Markings

The Island

The deep noise of the boat’s fog horn taking a new batch of younglings to the island could be heard for miles. Nowadays, it seems almost natural for the sound to roll across the waters like a wave. Elizabeth sat in the red leather seat, a sense of unease rising within her. The young fox had no idea what awaited her when she arrived at the island as she clutched her stuffed rabbit to her chest. Even in the most uncertain of times, even when the strange creatures roamed the streets of her old home, the stuffed toy brought her comfort. It didn’t help much that her parents were on the verge of crying as she was led onto the boat. Children were brought to different camps in droves, after the Great Storm, people feared for the future of their society. So, in a response to this fear, a group of government authorities built an island to teach children to excel in new careers, far from the beasts that roamed, far from the dangerous shadows. The fog horn signaled again, a sign that the new recruited children had arrived at the Island. Elizabeth was led off the boat and brought into a room with blindingly bright lights, as men in white lab coats interrogated her. They asked her questions about her parents, what they did for a living, and what the young kit had planned to go into. The small fox answered to the best of her ability, her father was a Hunter and her mother was an engineer, she replied. She wanted to grow up like her father, a man who always put the safety of her small village before his own. She recounted tales of her father and mother’s work, tales of her father coming home with strange, inky markings where there had been nothing before. She looked at her wrist, a similar marking seemed to swirl and bend about on her fur. She said that she could sometimes make it do things, a man with a long red beard sat down, a shackle around his wrist.

“What kind of things can it do?” The man’s voice was gravelly and rough, not unlike her father’s, she felt uneasy around him, but his demeanor seemed to calm her. She recounted how when she got it, the markings had saved her. A shade had bit her and the burning pain hurt so much she wanted to cry, that’s when the mark appeared. Like a super hero, the mark seemed to leap into action, turning to spikes, scaring the beast away. The man simply smiled at the girl, an ingenuine smile, she had seen it all too much from her father. Like when he would say he was fine, but later that night, she would hear him groaning in pain and writhing with agony. The bearded man stood and walked to a man in a lab coat, he stood out due to a green-ish blue mark on his coat. The two talked for what seemed like eternity as Elizabeth sat in silence. Finally, the doctors surrounded her and grabbed her arm, the one that held her mark. Scared, Elizabeth tried in vain to remove it from their grasp, but in an instant, it was over. She looked at her arm, a dark red shackle was sitting on it, just above her mark, she touched the shackle and cried out in, “You’re hurting it.” She said as she pointed to her mark, the lab technicians ignored her cries of distress as the mark seemed to flail and then, in an instant, fall still. It was as if it were a tattoo that had always resided there. “Take her to her cabin.” One of the men said, not a hint of emotion in his voice. Another man in a lab coat with a mark on his coat, like the previous man’s but in the same dark red hue as the shackle. As she was being pulled out of the room, the bearded man looked at her with a smile, a genuine one now and said plainly. “You will make a great hunter. Just like your father.” And with that, the door slammed downwards, sealing off the room from Elizabeth’s gaze.