I turned slightly and got closer to the mirror again to take a better look. Since the sun had been steadily rising I was able to do a better inspection.

  Surprise almost over took me for a moment when I realized

  that she had used bone in my construction which shown slightly

  through the side of worn skin. I scoffed. Maybe London wasn’t as

  adept at perfection as she thought she was. Leaning down I

  touched the open wound and felt a small wheel that kept clicking

  back then forward almost as if in a panic and the bone. More parts to remind me constantly of my falsehood. Standing up to my full

  height I gathered myself to be around six feet tall. The body she

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  had constructed for me was strong, even though it bore the labors

  of her work.

  I turned my body away from the mirror and looked over my

  shoulder. My back was the same. The twisted scarring from the

  front of me lead all the way to the back down my body and

  stopped below my calves.

  London knew what she was doing by making sure that I kept

  myself clothed all the time. She knew and rightfully so, that I

  would never have ventured out into the world looking as I did.

  I grabbed my pants from the floor and pulled them up, tying

  the string as tightly as I could. I walked back to the cot where I had left the hooded jacket and pulled it angrily over my head.

  Soon I would have to find a lighter material than this because the warmth from the morning sun was starting to drift in through the

  broken windows.

  Go downstairs and string something together, the voice inside

  my head said. That wasn’t such a bad idea since the night that I

  had awoken screaming in agony as London tore pieces of me

  apart and put me back together, I had watched the motions of her

  hands so I had some kind of idea how the binding should go. It

  was also a good thing I taught myself how to do this in case I

  started falling apart, I’d be able to sew the viable pieces back on.

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  The sound of my footsteps echoed as I went down the first

  flight of stairs. I was delighted in that simple thing that I’m sure most take for granted because I was used to the sounds of drills

  and tools and manic screams echoing. As I made my way across