The walk home was a miniature hell. Every step I took sent waves of pain shooting through my ribs. My face was swollen, and my left eye was barely open. Jin walked beside me, uncharacteristically silent, carrying my school bag.
"Are you sure you don't want to go to the hospital?" Jin asked for the tenth time, his voice dripping with concern. "I'm fine..." I spat a mouthful of blood onto the sidewalk. "Mom will freak out if she knows I got into a fight. I'll just tell her it was a stray ball at the court."
We reached the door. Jin bade me farewell with a look of pity I hated even more than the beating itself. I entered the house. I tried to sneak into my room, but the scent of blood and dirt betrayed me.
"Ray?" My mother came out of the kitchen. She gasped, and the plate she was holding slipped from her hand, shattering against the floor. "Oh my God! Your face!" She ran toward me, touching my swollen cheek with trembling hands. "Who did this to you? Was it a gang? I'm calling the police!"
"No, Mom... no..." I grabbed her hand, trying to smile, but my split lip stung sharply. "I fell down the stairs at school... I'm clumsy, remember?"
She didn't believe me, but she didn't press me either. She took me to the bathroom. With a tenderness that broke my heart, she began cleaning my wounds with cotton and antiseptic. I looked in the mirror. My face was a map of colors: blue, purple, and red. "This will leave a mark..." my mother whispered, tears welling in her eyes. "The cut on the eyebrow is deep; it might need stitches."
She bandaged me up, fed me soup in my room, and tucked me in as if I were a small child. "Sleep, honey... the pain will lessen by morning."
I closed my eyes. My body was screaming in pain. Every nerve was on fire. But... in the middle of the night... the pain changed. It shifted from a throbbing ache to a burning itch. I felt a strange heat coursing beneath my skin. As if tiny ants were stitching my wounds from the inside. I heard a faint voice in my dream, a sound resembling the hum of electronic devices: [Initiating Bio-Repair...][Progress: 10%... 50%... 100%]
[The Next Morning]
I woke up to the sound of the alarm. I sat up in bed and yawned. Wait... where was the pain? I touched my face. Nothing. I felt my ribs. No sting. I jumped out of bed and ran to the mirror.
I froze. The bandage on my eyebrow was still there, but it was... loose. I peeled it off slowly. Underneath... the skin was perfectly smooth. No wound. No scar. No blue bruise. Even the swelling had vanished. My face looked as if it had never been touched.
"Impossible..." I whispered, pressing hard on my skin, trying to find any trace of pain. Did I dream the beating? No... Jin was with me. Mom treated me.
"Ray? Are you up?" Mom entered the room, carrying the first-aid kit to change the dressing. "How is the wou—" The words choked in her throat. The box fell from her hand. She approached me, her eyes wide with shock and fear. She grabbed my face, turning it left and right. "Where... where are the bruises?" she asked in a trembling voice. "Yesterday your eye was swollen shut! Your eyebrow was bleeding!"
I looked at her, not knowing what to say. I was just as scared as she was. "I... I don't know, Mom. Maybe... maybe it wasn't that deep?"
"Ray..." Mom said with a strange seriousness. "I wiped your blood with my own hands. I saw the flesh split open." She stepped back, looking at me as if I were a stranger. "What is happening to you?"
In that moment, I felt a chill. My body... didn't fully belong to me anymore. There was something inside, working while I slept.