MC

Chapter One: An Anomaly Inside

At first, Maria Chaplin overlooked the minor injury on her arm. It looked to be nothing more than a bruise, and those were certainly not foreign to her. Surely within days, it would clear. But then she noticed something odd when, after two weeks of living with it, the "bruise" only seemed to be getting worse. Once a light brown, hardly visible to her and undetectable to others, the thing had gotten to a bizarre purple, possibly a premature black.

She was a bit startled, and one, day, when closely examining it, her father also asked about it.

"Oy, Maria..." he picked up her arm and peered at it. She didn't object to it. Who would better know of a cure than a doctor like her father?

"What happened? Did you fall?"

"I can't recall. I get bruises all the time, but never to this extent. You think it might be something else?"

"Hmm." rubbing it lightly, he stood up and sighed.

"I don't think so, but I've never seen a bruise that dark."

"Looks like charred flesh, really," a voice behind them said. They both turned. Maria's father, RJ Proa, reacted amiably at the man, but Maria, who had always hated him, turned away.

"Ah, Max, up already?"

"Of course. Why don't I look?" he offered, walking towards Maria slowly. She concentrated on her breakfast a mumbled that one doctor was enough.