Crippled - Jarco

Ch. 1

Marco groaned, irritated, and threw his pencil  across the room, glaring at what was left of his right arm. Where his long thin arm used to be, now was the thin arm from before but was cut off mid bicep. He sniffled a bit, frowning and looking at the paper in front of him.

“Can’t fuckin’ draw..” He murmured, looking at the misshapen form on the paper. He picked up the paper and crumpled it up throwing at the trash, which was already overflowing with crumpled up pieces of paper.

Marco loved to draw. It was his passion, the one thing that made him happy in school; and he was good at it too. But after the tiger incident, he couldn’t draw anymore. His dominant hand was his right hand; his left could do shit. So after his right arm was gnawed off, he couldn’t draw anymore. And it frustrated him more then anything. Especially since he was going back to school the next day,  after months of not being in school, and drawing was his stress release. Or, was.

Christmas break ended that day, so everyone was returning to school tomorrow. Everyone had heard of what happened, some had even seen it. He cringed remembering the day, the last day  of school. It was the annual trip to the local zoo, something that everyone had excited to go to. The zoo had gotten a new animal, a tiger, imported from asia. It was a male, not too old, but he was still older. Marco was leaning against the railing, sketch pad in one hand, pencil in the other. He curiously looked at the large beast, sketching his realistic drawings from various angles. He stiffened, hearing a dark chuckle from behind him.

“Hey freckles,” A tall boy with a muscular build sneered at him. Marco cringed slightly at the nickname and  mumbled an apology, which was unnecessary, and tried to shuffle away, wanting an escape. The oy placed a strong hold on his shoulder.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Another boy asked. He was shorter but just as fit.

“L-Look can we please n-not do this here…” He murmured. “Its the day before summer, I’ll treat you to free ice cream all summer, just please let me spend this in peace..” He mumbled, but still loud enough for the bullies to hear.

They smirked and pressed him against the bar. “How about we take your money now to buy ice cream here, and then hold you up to that offer for the rest of the summer as well,” He smirked, pressing the smaller boy had against the bar. What happened next happened so fast. The bar suddenly broke, it was a loose hinge they later told him, and he toppled backwards, eyes wide. Everything seemed to slow down as he looked up at the bullies the smirks slowly turning into looks of horror. Marco let out a large groan as he hit the tiger as he landed, rolling next to it. The wind was knocked out of him and his leg ached like a bitch. The tiger immediately yelped and started growling, narrowing its eyes at Marco.

Before he could react the tiger pounced at him, growling and roaring, biting down on his arm. He let out a blood curdling scream as pain ripped up his arm, and he suddenly couldn't move his fingers. Or arm. He was afraid to look at his arm, knowing he was seriously hurt or his arm was gone. The tiger growled, smacking its large paw at his head, making his vision to go blurry. He suddenly got tired. Very tired. Why? A tiger was on top of him, attacking him. Shouldn’t he be running? He couldn’t move. He felt the pressure leave his arm, or what he could feel on his arm. Sleep sounded good right now. He heard yelling all around him but he couldn’t make anything out. Oh well. Everything soon faded into darkness and silence. Ah, bliss.

He awoke several days later, have being in a slight coma from one, the trauma, and two, the blow of the tiger’s paw. His vision was blurry as well, but only in his right eye. H could make out shapes and such, he just couldn’t see clearly.  He felt a strange sensation as he tried to sit up, and looked at his right arm. His first reaction was to move it. He tried to, and only managed to move it a bit. He sat there, staring at the nub in curiosity and horror. His drawing hand, gone.

The doctors told him he was lucky to escape with his life, not to mention he hadn’t suffered any memory loss. It took Marco two months in the hospital (mostly because  of his mum, who was absolutely worried sick that if it wasn’t completely healed he couldn’t go back home) until he could go home. Not having an arm was a huge inconvenience, he soon learned. Having to have help for almost everything.

Marco shook his head from the memory, struggling to take his shirt off before bed. He looked in the mirror as he stripped, frowning at his reflection. He wore an eyepatch now, by choice, because he didn’t want to wear the thick lensed glasses that the doctor insisted he wore. He had the glasses, he just never used them. At first the change in depth perception had been an issue but now that he was used to it, it wasn’t such a huge deal. His chest was covered with huge scars from the claws of the tiger. He looked away and lay down, turning off the light with the customized button pad in his room, so it was easier for him to turn things on and off. An hour  later he fell into an anxious, dreamless, sleep.

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Unedited