AnYi 安亦

Think of the worst pain you’ve ever felt. Now give your protagonist a papercut and over-exaggerate the pain using your own descriptions.

It was a cold day, which only made it worse. Get slapped on a hot day, and it hurts, sure. Get slapped on a cold day and – on the rare occasion your face doesn’t just shatter – it stings for hours. And that’s just a slap! Imagine how it felt to be me, on that cold day, when it happened; I can’t even say for sure that I’d’ve got straight back to my feet if it were just a light breeze blowing through, but that day was arctic.

You can still see the scar, you know. It’s a bit smaller now, but still very much visible if you know where to look. That shouldn’t be a surprise, really – all witnesses agreed the wound was unusually deep; I’m pretty sure I could see bone when I really looked. Oh, and the blood. There was so much of it – more than I thought I had inside me – it had me panicking so much I couldn’t even think about the pain. I would’ve given my arm for something that would dam that river.

The worst part, though… no – that was definitely the blood. The second worst part, though, was that no-one took me seriously at first. It was like they couldn’t see this huge gash across my leg, or the red waterfall emanating from it. “Walk it off” was probably the most caring response I received; far less impressive than the other end of the spectrum: simply walking away amid a cloud of their own derisive laughter. I was not impressed to say the least.