Aris stood in front of the mirror.

She did not do this often, nor did she much enjoy doing it now. But her wounds would only get worse if she didn’t treat them. Going to a doctor was a definite ‘no’ at this point. With the amount of blood on her that wasn’t her’s, someone was bound to ask a few questions.

She took a moment to look at herself in the mirror before she had to do what needed to be done. Dressed in a white summer gown with a bright blue scarf tied around her neck, all now stained with crimson. Her hair was pulled into a bun behind her skull and the blonde strands now danced freely in front of her face where they had come loose. Her blue eyes sparkled in light of this, however, as if undeterred by the violence they just witnessed.

Her body was larger than most who joined the army. She liked to think it was because of her Helix that her body was so large—always making her muscles bigger had to have some sort of impact—but the Opes fitness test suggested otherwise. She reached up and pinched her cheeks. If only she could lose a few pounds.

A biting pain brought her back, forcing a grimace to mar her features. Her hands pressed against the side wound created by an un-heated blade. A regular knife. It was a surprise to her that it had hurt so much. Who kept regular knives around? Apparently he did.

She grabbed her stained white dress and pulled it over her head, moving with tense muscles as she did her best not to open the cut any further. She tossed the gown onto the bathroom floor and returned her gaze to her body, tugging off her scarf in the process.

Deep brown marks dotted her skin—like freckles, if they were black and three times larger. The doctors had only seen the case once before. Aris reached into the vanity and pulled out a roll of gauze. She never thought she’d have to use it.

She wrapped the bandage around the bleeding injury, her jaw tightening with each wrap around. Did she even have enough material to make it twice around her bombastic gut? She scowled.

The cloth covered up both the wound and parts of the black spots that clouded her stomach and chest. It dotted her toes and parts of her legs as well, but they were more noticeable when she stood in front of the mirror almost naked. There was, of course, the heart-shaped mark on her collarbone. Most thought it was a birth mark. Birth marks don’t show up suddenly in the middle of the night.

Reverse-vitiligo, she called it. It didn’t have a true scientific name. She supposed two cases didn’t warrant some sort of hard to pronounce word. She pulled her hands away from her finished binding work and eyed the large spot on her left side poking out from over the gauze. She looked like a snow leopard, if a leopard was fat and couldn’t pull off the look. She closed her eyes.

Enough.