She Stands In The Hallway, Her Boss In Front Of Her.

She stands in the hallway, her boss in front of her.

She has stood here every day for the last year. She remembers it well. It is, after all, the anniversary of her arrival.

She has stood here for three hundred and sixty five (and a quarter) days.

She has taken the steps down from her room three hundred and sixty five times.

She has worn this uniform three hundred and sixty five times.

She has met her boss here three hundred and sixty five times.

He has told her what to expect three hundred and sixty five times.

She had gone about her day, sorting meals and making flowers and cleaning and dusting and repairing, three hundred and sixty five times.

It has been a year.

There will be so many more.

Maybe one day she will stand there, in three hundred and sixty five years, and look back on how three hundred and sixty five days seemed like so much.

Three hundred and sixty five sets of three hundred and sixty five.

The thought does something she thought impossible.

It breaks her composure.

Not all that much, but it certainly does.

Her movements, normally so precise and measured and perfect, fail her.

She stumbles slightly, despite standing still.

She keeps the same polite and impassive smile on her face as she rights herself.

She stands up straight and listens.

She feels something on her face. She does not move to wipe it off. Her movements would be unsteady, and even if not for that it would be rude to do so while listening to her boss.

She feels it move down her face. She does nothing.

She feels something fall onto her dress. She ignores it, waits for her boss to finish, then goes about her work.

Some of the other servants, particularly those ghouled, are looking strangely at her.

If she were anyone else, she would be able to interpret these glances and stares of pity and confusion and fear and - in some cases - hunger.

But she chooses not to care, for she has a job to do, and she must do it well.

The feeling on her face continues. Her dress seems to be getting heavier. She is getting hungry far faster than she typically would.

When she comes to her meal, she does not drink with her usual restraint and propriety.

She drains her meal of blood and throws its empty husk against the far wall of her workroom.

The strange sensation on her face persists even now. She does not know why and she does not want to know why. She wishes to not have to think about this. She wishes it were gone.

She finishes her work and climbs the stairs to get to her room.

She walks in, and catches herself in the mirror.

She is a mess.

Twin streams of blood pour out of her eyes and flow down her face, falling off of her chin onto the uniform below. They have started to dry and crack and scab and peel.  It is so very improper.

Her dress is ruined. What was previously white material has been indelibly stained by blood. Where material was previously black, it now appears a deep crimson. In some places, the vitae has settled and is turning a more rusty red in colour.

She shakes her hips slightly. Blood splatters over the floor, and thin sprays of it settle over the mirror.

This simply will not do.

It is rude and improper and impolite to show herself in such a state, let alone go about her daily work looking like this. To show this emotion compromises her role as caretaker and maidservant. She cannot allow this to happen again.

This will hurt, she knows, but she accepts it as her punishment for a job badly done.

She raises her right hand to her bloody face and holds it to her bloody right eye.

She screams in agony as a sharp pain pierces through her above her eye and close to her nose. Her lacrimal gland and lacrimal sac and lacrimal canals are either excised, falling out into her waiting hand, or they knit closed, torturously and irreversibly.

She repeats the process with her other eye. She screams much the same as last time, but she knows that she deserves it.

The flow of vitae from her tears is supplanted by the flow of vitae from her fresh wounds, before she excruciatingly closes them with her vicissitude.

She removes her outfit and steps into her shower, hoping to scrub all reminders of this day from her body as surely as she has erased her ability to cry and show sadness from her face.

Maybe this will make the next three hundred and sixty five more bearable.