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I expected this, my skin problems, to disappear as I got older.
For most people, it did.
But I’d never been most people.
Miserable, I texted Reaper out of the blue.
Luna:Do souls have skin problems?
Gaksi had added an unknown number to my phone last night. I called it, thinking he had finally caught up to modern technology, only for a baffled Reaper to answer instead. How Gaksi snuck a phone onto an ancient prince, I’d never know. Perhaps he collaborated with Mother somehow, and Reaper answered with the one my mother left in his palace.
I stared at my phone in the tub. Probably not a good idea to text in the bath, but I’d always done it. Maybe I’d drop it and never be stuck in a bath again.
I wasn’t even done after this. On skincare day, it was bleach bath first. Moisturize second. Wet wraps third, depending on how bad the flare-ups were.
Fourth, I jabbed a needle filled with monoclonal antibodies in my stomach, which blocked the inflammation that worsened my symptoms the most. But only if I got up the courage to do it and not be labeled non-compliant. I was hopelessly, irrationally scared of needles, so injection day was by far the worst day of the week.
Maybe if I felt especially risky, I’d throw on some sunscreen before leaving the house.
Heaven forbid it was a chemical sunscreen, though, or I’d be back to tomato color for the rest of the week.
Luna:When you transport souls to the other side, does their skin come with them?
He was going to think I was insane. I was going to be mortified in the future that this was the first text I’d sent him. But I was in a horrible mood, and it wasn’t like I could get this answer from anywhere else.
Luna:Do souls have skin problems in the afterlife? Or are they free? What do they look like?
Would I have to deal with this forever? Was there a future that excluded my problems and insecurities but included me? With no skin problems, where I finally look the same as everyone else? Would I finally be beautiful in death?
He responded after a long while.
Reaper:Souls don’t have bodies.
Reaper:And they are all beautiful in their own way. Just as they were in life.
Hope swelled in my chest. One day, eventually, I wouldn’t have to worry about this kind of stuff anymore.
Reaper:Wishing for death is foolish when there are so many beautiful creatures to behold yet in life.
A small, fragile part of me smiled when I saw that. His Highness was definitely referencing his own vanity, but maybe I’d be somebody’s beautiful creature someday.
Provided my eczema was in check. And my shadows. A fearful, ashamed part of me worried they were linked and served as a punishment for some unknown crime.
It shouldn’t still affect me. Almost everyone grew out of their eczema with age.
Not me.
Nothing ever went easily for me.
* * *
I scratchedthe back of my neck as I went up to the usual barren wasteland for training. My skin eruption stretched from one shoulder to another, and guessing by how tight and dry my face felt, it was likely all over that, too.
This was the worst I’d looked in weeks, and I had to skirt the edges of campus to avoid being seen.
“You’re late.”
Reaper’s annoying, heartless voice rang out.
