What Not To Do In The Valley

Kimber

Kimber was the best at sewing flesh and leather. 

She hadn't unfurrowed her brow for half an hour now. Pinning various segments of stretched skin to his cheeks and neck as he tried his best not to move. His arms, especially, were shaking as he held them down. 

She had a hard time finding a good place to pin with all the tears in the edges from past sewing ventures. 

"I really think you need a new jaw," She struggled to take another pin while still holding on. "I can't work like this."

"Where would we get a jaw his size?" Dart whispered, glancing out the doorway and back. 

The room was too dim for her to even see properly. She bunched up the flesh on either side of his face and stuck it on with all the safety pins she had. Swinging her legs off of the chair and creeping off to her bedroom. 

Jay sighed painedly behind her. She'd been sewing him so often that her needles were getting dull. 

She scratched her neck after holding it back for half an hour. Can't promote bad habits when his face was unwrapped like that.

She stepped carefully over the loudest of the stairs and took care to gently close her door. Half of the room was empty, but she doubted she could move out before someone else filled it. 

She slept lying on her stomach in a turtleneck and gloves with all the lights on. 

She always dreamed of angels but tried to ignore it. 

After breakfast, she snuck into the basement to use Will's nail files. It was dark here, too. Predominantly lit by candles that hadn't been used today. 

This wasn't what she was supposed to be doing today. She'd promised her body they'd go on a walk. 

Her feet were uncomfortable standing as she did, but she wanted to get her needles sharp before she had to use them on herself next. 

Closing the door, she ran into Will, who seemed hopeful to talk. She disappointed him again today. She didn't like helping him.

She made a mental note to look out for bones while in the woods today, pulling a tattered backpack off the coatrack. Her hands were excited, cracking her knuckles repeatedly as she walked. 

Kimber did not like getting her hopes up. She took the shortcut to the road out of town and had to jump over the creek. 

She made it, but fell forwards onto her knees and then fully into the dirt. It would've been more noticeable if she'd fallen into the creek and finally washed off some of her emotional support mud. She liked lying in the dirt because it felt right. 

The road was poorly cracked and had a good selection of animal bones here and there. By the time she got there, her neck was burning. 

"What are you doing?" Kimber coughed. She imagined she'd walked past something important and her body had finally snapped and started rejecting her because of her sheer stupidity. "You need me."

She tried not to touch her neck directly, scratching her collarbone to relieve the itch only to find her hand crawling with ants. 

She yelled and threw off her jacket and bag, furiously brushing herself off until she was reduced to sitting on the side of the road and desperately feeling her neck for any more crawling things. 

The stitches around her neck had loosened from the commotion and her head didn't feel as connected as it used to. 

"It wasn't you, was it?" She finally admitted. She'd expected a response but understood the body wouldn't want to open its mouth after feeling ants crawl so close to it. 

She shivered, thinking of the ants she couldn't catch before they crawled through the stitching and started to eat away at her insides. 

She wished her family kept paying for her therapist, but she was fairly certain her brother killed them all shortly after they sent her to the Harrow House. She wasn't too attached to them anyway.

They never tried to solve her murder. Not that she was getting any closer to the truth by herself out here. She was annoyed her body didn't have its own brain to help her think.

That's what they were looking for today. The head that sat on her shoulders before it died. Her head was only sewn up here because they wanted her to look normal for the funeral and the morgue had a spare Jane Doe lying around. 

The sky got dark and cloudy and it felt like all she'd done was get attacked by bugs.

She pulled out her flashlight and lingered on the edge of the road. She could feel the sun-baked tar through her worn thin shoes. The wind was blowing a bit stronger.

She felt a slit at the base of her neck open just above her collarbone. "Don't stay out too late," it told her. 

Kimber calmly walked along the roadside, unsure of who was in control. It was a warm night. She made sure to slap a sticker on the gas station wall where the cameras couldn't see before walking the long way home.

"I think you'll need to start looking up more," the body suggested. "Those lights weren't natural."

Kimber hummed softly, not wanting to break the silence of the forest. The crunching of leaves and creaking branches. She didn't believe in aliens like her body did. She didn't believe in angels either, though they seemed insistent. 

The branches cracking got louder and harsher around her until she stopped in her tracks. 

Bark crackled and the tree before her twisted into a doorway of sorts. Mrs Hive stepped out and looked at her sternly with hollow eyes. The forest around them went quiet. 

"I didn't know you'd be back, yet," Kimber responded. Then looking at her attire: green leaves and healthy roots. Freshly grown. "Are you leaving for somewhere else?"

Mrs Hive shook her head ever so slightly. 

Kimber furrowed her brow and took her outstretched hand. She couldn't imagine the nightmare she would be in for. Hive was meeting guests.

She was led through the tree's doorway and emerged at the doorstep of the house. Hive gestured for her to go get ready and she feared Hive already had her outfit picked out for her.