Self Reflection

“Ginger, come on.” Skylar said, emerging from behind the sliding glass door. A ball of fluff, her Pomeranian, ran two circles around her ankles before darting into the grass.
Skylar stood on the bricked patio, behind her house. She crossed her arms in front of her chest. The pink cotton tank top, she wore, was soft against the bare skin of her arms. It was slightly damp around her shoulders. Her blonde hair was wet and hung in dark, stringy curls around her face.
Her hair was cool on her cheek. She liked that. The humid night air made it a little less comfortable wearing her sweatpants, compared to the air conditioning inside. Her hair smelled like rose petals, the newest scent from Herbal Essences. The sweet stench of roasted brown sugar radiated of her skin. Familiar, she liked the sugar and flowers scent. They reminded her of the good old days, before the accident.
Ginger twirled in the grass, chasing her puffy tail. Her face, the color of spiced pumpkin, stood out in the dark. The rest of her blended in with the darkness, submerging her. It scared Chloe at times. Her dog, in the dark, only looking like a floating head.
The dog stopped, she turned away from Skylar and the house. At night, the thick trees of the woods sent a cool chill down her spine. The thin, blade-like leaves seemed to disappear, at night, leaving long skeletal-like trunks. They danced when the wind blew, giving off the fresh scent of pine. But, the hair on the back of Skylar’s neck stood up straight, despite the Christmas scent.
“Ginger, let’s go inside!” Skylar called to the ball of fluff. The pavement beneath her feet seemed to get colder when she shifted her weight from left to right. Ginger looked at the blonde haired girl, for a brief moment, before turning towards the party of trees and darted inside. Yapping as she ran. “Ginger!” Skylar ran towards the forest. She hesitated at the edge. Wondering if she should go inside, she decided against it. “Ginger?”
A light growl came from inside the line of trees, or at least what sounded like a growl. A figure moved behind the leaves, rustling them as brushed past them. Skylar resisted the urge to back away, and peeked further into the brush.
The shape stopped moving. Skylar crept closer to the outskirts of the trees. “Ginger?” she could hear the shakiness in her voice, she tried to gulp down her nervousness.
Shockingly bright eyes appeared on the dark head of the figure. A strange color of yellow/green. The eyes were slit like a house cats.
Skylar gasped, her knees buckled under her and she crumbled to the ground. Her knees digging into the damp dirt, soiling her pants. The creature stepped out, into the open. Its fur sleek and black. Large paws padded the ground around her, tipped with shiny black claws. A panther. Its tail whipped back and forth, brushing against her cheeks. She shuddered and whimpered to herself. She could hear her breath quicken. Her heart pounded painfully hard against her chest.
The panther watched, as if studying her, as he circled around her. Looking her over from head to toe. Skylar avoided eye contact, knowing that if she didn’t meet eyes with the beast it wouldn’t attack her.
Skylar drew in a sharp, surprised breath when the long, sharp teeth inserted her right shoulder. A burning pain scorched her shoulder, she screamed, tearing away from the panther and fell onto her back. Hot tears ran down her cheeks and burned her eyes, forcing them shut.
Just take me now! She thought to herself, Just make it stop!
Skylar opened her eyes, staring up at the starless sky. The panther was gone and she could no longer hear Ginger’s barking. She let the stinging tears run down her cheeks. She sat up, grabbing her bloody shoulder. It burned where she touched it. The hair that fell into her face no longer smelled of rose petals, but of dirty grass and the salty metallic stench of blood. She fought the instant urge to gag.
Skylar got to her feet. Her head spun as she stumbled trying the get to the door. Her right arm hung limp by her side, she avoided looking at her arm, but she could feel sticky, wet blood trickle between her fingers, dropping to the ground like a rain drop.
She managed to slide open the door with her elbow. She stepped inside and fell to the carpet with relief. She slid the door shut with her foot, marking a sweaty footprint on the glass. She laid on the soft carpeting, letting tears drip off her nose onto the stringy material.
~~~
Skylar peeled off her clothing with her left hand, revealing the bite mark. Large, round teeth marks punctured into her skin. Red blood, mixed with a thick white puss-like substance oozed out of the wounds.
She plunged her head into the toilet and lost the contents of the dinner from earlier that night, in the water. She closed her eyes and flushed it away before she even got the chance to look. She turned on the shower water for the second time that night, refraining looking at her reflection in the mirror.
She stepped into the soft flow of warm water, almost immediately jumping back out with a scream. Her shoulder burned as if someone had lit it to flames. Skylar’s eyes stung with tears and a thinner, more watery blood slid down her arm. How am I supposed to work with this?
She looked down at her arm, through the mirror, in utter disbelief. The skin around her was red like a rash-like sunburn. The skin bubbled and literally moved around the bite. Skylar gagged, but refused to move. The skin on her shoulder was actually crawling. Both ends on the wound extended towards each other, as if reaching. The connected and slowly stretched over the wound until the open teeth marks in her shoulder vanished into pink slits.
She grabbed at her shoulder, without thinking. The pain of the open wound was gone, but was replaced with a terrible soreness. She rolled her shoulder back and gasped when the pain sparked. Skylar attempted not the move her right arm. The now drying blood annoyed her, it crusted over her skin and made her fingers stick.
Skylar met eyes with the deep green gems in the mirror, before stepping back into the cooling water.
~~~
Skylar sat on her bed with her knees tucked into her chest. Her hair hung around her face in wet, slightly curly strings. She smelled of roses and roasted sugar, a comforting scent. She tried to avoid thinking of the blood or the panther.
She had tried telling her parents, but only got the angry, sleepy response from her father.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” her father had said, annoyed that his only daughter had woken him, “panthers don’t live in the DC area.”
“But, it bit me!” she had pulled down the sleeve of her T-shirt. There was nothing to see except tiny pink scars circling around her shoulder, of course her father couldn’t see them.
Her mother, who looked like a slightly older version of Skylar, was still knocked out from the sleeping pills she took. Her father had told her she had had a bad dream and sent her to bed.
She flipped through the TV channels, numbly, not bothering to really look at what was on. The fingers on her left hand casually rubbed the smooth fabric of her sea foam green bed comforter. It felt like a thick layer of silk between her fingers

Skylar dropped the remote to the floor, it thumped when it hit. She fell to her back with a grunt. With her head on the light blue pillow, her hair spread around her head like flames. It was still damp, but she could see the natural golden strands appear. The news blared on the TV, flashing blue, green, and white lights on her hot pink walls.
For her seventh birthday, her parents and Skylar painted her room any color she wanted. She had chosen a very bright pink. Now, she thought, it was disgusting and childish. Maybe she’d change it when she turned seventeen in a few weeks.
Skylar picked at the dark blue sequins on her pillow. Usually the pillows with bead or sequins were used as bed decorations. She thought that was stupid. Pillows were on your bed to lay your head on, not to be a decoration.
Her eyelids felt thick and heavy. They drooped over her eyes, and she couldn’t lift them open anymore. Her pillow felt like a cloud under her head. She seemed to be drifting in darkness, the world around her hollowed away. The last thing she hear on the TV was, “A hit and run on…”