#beans is bullshitting medical accuracy

[whumpacabra]

Day 26 - Alt. Prompt: Body Modification

Depersonalization, amnesia, memory loss, implied torture, flaying, blood, medical procedures, no anesthesia, dubious medical accuracy, mentions of Christianity

[Directly follows Vows]

Yessir. No sir.

That was all it took to sign away his right to what fragmented memories he had left. The Wolf knew he should have cared about that, cared enough to be angry about that.

But he wasn’t - he was whatever they wanted him to be.

So long as he was out of that Hell, he would be whoever they wanted him to be. He would be no one, not even The Wolf, if that’s what it took to stay away from that place.

The sun was warmer than he remembered, brighter too.

This new room had a window, and that was all he wanted to remember.

He would swallow back the nausea induced by the scent of acid-eaten flesh when his prints were burned away. The bandages wrapped around his fingers were thin, letting blood dye the gauze pink as the overseer walked him to a different room in the building.

This one did not have a window.

He saw the surgeons set out medical equipment and he promised himself he would not flinch at the scalpel’s kiss. (Why waste anesthesia on someone who knew better than to shy away from the pain?)

When they finished cutting, he looked down at his own flayed, tattooed skin set aside while new skin was sewn into place.

He wondered if they had meant anything, the flowers and vines that once curled up his right forearm and encircled his bicep. He wondered if the old Wolf had gotten them from a friend or a stranger.

The new skin wasn’t his own, pale and cadaverous. He wondered if its former owner was dead, killed just for this purpose or a donor blissfully unaware that their flesh would be soaked in blood, forever tied to the hand of a monster. He wondered if there was any owner at all, or if the project had facilities that could synthesize the replacement flesh.

When they finished his arm, they had him strip his thin t-shirt, the material speckled with fresh blood as he thoughtlessly pulled it off without regard for his newly acquired stitches. One of the surgeons looked at him with wide, frightened eyes.

Like a young Viktor laying eyes on his creation when it first drew breath.

But still, they cut into the skin against his still too prominent ribs, carving away a cross below his left arm by his heart. The text inscribed within was too faded to read.

The bloody stretch of skin was added to the biohazard waste bin with all the ceremony of a discarded tissue. The surgeons set about aligning and stitching the cold patch of false flesh in its place. Blood ran in rivulets down the Wolf’s ribs, dying the waistband of his pants red.

His mind wouldn’t wander from the last glimpse of something his own, something raw and bloody that meant enough to who he had been to be engraved in ink on flesh.

(Hardly as permanent a mark as the one placed on Cain.)

Had he been deeply religious or culturally Christian? Did it have his real name hidden in the old, smudged ink? Did it matter anymore?

Hell was real. And the Wolf was hand carved from the violence and gore to be its very best devil.

[Before Liquidation]

(Part of my Freelancers: Swansong series)

#whump #whumptober #whumptober 2023 #no. 26 #alternate prompt #body modification #oc #whump writing #depersonalization #amnesia #memory loss #implied torture #flaying #blood #medical treatment #no anesthesia #beans is bullshitting medical accuracy #christianity mention #sorry I got carried away w this a bit. gotta follow the vibes sometimes. #he may be called wolf but he’s MY favorite chewtoy #we have one more wolf prompt for the month - everything else is Harrison Having a Bad Time