Beneath the Skin
April 15, 2024
The itching started three days after the surgery. At first, Dr. Mercer assured me it was normal—just the healing process. But when I felt something move under my stitches, I knew something was terribly wrong.
"It's all in your head," he said during my follow-up. "Phantom sensations are common after extensive procedures." He smiled that practiced smile of his, the one that never quite reached his eyes. "The grafts are taking beautifully."
That night, I couldn't sleep. The itching had evolved into a crawling sensation, as if something was tracing patterns beneath my skin. I took a sleeping pill, then another, but consciousness clung to me like a desperate lover.
At 3:17 AM, I stumbled to the bathroom and peeled back the bandage on my abdomen. The incision was healing well—too well. The scar tissue had an unnatural sheen to it, almost iridescent under the harsh bathroom lights. And then I saw it: a subtle ripple moving across the surface, like something testing the boundaries of its new home.
I pressed my finger against it, and the movement stopped. But when I pulled away, the rippling continued with renewed purpose. Something was inside me, something that didn't belong.
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Dr. Mercer's office wouldn't see me for another week. "Post-operative anxiety," the receptionist said dismissively. "Take your prescribed medication and try to relax."
By day five, the movement had become more deliberate. I could trace patterns with my fingers—geometric shapes that seemed to respond to my touch. It was as if whatever was beneath my skin was trying to communicate.
I stopped taking the immunosuppressants. If my body was trying to reject something, I wanted to give it every chance to succeed.
On day six, I woke to find tiny protrusions forming along my scar line—small, hard nodules that pulsed with a life of their own. When I pressed them, they retreated, only to emerge elsewhere along the incision.
I called Dr. Mercer's emergency line. His voice was cold when he answered. "Ms. Harlow, we've discussed this. Your anxiety is causing you to imagine—"
"Something's growing inside me," I interrupted. "I need you to take it out. Now."
There was a long pause. "What makes you think it's something and not... someone?"
The line went dead.
That night, I took a razor blade to my abdomen, determined to extract whatever was colonizing my body. The first incision revealed nothing unusual—just layers of fat and tissue. But as I cut deeper, I noticed something strange: the tissue was organized in patterns I'd never seen in anatomy textbooks, arranged in concentric circles like a circuit board.
Blood poured from the wound, but it was darker than it should have been, almost black in the dim light. And within it, I could see tiny filaments moving independently, like microscopic worms.
I must have passed out from blood loss. When I woke in the hospital, Dr. Mercer was standing over me, his face a mask of professional concern.
"You've had a psychotic episode," he explained to the attending physician. "The transplant rejection can sometimes cause neurological symptoms."
"Transplant?" I croaked. "I had a simple skin graft after my accident."
Dr. Mercer's smile tightened. "Of course. That's what I meant."
When they left, I peeled back my hospital gown. My self-inflicted wound had been neatly sutured, but the original incision had changed. It now formed a perfect circle on my abdomen, and within it, I could make out what looked like a tiny face pressing outward, as if trying to see the world it was about to be born into.
And somehow, I knew it was smiling.
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Commission ID: twisted-abyss-echoes-macabre-quill-whispering
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