At the Threshold
Copyright© 2025 by Heel
Chapter 3: The Casting
The air in the apartment had changed.
It was too quiet, too heavy — the kind of silence that made every drip of rain from the window sound deliberate.
Anna sat in the chair, her leg bare, pale under the kitchen light. The towel beneath her calf smelled faintly of warm water. She watched Lora unpack the supplies: rolls of white bandage, padding, a length of thin stockinette that looked almost like skin.
Her pulse quickened. It’s just plaster, she told herself. Just a symbol. A pause.
But a small, trembling part of her knew it was more than that.
“Ready?” Lora asked.
Anna nodded, though her throat felt tight.
Lora slid the stockinette up her leg, slow and careful. The material brushed softly against her skin — smooth, but cold. It clung to her calf, stretched over her knee, then stopped mid-thigh. The faint pressure made Anna shiver.
Next came the padding — gentle layers wrapping around her ankle, heel, and shin. The sound of it unrolling filled the silence: soft, papery, rhythmic. Lora’s hands moved with quiet precision, each turn pressing the world a little farther away.
Anna exhaled, her breath shaky. The padding was light, but she could already feel a strange detachment settling in. The leg was no longer fully hers.
Then came the plaster.
Lora dipped the bandage roll into the warm water. It hissed faintly — alive for a moment — then sagged in her hands, wet and pliable.
The first touch against Anna’s foot was startlingly cold.
It clung, heavy and damp, molding around her heel and the curve of her arch. As Lora smoothed it in place, Anna felt a tightening — gentle at first, then firmer with each layer.
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