Knife Slash: Face

The steel crosses your eye and the world on that side goes red, then black for good. The doctor cleans the socket with carbolic and stitches the lid by lamplight, but no medicine in 1899 buys back what the blade took.

• Blind on one side, misjudge every reach, doorway, and draw
• Wear a bandage over the socket for 7 days, then a patch
• A scar runs brow to cheekbone across the dead eye
• /me turns their whole head to look, the near eye gone dull and still

Recovery The socket heals in 2 weeks under a doctor's care; the sight never returns.·Doctor, urgently

The cheek is laid open to the teeth, you can taste the night air through the hole in your face. The doctor stitches it in layers, silk inside and out, and tells you not to smile for a while.

• Slurred, whistling speech until the swelling settles
• Soup and whiskey only for 3 days, chewing pulls the stitches
• No shouting or laughing for 5 days
• /me presses a folded rag to a seeping line of black stitches down their cheek

Recovery 2 weeks with a doctor's needlework; untreated, the wound festers and the scar drags your mouth sideways.·Doctor required

The blade opens you from brow to eyelid, and only the flinch saves the eye itself. Blood curtains your vision while the doctor stitches a hair's width from the lashes.

• That eye bandaged shut for 4 days, no depth, no aim
• Watering, light-shy eye for a week after the bandage comes off
• A hooked scar splitting the eyebrow, white where hair won't grow

Recovery 10 days under a doctor's care; without it the lid heals ragged and never quite closes right in the dust.·Doctor required

The point splits your nose down one side and notches the nostril. The doctor packs it with lint, stitches what he can, and both your eyes blacken by morning.

• Breathe through your mouth for 3 days, the nose is packed
• Two black eyes blooming purple to yellow over the week
• The notched nostril whistles faintly when you're winded

Recovery 2 weeks stitched and packed; untreated the notch heals wide and the nose sets crooked.·Doctor required

One clean draw of the blade from cheekbone to jaw. Fourteen small silk stitches under lamplight, and the doctor's finest work will still be read across the room for the rest of your days.

• Keep the stitches dry and the jaw quiet, no hard chewing for 3 days
• A tight, tugging feeling whenever you talk too much
• A long thin scar, cheekbone to jaw, that catches every firelight

Recovery 5 days to pull the stitches with a doctor; 10 days and a wider scar if you let it crust on its own.·Doctor required

The steel takes the ear on the way past and splits it near through the middle. It bleeds like a stuck pig and the doctor sews it back into one piece, mostly.

• Head bandaged over the ear for 3 days
• Ringing and muffled hearing on that side for 2 days
• /me tilts their good ear toward whoever's talking

Recovery A week with stitches; untreated the ear heals in two ridges and folk will ask about it forever.·Doctor required

The blade crosses both lips at the corner of your mouth. Every word stings, every sip of coffee finds the cut, and the doctor's smallest stitches sit right where the whole world looks.

• No whistling, no pipe, no bottle-swigging for 4 days
• Eat slow and careful, tearing the stitches means starting over
• Speech gone soft and careful at the corners

Recovery 6 days with a doctor's fine needle; toughed out, the corner of your mouth heals puckered.·Doctor required

A deep slash rides the jawline from chin to ear, gaping open when you talk. The doctor swabs it with whiskey, then carbolic, then earns his fee with a long row of stitches.

• Keep the jaw still, short sentences only for 2 days
• Beard won't grow along the line again, a bare stripe in the stubble
• /me works their jaw gingerly, one hand hovering near a stitched line beneath it

Recovery A week stitched and swabbed; untreated it weeps and crusts for two weeks and scars twice as wide.·Doctor required

The edge rides your cheekbone and opens a slice that bleeds far worse than it is. Half the saloon thinks you're dying; the doctor uses four stitches and calls it a good evening.

• A dramatic blood-stiff collar until you find a wash basin
• Swollen, tender cheek for 2 days
• A short slanted scar high on the cheek

Recovery 4 days with stitches, 7 with a whiskey rinse and stubbornness.·Doctor advised

The tip splits your eyebrow and the blood sheets straight into your eye, blinding you at the worst possible moment. It closes easy enough, but you fought the rest of that scrap half-blind.

• Wipe blood from that eye for the next few hours
• Swollen brow, squinting for 2 days
• /me knuckles blood out of one eye, blinking hard

Recovery 3 days if it's stitched or plastered, 6 if it keeps cracking open.·Doctor advised

A finger's width from something far worse, the blade grazes your temple at the hairline and bleeds free down your jaw. Scalp wounds lie about their size, and this one lies loudly.

• Blood-matted hair and a stained hatband
• A tender knot and thin cut hidden at the hairline
• Headache through tomorrow

Recovery 3 days either way; a doctor just makes the scar tidier under your hair.·Doctor advised

A shallow diagonal across the bridge of your nose, eye to eye. It scabs dark and dramatic, and strangers will do exactly what the name says for the next week.

• Dark scab straight across the face for 5 days, impossible to hide
• Eyes water when the wind hits it

Recovery 5 days to scab and peel, 8 if you keep picking at it.·Doctor advised

The point digs a deep nick into the point of your chin as you jerk back. Small, mean, and it reopens every single time you forget and rest your chin on your fist.

• Keep your hands off it for 3 days or it bleeds anew
• Talking too much cracks the scab
• A pale dimple-scar on the chin when it's done

Recovery 4 days, 6 if you can't leave it be.·Doctor advised

The blade barely kisses your cheek, a thin, clean line that stings like a paper cut and heals into exactly the kind of scar men pay barbers to invent. You got the souvenir without the surgery.

• A fine red line on the cheek, scabbing neat
• Stings when you shave for 2 days
• /me runs a thumb along the thin cut on their cheek, almost admiring it

Recovery 3 days to a faint line you'll keep on purpose.·No doctor needed

The tip clips your earlobe like a rancher marking calves. It bleeds a surprising amount into your collar, and the notch is yours for keeps.

• Blood-spotted collar and a bandaged lobe for 2 days
• A small notch in the ear, a story every time you take your hat off

Recovery 3 days and it's just a notch.·No doctor needed

A shallow line along the jaw that a careless barber could have given you. It bled for a minute and now it just itches whenever anyone asks about the fight.

• Thin scab along the jaw for 3 days
• Itches under stubble, don't scratch

Recovery 3 days, no marks worth mentioning.·No doctor needed

The flat of the blade slaps your cheek more than the edge cuts it, leaving a hot red welt and the shallowest of scratches. It looks worse than it is by candlelight, which suits you fine.

• A welted, pink cheek through tomorrow
• One shallow scratch that peels in a few days

Recovery 2 days and it's gone.·No doctor needed

The blade takes a crescent out of your hat brim and leaves only a scratch on the cheekbone beneath. The hat died so your face didn't have to.

• A scratch you'll forget by Sunday
• A slashed hat brim that tells the story better than you do

Recovery A day. The hat is beyond medicine.·No doctor needed

You feel the wind of it and hear the whisper of steel through stubble, the blade shears a stripe of whiskers and raises a welt, nothing more. Closest shave of your life, in every sense.

• A bare stripe in the beard for a week or two
• A thin welt that fades by morning

Recovery Overnight, save the barbering.·No doctor needed

The steel skates flat along your cheekbone at the perfect angle, a hairline mark, no deeper than a cat scratch, laid exactly where a Heidelberg fencing master would have charged good money to put it. All of the glory, none of the surgeon.

• A perfect hairline scar high on the cheek, no treatment needed
• First round free every time you tell it
• /me angles their cheek to the lamplight so the thin white line shows

Recovery Healed by the weekend; remembered forever.·No doctor needed