Olivia could not focus on her work for the rest of the day. Every ti she looked at her wrist, that red line seed to grow brighter no longer just a reddish mark, but looking like a vein protruding in a very specific pattern.
She went ho early. Throughout the journey, she tried to find a logical explanation.
Maybe I bumped my hand in the storage room earlier? Maybe I have an allergy to old book dust?
Yes, that had to be the cause.
Dust and old paper. She did not want to overthink it.
When she arrived ho, she went straight to the bathroom. She grabbed the strongest facial cleanser and tried scrubbing her wrist with a rough towel until her skin beca sore and red. She wanted the line to disappear. She wanted her skin to return to normal.
However, as soon as she stopped and rinsed her hand with cold water, she froze.
The red line did not disappear. In fact, it now looked clearer a fine line forming a perfect circle around her wrist like a bracelet.
"No... this doesn’t make sense," she whispered, her voice trembling.
She reached for the first aid kit under the sink. She applied antibiotic cream, then wrapped her wrist with thick white gauze.
"Okay. Covered. If I don’t look, it’s not there," she said in a desperate tone.
That night, Olivia sat on her porch as usual, trying to enjoy the night air. She tried to read a magazine to distract herself. However, that tranquility was interrupted when she heard sothing from the direction of the vegetable garden in front of her house.
Crack.
The sound of a tree branch breaking.
Olivia turned.
"Who’s out there?"
There was no answer. Only the crickets chirping.
She wanted to get up and go inside, but her legs felt heavy. It was the sa feeling as in her dream a sensation as if she were being watched by soone very close, yet invisible.
She looked at her bandaged wrist. The gauze suddenly felt hot.
Pulse Pulse.
The line beneath the bandage was throbbing. Not a heartbeat, but a rhythm that was slower, calr, and... very familiar.
She did not want to admit it. She closed her eyes tightly.
"Olivia..."
The voice ca again. This ti not from outside, not from her ears, but like it was coming from inside her own head. A man’s voice, raspy, full of intense longing.
Olivia covered her ears with both hands.
"I don’t hear anything! I’m just tired! I’m just hallucinating!" she scread softly.
She ran into the house and locked the door. She tried to keep busy she tidied the kitchen, she rearranged the kitchen items, she washed dishes that were already clean.
She did anything to avoid thinking about the voice, about the red line, and about the man who appeared in her dreams.
However, in the middle of her busyness, she glanced at the mirror in the living room.
Olivia stood frozen in front of the mirror. Her heart beat rapidly, slamming against her chest wall. She stared at her left wrist. The gauze she had wrapped neatly was now lying on the floor, but...Empty.
There was nothing there. The red line that had circled her wrist like a bracelet was gone without a trace. Her skin was clean, pale, and normal as usual.
Olivia took a deep breath, almost collapsing from relief. She touched her wrist, rubbing it repeatedly to ensure there was no paint residue, no scar, nothing.
"See... right?" she whispered, her voice slightly shaky but trying to calm down.
"Olivia, you really have gone crazy. You’re just too tired. You’re just hallucinating."
She let out a small laugh, a laugh that sounded discordant in the quiet house. The fear that had gripped her chest earlier slowly lted away, replaced by embarrassnt toward herself.
She walked to the kitchen, taking a glass of cold water. Her hands were no longer shaking. She convinced herself that all the strange events at the bookstore earlier were just side effects of work stress and the trauma from her accident that had not fully healed.
Maybe the doctor is right. Maybe I need a longer rest. Maybe I need stronger dication.
She looked toward the open window. The night breeze blew slowly, bringing in the scent of damp grass from the vegetable garden outside. Everything looked normal.
No whispers, no red lines, no shadows.
She felt such relief that she almost cried out of gratitude.
"Enough. That’s it. Tomorrow I wake up, go to work like normal, and I will live like everyone else."
Olivia walked toward the bedroom with a much lighter step. She grabbed a towel, preparing to shower before bed. As she took off her shirt, she glanced at her wrist in the bathroom mirror once more.
Clean.
She smiled faintly, then turned toward the shower that had started running.
However, just as she turned her head back to reach for the soap..
Pulse.
A sharp, hot throb was felt on her wrist.
Olivia let out a small shriek and jerked backward, almost slipping on the wet bathroom floor. She gripped her left wrist with her right hand. It felt burning hot, as if a hot iron had just been pressed against it.
She dared not open her hand. She was afraid of what she would see.
"Please... don’t..." she whispered, tears pooling in her eyes.
Slowly, with hands shaking violently, she loosened her grip. She opened her fingers one by one.
The red line was back.
Not just a normal line. It now looked brighter, as if blood was flowing rapidly beneath her skin, forming a very complex and interconnected pattern, wrapping around her wrist with a firm grip.
It did not disappear. It just... hid to make Olivia believe she had gone crazy.
Olivia fell to the bathroom floor. She did not scream anymore. She only stared at the red line with an empty gaze.
She realized one very terrifying thing:
This world was not just playing with her mind.
This world was playing with her body.
And she could no longer run away.
The next day, Olivia did not go to the bookstore. Instead, she dressed neatly long sleeves covering her left wrist and headed straight to the general hospital in the city center.
She needed to know. Had she lost her mind? Or was this an extraordinary skin disease?
In the treatnt room, the doctor who had treated her before Dr. Aris looked at Olivia with raised eyebrows.
"Olivia? Is there a problem?" Dr. Aris asked while observing Olivia’s face, which looked weary with dark circles under her eyes.
Olivia sat in the chair, her hands placed on her lap, clenched tightly.
"Doctor... I feel... I need a further check-up. ntal and physical."
Dr. Aris set his patient file down.
"Can you explain why?"
Olivia took a deep breath
"I... I am experiencing hallucinations. I see marks on my skin, I hear voices... but when I look back, they are gone. I no longer know what is reality and what is imagination."
The doctor nodded in understanding, his voice gentle but serious.
"This is a common effect of trauma after a long coma. Your brain is trying to reprocess the real world. Let’s examine your wrist, the part where you say there is a mark."
Olivia felt nervous. She slowly rolled up her sleeve, revealing a clean wrist. There was nothing there. No lines, no scars.
"Look, doctor," Olivia said, her voice nearly breaking.
"Earlier... this morning it was there. Now... I don’t know."
Dr. Aris moved closer, examining Olivia’s skin carefully using a small flashlight. He held Olivia’s wrist, turning it over.
"Your skin is clean, Olivia. No inflammation, no birthmarks, no marks at all," Dr. Aris said calmly. He then took a blood pressure monitor.
"We will do a brain scan again to ensure nothing is affecting your nerves."
Olivia looked at her own hand. She felt relieved, but at the sa ti, she felt very afraid. Was she truly hallucinating?
Suddenly, while Dr. Aris was touching her wrist to check her pulse...
Pulse.
Dr. Aris was startled and imdiately pulled his hand away.
"Eh?"
"Why, doctor?" Olivia asked, her heart beating fast.
Dr. Aris looked at Olivia’s wrist with an unreadable expression. His hand that had just touched Olivia’s skin looked slightly red, as if it had touched a hot surface.
"Your skin... it feels very hot," Dr. Aris said, looking at the monitor beside him.
"But your body temperature is normal. This is strange."
Dr. Aris took his notepad and wrote sothing down.
"Olivia, physically, you are very healthy. But ntally... we may need to refer you to a psychiatrist to assess your stress levels. Sotis, the human mind can create very real physical symptoms as a result of trauma."
Olivia only nodded weakly. She did not clearly hear what the doctor was saying. She was only watching her wrist.
Beneath her skin, she could feel the red line "moving" like a sleeping snake, as if it were hiding from the doctor’s view.
She left the hospital with a referral letter to a psychiatrist in her bag.
While walking toward the bus stop, Olivia looked at her wrist once more. Suddenly, she jerked.
The line appeared again. This ti, it pulsated.
She was no longer crying. She was no longer afraid. She only felt angry.
"If you are real..." she whispered slowly, her voice cold,
"co out. Don’t play with my life."
And for the first ti, the line pulsed with a rapid rhythm, as if it were hearing her challenge.
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