Work Text:
Anya was already awake when the pain spiked.
Well, awake is a strong term. She was sitting on the couch, wearing white pants with a pad, a white tank top, and nothing else. But her eyes weren’t focusing on anything.
She was on the last day of her period, and with it came the strongest cramps.
Wrenching, white-hot pain burning on her lower half. As though her bones were being spread apart, her organs reorganizing to expel the endometrium in a nonviolent, bloody purification.
Purification of what, Anya thought, if that’s not wrong? Why is it tainted?
Her head started to throb.
Adding to the pile of inconveniences—as if migraines and cramps weren’t enough—today was a hot summer day. Maybe the hottest, if the weather report girl was correct. The air was damp and stuffy; the fan did very little to cool down the living room since even its blow was hot. Anya grabbed a fistful of her hair, lifting it so her nape could breathe a little.
The sweat was sticky. Her hair was damp. The tank top suddenly felt suffocating.
Still, one wouldn’t imagine she was neck-deep in pain. Her face was stolid, serious.
After a few minutes, the waves of pain intensified. It felt, now, as if her organs were tearing apart. Anya lay down on the couch, hand in her lower belly as if holding it would suffice to mitigate the pain.
Useless, really.
Anya grunted against the couch cushion, her ears ringing as the forecaster woman kept up her talk. Long panels of red and orange all over her city. Long days of hot, merciless heat. Anya hated her for a brief moment because she wasn’t nearly dying of pain like her. The pain kept billowing to a higher level as she tried to adjust a position on the couch to soften the pain, but each movement seemed to be worse than the last. She hated periods so much.
An end would be met eventually, she knew that, but the way there wasn't pleasant.
She tossed and turned on the couch and eventually fell flat on the floor, face down.
The ache was so unbearable she rolled her eyes, grunting and whimpering due to pure, unadulterated pain. Organs adjusting, expelling blood, unused tissue, discarded ovule, rejected motherhood…
Anya’s back arched.
Get out.
Her vertebrae poked her back, drilling the skin above.
Get out, please.
Her back had a clean, vertical slit, and it bled everywhere as Anya kept enduring the unbearable pain. Fingers poked under the cut, then a hand making room for a wrist, and another hand and wrist made their way out as well.
Get the FUCK out.
A clump of bloody hair peered out. Then eyes. Nose. Lips. Everything coated in blood.
Another Anya.
A fresh, new start. A new version, the beginning of a new cycle. A new woman emerging from the vessel of her old self. New Anya stood up, as Old Anya was now lifeless on the floor. She checked her arms, her legs, and her belly and touched her face with bloody fingertips. Still the same woman, but tendered a new beginning.
A new cycle, and today was day one.
Only after fully checking herself, now freed from the excruciating pain and no longer bleeding or feeling organs reorganizing themselves, she looked down at Old Anya, inanimate and weirdly placid. Then she saw blood everywhere. A murder scene.
At least, Anya thought, I didn’t do it on the couch like last time. But did she hate cleaning that mess up.
“God…” She sighed, rubbing her bloody face with bloody fingers. “I hate periods so much.”