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It could be worse, it reasoned, for the rain was not so cold and the trees were not so sharp. The grass was not stinging with the bite of snow, and the air was clear of smoke. Perhaps it was for the best that he had returned to the wood- that which held him since his first memory. It bestowed no manufactured cruelty in its treatment, and held no complex or hidden desire behind its design; it simply was.
The underbrush and other foliage were hollow without any animals to populate it. Indeed, it seemed they had all gone into hiding from the rain. A fine streak of light pounds through the sky, and the sound of its fury follows shortly after. As he brought the fabric of his cloak tighter around him, he continued to reason: it could be worse. There was not much to do in late night lightning storms spare for reflection. When the time came, it would even be forced out of its wretchedness to consider the very unique sound of the forest at this time. But there was none of that tonight, for the wind had found its courage and damp had found his cloak, and it was difficult to think of anything except how dark it had become.
Its nails were digging into its palms with how tight it clenched its fists together. The burn of the pressure began slowly, then made itself known in waves of alternating sharps and dulls. It allowed itself to untense, releasing the grip and therefore permitting the unseen course of blood to flow back to its fingertips.
Out of habit, it reaches for the now healed wound in its shoulder. The flesh was scarred, but very much closed. Something unsettling was hiding in its skin, it reasoned, for it to have healed so simply and without issue. Between the layers of tissue, his creator must have snuck in a second soul to mend his tears. Oh, but that was false; the journal- which he had studied for the past several weeks- which had documented every mechanism and aspect of its creation betrayed no secrets. Whatever had hid within its body had not been invited in.
Not yet satisfied in its prodding, his fingertips follow his collarbone, to the scars of its neck. The flesh was rougher here, and its vessels could be felt pulsing just beneath his touch. He lingers there, feeling that pulse- he did not know it, but it would have been considered an abominable state of bradycardia with an equally concerning hypertension. Despite this, homeostasis persisted. Its breaths were steady, if slow, and none of its organs had any real complaints. Spare for, perhaps, the cow heart that would have preferred its place in the slaughterhouse in which it was procured. It voiced this concern through its occasional dysrhythmia. Fortunately, it never raised its voice above a discontent murmur, and thus beat loyally without problem.
The muscles of his arm were tender and not-quite healed over with skin. The large Y-incision marking its torso may as well have been a mark of the devil. All of it reeked and rolled like an unfinished toy.
It follows the stitch along its arm, and how it was near parallel to the artery beside it. He found his wrist, and the set of staples keeping the base of the hand in place. It was all too delicate and crude, and all perverted in their display of anatomy. He picks at the staple, feeling a small sting as it messes with the unevenly healed flesh. How easily he could come apart, and how simple it would be to destroy himself right here. To accept the fate of self-destruction would be the greatest revenge upon its creator- he who slaved and labored over every patch of skin and string of muscle. He should be thrown into fits of hysteria if it made no reappearance into his life. The “Victor Frankenstein” should spend his days in impatience and search, but he would never find it.
The stitches on its left hand were less practiced and steady than the ones on his right, and thus it only took a careful nail to find a piece of loose string. Careful, still, it began to draw the string out. The sensation that followed was unequal to the action that had produced it. As a stray spark would upon oil, its arm became aflame with pain, and it had been reduced to kicking and screaming like a hungry infant. With the string, it was stretching out nerves and vessels, muscle and skin. It bit down upon its tongue, and held its teeth there in place until it became sure it would bite the flesh off completely.
Drawing its attention back, it saw the work it had done. The stitch had hardly budged, only tightening the skin further. The points in which the tension resided held no neutral feeling as they had before the assault; they had turned angry, and pulsed in overcoming waves of that burning pain. The muscle and further flesh beneath stirred and twitched in similar fury. It draws in a terrible breath, feeling the cold air coaxing it into what could be mistaken for peace.
The rain had not stopped, and neither had the cold drawn any of its claws back. Curled tightly against the base of a tree, the wretch wished the night would reduce it again to an empty vessel, but it knew it would awake again in the morning; complete and unaccounted for. There was nothing waiting upon the dawn of the morrow. Perhaps it would find, instead, the lights of dawn in its dreams, and chase after its quickly fading palette in order to find where it always disappeared to. That was its fate.