Battle Scars || OC Short Story

TW: Angst; scars, abuse, trauma

'Ugly.'

Gazing at the gnarled lightened skin that coated her arms in the mirror always proved to be a struggle. It had been 3 years. And nothing changed. It still hurt to look at them. And although healed, they hurt to touch. The phantom sensation of blood dripping down her arms as she fought her own panic to stop struggling among the barbed wire, the razors pulling through her youthful flesh. The tears were still hot on her cheeks after all those years. Miles away and it still ached as if she were still 13, only footsteps away from the fence she had pulled herself from.

Nothing about it was pretty.

Nothing about it was something to be proud of.

Nothing about it was easy to move on from.

Standing idly in the bathroom mirror, words echoed through her mind. They were just as unrelenting as the pain.

"They just make you look more badass!"

"The past doesn't define you.. you're okay now. There's your proof."

"Those are battle scars you have, Camelot. Love them. They show how strong you are. And how much you went through to get to here."

None of it made sense to her. And as selfish as it was, it never stopped crossing her mind as a first response: who were they to define the scars on her body? Who were they to talk about the scars on her body as if they knew how much it hurt to get through them? One day her arms were soft and clear. The next day and for the rest of her life, they were now going to be ugly and discolored and heart wrenching.

No amount of comfort, advice, or compliments would ever change her views. What she saw when she looked at her skin were the marks of what her life had done to her. Reminding her, taunting her. Life is never going to be easy. Life is always going to hurt. The suffering clouded her common sense. A thick fog that told her it was okay to never heal from what had happened. It was never going to change. Just like the past, those scars would only fade if they were mere specks. But they weren't. They were long, they had been deep, she almost died. How did anyone expect her to forget..

Camelot shook her head as she felt her breathing begin to cut itself off. She HAD come too far to let it overwhelm her. She refused to let it choke her and kill her. But the torture and the suffering?

She let it be.

She had just returned from training with her fathers. And she wasn't sure if the shower she had planned on was worth it anymore. She removed her tank top, feeling her heart drop into the pit of her stomach as she laid eyes on the rest of her scars. The ones that coated her back like a tattered blanket.

Mother was to blame. Mother was at fault. Thanks Mom. She wasn't even a mother. She was just another white crayon in her box of broken dulled set of 6 kiddie crayons. A whip out of anything. As long as it broke her skin. From the nape of her neck to her tailbone, she wore her age old gashes like a prideful cape. Some were fading into her skin. Some were old but hadn't faded due to a new one that had been slashed over it. All she knew was it hurt every time. It hurt until it didn't anymore. And even then, the emotional agony hurt more than the physical torture.

Her body was not painted in battle scars.

She hated that phrase.

Battle scars implied that she fought valiantly in a circumstance that had her pinned. Battle scars implied she was unafraid of the consequences. Battle scars implied she overcame her obstacles.

But to Camelot Castillo, she wore no battle scars.

She never fought, she laid down willingly because she had given up.

She feared every day of her life and that instilled fear still plagued her every waking hour.

She was still shackled down by the demons that grew with her as a child. Her insecurities, her hatred, her guilt. Nothing had gotten better. She had only gotten better at ignoring it without immediate emotional repercussion.

She didn't fight.

She survived.

But she hadn't lived since then.

She was still a hollow shell walking amongst the living.

She never breathed a breath without looking both ways. She never took a step without making sure she was quiet. She never did anything anymore without making sure of something.

Were those scars worth it?

Was it worth dealing with it all and still living that broken life to stop hiding her skin because she should've been proud of it?

Camelot's eyebrows furrowed as she stared at her reflection more deeply than she had for the past 10 minutes.

"I never escaped hell. I'm still trying to crawl out."

They were not battle scars.

They were memoirs of a broken child scribbled in inferiority on the canvas that was her back.

They were the unanswered cries for help splashed in tears on her arms of scrolls.

They were reminders that would never fade nor falter in painting the betrayal and hate that was her life.

They were never battle scars.