Scratch Marks Novels & Stories

Jay said, stroking the edge in embarrassment. Jay was silent, repeating the slow, careful stroke. The iron's texture felt rough due to scratches from a sharp object. Jay leaned over the edge, studying the outside of the metal. "Why? I found something?" James asked, imitating his best friend's movements. " Oh, so it's like this..." "You found it?" James was stunned for a moment. The scratches were printed on Jay's part and along the metal. "It looks like a hook mark," said James. Jay raised his head. "We're going up!"

There’s no irregular pull in the skin, no discoloration that follows impact or blade because it’s too neat. She presses her thumb to it once, then stills. Her shoulders don’t move, but her breath changes, just slightly, as if something inside her checked itself and reported back. I haven't said anything yet but I watch instead. Precision like that doesn’t come from accidents. I’ve seen markings placed with intent before, though not often. Packs avoid them unless there’s no other option. They’re difficult to lay and worse to remove but this one doesn’t belong to any pack I know and it isn’t lunar work either. There’s no resonance, no answering pull and the Moon doesn’t leave edges this clean.

I picked it up and ran my finger through it. Suddenly caught sight of something. There is a tiny nearly undetectable scratch mark on the lids interior. It was tiny—no larger than my pinky nail—and appeared to be intentional. To catch the light I tilted the box and leaned closer. The scratch wasnt arbitrary. It pointed toward the boxs bottom and appeared to be a tiny nearly microscopic arrow. “Okay Ivy” I whispered dont act like Sherlock Holmes right now. Most likely there is just a defect in the wood.

I pointed at the chat history, each word hitting hard: "Medical examination showed that the marks on Yvonne Shaw's neck are caused by the compression of something circular and regularly-shaped. They're not finger marks at all, but marks from a leather collar! "As for the so-called 'scratch marks', they're playful injuries left behind during her fun times!

Dalton called trying to get my mother's attention I don't think it working. "Do you want to know how you got that mark on your back"? She asked me still boiling in annoyance. The mark on my back, it looks cool so I don't know why she is bringing it up. When I asked her about the mark she told me it was a birth mark, I found it so cool because it looks like a dog foot print and my friends finds it cool, and looks exactly like a tattoos. So I don't understand how my birth mark relate with my father.

Raina paused, then moved forward to lift the table—but Leif beat her to it and pulled it away. He was acting weird today, but Raina didn’t have time to think about that. When the table moved, it revealed the scratches. Deep and shallow, spread all over the wall. Looking closely, it was clear those marks weren’t from anything else—they were finger scratches. At that moment, Raina’s shock hit its peak. Who on earth had been here? What kind of pain would make someone leave marks like this? Could it have been her mother? ***

But as I looked attentively at the ink, I realized everything was wrong about it. The page was violently scratched, not just with ink, but it seemed to be gouged with something sharp. No matter how hard I tried to make sense of even a single word, I couldn't. It seemed to have been intentionally wiped out in such a way that nothing could be readable from it.

“Yeah.” We move slower. Hazel points with her chin. Ahead of us a scrap of cloth hangs from a twig where a sapling meets the path. It’s weathered gray, nothing to it, until the moon catches a smear on the weave. Red-brown, three strokes, clawed downward and splayed. Redmaw’s mark. It’s fresh. Wet where the threads bunch. We both stand there looking at it like it might start talking. “They’re inside the fence line,” Hazel whispers.

Emma moaned, pushing her back toward the wand, the plug shifting inside her as her hips rocked. “Almost done,” Mark said, voice calm and certain. He moved the tip down the small of her back, filling in the spaces between the words, making the lettering bold and permanent-looking. The third baby kicked hard beneath her skin, right where the ink would sit, and she felt it as if the new mark was claiming that spot too. “There. Done. It looks so real now, even though it will wash off in a week or two. But the feeling… that’s forever.”