Fourteen Years Ago

  Her eyes had finally dried from her spell of tears. A much younger Dawn faced the mirror, which sat level with her tall and unnaturally slim body. As she looked at the monster before her, Dawn ran her fingers over the shimmering scales that covered the outside of her face and outer part of her body. The shame made her turn toward the old tv across the room that played Dawn’s favorite childhood show. Reruns of a sitcom that got canceled three seasons in. In it, an adoring aw played when the young female lead hugged her mother tight in a heartwarming scene.

  Dawn’s lip quivered, and she continued to watch the mother and daughter as they were surrounded by family in their multistoried home that had a room for everyone. A backyard for a dog. A spacious bedroom all to herself. A pool as well. Or the neighbors and friends that came by more than their father seemed to like; even if deep down he enjoyed the community they had. She even imagined that it smelled better than stuffy laundry and sweaty boxing equipment.

  It was a stark contrast to her lonesome reality of the dingy backroom of her father’s boxing gym that both of them called home. In the furnitured storage closet there was little lighting, which made it feel tighter and smaller than it truly was.

  I'll look just like her.

  With her disproportionately long legs, Dawn slowly stepped to the other side of their narrow home, where she pulled out a hidden pair of pliers from beneath her mattress. A laugh track caught her attention as she slowly paced back toward her lonely spot in the mirror.

  She stopped to look at that happy family on the fuzzy and outdated screen. Dawn wondered once again, why didn’t she look like the similarly aged but much prettier girl that her show followed.

  She made it back to the mirror, where she could see her sharp teeth. Before Dawn lifted the rusted pliers with her spindly arms that hung past her knees, she struggled to open them with her tiny, scale-covered, hands that glittered.

  Through the corroded joints, they snapped open and she brought them up toward the scales on the border of her inhumane face, which jutted out almost like a snout, and hairline met. There she held one steady. With it Dawn gripped tightly, which clamped the pliers to clamp tightly onto the prismatic scale on her skin.

  Sharply, she took an unsteady breath through her gritted jaw. And she closed her eyes tight as she pulled with all her strength, until the uncomfortable sensation of pulling quickly turned into a terrible sensation of ripping as she tore it free from her flesh.

  Silently, Dawn cried out. Her quivering hands dropped the pliers that carried the hardened scale, before they rose to the surge of searing pain. To the touch of her clawed hands, she felt the trickle of her crimson blood.

  The TV loudly played rehearsed laughter as the flow of scarlet increased, until it covered the right side of her face. Filled with immense pain, she tearlessly wailed out into the empty room. Still, she blindly reached out for the pliers in a mess of her smeared blood.

  Against the tips of her hardened fingertips, which bent her hands into a pair of draconic talons, the cold metal of her pliers tapped against them when she took hold of the tool. On shaky legs, she stood to face her hideous reflection that was now masked in blood.

  I'll be normal too...

  With her weak grip, she opened her tool of self mutilation again. Once more, she lined it up against another one of her scales. Again, Dawn latched down on it as she yanked. It viscerally tore free. An even more debilitating surge of pain courses through her until it made her collapse.

  Silently, Dawn wept. Too in pain and tired to make more than a high-pitched squeal, the stream intensified, which covered her face and oversized T-shirt in warm drops of red.

  She couldn’t move through it, nor could she focus on anything except the self-inflicted suffering. In the background, the sitcom’s cheers and howls of excitement shouted over her quiet howls of sorrow.

  Alone on the hardwood floor, Dawn curled into the fetal position. She blanketed herself with her long, snake-like tail.

  Dawn didn’t know how much time had passed, but it was enough for the rest of the episode to end. As the cheerful opening to the next episode started with a happy montage of the show’s family, Dawn rose on shaken legs to look toward that monster in the monster.

  No. I'll never be like her…

  The beast she saw had a snout-like nose that looked hideous compared to the pretty girl with freckles she watched on the tv. In fact, she didn’t look like any of the other people on the show or like her father - except for their ginger hair.

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  In the brief silence after the cheerful song ended, which left Dawn abandoned with the thing she loathed most. Herself.

  The audible silence continued as the tiny child faced herself.

  Before the content of the episode could start, Dawn, overcome by the sight of that ugly image of herself, leapt forward at the mirrored version of herself.

  With the bloodied pliers, she stabbed them into the glass, and cracked it outwards with her reflection at its center. A squeal escaped her as she stabbed at reflection again, which shattered the mirror and sent glass all over her. The shrapnel harmlessly fell onto her, where the many remaining scales deflected the jagged edges to protect her, despite the attempt to rid herself of them.

  With unsteady and blood-coated hands, Dawn went to grab another scale. The pliers clamped down on the next one. Pain caused her to flinch as she grew more scared of that horrible sensation. Though to Dawn, this felt like the only way to fix herself. She had taken in a deep breath to resolve herself through dried-up eyes and her jaw chattered on its own.

  A tight breath full of exhaustion escaped her. And once more, Dawn began to pry at her accursed deformity. It caused her an excruciating pull of pain that made her hesitate, but she had to keep going for herself and her father.

  After she wiped away the tears, Dawn somehow managed to find the will to continue. But she was interrupted by the door swinging open.

  “I’m home sweetheart…” Her father stood in the doorway, where Dawn could see his large silhouette. She slowly turned to look at him. Once her tiny eyes met his, he dropped the bag of groceries in hand to stride across the room toward his daughter. He dropped to her level, where he took Dawn into his arms. “What's going on?!” he urgently asked in a panic.

  In the midst of the mess of blood and broken glass, Dawn stood. Unresponsive, she was unable to look up toward him as he checked her injuries.

  “Dawn, sweetie, you need to tell me what happened.” She could hear the quivering in his voice as he wiped her face with his flannel sleeve.

  Finally, she found the resolve in her tiny body to look up toward her father. The tears formed at the edges of her puffy eyes, until they poured down her cheeks in a warm streak.

  “Come on, Dawn. Talk to me so I can help,” he told her. With his large and rugged hands on her shoulders, he fought back his own tears as pre-recorded noises of endearment awed through the TV.

  “Daddy… I don't wanna be a monster anymore…” Finally, Dawn spoke, but with it, she became unable to stop herself from shrieking. Her frail voice cracked and had a weak rasp to it, as she began to tearlessly sob.

  “No, don't say that! You aren’t a monster! You’re my beautiful baby girl.” He pulled her into a tight hug against his thick jacket.

  “But I don't look like you or them.” As she pointed toward the sitcom, Dawn whimpered into her dad’s shoulder “Why don't I look like her, Daddy?” She cried out into her dad’s embrace.

  “Please, stop it.” A teardrop fell from her dad’s face onto her face and started to cry with her. A heartbreaking sight she’d never seen yet in her short life.

  “If I looked like her, maybe I could go to school like other girls...” Dawn understood the undeniable fact of her reality. Her inhuman form would forever keep her hidden away in this room.

  Her dad, instead of saying something to heal her wounded heart, held her close as they wept together.

  “Maybe…” Dawn struggled to speak through hyperventilated breaths. “Maybe Mommy’d come back if I look normal,” she cruelly suggested.

  Her father gripped her tighter in his embrace. “No!” He exclaimed through his own sorrow. “You can’t say!” As he spoke through bated breath, his weak voice cracked. “Dawn, you look just like your mother. She was Dimidiae just like you Sweetie, and…” He looked up toward the ceiling-fan that slowly spun. “You aren’t the reason she’s gone. I promise, she’d think you’re perfect,” he finally managed to say.

  Helpless, Dawn couldn’t do anything but continue to grieve over her own existence.

  “I'm so, so sorry I can’t give you a normal life.” Her dad apologized over the repeated laugh track that mocked them. “I’m so sorry Dawn.”

  A cold realization settled onto Dawn that shattered her, not dissimilar from her reflection in the mirror, and left her broken and fragmented. From there, she slowly drifted into an exhausted slumber in her dad’s arms.

  …

  The memories passed as Dawn ran her soft fingertips over the subtle scar on her forehead. It never fully went away even after it healed.

  A stream of tears ran down her freckled face as she reminisced in the small bathroom. She leaned over the sink, and was unable to break away from the hideous sight of herself or the memories it brought.

  You're still that same monster. She shook her head disapprovingly at the glass that fogged-up from the hot water she’d absentmindedly let run the whole time. It distorted her view of herself, which finally allowed Dawn to reclaim her attention before she shut off its flow of warm water.

  Before Dawn stepped back with a defeated sigh, she turned toward the door to exit. Suddenly, it didn’t matter if she put off a shower until tomorrow morning. Maybe then it’ll actually be worth caring about. But right now, I dont fucking care. Currently, she believed if the earth exploded, she’d probably be more satisfied by the quick end then anything else.

  Again, Dawn shook her head, before she unlocked the bathroom door to the shared room. She could hear Jen typing on her new MacBook, which made Dawn’s old beat up laptop look like a piece of trash. But then again, reminding Dawn of her place in society was one of her many talents.

  Across the room, Dawn slumped to flop onto her bed, where she curled into a familiar position. In the fetal position under the blankets, with her back to Jen, Dawn began to silently sob to herself, until she slowly drifted into an exhausted slumber. Not dissimilar to that traumatizing memory, except now her dad couldn’t be there when she needed him.