My Hero's Journey: A Short Story

I hate my life! Why the heck did my family ever agree to take this terrible voyage. It has been months and every day gets worse than the last. I am sitting in this dark, damp corner of our ship and my arms are itching like crazy! They have become so raw that they are starting to bleed. The blood is dripping down my left arm and onto my leg and won’t stop. I thought it was just eczema because of the little dots starting to sprout on my arms, but they have been getting bigger. They turn a reddish and won’t stop itching! I feel a relief when I scratch them, but it becomes addicting. Once I start I can’t stop, it’s like a drug. Doc diagnosed me today, he said it’s something called “scabies”. He explained to me what it was, but not in terms I could understand, all doctor jargon.
I had to ask Simon for help.
Doc said he’s had it before. When I told Simon what had happened his jaw dropped. He gasped and screamed “no!” I asked him what was wrong and he slowly backed away. When I stepped forward to go after him he yelled at me to not touch him. I was wondering what in the world had gotten into him and why he had become so rude. If he had had this disease wouldn’t he know how bad it was? I asked him why I couldn’t go by him and he explained to me that scabies was highly contagious. I yelled at him to just tell me what was going on. He then explained in terms I could understand, but I am pretty sure I liked it better when Doc said it. Apparently these little bugs mate in my skin, burrow, lay eggs, hatch and repeat. I had to recite what he had just told me to make sure I had it right. I was speechless. How could this have happened to me? I am just a normal person. It was like winning the lottery, you never in a million years would think like something this unbelieveable would ever happen to you. Oh no. Dang it! I knew I shouldn’t have scratched that one! I’m such an idiot! What
the! Oh my gosh! A cream colored speck is literally crawling on my arm right now! It has to be one of those mites! This is so gross; pus is spewing out of my arm! Oh, it itches so so bad! I need to itch it! Ahhh, ok, relief at last! Oh my gosh there are more! What do I do? If I tell anyone they will never talk to me again and I will always be known as that girl with scabies! Why me? The mites are crawling down my red arms, they are full of blood. They are leaving skinny trails behind them. Huuuuh! My dad just walked in. He saw my arms and gasped. He asked what it was and I told him it was scabies. He gasped again. He said I needed to get to Doc right away and I explained to him how I already saw him earlier. Dad said we still needed to get some treatment for it. When we got to Doc’s office there was a line out the door. I looked down the row of fellow shipmates and noticed one man holding his right wrist. Another was itching his left leg. I realized that they had scabies too! My dad asked Patrick, a man that he used to work with, what was going on. He said almost everyone aboard is getting diagnosed with scabies and all of us immune for the time being should steer clear of the ones who aren’t. Just then I heard a women in line scream. We all whipped our heads around to see what was going on. “There’s one on my leg! It’s crawling up my leg! I can feel it! Ewww! Get it off!” the lady yelled. I was getting paranoid and felt the mites crawling on my arms too, but when I looked down nothing was there, but more pus was. I must have been scratching it and not even realizing it! Ugh! How could this day get any worse! Just then my mom came down the long, dark hallway and whispered something to my dad. He told her to get in line. I looked up and down at my mom and saw it, right there on her left arm. Scabies, she had it too. Our eyes met and I could tell she was worried. I saw her look down at my arm and I looked down too. They were big, no huge, now. They turned a dark purple and I could see movement in one of them. The mite it was coming out again. Why wouldn’t it stop! Please make it stop. I started to cry and my mom held me. Just then Simon stormed over and started to yell and said, “Thanks a lot! You have infected the whole ship! What are we going to do now?”