Small Cuts (Supernatural Dark!fic)

o n e

"It doesn't take much
To cover up small cuts
Hid' 'neath the bandages
Under her sleeve"
Small Cuts - The Brobecks

The rain had been falling steadily for hours, soft and relentless, drumming against the windows of the old motel room. Amara sat on the edge of the bed, staring out into the misty parking lot, where the dim glow of a flickering streetlight did little to cut through the gloom. She hadn't seen another guest check in all day. Not that it mattered—this place was as temporary as all the others.

She let out a slow breath, her fingers twisting absently through a strand of her long hair. It fell past her shoulders, brushing the small of her back, and though it was mostly a dusty brown, a single streak of pure white ran down the right side of her parting. The white stripe had been there for as long as she could remember, a trait that made her stand out when she was young. Her mother had always called it a punishment—a sign from God that something was wrong with her.

Amara's lips twisted into a humourless smile. She could still hear her mother's voice, laced with the kind of cold righteousness that cut deeper than any blade. "A mark of shame," her mother had said, again and again, as if repetition would drive the lesson home. As if she could ever forget it.

Her mismatched eyes—one piercing blue, the other an indecisive mix of green and hazel—caught her own reflection in the window, ghostly and fragmented. She studied herself, seeing the same differences her family had spent years reminding her about. The white stripe in her hair, the strange, unexplainable colour of her eyes. The girl they had whispered about, the one they feared was cursed.

Her mother had always told her she was cursed. The rest of her family never said it outright, but it had been clear in their stares, their prayers, and their silence. They believed something dark and unnatural flowed through her bloodline, and Amara had grown up hearing the warnings, the threats of hellfire if she didn't repent. If she didn't "atone."

The thought of it made her want to laugh. Or scream. She couldn't decide which.

She stood abruptly, walking across the room with quick, restless steps. The cold floor bit at her bare feet, sending a chill up her spine, but she didn't stop. She'd never liked feeling cold—it reminded her too much of the churches her family had forced her to kneel in, their stone floors as unforgiving as the sermons preached above her.

Forcing herself to stop thinking about the past, she rubbed her hands over her arms and turned toward the small desk near the window. Her laptop sat there, open but unused, the dim glow from the screen the only source of light in the room. She had spent hours combing through the internet for answers, but none of it had helped. Nothing ever did.

She pulled the chair out and sat down, her body tense, feeling like she needed to do something—anything to feel in control. But even here, in the privacy of a room no one knew she occupied, the past clung to her, suffocating. The Bible lay on the nightstand beside the bed, its edges worn and frayed, though she hadn't touched it. It looked just like the one her mother had given her years ago. The one she'd abandoned, just like she'd abandoned her family.

Her hand reached for it, hovering above the cover for a second too long, before pulling back. What good would it do? She didn't believe in heaven anymore. Heaven had never answered her prayers.

The only thing that seemed real to her now was the thing that had been following her.

Amara exhaled a shaky breath and leaned back in the chair, running her hands through her hair, feeling the familiar pull of exhaustion. She didn't know what it was—ghost, demon, something worse—but she knew it was real. She had felt it growing closer for weeks, like a shadow she couldn't shake, no matter how far she ran. Every time she thought she was alone, it reminded her of its presence—a whisper in the dark, a fleeting glimpse in the corner of her vision, or the taste of something bitter and metallic on the air.