The Skin

Part 1 — The Man at the Bar

Before I start, I want to make it clear that I'm not the type to believe in this kind of thing. I don't read my horoscope, horror movies don't scare me, and if someone had told me this story two months ago, I would have thought they were exaggerating or flat-out lying. I say that because I need you to understand that what I'm about to tell you is real, and I'm processing it so badly that I've ended up writing it here because I don't know who else to tell.

My name is Marta, I'm 32 years old, I live in Madrid, and on Friday, October 6th, I went out for drinks with a couple of friends in the city center. Nothing special. One of those bars with music that's too loud and beers that are too expensive, you know the type. We got there around eleven, ordered something, and settled in at the bar. After a while, I noticed a man standing a bit further back, alone, with a drink in his hand.

He was attractive. That's the first thing anyone would say. Tall, dark hair, well-dressed without looking like he was trying. But what really caught my attention, though I couldn't put it into words at the time, was something about the way he stood. He didn't move. I mean, most people in a bar are constantly moving, checking their phone, shifting their weight, scanning the room. Not him. He was completely still, like he didn't have to make any effort to feel comfortable in that place. Like the place was his and we were all just visitors.

We ended up talking. I don't really remember how it started; I think I went up to order another drink and he made some comment about the music or the bartender, something trivial. What I do remember is that the conversation just flowed on its own. We talked about everything and nothing for hours. My friends left around one-thirty, they let me know, told me to stay if I wanted to, and I did.

And here's the thing I still can't quite grasp: while I was talking to him, something felt off. It wasn't anything concrete. He didn't say anything weird, didn't do anything inappropriate. But there were moments when I'd realize he hadn't blinked for a long time. Or that he was always just a little too close, not aggressively so, but like the concept of personal space wasn't quite calibrated for him. And yet, I didn't leave. I wanted to stay near him. That's the strangest thing I can say, and I know it sounds terrible, but it was like a kind of attraction that went beyond just liking him; it was almost physical, almost gravitational.

I went home with him. I don't regret it in the conventional sense; I was an adult, I made a decision. But what happened afterwards makes me wish I had left with my friends.

His apartment was strange. Not in an obvious way; it wasn't dirty or smelly, and there was nothing sinister on the walls. It was simply empty. A sofa, a table, a chair. Nothing on the shelves. No photos. No personal items, not a book, not a charger, not a jacket hanging behind a door. The kind of emptiness that doesn't suggest someone lives there, but that someone uses it for something other than living.

There was only one lamp on, and it was in that light that I noticed his skin. Not alarmingly; it was a thought that passed very quickly and that I barely registered until later. The texture was slightly off. Not bad, not sick, just a little out of place, like material that should feel warm to the touch but didn't quite. I told myself I'd had too much to drink and let it go.

In the morning, he was gone. I woke up and the apartment was empty. It didn't particularly surprise me; these things happen. I gathered my things and left. It took me a while to find the building's exit because the hallways were longer than I remembered, but, well.

On the bus ride home, I noticed it for the first time. I put my bag on my lap and, as I clasped my hands on top of it, I ran my thumb over the inside of my left wrist—an automatic gesture I do when I'm bored or nervous. And I stopped. There was something different about that patch of skin. An area about two centimeters across, not visible at first glance, but different to the touch. Tighter. Not painful at all. Just different, like the skin was slightly taut over something underneath that didn't quite move right. I stared at it for a moment and saw nothing. Absolutely nothing. Just normal skin.

I told myself it was an insect bite or that I'd been leaning on my bag in a strange way during the trip. And for the next few days, I tried not to think about it. I lasted twelve days before realizing the issue wasn't going to resolve itself.

Update — Day 12

Hello again. I know the first part was long, thanks to those who stuck with it. I'll try to be more concise in this update, though it's hard because I don't really know which details are important and which aren't.

The area on my wrist hasn't gone away. It's grown, though not visibly to the naked eye. If you look at it, it looks like normal skin. If you touch it, if you slide your finger very slowly over it, you can feel the difference: there's an area about four centimeters now, slightly smoother than normal, with a temperature a bit lower than the rest of the skin on my wrist, and—the hardest part to describe—it doesn't move the same. When I pinch normal skin anywhere else on my body, the skin shifts a little over the tissue underneath; it's flexible, there's some give. This area isn't like that. It's like it's stuck to something underneath more rigidly than it should be.

I went to the dermatologist on Tuesday. She looked at the area with a magnifying glass, asked me some questions about whether I'd been in contact with chemicals or plants, took swab samples, and ordered tests. All the tests came back normal this week. No infection, no fungus, no autoimmune markers, nothing. The dermatologist told me it was unusual but that there was nothing concerning in the values and that we'd have to wait and see if it evolved. I got the feeling she didn't know what to tell me.

I've been trying to find the man from the bar. I know it sounds a bit obsessive, but I need to understand if there's any connection, even as a starting point. I don't know his name. I don't have his number; we didn't exchange phones. I don't know the exact address of the apartment because that night I was navigating a bit blindly with my phone and didn't save anything. I've looked for his description on every app I can think of, I've asked my friends if they'd seen him before, I've gone back to the bar twice. Nothing.

And then the other thing happened.

On Thursday morning, I woke up and for about thirty seconds, I couldn't feel my face. I don't want this to sound more dramatic than it was, because at the moment it wasn't painful, it wasn't fainting, it wasn't anything easily described. It was simply that when I automatically brought my hand to my face, as everyone does, I felt nothing where something should have been. It's not that it was numb; the word 'numb' implies a kind of tingling, a pins-and-needles sensation, something. This was absence. Like my face wasn't there at all.

After those thirty seconds, the sensation returned completely. I touched my face, it felt normal, I looked in the bathroom mirror, everything was fine. I told myself it must have been sleep, that I'd slept in some strange position on the pillow and my face had fallen asleep. I know that doesn't make much anatomical sense, but I needed an explanation and it was the only one I had.

The episode happened again on Friday. This time I timed it because I was prepared: forty-five seconds. On Saturday, fifty-two seconds. This morning, one minute and eighteen seconds. I'm writing this update because the episodes are getting longer and because I can no longer keep telling myself it's sleep.

I've made an appointment with a neurologist for next week. Meanwhile, I've been reading about paresthesia and skin diseases and haven't found anything that matches exactly what's happening to me. If anyone has experienced something similar, or knows someone who has, or has any idea, even if it's far-fetched, please tell me in the comments. I'm trying to be rational, but every morning when I wake up and bring my hand to my face, I feel that second of dread before the sensation returns.

And the area on my wrist keeps growing. Slowly, but it does.

Final Update

Six weeks have passed since the first post. I'm going to try to tell everything that's happened since the last update in an orderly fashion because there's a lot of information and I want it to be clear what's what.