Ink-Smudge

“Colin,” Jack offered, “is the best cook you’ll ever taste. He missed his calling as a restaurateur, but I think we may both be glad of that yet.”
The skinny man broke into a wide, goofy grin at the praise, and put a margarita glass in her hand. “Well, the food is nothing special, but you should taste my drinks!”
She giggled as he poured a red, frozen slushie directly from the blender into her glass, and allowed herself to be guided into the dining room.

“Yes, officer? I want to report a mugging. I left their unconscious bodies in the park by Bitter Lake.” She paused. “No, I didn’t mug them, they tried to mug someone else and I put a stop to it. No, no name, I just wanted to report it so they can be picked up before they wake up. Thanks officer.”

“Oh my God, Jack this is not okay! I can see inside myself, why can I see inside my body?” She began sobbing as she wrapped her arms around her stomach, and her exposed internal organs faded from view. Panicked even more, she moved her arms away again, but her insides remained gone. With a final “Oh my God, this can’t be happening.” She broke down and sobbed.

The bell dinged and the doors opened. She walked to the bathroom and began trying to clean herself up to change into her work clothes. She took off the ruined sweatpants and wiped the grime and dirt off her legs, examining the damage. She stared at her shins in surprise, they were seriously bruised, but no skin was broken and the pain didn’t match the purple blotches. She was somewhat comforted to see that the rest of her body was returning to it’s normal tanned color, so she shrugged off the bruises and got dressed for work wishing she’d chosen pants instead of a skirt today.

“Thank you.” The big officer sounded sincere as he leaned forward and hovered his finger above the ‘Stop’ button on the recorder. “And I have one more question I need to ask. A significant number of the victims who’ve been treated after using this drug have been found to have a serious secondary infection. We don’t yet know whether the blood you came into contact with was infected, but we don’t want to take the risk. I need to ask you to take a blood test.”