✓ SALVATION | the darkling

03;

chapter three,     the scars remind her

𝕷iya

TRACING THE SCARS ON HER ARMS, she closed her eyes, listening to the way water was moving around her. One hundred and forty-three scars. Thirty of them were merged into others. Fifty of them were bumpy – once were deep cuts. One hundred and forty-three scars she was aware of.

There was a certain peace being submerged under warm water. Knees pressed to the chest, arms hugging the legs as the chin stayed on the knees. The spine was exposed to the air, chilly and unwelcoming, but the water lulled her. Bath was a luxury she quickly fell in love with in the Little Palace. Washing up in the children's home was always chaotic and clumsy – girls pushing each other, splashing with their handfuls, arguing about the biggest bar of soap. Sitting like this, alone, almost submerged in warm water that was a treat.

The woman's fingers traced the scars on her forearm, counting them all over and over again – on the left arm there should be fifty-six, fifteen deep ones. The weight on her shoulders seemed to roll off as she didn't encounter any new ones – a pretty successful week in the Little Palace.

Liya didn't know what to think of this place yet. Constantly ready for it to crumble apart, for others to invade and run, she seemed bothered by the calmness of this place. The mean whispers of the others didn't bother her, it somehow soothed her, reminding her of the children's home, of the fact that people will always be the same. Mocking the weak ones, mocking things they do not understand, just because it is easier to insult than to compliment.

She wondered if this place could ever feel like home. It seemed like there is a home for everyone only once and she already had it. A family of four – father, mother and two red-haired, giggly sisters. Home, was the smell of gingerbread every winter, the squeaking wooden pallets beneath them, the creaking bed the sisters shared. Only for it to be invaded, the family was left broken and separated.

There wasn't a day spent without thinking about her sister. Countless years of remembering the fire-red colour of her sister's hair was all that was left in her mind. She blamed herself for remembering so little, but it wasn't her fault. When Genya got taken, Liya was only three-years-old. A child, losing the main element that held their family together.

Genya told her that she looks like their mother. If she was honest, she doesn't remember much of how she looked like – a faint smile from a fading face, stored deep in her memory and her soothing voice, quickly overwritten by the wailing screams. Even if the wails bruised her heart every moment she dived into the dream-world, it seemed pleasant to look anything like their mother.

Her sister seemed like a pleasant woman. Even if they were strangers, united by the same blood and flesh – they were only now learning everything about each other. The urge to spill everything was unbearable, the need to cry, to hug her and beg for her to never leave her again or it will become unbearable. But she kept it to herself – cautious as always, even if Genya was her sister. According to her, both of them had time to get to know each other, only because they were safe.