Stitches Graphic Novels & Stories

I said slapping him away again. “I’m not going to try anything.” He said, but the teasing in his voice told me otherwise. “I think I can check my own stitches, thank you very much.” I pushed him away from me. Signalling him to turn around. With a huff he turned his back to me. Quite reluctantly if I do say so myself. I laid on my back and pulled the gown to look at where the burning sensation came from. I grimaced. Black stitches ran in a small line on my stomach. The irritated skin was red, but they looked overall healthy.

Everyone said my wife, Zoey Harper, was an amazing wife and mom who'd do anything for me and our son, Leo. Leo's doctor warned us three times that he might not make it. Then he died. Zoey claimed she was overseas for work. She wasn't. She'd invited Peter Cole—the first love she'd never gotten over—and his family to our apartment for dinner. I came home carrying Leo's urn, ready to confront her. Instead, she tossed my luggage into the hall. "We have guests, and we're out of rooms. Go stay somewhere else for a few days."

Nothing that a few stitches wouldn’t fix, I told myself, desperately clinging to that thought. With determination coursing through my veins, I held my breath and set to work, tying and stitching his skin back together with shaky but resolute hands. Each pull of the thread felt like an act of defiance against fate, a testament to my refusal to let him slip away. I wrapped the gauze tightly around his abdomen, each layer binding us closer together in this fight for survival. I would not let fear claim him. I would not let him go without a battle.

His dedication to being by my side, even in his own state of disarray, touched my heart. Turning my attention to the other side of the room, I spotted Stitch resting on a memory foam bed. His injured leg, the result of the attack, was bandaged and raised. He appeared peaceful, and I felt a surge of relief that he was on the path to recovery. Summoning all the strength I could muster, I attempted to sit up, only to be met with searing pain that made me gasp and wince. It was then that I realized the extent of my injuries.

Then there was something that looked like a small sewing kit. I frowned. "What is that?" She put everything on the table. "These are called emergency stitches." "These emergency stitches are unnecessary." "Lift your shirt." "Nah." She stared at me. "Kade." "Nah," I repeated. She leaned close to me. "You had a fight with twelve hunters and stole a forklift. Then you started a fire on a facility, got shot two times, and here you are arguing about bandages." "Yes." "Lift. The. Shirt."

At the eleven year old who had drawn the invisible substrate of two people's twenty years. Into a gap. Into a membrane. Into the space between. That held everything. The substrate of us. In the gap. All of it there. All of it twenty years. All of it right. "Yes," I said. "Yes," he said. Mara opened the drawing book again. She added something. She showed us. In the gap between the coffee cups. In the membrane. She had drawn a tiny spiral. The Hidden Stitch symbol. The things more important than the system.

After composing myself with deep breaths, I wiped away the tears, vowing, "I can do this. I'll find my way out of this dilemma," I affirmed. Turning to my right, I took a sharp stone and marked the trees, determined to leave a trail in this maze of uncertainty. Turning around, I realized my progress was very slow. Marking trees consumed valuable time. With a dress left in my bag, I tore it into shreds, tying fragments on branches as makeshift markers. With the sun up in the sky, the woods echoed with gunshots, jolting my heart into my stomach. Instinctively, I sought cover.

I add like a Catholic nun standing over a misbehaving student. Rack shakes his head. "No, Beth. I'll shower and put some antiseptic on it. It's nothing for you to worry about." My fingers go to the hem of his T-shirt. He watches when I lift it slightly away from his side before moving it up. He has stitches. They start just above his hip. I count them; the T-shirt is stuck to his side at the ninth stitch. The edges of the wound are puffy and red. He should be in bed and not battling my demons.

Sofia whispered, her hands shaking as she watched the wound in his chest begin to close. The torn flesh didn't just heal; it aggressively fused. The jagged edges of his ribs snapped back into place with a series of loud, sickening cracks. The skin crawled over the opening, weaving itself together with an efficiency that made the Montague stasis pods look like primitive toys. Within seconds, the gaping, fatal hole was reduced to a faint, silver scar. Somito took a deep, shuddering breath—a breath that didn't rattle.

"Oh, don't do that. I'll take care of it." "Sorry, it was itching me." I looked down and gasped. From side to side my stomach was cut open then stitched back together. It wasn't a straight clean cut either. The stitches were jagged and some not even tight enough to pull my skin together. I'm sure Mildred wanted me to be left with a nasty scar. "This wasn't done very well. Come lay down. I'm sorry but I need to fix this." "Fix?" My eyebrows quirked up.