Skin Crawl

Outsider

The village was granted a reprieve the following year; the Rot claimed only five lives and we assumed we'd seen the worst of it. We learned the year after to assume nothing. As the numbers of dead needing release to the Sky Life climbed again, I was able to secure work as a Witness, shrouding emaciated bodies and delivering them to the flames. I was happy to be earning food for my siblings, but the work itself was torturous.

What the dead could not feel, I felt for them: tight swathes of cloth around me, hands of other Witnesses on my body, fire scorching my skin. The Witnesses knew what effects the flames had on me and shooed me away before the kindling was ignited. While they were never exactly friendly, their job transitioning people from life to death made them outsiders. As someone sharing this stigma, they had an inclination to protect me, even if at the same time they thought me beyond Salvation.

I was a Witness and because of this, Pia and Omari never went hungry. Several years passed. The population of the village dwindled, but not its level of ignorance. When I was old enough to marry, unsurprisingly, no one would have me. Boys were not even allowed to glance in my direction. They did so anyways, covertly, when their mothers were not there to see it. Their lust couldn't be satiated, however, not by me. Who knew in their ignorant minds what they believed my cursed affliction might do to their male appendages.

Most contented themselves with furtive looks, but one boy, Davin, got it into his mind that he could do much more to me than just stare. Whenever I happened by, he'd make a point to bring his betrothed to his side. His eyes would travel to mine, willing me to react as his fingers slid up and down her back and into the folds of her skirt, their bodies pressed together. I always hurried by, my eyes downcast, refusing to satisfy him with any outward show of the tingling heat coursing through me. I hated him. I hated the unwanted way my body responded. But most of all, I hated that Davin saw his behavior as a game rather than as the violation it was.

On the cusp of the Rain, clouds looming ready to unleash their yearly misery, my mother returned. I had just Witnessed the death of a young boy. It was a fall from a tree rather than the Rot that had ended his life. As I walked home from the purification house, trying my best not to recall the feel of the boy's broken neck and contorted body, her slim figure appeared in my doorway, arms clasped around my brother and sister.

I froze. Her hands weighed heavily on my shoulders. This touch was welcomed by Pia, and to a much lesser extent by Omari; having no memory of his mother, his acceptance of her came from a place of curiosity rather than longing.

My throat caught. I motioned the children over to me. They pulled away from their mother and came obediently to my side. My arms wrapped around them just as hers had. Her mouth quivered as she took in the fact that my touch was more familial, more motherly than hers.

"Let's go." I motioned to the house. Inside were three strangers she had brought back to the village with her. She claimed they were from farther away than any place we could imagine. The oldest was a woman about my mother's age with short cropped hair and a slight limp. The other two were my age or perhaps a few years older. The young man had a kind smile and an ease about him. He was taller than most, but somehow he managed to make his lean body languid rather than lanky. He appeared healthy and energized despite the grueling trek they had just undergone. The young woman, on the other hand, was clearly sick. Her skin had been stripped of all pigment and her hair was the dull color of dried kavasa grass. Most alarming were her eyes, which reflected fire even though there were no flames near.