Erik
In the locker room, he ran his hands over his scars.
Hundreds and hundreds of them, raised all over his skin. All about the same length, evenly spaced.
These weren’t from a fight. There was precision here. Intention. The kind of intention that could drive someone’s whole life, make them suffer through pain again and again.
To remember. To remember who they are, what they’ve done, what the world has done.
He’s certain this memory was meant for him.
He stares into the mirror, runs a thumb over his bottom lip.
‘Get your gear on K-20, we need to get going’ was buzzing in his ears.
Useless words.
‘K-20?’
His hands hit skin and blood flew and he knew no more.
He ran his hands over smooth skin.
He was recovering from surgery, his superiors said, after overexertion in the field.
He feels healthy, feels strong, feels battle ready. But there’s a sense of oddness he can’t place, something that makes his body feel strange.
His skin doesn’t belong to him.
He bites at his bottom lip.
He goes back in the field. The variant runs, taking his child in hand, bumping into people, spreading the nexus event like a virus.
He does his job. Prunes the variant, his child too.
Later, in the locker room, he thinks about the expression on their faces. About the fear.
He stares at the hidden knife he took from the lunch room. Feels the smoothness of the metal.
Digs it into his skin, leaving a mark. Watches the blood bloom up. Feels something settle in his chest.
Who he is, what he’s done, what the world has done.
He digs again, leaving a second. Runs his tongue across his teeth.
He goes to the field, goes to the locker room, makes his marks away from prying eyes. Counts them in the precious few moments he has alone, remembers.
This variant was selling ice cream in a cart. This variant had the longest hair he’d ever seen. This variant screamed when they pruned her.
It sharpens the blur of the missions. Makes them run into each other less, puts each one into sharp focus.
After all, time passes differently at the TVA. There needs to be some way to mark the changes.
He wonders at the connections between missions. Similarities, differences. Wonders at what exactly makes a branch form, about what makes a timeline irredeemable.
The timekeepers know all, Miss Minutes says. They are wise, and they are just, and they are building the best possible timeline.
Something hollow sinks in.
In the deepest part of himself, in the part of his mind that turns and remembers, he knows the world the timekeepers built isn’t wise, or just, or good.
Sixteen marks later, he has a routine medical exam. The marks are found, questions are asked.
“It helps me remember,” he says with honestly.
The examiner frowns, looks down at him with judgement in her eyes. “They have to be removed. It’s not regulation.”
His stare sharpens into a glare, and he protests. “It’s my body, not my uniform.”
The examiner sniffs with disdain, picks up a smooth little tool. “What’s the difference?”
He bites his bottom lip so hard the skin at the center splits. He tastes blood.
He leaves the office with the marks burned away, skin healing back into smooth.
He’s been instructed to report to PsyOps. Been given a few precious moments in the locker room. To change, to clean himself.
He runs a hand over the healing skin at his forearm, fearful eyes of the variant’s child already fading into the back of his mind.
That’s not what he wants.
Who he is, what he’s done, what the world has done.
He needs to remember.
Only the answers never come up quite right. A record has been erased.
He braces his hands against the sink and stares into his own eyes in the mirror.
Thinks about the strangeness of his smooth skin. About the hair that looks wrong cropped so close to his head. About the memories already fading into the back of his mind.
He thinks it’s happened before.
He wonders what else he’s lost.
He runs a thumb over his bottom lip. On the whisper of a memory, he catches the lip between two fingers. Pulls it down.
For a moment, he thinks he sees it glow. And his body feels like his alone.