OuatiM: Reset
Figure suspended above him, grinning skull staring down, and he’s crouched on the floor ready to fight before he recognizes one of the paper-mache skeletons from Dias de Los Muertos. Wrists and ankles lashed to the four posts of the bed like some macabre canopy and it’s the sort of stunt he’d be proud of if he’d pulled it himself.

Clothes folded neatly on the chair in the corner, his own dry blood flaking off at shoulder and thigh. He sticks an experimental finger through the holes as he pulls them on, prodding the unmarked flesh beneath, and makes a note to buy replacements. And a large package of wet-naps, he resolves upon looking in the mirror and seeing the heavy stains trailing down over his cheekbones, or maybe a box of those industrial strength bleach wipes made to clean kitchens and bathrooms. That stuff looks like it’s caked on but good.

Image, after all, is everything.

Momentary twinge as he buttons his left cuff, just the slightest flash of pain, and he folds it back to check on the fresh scar across his wrist; fine red lines looping over the veins like delicate lace, like Celtic knotwork, like copper filigree. Like cursive handwriting.

The table beside the door holds his pistols, his sunglasses, and the Agency identification he remembers Ajedrez saying she’d keep as a souvenier, all polished until they shine. He takes the guns on his way out.