Another morning, another awakening from the same dream of a different world. A world that looks so familiar, yet entirely foreign.

I stare up at the ceiling and raise my left arm up until it appears in my view, not bothering to avert my eyes to it. It’s not my arm nor my hand, it hasn’t been for a long while. Sometimes I wonder whether I still dream the tough exterior covering it up to the elbow, like clay-colored tree bark, the purple-bluish neon glow shining through the cracks and fingertips, matching the darker purple skin and the light blue swirling pattern adorning it.

Unnatural, but aesthetic.

The hand stays up, raised high and reaching to the ceiling, until it started hurting when it remembered that it still has to abide to the laws of gravity. At least that still worked.

I know that if I let it fall, I will fall back asleep along with it, and force myself to sit up. One eye readjusts quickly to the transition from the empty, white ceiling to walls covered with vibrant movie posters and tapestries depicting mythical scenes – and three other eyes lazed about before focusing and processing the colorful surrounding by what little light that filtered through the partially closed curtains, giving everything a slight golden tinge. I struggle to convince myself that this is reality and not another dream where I merely think that I wake up and throw my feet over the edge of my bed, feeling said reality seeping in from the floor and through the bare soles of my feet.

A deep breath fills my nostrils with a scent so familiar that I don’t notice it anymore.

White noise of something buzzing and humming behind a monitor on the table.

The clock showing that the morning almost turns to noon.

Little things that don’t happen in dreams.

Before I knew it, I was already in front of the bathroom mirror. Maybe it’s because half of my face aren’t quite my own, either, ever since my left arm isn’t my own and in fact – the entire left half of my body is not mine. Sometimes I forget, but the mirror never hesitates to sabotage any of my attempts to deny this reality. But at least this way I know for sure it’s all as real as it gets.

I open my mouth, and my reflection does the same; a triad of black, abyssal eyes focus six ringed, white irises focusing on two beastly fangs curving outside the scarred lip – a strip of dead skin carved from below the bottom eye and down to below the chin. I feel how the healthy skin around it tugs at the scar tissue when I try to entertain myself making faces at the mirror, until I give up and close my mouth. The fangs still stick out, a constant reminder.

The eyes move to focus ahead, and I blink slowly. When they open, the color is gone, and for a moment, things look just a little bit normal again, but I know it’s always only for a moment, and only the color. I blink again and it’s back.

I walk out of the bathroom and get dressed.

Outside, my friends are used to this sight. They remember the time when I was just me, and know I’m still me, even if half of my body isn’t.

Other people always wonder and ask. They like to take pity.

How did it happen? Did it Hurt? Does it still hurt? Why aren’t you treating it? Is it contagious?

Same questions, same answers.

Accident. Yes. Not anymore. Expensive. No.

Most people don’t really care. The answers used to be longer, and now they are just concise enough to satisfy those courtesy-driven ethics some strangers feel an urge to act by. Sometimes I cover up whatever I can, just so they won’t feel the need to ask in the first place.

After all, my condition wasn’t so extraordinary that they’ll have any reason for true, honest pity; to have an actual motive to help or contribute in any way. I was lucky to still have all my limbs, even if some weren’t mine. Other people didn’t survive similar accidents. But the big companies prefer dead people to limping casualties. So, they skyrocket the cost of treatment and let whoever can’t afford a recovery to perish.

I meet my friends, and we cross the town Ironfalls to the cliff at its border, where the long-dried ancient falls it was named after are. From there, at the peak, we can see the glimmering complex in the capitol, where high-ranking officials watch their customers slowly dying from the top of their pristine ivory tower.

I knew my future depends on what I’m willing to do, and the lengths I’m willing to go through – to either wait until the consequences keep worsening until I’m no longer myself, or to rebel against the strongest conglomerate in this world, demanding them to be held accountable.

But rebellion takes more people; one organization facing another.

One look and my friends’ determined gazes at the horizon, and there’s not a single doubt in me.

I will be myself, again.