The needle touches the skin of my lower back. Laying face down on the black padded table with my bra undone and gathered at my chest along with my sweater, gritting my teeth as the vibrating tattoo gun digs into my flesh – dragging, scratching, pulling as the artist traces their way through the design.

            I try not to flinch as the needle goes over my spine, as it touches the base of my neck, or tickles my sides. Don’t move, he warns me multiple times. At times I can feel the gun’s vibration shaking my insides, straight through my skin and into my bones, my spine, my skull, the tips of my fingers.

            As the hours tick by, I wonder how far he’s gotten, how much of the dragon has come to life from the empty line drawing he’d shown me. Did it have a face yet? A tail? Were there claws, or would he save those for last? How many scales will there be after it is said and done? I’d wanted this tattoo for years but put it off over and over.  Don’t ruin yourself, my mother would say. I don’t like tattoos, my now ex-boyfriend said, don’t make yourself unattractive to me.

            Tattoos are for whores and monsters, my grandma once growled.

            I feel the difference in needles when he changes from outlining to shading. The pain is worse as he drags over the same spots, like taking a cheese grater to a fresh sunburn. Even when he moves on to other areas, the skin repeats the feeling, growing hot after the abuse. The worst part is when he wipes the wound, which is what the tattoo is, in the end, a wound. A scar decorated in black and red and white and grey, but still a scar. He wipes the ink from it, then wipes again, and again, until he can see his stencil. Each time I swear I can feel the ridges in the paper towel tearing into me, depositing little fibers into the cuts. I imagine myself picking out the pieces of paper towel with tweezers later, twisting like a strand of DNA just to see my back in the mirror.

            “Almost done,” the artist says, dragging his soiled towel once again over the sensitive skin. Bzzt bzzt bzzt of the gun as he touches it briefly to tender flesh. Wipe again. Again. “The dragon is looking really sick— woah what the fuck?”

            I hear the metal tray that holds the ink clatter to the floor, his stool lands on its side. The tattoo gun rattles on the ground, spitting black as it jumps and skitters across the linoleum. Pushing myself up on sore arms I turn my torso to see him, his back against the wall, looking at me in terror. His gloved hands shake as he holds them up, palms facing me, like he’s trying to calm a feral dog.

            “What’s wrong?” I ask. I reach back, my fingers grazing my side, moving over long, flat, smooth bumps. They’re all over my ribs, my stomach. I look down.

            Blood red scales, the color of rubies in the sunlight. They start at my armpit and overlap down to my hip, each scale a little bigger than my thumb nail. While I watch, one slides out of my skin, and then another, each time feeling like a scalpel is being dipped gingerly into my flesh. I feel it on my arms, my thighs.

            “What the hell?” I whisper, turning to look at my other side. There’s a patch of them on my right shoulder, and my wrist. I scratch them, my fingers like claws digging underneath and ripping, tearing, throwing the bloodied scales onto the polished linoleum. My nails, dripping sanguine, are long and pointed, blacked where they meet my fingers. My knuckles are larger, knobbier, curling my fingers like a falcon’s talons.

            “Help me,” I plead to the artist, but when I turn my head, my neck stiff and wide, he’s gone. I see my back in the mirror, the red and black ink oozes out of my skin, soaking into the waistband of my pants and making the padded black table slippery. The dragon bleeds before my eyes, draining of color, its body no longer crimson as it seeps out of it, of me.

            I can’t help it, I keep clawing at the scales, hoping that I can find where they’re coming from. Confusion twists like a knife into my stomach, sharp, cutting, cleaving my insides, rearranging them, turning them to mush. I tear into the side of my breast, moving aside muscle and fat like peeling back the layers of a rotted onion, blood flowing over the ruby plates and mixing with the ink now thick with plasma.

            Throwing my head back I scream, heat flaring in my chest like a furnace stoked to life. It burns up my throat, my gums searing and my teeth melting, growing longer till the tips bit into my lips, their points slicing into my cheeks. I spit embers out of my mouth and watch their glowing bodies sizzle to nothing in the black blood pool.

            The bones of my legs crack, break, relocate. I tear out of my pants and move to stand in front of the mirror. I’m naked, scales, and blood covering what’s left of my pale skin. Blackened fingers and claws hanging at my sides. Two bumps on my forehead pushing out of the skin like bad pimples, popping, growing into spiraling horns. My chest glows with every breath, my throat alight, my tongue on fire as it moistens dagger-like fangs.

            I blink, and the eyes that look back at me are slitted, but still green, still mine. I turn this way and that, admiring the dragon in the mirror. The bright, brilliant red is just what I wanted. The black touches add depth. I just have to wonder how many scales there are, now that everything is said and done?

About the author:

Part of our Halloween 2025 Issue. New stories, poems, and essays now through October 31, 2025.

Thank you for supporting our journal. Want to deepen your connection to our community of writers and readers? Please consider joining our email list, making a gift to our journal, submitting your writing, or purchasing our first printed collection, Tangled Lives.