*crunch crunch crunch*

Thick black combat boots trampled twigs and dead leaves.

*swish swish swish*

Black jeans murmured as the legs inside of them brushed together.

*sshhh-shaWIT sshhh shaWIT WIT*

Flexible branches dragged against the polyester of a dark blue winter coat.

*CLIMP-clomp-CLIMP-clomp*

The contents of a rose-red backpack collided as the bag bounced up and down.

"Huh...huh...huh...huh"

Marie was marching through a well-worn path in the woods. She didn't know her breathing was audible. Her hazel eyes were locked on a distant point on the path ahead of her. Her arms swayed in perfect counterpoint to her legs. She was focused on her destination and her objective with tangible intensity.

The trail in the woods had been well-established by the time Marie had found it a year ago. Dirt packed down by consistent footsteps formed a smooth walkway on even ground and inclines alike. The main path was wide enough in most places for two people to walk side by side. A multitude of side paths branched out from the main trail and led to different neighborhoods, secluded clubhouses, natural vistas, and more.

"Huh...huh...huh...huh"

Marie had not seen anyone on the path today. She was grateful for that. Other people were rare, but that didn't shake her paranoia of being seen. She wanted complete privacy for what she wanted to do.

She maintained her stride and speed as she turned down a side path. If the main trail was a tree trunk, then her new path was one of its thinner branches. It was a hard path to walk, so most people ignored it in favor of the easy slopes.

Marie trudged onwards. Difficult or not, she had somewhere she wanted to be, and this was the only path to get her there. Her research was completed, an order was placed, the location was found, the package arrived, and the trip was underway. Her ego wouldn't accept failure now, not after how much time and energy she invested to make this happen.

She hiked for close to an hour to reach her destination; a large quarter-circle section of live railroad tracks surrounded on either side by heavy forestation. She stopped some twenty-odd feet away from the end of the tree line on her side of the tracks.

"Huh...huh.......huh..........huh"

Marie swung the backpack off of her shoulders. She crouched over it, opened it, pulled out a water bottle, drank from it, closed it, and replaced it in the backpack without looking away from her surroundings. She reached under her coat. Her hand found the handle of the hunting knife cradled in the leather holster on her belt, hidden from view.

("No one...that I can see. I have to secure the perimeter.")

She zipped up the backpack.

!!##HONK-HOOOOOOOOONK##!!

("WHAT?! NO!!!")

The freight train repeated its long, sharp warning from beyond the curve of the tracks. The trees blocked the initial sounds of its approach. Marie could only tell that the train was coming and she didn't have much time.

("I could wait until the next train...search the area once this train passes...but how long will that take?")

Marie's hands rested on the backpack. Her thumb pushed the zipper tag into the side of her finger.

("...No. I won't wait. No one is out here. This gets done now.")

She reopened her bag. Both hands dove in. They came out holding a red leather case large enough to hold a laptop computer. She laid it down on the ground in front of her and opened it.

Both halves of the box were lined with dark gray foam. A thin clear cylindrical glass canister ran the width of the case close to the hinges. It was filled to capacity with a glowing blue liquid. A black rubber hose with a nozzle sat in a full loop in the front of the case.

!!##HOOOONK HOOOONK##!!

She still could not see the train, but more of its rumbling approach could be heard. Large steel wheels thudded out a steady beat as they rolled over minute gaps and uneven edges between rail sections. Metal joints and springs screeched in protest of the weight of the freight cars.

Marie unzipped her coat and shook it from her shoulders. She tugged her hands through the elastic bands in the sleeves. The blue coat gave way to a white tank top as she dropped it behind her. She grabbed the hose in the case at the base of the nozzle.

("Easy now...nice and easy...")

Marie raised the nozzle with the same reverence and confidence that a well-trained marksman would when holding a gun; she knew how dangerous this fluid could be. She had to be precise. She pointed the nozzle at her left bicep.

"Alright, girl. It's showtime."

--------------------

"...earned the name "Handmaiden's Thorn" during Nero's reign as Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, as it was used primarily by bribed or scorned private servants. Since the poison could be delivered over time and accumulate until it became lethal, maids devised a variety of secret ways to administer..."

The commentary played through Marie's wireless headphones. Her right hand danced on the number pad of her keyboard as she entered data into an excel spreadsheet. Her left hand stayed prone, occasionally holding a function key or tapping tab.

"...sometimes used as a 'perfume' on the neck after convincing their doomed master that it would help them sleep. Each night, they would spray-"

"Hey Ma-RIE! How's the numbers treatin' ya?"

Marie paused the podcast on her phone and pulled an earbud out. "Like a bad ex you can't quit for good." She turned away from the screen and faced the visitor at the entrance to her cubicle. "You think this time things will add up differently..."

"...but it's just the same old shit all over again," her visitor responded. "I could've told ya THAT, Marie."

"Then why did you ask, Charlie?" The left side of Marie's lips were turned up in a half-smile.

Charlie was a hair over six feet tall with a short but unruly brown flash of hair on his head. The top button of his white oxford shirt was undone. A solid navy tie hung in a loose knot under the collar. His arm rested on the cubicle wall. A pen wiggled between his fingers.

Marie liked him as a coworker, but she could see why he always got passed when promotions came around. He looked like he belonged in a club as a promoter, not like a head of an insurance sales department. Rumor had it that he had too many high-money accounts to risk firing him over dress code violations. Charlie and the stiff shirts bumped shoulders from time to time, but the world kept turning on, so he kept turning up at her cubicle. She didn't mind.

"Heh. Easy, firecracker. Just small talk is all." Charlie was all smiles. "Hey, some of the calling crew are headed to Lazy Susan's for drinks after work, and I thought we could use a techie in our party. Want to tag along?"

Marie's shoulders slumped. "Not tonight, I have too much I want to take care of at home." She looked away from him. Confusion brewed on her face. "Besides," she said, looking back, "isn't it Tuesday?"

Charlie look defeated. All of the energy erupting from him seconds ago was gone from his demeanor. "Yeah, but you're always busy on the weekends, too."

Both of them stared at the ground as the awkward silence passed between them. Marie broke it. "This Friday."

"Huh?"

"I'll go this Friday. You have my word."

"Marie, I didn't mean-"

She put up her hand to say 'stop and listen'; "I want to. It has been a long time, you're right about that. And you're good company to have."

A small, true smile lit Charlie's face. "Damn right I am. Catch ya later, Marie."

She let out an amused groan that turned to laughter. "Later, Charlie!" The smile faded from her face as she put her earbud back in. Marie pressed play.

("How long HAS it been? Didn't I go out with them on the Fourth of July? That was...oh, two months ago...")

Her fingers resumed their clattering on the keyboard.

("...about the time I found out about what 'Handmaiden's Thorn' can do. I need to keep this to myself. But I need to make it seem like nothing has changed or there might be questions..")

"...much later until other uses were discovered. Dr. Martin Patel found out how things - both living and inert - that had been sprayed with high concentrations of the chemical, then subjected to extreme pressure, would..."

--------------------

Marie squeezed the trigger. The blue liquid poured in a slow stream onto her bicep. If she hadn't watched any videos of how this worked, she would have been surprised that it didn't splash off her skin or roll down her arm to soak the ground below. Instead, it went straight through her skin. It formed a thin blue band around her arm that thickened as more of the chemical dropped from the hose. The clear canister in the case began to bubble as air took up the emptied space. Marie kept the stream going until the blue band was inches from both her elbow and her shoulder. She put the nozzle in her left hand and pointed it at her right bicep.

("I was expecting it to be cold, or...to feel SOMEthing different. But  I guess that just means it's not poisonous yet. I can't turn back now.")

Her right arm matched her left when she placed the hose in the case and closed it. She put it back in the backpack, zipped it shut, then...waited.

("No one can see...not even the conductor of the train. Should be...")

!!##HOOOOOOOOOOONK##!!

(thud-*THUD*.......thud-*THUD*........thud-*THUD*...)

The engine was visible in spots and patches between the leaves to her right. She crouched down behind the tree and watched it roll, roll, roll past the point her trail met the tracks. She waited to be sure the conductor was too far to see anything happen if they turned back.

("Wait to be certain...strike when ready.")

Marie jogged the twenty-odd feet to the train.

(...thud-*THUD*........thud-*THUD*........thud-*THUD*)

("'Needs extreme pressure to activate' has been the biggest hurdle so far...but I found my solution in these wheels. I KNOW this will do the job.")

Marie took a few steps closer to the rolling train. She caught a glimpse of her arms. It looked like her skin was living glass around a pool of ocean water. They wouldn't look that way for long.

She turned her left side so her shoulder was inches from the freight cars. She knelt down, then laid down on her stomach. She edged her left side closer and closer to the track.

(.........THUD-!#THUD#!.......THUD-!#THUD#!)

Her hazel eyes were taking in everything at once; the timing of the wheels passing, where her left arm was, keeping her head from being struck by rusted metal, how many train cars were still coming. Her breathing slowed as she lifted her left arm up, her hand poised to shoot over the rail.

("Now or never. Now or the poison rests there and kills you tonight.")

Marie held her breath. She focused on the rhythm and timing of the wheels.

(THUD-*THUD*....THUD-*THUD*...)

(".............NOW!")

Marie fully extended her arm in a flash. Her bicep rested on the the rail at the midpoint between her elbow and shoulder. She had put her body in the perfect place to have her arm where she wanted it. Half a second between wheel passes was only long enough to extend her arm before the next wheel came along.

Here, a moment in time: Watch the wheel pinch the side of Marie's arm. Watch as the skin gets squeezed down instead of torn open. Watch the blue pattern on her arm seem to shrink towards the point of contact. Watch Marie's eyes squint shut.

In a split second, the fluid focused in on the pressure point in a flash of brilliant white light. The Haindmaiden's Thorn condensed Marie's bicep into a single point. The wheel rolled over it. Her arm cracked with the sound of crystal tuning forks. Both halves of the minuscule point sprang back apart, leaving a glowing blue-white swirl of light on her arm stump and the severed limb where they had been connected. Her arm landed on the wood that spaced the tracks apart.

Marie half-fell, half-shuffled away from the train. She tried to use both arms to get up, but only her right was there to lift her up. She sat on her calves. Her face was vacant of expression. Her eyes seemed hazed. She looked from one arm to the other, back and forth.

(...THUD-*THUD*.....THUD-*THUD*.....THUD-*THUD*)

Her right. She flexed her fingers, watching them curl and unfurl. Her upper arm glowed with the azure tattoo she gave herself a lifetime ago with a little nozzle and a canister in a case.

Her left. It ended in a clean line mid-bicep. She flexed her fingers, feeling them tighten and relax, feeling the wood and pebbles against the back of her hand. Her skin was back to its normal shade of pink. There were no bruises or cuts anywhere.

Her right. Her left. Her right. Her left.

!!##HONK HONK HOOOONK##!!

Marie looked up. Her face could have been porcelain, her cheeks could have been painted, her broken arm could have been a child's accidental fury with their favorite doll. As awareness dawned on her face, the illusion disappeared.

("Finish the mission...while the train is still here.")

Marie knew what "being in shock" meant. She felt it too many times in her life. Woken up by a death grip on her hair to her mother screaming in her face with whiskey-laden breath when she was 15; walking in the kitchen at 8 years old to see her dad cowering on the ground with his arms above him in defense and her mother towering over him with a rolling pin in hand; being dumped by her boyfriend of three months and left on a street a half hour drive from home with no money or cell phone; her father leaving; her mother dying; her father's words to her before leaving her behind, too, even though her mother's terror was finally gone from their lives.

Marie had been in shock then, and knew she was now. She held back the questions her mind was throwing at her about her arm.

("Get on your knees.....you have to activate it.....carefully...")

(THUD-*THUD*....THUD-*THUD*)

("....................................NOW!!")

Collision. Compression. A flash-ring of light-crystal. Separation. Descent.

Marie rolled away from the tracks in steps. On her back...her stomach...her back...her stomach again. Her legs bent and extended in a corkscrew to roll her. Her stumps prodded her rib cage with some discomfort.

Her limbs found each other on the rocks and wild grass under the rumbling train. Her right hand gripped her left wrist. Her left hand created and disbanded a fist.

Marie got her legs under her. She planted a foot in front of her. After a false launch, she was able to stand. She looked down, lifting her sheared arms in front of her.

("...I did it. I...really...")

She turned her head towards the train. It was still rolling on. She turned to where it was coming from and could see at least ten more cars through the foliage. She looked back and forth between the never ending train and where her arms were nestled. Her split biceps contracted.

("I can't get them yet...not until the train is gone...but I'm just standing in the open...")

Marie faced the woods. A step. Another. A double-take to the left. A step. Look right. She turned left to look back at her arms. She started to step again before she finished looking.

She walked behind the closest tree and faced it. Instinct kicked in as she stepped close to the trunk; 'put your hand on it so you don't fall into it, Marie!' Except her arm wasn't where it usually was. She stumbled forward. Her face and chest smacked into the bark. A tiny gash (no worse that a paper cut) was nicked out of her cheek. She controlled the rest of her fall, turning away from the tree to land on her side instead of grinding herself against the rough tree.

Marie laid on her back. Smeared brown debris caked the left side of her top. Her legs kicked, unable to gain traction against loose dirt. She waved her stumps in twitching circles. Her arms, still locked together, rolled once and wobbled in their temporary prison. Her hazel eyes stared up and around at the treetops, the clouds, and the sunlight.

(thud-*thud*.....thud-*thud*)

She rocked to one side while curling her torso. Her stumps were held forward as though their weight would help shift her. Marie kept at it until she was sitting upright. Her back rested against the tree. She looked down at her stumps again.

"Heh...heh heh...huh...huuu..."

Marie was laughing and crying. All of her mental strength had been used up to make herself go through with the second cut. Her legs alternated like ramshackle pistons; making a pointed arc, then pressing heel to dirt, pushing her body backwards.

(thud-*thud*.....thud-*thud*.....)

"Hu-Hu-Had to hu-have the m-matching p-pair...huu...heh heh...huh."

Marie closed her eyes. She leaned her head against the tree. Snot began to pool under her nostrils.

"Ugh..."

Instinct kicked in again, this one from childhood; wipe it on you sleeve. Her stub came up. To her surprise, the edge of her stump wiped the snot away easily. Marie smiled, closed her eyes again, and relaxed. She sat and caught her breath. She became comfortable.

(.........................................)

Marie leaned her head to her other side, eyes still closed. She hadn't heard the silence of the absence of the train. She had drifted.

Here, another moment in time; Watch her blonde hair shimmer in the sunlight and glow in the shifting shade of leaves. Watch her chest rise and fall in short, comfortable bursts. Watch the way her arm stumps shift up and down so minutely as she breathes. Watch her face, smooth and angelic, with her mouth slightly open, at peace.

Watch as she wakes to the feeling of hands holding her wrists with excessive force and lifting her arms from the ground.

Her head shot up. She blinked several times, trying to clear her eyes and mind.

("What time is it? What is it?")

"Who-why am I outsi-"

Realization slammed Marie like a guy punch. Her mouth gaped open in horror. Her eyes were open to the sockets and bulging out. Flecks of red from burst vessels dotted the white around her hazel irises. Her whole body shook and gyrated in panic as she felt her arms get pressed together and shoved into a bag.

"HhuuaaAAAH! AAAAAHHHH!!!"

(*WHUMP*...thump... thump... thump...)

"NOOOOO!!!"

Marie scrambled on the ground and against the tree, trying to get on her feet, trying to get a glimpse of the person she heard jump from the train tracks. She tripped and fell on her first full step past the tree. She landed face down, her stumps pointed next to her head.

"MY AAAARMS!!!"

(...thump...thump...t h u m p...t h u m p...)

She struggled up to her feet again. She took frantic steps to the higher ground of the train tracks and looked. There! A flash of yellow from a jacket!

"HHEEEEEEYYY!!!" She screamed, already running after the speck she saw. "THOSE ARE MIIIINEEE!"

Marie kept a considerable pace. She saw the yellow spot bouncing, then disappear around a bend on the new trail.

"Huh...huh...HEY!..huh...huh..."

She kept on, her chest heaving, her lungs screaming, her mind reeling. Her worst nightmare scenario; her own body stolen from her, with her only lead running away.

"BRING THOSE BACK! THEY'RE M-"

Marie tripped. She didn't see the root that damned her. She flew forward, taking another step straight when the path led to the right. She tumbled down a short bank and rolled half a turn, slamming back-first into a tree.

"AAAHH! Ahhhh! Owww!"

Her face was scrunched inward in pain. Her back was curved around the trunk. She writhed, causing her legs to slide further down the bank. Marie was pulled down with them.

"Nngh...n-NO! STOP!"

Her tank top was scrunched up as she slid further and further down. She waved her stumps in a useless doggy paddle. Her feet couldn't find traction. Without a way to grip the grass, Marie was helpless to stop her descent.

"HELP! HEEEELP!"

She felt her feet, her shins, her knees go over an unseen ledge. She felt a thick branch digging deep enough into her back to break skin and catch on her bra and tank top but do nothing to slow her slide. She dropped.

"AAAAAAA-hurk!...guk!"

The branch had gotten under the elastic of her bra. As Marie slid by, her bra and top were pulled up. Her short stumps couldn't hold them down. They were yanked from her body, but caught Marie by her neck and the branch. Her bra was strangling her.

"Urk!....huk!...ack!...ugg!"

Here, a new moment in time; watch her face turn a deep red on its way to purple. Watch her legs twist and kick out over empty air. Watch her tits and her stumps wobble and gyrate, each of them just as useful to her in her current state as the others. Watch her hazel eyes struggle to stay open, struggle to stay focused on anything. Watch as she bucks her hips forward, trying to free herself.

"Hurk!....gack!....guk..."

*c-cr-c-c-CR-CRACK!*

Marie gasped in a huge lungful of air as the branch snapped. Before she could scream in fear of the fall, she landed on her knees some three feet below. Her tops and the branch fell in a pile behind her. She bowed and coughed with her head hanging. She breathed in tremendous gasps, desperate to taste fresh air and clear her mind.

"Huuuh...AAAh-huuuh...AAAh-huuuh..."

("My...my arms...who...where...")

She looked at herself. Most of her arms gone, severed by herself, stolen by a stranger while she slept. Her chest was nude and bruised. The skin of her breasts was taunt with goosebumps and her nipples were hardened points from the onset of evening and its low temperatures. Her jeans, smeared with grass and dirt stains, had limbs inside that were thankfully intact.

Marie fidgeted. She turned her head back up to the ledge she fell from. Her slide down and the drop was at least twenty feet. She scanned her surroundings for some direction on where to go.

"Where...how can I get back up to the trail...which way did they go with..."

Marie stopped. She looked at her severed arms. She tried flexing her fingers. She felt nothing. No touch, nor rub, nor flex.

("...they're already out of range...I...I might never...")

Marie's face winced in sorrow. She started to flail her stumps and bounce on her legs. She started to whine as tears rolled down her cheeks.

("How did things go so wrong? What did I do to deserve this? I just wanted...all I wanted...")

"Huuuuuuuuuu.... hhaaaaaa... HAAAAAAAA!! AAAAAAHAHA!! AAAAAAAAAAHHH!!"

Marie bellowed from the depths of her lungs. She flailed and rocked and screamed in the dwindling sunlight. Her mission was over. Her true struggle had only just begun.