Her name was Myla.
She was twelve.
And she was sick.
“I don’t want that,” said a timid and quiet voice. It belonged to a girl with just plain brown hair and blue eyes. There was nothing odd about her except for the fact that she had bright red, painful rashes from her neck to her collar bone, that stretched all the way to her shoulders.
“It doesn’t matter, it will help, so get in,” replied her mother’s sharp voice. She had just finished filling the bath tub with really hot water and some kind of homemade mixture of stuff she put together with the main ingredient as salt. It turned the water a dark gray color.
“It hurts, it always does,” said the girl who’s name was Myla. She looked like she was on the verge of tears, but Sarah, (who was her mother) just gave her an extremely cold, angry look, “Get. In. Now. You need to before you make me sick, too.”
“You said it wasn’t contagious!” Myla shook her head and tried to back away and reach for the door knob but it was locked and she forgot. Sarah scowled and said, “Then I’ll make you.” She went to Myla quickly and she didn’t expect the sharp blow to her face that made her dizzy and feel like she was about to pass out as pain exploded in her head, in her eye and then Sarah yanked her forward roughly so Myla’s sensitive skin on her hand turned red and stung her, she said, “No!” but Sarah shoved her into the almost boiling water. Myla’s skin exploded in a burning, unbelievably painful sting everywhere the second it connected with the lava-like liquid and she screamed.
Myla has always had sensitive skin and rashes, just not nearly that bad. She also used to not be able to stop scratching and she made it worse. But she got it under control a couple years ago. Her mother was never kind to her, but never that cruel to her until her skin started getting worse like that. Sarah was just afraid she would get it too. It was hard to tell what she was thinking, making those baths for her daughter. She just mixed a lot of salt in with some other stuff, including some strange “healing” powder she got from the weird guy at work who claimed it would cure anything.
Because of her skin problems, Myla was an outcast at school. She used to scratch when she got stressed out. But she stopped trying to talk to other kids and just kept her head down and tried to ignore it… But since she started taking those baths a week ago, it started getting harder and harder to control her scratching as her skin just got worse, and she probably wouldn’t be able to control it for much longer.
Later, Myla was curled up in a fetal position on the hardwood floor of her room, sobbing and rocking back and forth… Her rashes went from her chin now all the way to her elbows nown and it throbbed with pain every second. She didn’t know what was wrong with her. She wanted it to stop….. stop…just stop…. And suddenly she was completely and utterly itchy, so terribly that she gasped and her eyes were wide as she jumped in shock from it. She couldn’t take it. She scatched. She practically clawed at her skin to make it stop, and for some reason it felt really nice until she stopped after several seconds and then she screamed again at the pain, her skin was now bleeding everywhere.
Sarah came in and beat her until she was quiet and laid on her side on the floor, trembling and writhing at the pain as Sarah slammed the door and she was alone again. She was terrified. What was happening to her? She still wanted to scream but she just shut her eyes and tried to ignore everything, and tried to not make a sound and eventually she stopped moving, and she fell asleep.
When she awoke the next morning she was overcome with the stinging and discomfort flaring through her skin suddenly, and her hands flew to her mouth so she wouldn’t yell like she almost did. She sat there paralyzed for a moment before she finally put her hands down and sat there and looked down. Her blood was dried on the floor and some on her skin but it looked even worse. There were tears and gaps everywhere a couple layers deep and they were one of the most terrifying things she had ever seen. She almost screamed again but stopped and fell to her side once more and laid there in pain until her skin started itching yet again. She clawed at herself yet again, it felt so nice while she was doing it that she was almost dizzy then she regained control over herself and the pain was so intense that time she couldn’t even make a sound. She did the only thing that made sense to her—she slammed her head on the hard floor so hard she passed out.
She dreamed she was walking in the woods, it was starting to be night.. It was a little chilly and it felt amazing on her skin, which burned every time she moved but she kept walking for some reason. Then she stopped, she felt suddenly scared. She tried to turn her head around to look around but pain flared furiously through the skin on her neck as it tore and she woke up yelling. Then she was dropped into the bath Sarah had prepared yet again and the pain was so terrible she passed out, yet again.
Then she awoke on the mattress that was her bed, and she was covered with only a towel and her hair was damp. Her skin and eyes burned like she was used to, and she trembled, she wanted to scream. But she didn’t. She wouldn’t. She wanted to sleep but she couldn’t… Not anymore.
She was sick of it. She couldn’t handle it anymore. She wouldn’t… Sarah was hurting her more than normal, too much, and she felt sick to her stomach. It was completely wrong. But she knew it wouldn’t stop, not until she either ended it herself or she had no skin left. She was going to end it. But she also couldn’t let Sarah get away with what she did to her… Certainly not. She was going to pay. Myla made her decision and she felt calm.
Her eyes looked like they belonged to a crazy person while her face was expressionless. She sat up, holding the towel against herself. She slowly looked down at her arms and saw even her hands and fingers were ruined. She tried to look away and a searing pain through her neck stopped her. She gasped from it and looked back down and straightened her back. She smiled… She looked at the clock on the wall, it was four o’clock. Sarah was at work. So she went to the bathroom, turned the shower on, and turned it all the way to hot before she got in and let the almost boiling water rain down all over her. It stung horribly but yet it felt nice. Somehow it made her skin feel slightly better so she would be able to do what she was going to do.
She got out and dried off like a normal person with no skin issues. Still trembling from the pain, she went to her dresser and put on a plain white shirt that was huge on her and some black shorts. She wanted to try to leave her neck uncovered so it wouldn’t hurt, and she tried to make the collar of the shirt not touch it as much as she could. Then she went downstairs into the kitchen. It was completely dark in there, it was seven o’clock then. She walked through the darkness, somehow knowing where everything was even though she couldn’t see. She gave another small, creepy smile as she opened the drawer. She felt her eyes widen more and she knew she looked crazier yet kind with her smile like that. She enjoyed the thought as she pulled out a knife. She sat cross-legged in one of the chairs at the table and waited.
Eight o’clock. Sarah was about to come back in five minutes. Myla walked over to stand by the door where she would be hiding when it opened. Soon Sarah came in and did so, and Myla made not one sound. She went unnoticed as Sarah hummed along to a song she was listening to on her mp3 player and turned the light on and started to take her shoes off, and she was in the other side of the room then. Myla then flipped the switch off since she was right by it. Sarah gasped and paused her music before staying completely still.
“Welcome back, mother,” said Myla softly as she creeped up behind Sarah and then reached up and ripped the earbuds out. Sarah whipped around and brought her first up, ready to hit the girl she couldn’t see in the darkness. But she never got to. Instead she stumbled backwards and fell. Myla bent down and pulled the knife out of her stomach as roughly as she could. Then she turned the lamp on that was right by her and smiled creepily down at Sarah, her eyes still wide and crazy. Sarah was startled by how Myla’s eyes were tinted with red, which was probably from the dangerous bath water she made coming into contact with them. She screamed in horror.
Myla grinned, and sharp fangs could easily be seen. Her eyes seemed redder.
“Demon child!” Sarah yelled, clutching her stomach wound, unable to move.
“Thank.. you.. so..much..,” Myla said and her grin almost looked like that of a normal, excited and happy child. Then she knelt down down beside Sarah calmly and raised the knife up above her head. Now Sarah screamed “No!” and Myla decapitated her easily with the huge knife and her anger and determination fueling her strength. She was once again sitting in a pool of blood, and it soaked her clothes. She laughed sweetly and then slit her own throat. The worst of that pain was only her damaged skin, she thought before she fell backwards and closed her eyes peacefully.
She felt as though she simply fell asleep.
