End Stage

Chris lays her head against the edge of the tub. The water is soothing to her feverish skin.

She's been plagued by the worst thirst imaginable the past few days. She drinks almost twenty glasses of water a day and it's still not enough. Her mouth always feels dry and it's hard to swallow at times.

At least in the tub she doesn't feel as thirsty.

The binding skin over her legs hasn't grown back. Yet. But it will. The skin on her legs is thicker, just like it was before last time. Dimly, she feels some horror over this but mostly resignation.

The skin on the rest of her body was starting to match that on her legs. Except for her arms, the skin on them was still normal if a bluish-gray color. They were heavy too, she almost had to will them to move. She couldn't write, it was difficult to grip a pen never mind making it move across a page.

I can barely feel them.

It was the same thing with the extra appendages before they fell off. If her assumptions were right, she'd lose all feeling in them before they too fell off.

She wondered if this was the end stage of the disease.