FOBISIA Short Story Competition: Being Human

Daryn - ‘Flawless’

“When perfection becomes law, what’s left of being human?”

I used to ask that as a child, staring at my own Stained wrists.

Whatever it was, we bled it out long ago.

 

Rain hissed on cobblestones, polishing black chrome as I patrolled neon-lit streets. Boots slicing puddles, a metronome. Citizens queued, arms bared, Stains blazing across wrists and forearms: violet for theft, ember for violence, crimson for betrayal. People presented their arms like IDs. No Stain meant pure. Citizens adore me, the Stain Inspector.

 

“Show me your skin,” I chanted; saintly, mild, heart wired with static. Guards flinched at my presence, councilmen averted glances. The air tasted of copper, drenched stone—obedience instilled. A Stain brands the wrists, never the attempts to be better.

 

In the distance, a man faltered; his ember flared too long. City Enforcers removed him, water streaking red light across the pavement. Justice, they believed, didn’t sleep. It devoured. 

I filed the fracture of his Stain away in my mind. Tiny fissures always reveal more than they intend.

 

***

Log [17] // [2:04 am]

 

Another night. Another parade of spotless wrists. Their reverence is fragile, glass about to crack.

The Rune hums beneath my skin—sometimes with my pulse, sometimes against it. Old stories say it was carved from a god’s last heartbeat, buried when the towers were young. It once measured guilt in pulses of light, built to cleanse, not consume. But something woke beneath the stone. Now it thinks. It whispers. Some say it judges; others, it frees. It does both—and neither—in ways no law could.

 

I test it quietly, thinning marks for the desperate. Tonight, a boy crouched in a doorway, rain pooling around bare feet. Raw, identical violet bands scorched his wrists.

 

“Inspector…” His voice cracked like wet tinder.

 

I should have called the guard. Rain blurred his face, smearing violet into halos. He looked twelve. My hands hesitated—remembering what it was like to tremble. For a heartbeat, my pulse remembered softness. 

 

Then I knelt.

 

The chant slid from my tongue, metallic as blood. His Stains dissolved like sugar in stormwater, leaving pale flesh and a stunned, child-bright gaze.

 

He reached for me, then stared at his palms as if they’d betrayed him.

 

“Am I… human again?” he whispered. 

 

I wanted to tell him yes. I wanted to believe it. I wanted to tell him that skin and sin meant we were still alive. But my voice faltered, swallowed by the hum under my ribs.

 

Something splintered—memory, maybe. My own first Stain, years ago, a childish theft scrubbed from record by a magistrate who never admitted it. His question clung to me like rain. Once, I had asked the same thing. For an instant, I almost stopped. Almost.

Councilmen’s Stains flickered as I passed; each ripple proved the Rune widening, whispering through the crowd—now to you.

Every erased mark is a rehearsal. Every shadowed kindness, practice for a wider motion. The city will wake flawless—emptier than ever—and call it salvation.  I tell myself I could stop. 

I don’t.

***

Log [67] // [11:03 am]

 

I stepped onto the inspection podium, ceremonial heart of the city’s lawkeepers. Bells tolled. Streets hushed. Citizens murmured adoration for me, the beloved Stain Inspector, never suspecting I commanded more than enforcement. Guards snapped to attention; councilmen glanced up. Obedience bent to me.

 

I lifted my hands. Gold veins ignited beneath my skin and leapt outward, threads sliding through stone and marrow, reciting the First Code in light. Across the square, Stains winked out like dying stars.

 

Some citizens paused mid-step, smiling impossibly wide, memories drained to glass. They blinked with clear eyes, empty of what they once were. Mothers will soon forget their children’s names, but not the inspection hour. Lovers pass each other in the street without pause, strangers to touch, to memory. Neighborhoods with empty obedience, and the city breathes flawless, but hollow.

 

In the crowd, I saw him—the boy from the alley. His wrists were pale now, spotless. His smile too wide, his gaze hollow as glass. They call it perfection. I call it proof.

 

Power is mercy without hesitation. And mercy? I can’t feel it anymore. Mercy is the last flicker of being human.

 

And you—yes, you—are not outside the circuit. The Rune travels through eyes, through words. You opened this record; the first pulse has already found you. By the time you finish reading, my hands will be yours. My name written beneath your skin. Check your wrists. 

 

Maybe it’s loneliness.

Maybe it’s the answer to the question I asked as a child. 

I think I miss the trembling.

Maybe it’s what I feared all along; perfection was never the cure, only the wound.

-----

Signed, 

HIGH MAGISTRATE LYRA VALE

the name already in your veins.

---

Mica - The Mirror, Then Me

It starts like any other morning.

 

The bathroom light flickers overhead, my school uniform clinging stiffly against my skin. I stand in front of the mirror, brushing my hair back into the shape it’s supposed to be. My collar is straight, my posture practiced.

 

I lift a hand to smooth my fringe. So does the girl in the glass.

 

We stare at each other.

 

She looks back, her eyes a void of stillness. Like she’s waiting for something. Sizing me up. There’s no comfort in her face. I shift my weight, and she copies me, almost perfectly. Like she’s learned the routine better than I have. 

 

The air between us starts to tremble. I lean closer, a cloud of fog blooming against the glass. My fingers graze the mirror, and a chill shoots through my body.

 

I rest my forehead against the pane. My breath continues to fog, and I hope, just for a moment, that maybe the fog will blur her out.

 

It doesn’t. 

 

“Anna!”

 

A voice down the hall pulls me back. I blink, stepping away. Her eyes stay fixed on mine the whole time. 

 

The grass is wet, and clings to my shoes as I walk to the car. I tuck my hands into my sleeves. It’s not that cold, but I tug my skirt lower as the wind catches my legs in the wind. I hate how it moves.

 

The car door slams. Trees flicker past, the world blurring right in front of my eyes. I stare out, and in the reflection, I catch a glimpse of her again. Just a faint outline.

 

She’s still watching. Waiting. Even here she won’t let me go.

 

School is full of noise. Hallways packed with people who all seem to know where they’re going. I follow routine, but my steps falter as I walk, like I’m imitating someone else’s rhythm.

 

I blink and I’m in my seat. I don’t remember how I got there. My uniform is still clinging to my chest, too tight in all the wrong places. I shift, trying to adjust it without being obvious. The fabric holds on like it’s trying to prove something.

 

“Anastasia?” the teacher calls. I look up

 

My mind goes blank. The sound of my name twists my stomach. It doesn’t feel like mine, like the teacher’s calling out to someone who isn’t there. 

 

I open my mouth, but words don’t come out.

 

The teacher moves on.

 

Heat floods my face. I sink lower in my seat. My skin feels too close, my name too sharp.

 

The bell rings, shrill and jarring. I grab my bag and leave. My uniform is still, still too tight. Suffocating. I slouch forward, hollowing my shoulders. My shirt loosens, just a little.

 

For a moment, I can finally breathe. 

 

Back in the car. Leather seats. Cold windows. I press my forehead to the glass. Fog gathers around my breath. I wipe it away with my sleeve, and there she is again. Still watching.

 

I blink.

 

I’m home.

 

The mirror is waiting.

 

My bag is gone. The noise, the teacher’s voice, it’s all gone. Just me. And her.

 

I step closer. Her gaze is piercing, even through the glass. The surface seems to waver, thin as ice. 

 

I wonder, for the first time, if she’s as tired of pretending as I am.

 

I press my hand to the glass. My heart pounds. Something claws up my chest, twisting, pulling at my stomach. Fighting to get out. 

 

A sob escapes. I stumble back, breathing fast, unsteady. Tears blur my vision. My chest tightens and my skin burns.

 

Something is wrong.

 

I glance around, searching for something, anything.

 

My hand lands on the scissors.

 

I don’t think I just move.

 

A sharp pull at my scalp, then another, and another. Hair falls around me in clumps. I sink forward, my body collapses against the mirror, forehead to glass. Breath fogs the surface. My hands tremble.

 

Silence. 

 

Cold tiles beneath me.

 

The faint hum of the light

 

My breath, slow now.

 

I lift myself up.

 

My limbs feel strange, lighter, as if something heavy has finally slipped off.

 

Tufts of brown hair scatter the floor. The scissors lie beside them.

 

I blink.

 

Then look up,

 

And gasp.

 

My reflection follows perfectly. No lag, no resistance.

 

I reach up and tug at my short hair. It feels wrong and right all at once, foreign and unfamiliar, like something I’ve known deep down all along.

 

Tears spill over. I sob again, sharper this time. Clearer.

 

I pull open my closet, ripping off my uniform. I throw on a jacket. Pants. Something loose. Something right.

 

I return to the mirror.

 

He’s there.

 

Not her, not that girl.

 

A boy. Me.

 

And for the first time in my life, it all makes sense.