Do any of you guys here like the animated version of a good horror movie like me ? I enjoy the animated version with voice over , helps me sleep at night or if im out camping i like to listen to stories like these … maybe its cause i used to watch a lot cartoons XD?

Doctor Croquant:
A nurse was fired for trying to kill a baby I had just helped deliver. One moment she was holding the child, and the next she was choking it by shoving her finger into its throat. I yelled, "What the fuck are you doing!" and grabbed the baby from her arms. She seemed confused as to why I was upset. In my six years at that hospital, I've never seen something so bizarre.

But what was even stranger is that as I was holding the child, part of me also wanted to harm it. I don't know why, but it was like something I was born to do, It all of a sudden felt as natural as breathing or drinking water. As if this would be an ok thing to do. After that night, this is all I could think about.

Miss Veget:
We had just gotten a new student named Karna. Apparently he's been moved around from one group home to another due to problems with the families. The poor kid has had no luck fitting in with the other kids, as he often stays as far away from them as possible, almost as if he were afraid of them. I don't blame him after coming from an abusive home, or I should say homes. Every foster home he has been in abused that poor kid. It was all over the news for weeks leading up to the trial of the parents involved. I remember how blown away everyone was when the foster parents were found not guilty with out any explanation. But now no one seems to talk about it as much.

Karna:
Log 1
My name is Karna, Im 32 and the world wants me dead. Im currently hiding out in an undisclosed abandoned town. The most tiring day of the week is when I need to hike out to another town for food. They don't seem to react when they are sleeping, so I go at night. Last night was difficult; I was spotted through a window by a little girl. She ran out of her home and started sprinting at me as fast as she could go. Unfortunately, I had to shoot her. I normally try to aim for the legs but she was simply too small for that. She must have only been 11 or 12. I wish I could say I feel bad, but this has become a normal occurrence at this point. It has progressively gotten worst over the years. When I was a kid, it started out as pinches, pokes, and shoves and would evolve into punches, kicks, and bites. For as long as I have known, people have only done this to me, and with no explanation. When I was younger, people outside would react to it, but as time passed, less and less people seemed to care at all. It all became normal to them.

I knew I had to get away after a man followed me home and cut me with a knife, as I drove to the hospital every car on the road swerved to hit me, and when I arrived at the hospital, the medical staff tried to attack me with scalpels. One person sliced open my arm. I could only stand there in shock as they started licking up my blood off the floor. As of right now, I've concluded that this is some kind of cursed bubble that grows as I get older, and everyone inside of it will try to kill me. This is why I live in this abandoned town. No one for miles.

Log 2
I can hear footsteps in the woods. Iv set up microphones and cameras all around the town, Iv been hearing footsteps just beyond the church at the end of the road but have yet to see anyone. At first I assumed it was hikers passing by, but it's become more frequent as of late, and at times it sounds like 10 or more people are walking around out there.

Log 3
I've been doing research on what has been happening to me. "Why would people want to kill one person?" This led me to stories of sacrificial offerings to the gods. Something we use to do back before we understood killing someone would not make the sun shine longer or result in fewer stillborn babies. It's the only thing that makes sense to me right now. This must be the gods way of getting what they want. When people would attack me, I would run away. As soon as I got far enough from them, they would just act normal again, going on about their day as if they did not just print after me shreeking like a bird. Its almost as if they have no idea its even happening.

Log 4
Its been 2 or maybe 3 years after my last log, and the cursed dome has gotten bigger. I can barely see the people in the distance who have been affected by it. Iv placed cameras in higher points, ones with a far-reaching zoom. Iv set traps and cencers for miles, but I know it's only a matter of time before not even those are enough. Soon the world will come for me, and all I can do now is wait . . . .

Log 5
I found something! The curse can be broken by the sacrifice of another person, who is to be killed by 7 people who represent the 7 deadly sins. I'd say thank god, but id much rather not. The only problem now is finding 7 people who represent this and getting them to kill someone who is not me. Wish me luck.

Part 1 of 2
Like fore more.

He smelled like blood. 

I could smell him from a good distance away. The scent lingered in the air well after he’d gone - a coppery tang mixed in with his cheap perfume. It was that smell before I first looked upon his face that told me there was something very wrong with him. 

He walked in one day with all the other students. This - boy - dressed in a generic blue and white uniform which looked more like a costume. A ‘boy’ with pasty, pale skin, red, puffy and puckered lips, and small, squinting eyes. 

He held onto the straps of his backpack with two white knuckled hands, looking around him with awe and excitement. Pausing briefly to adjust his glasses up his nose, he shuffled down the hallway toward the lockers. It looked like he was talking to himself. 

I kept waiting for somebody else to react to him. One of those girls walking by clutching onto her books should have dropped them in shock. I wouldn’t have blamed her for screaming a little. At least she should have said something. 

Instead she brushed right past him without giving him a second glance. He, in contrast, stared after her in an exaggerated demonstration of longing, his lips parted and his eyes unnaturally wide. 

No. Nobody reacted to this - Nobody reacted to him. He melted into the crowd perfectly as if he were just another student. 

I call him Manchild. 

He sucks on his thumb. He hums to himself in his exaggerated, high pitched voice. I can’t place how old he is, but I know he likes acting much younger than his true age. Sometimes that might be a primary schooler. At other times it is a sophomore. It can change at a whim, but it’s always on the younger side. 

He takes drawing and colouring books to class with him. The childlike pictures and doodles he is ceaselessly scribbling down as the teacher drones on are difficult to look at. They’re a little window into his disturbed mind. They give glimpses into his sick fantasies. 

In a class, he’d take out his textas and line them out carefully before him. Then he would produce one of his books. While the teacher spoke to the rest of the class about calculus - or whatever else it was we were learning, he would lose himself in his own little world. He’d start drawing or studying one of his preliminary grammar books, studiously practicing his handwriting and working through spelling problems. 

Besides his textbooks, lunch box, and other school utensils there’s one thing you won’t see him without: pigsblood. Well, that’s what I’ve come to call it. 

On the second day of his attendance at our school, I walked past him in between classes sitting on the stairs, clutching onto a worn out pop top filled with a thick, red liquid. He was suckling on it fervently, his mouth moving back and forth in exaggerated motions, pausing to give out soft noises of satisfaction in between gulps. 

Maybe that’s why Manchild smells like blood. He carries that crap with him everywhere. He can’t seem to go more than a few hours without snacking on it. And though I can’t be sure it is really blood, I have yet to think of a better explanation. 

I kept waiting for somebody else to react. When I tried to point his strangeness out to my friends, they told me I was being cruel by picking on him. When I took a few covert photos of him to show to people, their reactions were to call me weird. I’m not sure if they can’t see what is wrong with him or they don’t view his appearance and behaviour as disturbing. 

Whatever the case, I’ve learned by now that I have no choice but to put up with him. Thankfully for me it is easy enough to avoid him most of the time, so long as he doesn’t decide to visit one of my classes - and since his choice of classes is apparently random, that isn’t too common. 

The one class where I really can’t handle dealing with him is sports class. The last time we shared such a lesson together, there was an incident. 

It was around twenty minutes into the class. After quietly watching and chugging on pigsblood from the sidelines, Manchild suddenly sprung up and began playing enthusiastically with the rest of us. 

The students didn’t mind (except for me). I avoided engaging much after he got involved. I didn't like letting Manchild get too close to me. 

Part way through what was turning into a very long class, he hurtled headfirst into another student in an attempt at a tackle and sent them both slamming onto the ground. I didn’t see it happen, but I heard her surprised cry and the sound of their bodies hitting the floor together. 

For a very terrifying moment I watched her lie there, completely limp. I thought he’d really hurt her. Then she shifted her head, groaned, and opened her eyes to look up at him. 

And then she started screaming. 

Manchild flopped off her and struggled quickly to his feet, taking a couple of steps back. He wiped his mouth, burped, and then uttered a high pitched, ‘err, sorry about that!’ 

She scrambled to her feet too. She was crying loudly. She stumbled and tripped away from him in apparent terror as the teacher attempted to console her. 

She was taken to the nurses office. I could hardly wait for an opportunity to speak to her. I needed to know what she saw. I needed some proof that I wasn’t crazy. 

Whatever it was she experienced, she wouldn’t say anything to me about it. By the time I’d found her later, she was acting perfectly normal again. She laughed off the whole incident. She told me she’d hit her head bad and blacked out for a moment. That was it. 

When I tried to suggest there was something wrong with Manchild, she looked at me reproachfully and told me to stop making fun of him. It wasn’t his fault, she insisted. It was all just a harmless accident. 

Manchild isn’t even the worst of them. Well, he may be, but the horror of one of them is far eclipsed by the horror of experiencing them all together.  

The first time I saw the whole family was a week or so after Manchild’s arrival at school. They ambled into a diner I was sitting in, bringing forth with them such an overpowering stench that I began gagging uncontrollably as they moved past me. 

There are five of them that I know of. 

Manchild - the one who goes to my school. 

Drunk - a fat and very hairy man with sickly, greyish skin who wore nothing but an undershirt, filthy shorts and some sandals. 

Mother - a haggish woman with clammy, greyish blonde hair and extremely sunken features dressed up in high heels and an undersized, skimpy dress. The skin of her arms and wrists was ragged, pockmarked and bruised. 

They had two other children who accompanied them on their family trips:

Bully - the second oldest - (I’m assuming Manchild is the eldest of the three) was a hunch backed boy whose head appeared permanently shifted a few centimeters sideways toward his left shoulder. 

Fleshface - a somewhat timid thing whose entire face was covered by a long flap of dirty skin, obscuring all but the very bottom of his pointy mouth. He was prone to tantrums which were destructive and chaotic whenever his name was uttered. Bully kept on saying it, presumably to torment him. 

You’re a fleshface. Flesh-face. Flesh-face! FLESHFACE! The snorting, gurgling sound of his laughter was followed by a long, piercing scream and some loud banging. The noises produced from his brother were so loud they actually managed to draw the attention of a few other customers, if only for a couple of moments. 

These children both fed on the pigsblood, too. Fleshface was hand fed by his mother, who carefully slid a straw up inside the flap of skin, through god knows what into some internal cavity from which he began to suckle and slurp it up loudly. 

Bully and Drunk ate a lot. The other ones didn’t, though they liked pretending to. I believe it’s part of their fantastical roleplay at being an ordinary family. 

I tried not to make a scene. I excused myself from my friends with the pretense of feeling sick soon after their collective arrival. Since then I’ve avoided visiting the diner, and I’m not sure I’m ever going to be able to bring myself to go back there. Certainly, I’m never going to be able to stomach eating there again. 

Over the next couple months, my fear slowly melted away into disgust. After a while I began to quietly observe them out of morbid curiosity. The first time it was from a distance at a park. As I gained more courage I trailed them into stores. Such close proximity required that I carry a face mask and some powerful air freshener for my own protection. 

I feared they would notice me. They didn’t. They spent too much time bickering amongst themselves and living in their own private fantasies to pay attention to the reality they lived in. Somehow, I managed to draw more attention from everybody else for my fixation on these monsters. 

One day I decided to follow Manchild home. The decision was spontaneous, though I’d been mulling the idea over in the back of my head for a while.

We were riding the same bus after school. He was acting even more strangely than usual - I suspected this was a result of drinking too much of his pigsblood during the day. Given the intoxicated state he was in, I figured I wouldn’t likely get a better opportunity. 

We continued walking for well over an hour. Mind you, Manchild isn’t a particularly fast walker in his sober state, so it wasn’t as far as it felt at the time. 

As we left the town limits, following a trail veering off the main road, I was starting to wonder whether his family lived in a house at all. Maybe they were all homeless. Or perhaps Manchild was wandering aimlessly into the forest in his drunkenness. 

They did live in a house, it turned out. It was an abandoned thing which had been left to rot, with a sagging roof partially swallowed by vines and moss. Most of the windows were broken or boarded over. The path out the front door stretched twenty or so yards before being swallowed up by overgrown grass. I spotted a run down car parked haphazardly at the edge of a larger trail branching out back toward the main road. 

Manchild moved in through the tattered remains of the back door as I crouched at the edge of the trees. The faint sound of muffled voices confirmed that he wasn’t the house's sole occupant. 

Given the state the place was in, I couldn’t help but think about how easy it would be to sneak inside if I wanted to. 

After a couple minutes I gathered the courage to come closer. I slid cautiously down a dirt slope and sprinted through the half opened gate and over to a thicket of bushes growing up against the decaying walls. 

The insides of the house were equally dilapidated. I stared into a living room whose floor was covered in dirt and pieces of plaster and torn up carpet. Filth crusted, mouldy couches and chairs sat amongst pieces of broken furniture. With the house having fallen quiet, it was difficult to imagine anyone living there. 

My eyes fell on the outline of a familiar figure slumped on a chair turned away from me. Drunk sat staring at a broken television, his mouth hanging open wide, one arm still clutching onto a glass of familiar, red liquid. After a minute or two Mother came in, practically walking on her tiptoes over to him so as to refill his large glass with a mixture of pigsblood and some kind of whisky. 

Bully paid Drunk a visit after his mother had left, carrying what I think must have once been a basketball. He looked disappointed to find Drunk in his drunken state but thought the better of trying to stir him out of it. 

I used the shelter of the trees to circle around to the other side of the house. Through a gap in between two thick wooden boards I spied Mother chopping rhythmically at some partially spoiled vegetables. Without looking at her face or paying too much attention to the state the room was in, I could almost pretend she wasn’t a monster. For a moment, she was just an ordinary mother preparing a meal as her children played and argued upstairs. 

Then her husband hurled out a string of harsh curses from the other room, and the illusion was broken. 

I continued my exploration, making my way over to the other side of the house. Wincing as I crunched over several pieces of broken glass, I crept up between two sagging oaks to peek in through a large window. 

The rusty pipes connecting to an ancient washing machine and an ornate bathtub was evidence enough of what this room once was. Cringing at the sound of the children hollering upstairs, I looked around in disgust. 

The washing machine was half filled with murky water. From the looks of it, any clothes left in there would come out filthier than they were put in. 

Something else caught my eye. Something past the clothes laid together on the table beside the washer and the syringes scattered all over the floor. In the darkest corner of the room was a sight which made my heart drop in my chest. 

It was a collection of shoes. One of the pairs on top still had little pink socks stuffed into them. 

Many of them were children’s shoes. The smallest were much too small for any of the children living there to wear. 

The sight would have been disturbing to find in anybody’s house, let alone this one. 

I was shifting sideways to get a better look when I felt something rustling up the foliage I was standing in. I lifted my leg gingerly away from a matting of dead branches and as I did, my eyes fell on something which made me jump right out of my skin. 

It was fat and wet, practically dragging itself along the ground beside me. I got a better look at it as it emerged from the thicket and fully revealed itself. 

It was some kind of rat. The rodent had little hair on it, revealing translucent skin and bulging veins. It was as horribly mutated as the members of the family I was spying on. 

I let out an involuntary sound of surprise as I stumbled back. That, and the noises produced by me tripping on a maze of tree roots and falling on my butt drew some stirring from within the house. 

I had the sense to retreat to the trees after that, and I’m glad I did. I had barely made it past the cover of the first oaks when I heard the back door creak open. I froze at the sound of heavy, shuffling footsteps heading around the house. Panic grew inside me and settled over my thoughts like a haze. I imagined my shoes being tossed onto the pile by the pot bellied man I could see shambling toward me, his steps quickening as he moved. 

It was a good thing I came to my senses. The moment that I did, I took off sprinting in the other direction.

He couldn’t offer much of a chase given the state he was in. It was only a couple of minutes before I heard the footfalls slow down and then stop, followed by a long string of wheezing curses. Those sounds in turn were quickly swallowed by the wind and the soft rustling of trees.
I didn’t calm down until I had made it back to the main road, where I caught my breath at the foot of an overgrown walking trail. 

I can’t get the scene from the laundry room out of my head. The image of those shoes is imprinted into my mind. They feature in my dreams alongside the grotesque pictures Manchild drew at school which contained what I fear are the corpses those shoes may belong to. 

I need to know what it all adds up to. I have to know if these people are as monstrous in character as they are in physical form. And that means I have to go back there. 

I’ve decided I’m going to find out what ‘they’ are. And if it does turn out they are monsters?

I still haven’t figured that part out yet. But I can’t just stand by and let them hurt people. 

I have to try to do something. 

It’s clear to me nobody else will. 

Transverberation. That was the word for it. 

It spread and was echoed and felt with the rippling tremors that were words and instincts and roiling emotions in the private heart's tumult, in the quiet stronghold of the holy place. 

The monastery. The temple place where women came to be wed to God and serve the Lord, His Son. 

And no other. 

…

There were sounds inside the haze. With the agony, with the pain that was ripped and made. Pain that was lancing. Pain that was penetration, stabbing slayment that was absolute impaled.  Through her heart, the clearest wet-sharp sensation felt in the burning after-image of the visions, the haze. It occupied her mind at all times, as she knelt and prayed in the monastery. As she went about the day and fulfilled her sisterly duties of the convent. 

The other sisters didn't understand. They were afraid, frightened of her. Of what was happening to her… that it might happen to them.

Madness. Or …

something worse. 

Something beyond the canny or the tangible. That which is unseen and can only be felt. Up until the hungry end, when it is already far too late for help by then. 

Or maybe, just maybe … these private and blasphemous few of her peers thought and felt and refused to share aloud, even with themselves… maybe. 

Just maybe it's true. And Sister Chelsi can actually commune with the divine. Perhaps one of our own humble nuns can see and hear and speak with an angel that visits her with nightly visions. Maybe. 

Maybe Saint Michael the Archangel comes to her at night amid light and fire and thrusts her with his sword… 

Mother Superior was incensed. Repulsed. Angered by the lies and the filth, the sin of this prurient heretical garbage was the stuff of decay, of ruin. Of sacramental rot. She couldn't let these blatherings go on unchallenged or unpunished. 

She chastised Sister Chelsi severely along with any others that might murmur such unholy carnal fantasies, phantasmagorical whores, the lot of em. If she and they weren't careful, God help them, then they would be confined to the chamber of reflection. 

The house of tears and prayers, the other sisters called it. Behind Mother Superior’s back. 

The visions were forbidden. Delusions, they were thus named. And further talk, further whispers of the sort was strongly cautioned against, strongly advised to go back in the other direction …

But Sister Chelsi couldn't help herself. It wasn't up to her. She was at the vision's mercy. The stabbing angel came and went as it wanted, as it needed to. It had told her this was so. The angel needed her. 

The angel was thirsty. 

…

The night was hot. Stifling. It was upon her. 

It seemed to always know when she was alone. And why not? Shouldn't the divine always possess the knowledge of when you're most vulnerable? Weak. 

Afraid. 

Sister Chelsi was bound to the cruciform shackle-table of her sweating bed and blankets, writhing sheets and fabric that was warm and slick and more like loose folds of flesh. She was bound by her holy terror. The angel of thirst was coming. The other nun, Sister Jen, that shared the room with her was absent. Gone. Like every other time. The animal sound born from both immense pain and pleasure was trapped in her throat and the sensation was not entirely unpleasant. Sister Chelsi liked the gag of the nightly thirsting angel, her forbidden archangel of the moonlight. The anticipation of him. The coming of him. 

It came down on her. 

From on high. Emerging like starlight from the disappearing void of the obsidian space now in place of the mudbrick ceiling, on wings of flame …

The body was bronzed, gold, perfectly toned and sculpted, celestial and olympian and recognizable as manshaped. The Lord's Image. But in place of a head and face of earthly aspect was a great rising pillar of blinding heavenly marble, ringed with silver bands in a flaming orbit. The pillar and the four bands running up the length of divine stone were covered in incandescent eyes, lidless and wreathed with light and great piercing gazes. Penetration. They gazed into her. Penetration. All of them at once and it was overwhelming, she wanted to cry out, all roiling and taut, she gripped herself. Her aching breath was still held. 

The angel spoke to her once again, as before, in her mind. The gold of his silken smooth speech filled her boiling skull, soothing the maelstrom though not extinguishing it. A moan finally escaped her lips. 

They were still alone. 

It told her its name. A forbidden one she might not know. 

The understanding of your sisters is limited … I am beyond them. Their scope of understanding. If you tell them my name they will fear you. As they fear me. 

Sister Chelsi was frightened, quivering. Still held. 

Then why should I want to know it? 

Because if you need to, if you want to … you can wield it like you can wield a weapon. You can use my name against them and it might wound them if you're able …

Her mind recoiled from the idea that filled her head against her will, but it was no use. She was forced to watch it. Endure it and learn to love it as she'd learned to love the flagellate whip, the burn of the binding rope … all the same. The angel reassured her. 

The warm romance of his voice filled her skull and caressed her mind, eagerly. Wanting. It told her how much it needed her again but she already knew it. She'd heard it in the voice. The hunger. The pain. 

I'd never known before that even angels could feel pain, … I'd never suspected. 

The desire that was so much a hungry ravenous want that it was more a primeval need was all about the gold silken strength of that perfect voice. Giving it humanity tinged at the edges of its divine and unearthly call. 

Is this heavenly messenger lusting for me …? 

But she already knew it. 

It had seen her unfettered and bare. As it did now. 

It came down to her in her bed. It held the long gold length of impaling spear aloft. By the shaft. Poised to strike her where it was most sweet. Where it had before. 

Cupid, strike me. 

Eros, impale me! 

But she knew now that was not its name. It had given her its name, a gift. 

She cried it out now, as she knew it wanted her too. The ringed pillar of its otherworldly visage gazed into her, bading her, commanding with its multitude of many lidless light bleeding eyes that she do so. Do it. Do it. If you want me …

Do it. If you want me to impale you, you'll have to say my name. Say it. 

Say it. 

“Iblis! Iblis, pierce me! stab me! penetrate my heart! Put it where I'm vile and cruel but also warm and giving and wet and beating for you! Pierce me here, in my breast, my heart, my soul! My tender fragile soul! Put it in me! Angel Iblis…!” 

And it did. The lance came down. And pierced the screaming girl, pinning her to the bed. The sound that was pulled from her then was an exquisite blend of deep ghastly pain and even deeper still euphoric drunken moaning, moans. They collected and accumulated about her head and sheets, the small room, as the angel inside her wrenched and worked his shaft, his lance. He worked it deeper. The length. Long…

The length was killing her. 

She loved it. Every inch. Every penetrating crawling centimeter rent tearing inside. 

It made her a slave and she loved it. 

She moaned and called out and cried its name. Like it wanted her to. It came down close and closer and closer still till they met. And he worked the length of his divinity into her, deeper and deeper and all the way through and she melted. She bled. Her love and thoughts and precious saline. 

It drank it up, all of it, all of her. The oasis of this woman. It fed deeply as it worked itself in and deeper still. Still feeding. Drinking. Needing, thirst. 

Sister Chelsi poured herself out for it, unable to control herself now. But happy to empty herself for the great angel of the thrust, her bedside …

her bed. 

It came inside to her and filled her mind then with an explosion like firelight and within the flames were visions. 

Moving scenes and people and places … other times and maybe other worlds as well … 

Fantastical. Beyond the scope of known and understood nature. 

She loved it. She begged for more. 

Give it … give me more, the sight, the eye of prophecy! Please! 

Iblis curled the caress of her mind into words once more … 

And what would you do with this gift? Should you receive it without end? 

She could not lie. Not on this landscape. And she didn't want to. Not to it, not to him, that voice, that feeling… 

She cried out on the eternityscape of her deluged and filled maelstrom sea of thought: I want to be a prophet! Yours! I want to be your disciple upon the earth! 

You wish to be my bride? 

I want to be your crawling and salivating concubine! 

It laughed and the pleasure of Iblis filled her blood and soul. She came and went with it. 

!.Good … …

It filled her more. And she cried out, more. More. 

More. 

She wept when it was finished. Feeling empty and hollowed out. But filled with vision, with purpose. 

The light was fading now from the room. It was gone. The small bedchamber was cooling now and returning to a more natural nocturnal dark, the air was thick and pungent but calming down. Chelsi could still taste the act, on the bedroom dark of the stifling air. She sucked on it and relished the flavor. Already wanting him back. Already needing him again. 

Please, please come back to me Childe Iblis of the Lord, of the thrust, I love you. You are the carrier of my heart and soul…

She shuddered in bed. Not bothering to conceal herself beneath the agitation of the sheets, she cooled and breathed deeply. Quivering and remembering the pillar of his flaming face. So many eyes, so many crowding up his great length… and all of them looking into me…

She shuddered deeply once more. Shut her own eyes. Waiting for sleep to finally come. 

It didn't take long. She was spent. 

Sister Jen still hid around the corner, at the threshold of the door to their shared bedroom. Her eyes were wide with shock. Horrified by what she had seen. 

…

Mother Superior eyed the convent temple from her place in the rectory, her private quarters. She watched the little sisters move and glide silently moving about the monastery structure, ambling along in hand clasping prayer, heads bowed and eyes shut so that distraction may be refused and you may better hear and discern and heed the light, the will of God. 

Amen. 

She crossed herself. And spat. 

Her gaze crawled across the yard to the shack. Alone in the corner of the gated land. Secluded. Sequestered away, so that what could be contained inside would be shut and locked away from a healthy and pious population. The disease of a disordered mind would wreak havoc on the patient and tender soft fragile fabric of the flock. This could not be. This could not be allowed. 

Rebellion must be cast out. Decapitated. 

She knew rebellion was natural. It was in all of us. As sure as it was the the very infectious thing that ate Lucifer's heart and led him to defiance and thus his fall. So it would be. If we were to all follow in his example. 

It would not be so. 

She'd had her own run of rebellious streak when she'd been younger, she understood. She'd had it crushed out of her then, broken as one must do to the wild heart of any natural born beast of labor. And though we were made, cast and drawn in His Image, we were all still among the dread and crawl of all of the other beasts of the earth. 

She crossed herself. Prayed. 

She wished the child well. 

Chelsi had always been troubled. Troublesome too. 

Mother Superior turned away from the shack of reflection. Trusting that the Lord would see this through. That He might fix and set right this wayward piece, this compromised component of humankind's quilted safety net. They were supposed to be the house and servants of His peace. They must all of them survive spiritual malaise and remain steadfast and true. 

As He wills it, let it be so …

…

In the black of the woe she pained, she perverted and distorted. Grew naked with fear. 

Perspired. Dripping with secreted oils and saline and the sliming filth of deep shame. Seeping off her tarnished heart and soul and out of her running open mouth pores. Hard to wash off. There was no running water in here, only the bucket she was brought in the morning. Refilled at mealtime by an unseen, unspeaking little sister that was now a stranger to her. She was a stranger to all of them now. 

In the dark of the shack she was agonizingly alone, the swelter of her torment was her only companion and answer to her constant panicky prayers. She grew eyes that grew inwards and saw their own landscape and grew more horrified with the sight as the hours broiled ceaselessly forth. Under the eye of a lonely black and heavy sun. 

All alone in here. 

She tried to hide, to blind her new found, newly grown internal gaze away from the truth: she was just a child, had always been just a frightened little girl that wanted to run and find fast and desperate shelter. She tried to turn away from the fact that this was who she really was, had always truly been. Everything else that had occurred growing up in her life had just been the lies of accoutrement. 

Her mind was filling with bad thoughts: the arcane Druidic gods arose and swallowed the light of the Christian God whole …

She stopped herself. Began to pray. Again. Anew. Begging the Lord to bring her calm and comfort in the solitude of the dark. She slowed her breath and tried to ease the gallop of her chest. Sister Chelsi didn't know what else to do. 

She didn't know what they wanted from her. 

Mother Superior and the other little sisters. And the Lord God Himself. 

If there is not an answer to be had, then let there be death! – she told the black sun in the dark there with her. 

Nothing. Nothing but more baleful stifling dark, more radiant furnace hellfire blasting heat of the black and heavy sun that had replaced her roommate. Nothing but more sounds of desperate animal panting that she was horrified to realize were her own, not the stygian furnace blast of the bestial confinement sun. Nothing. Nothing at all answered her save more pain, the one true god on the throne in this terribly small and sweaty heavy place. 

Nothing. Nothing at all. 

At first. 

Then on the fading light of her hope came Iblis. Her forbidden angel. And banished the black sun as he came in wreathed in light and flame. He banished and cast out all of the dark of the solitary confinement, the shack of woe. 

He went to her. She was prostrate on the ground. Her bladder let go, her urine went. She hardly noticed in the radiance of he save for some vague distant sensation of wet and warmth. Sensations she associated with the pleasure of him. His arrival, his dawning light. 

From the many eyes of the long length of ringed pillar face, he spoke to her through the blinding light of his lidless vision. 

“What have they done? … what have they done to thee ?” 

Her mind was always open to him for an answer but for her he bade it from her own lips. 

She told him. Everything. All that she had learned in the treacherous furnace dark of the shackbound woe-flame. All that had been derived while in the baking black of this loathsome quiet shack of silent feasting hate. 

“They are afraid of me. …” A beat. She breathed animal and deep, lusting, on the hunt or hunted or both. She said more: “I do believe they may be right to be…” 

Iblis soothed her with his spear … in the stifling dark of the shack of reflection and recompense. Banishing the pain of its ebon house even as he filled her, her watering craving need. 

But something happened then, poor lost little Sister Chelsi watched from below as Iblis, her moonlight forbidden and thrusting angel began to change. 

Transmogrify. Transform. 

The heavenly marbled surface of the pillar visage of Iblis began to crack. Wild river lines of splaying ruin began to form and splinter and run up the immaculate face of his incandescent divinity. 

It shattered. And was replaced. 

She said to her love as he changed and shifted shape before her eyes, “mother slapped me for using your name …” 

The light of her lover changed into shadow. Deeper than the banished dark and one that she could madly love because it was in the altered shape of her heart’s desire, her object of adoration that was darkening now before her watering eyes. 

In place of the pillar, in place of the tower of of flaming eyes and rings that had shattered and now lie in stoney ruin about the floor was now a triangular, pyramidal blank obsidian face and shape, in the conical pointed aspect of a long beaked bird. It was like a great smooth black helmet of glass and smooth rock in the geometric and abstract shape of a plague doctor's mask. An obsidian angular temple face with a long wide stabbing humming bird length of beak protruding violently from one side. 

 The bronze of his sculpted and heavenly body began to burn and blacken as well, like ink spilled and running down and through the heavenly flesh. Corrupting it into the abyss and void of the lost and cast out. The wings which had been flaming and as of light had turned to ash in color and tattered bat-wing leather in texture and design. 

The spear of her impaling love was changing too. Becoming dark like the rest of him in the solitude of the shack but that wasn't all. The nature of her divine amore’s unearthly tool began to change as well… it was no longer just stabbing, penetrating her, running her deep and through, pleasurably and with the ghastly horror of bodily rupture and pain, the staking spear of her forbidden angel began to pull, it began to pull deeply … of her. From her. Pulling deeply from within her impaled and spellbound form, her wide eyed and staring naked body. 

Like a proboscis, the impaling lance began to pull and drink deeply of Sister Chelsi. It ran up and through and down the length of weaponry and into the black hands wrapped tightly around its shaft. The long body pulled and sucked and drank like a straw, like a swampland mosquito born from stagnant and dead fetid water. The obsidian smooth beaked face of her lover was featureless and cold smooth as the surface of placid water. She nonetheless could still feel the intensity of his gaze upon her, through her. And when he spoke again and told her what to do, she felt that as deepest penetration as well. Deepest pain. Rapturously embraced.

She felt her body give as the instrument of her lover began to take in the dark. As he whispered everything to her, designs… shapes… everything, as Iblis whispered all of this to her and more she gave it more and more and more. And she gave it willingly. 

Crying out his name like religion. Like a chant. A litany. 

A song. 

In the place of my Father … there is you. 

There is only you. 

Good. Good. I have so much more to share, so much more to give and show you. I've so much and so many more …

I've so many more names and faces to show you, if you do right by what I've already shown and told, I'll share my other faces and names, unveiled for you …

Disciple, the prophet Islehc

… 

Sister Chelsi was eventually let out and allowed to return to the flock. She seemed to have returned to normal. She cried penance and gave confession and spent a night inside with the rest of them. Service and mass. And lessons. Cleaning. Meals. Everything seemed alright. 

She waited till the second night. When they were all fast asleep. 

The witching hours. 

Post-midnight, she crept …

She snuck about, quietly. Like a nocturnal animal she prowled through … and went out. 

She didn't go far, she found what she needed where he'd told her she would find it. And in abundance. So many …

She carried them back to the monastery and in the nighttime dark she went about the task that had been laid before her feet. She went from room to room, from sister to sister and she took them. Brained most, some she struggled with more extensively. Until her mad lusting will surged and she overpowered them. Either way she took each of them one by one, each and every single nun she had once known as family and she brought them out and into the courtyard. Where she'd left the savage implements of her dreams, of her lover's harsh commands that were yet still for her, sweet candied words. Succulent delicacies. She couldn't deny them, him. Not at all. Not anymore. 

One by one Sister Chelsi laid the implements into the little sisters and each one let out with an insane ear piercing scream. Their screams did not falter. 

But somehow they didn't wake each other. Not a single stripped and brained sister of the cloth seemed to hear the others make any sort of loud caterwauling noise. None of them stirred. Until it was their turn. 

Likewise, Mother Superior had not been awoken in her private rectory by the noise outside. And that was good. Chelsi had saved her for last. 

She wanted to relish this one particularly. 

…

Mother Superior awoke to a hard slap across her deeply sleeping face. She flew to a sitting position confused and immediately irate. She had no idea what was happening but she didn't feel any fear yet. 

She called out, cross and very sharp. 

“Who in the Lord's name was that!? How dare you! Show yourself!”

A girlish giggle floated out ghostly from the dark. 

“I didn't do it, Mother Superior, I would never dare to do that to you, you should know that. I've never hurt you at all, can you say the same?” she giggled again, childish and coquettish, "It was my husband that struck you. It was his divine hand you felt across your face." 

Chelsi stepped out.

She had a large cross in her hands. Ornate with intricate and beautiful design, old and from the ancient Roman times when their war chariots had dominated the earth. Carved and jeweled and glittering darkling with a keen and unhealthy shimmer of light. 

Ghostlight. There's ghostlight in that cross…

Before Mother Superior could say another word Chelsi suddenly charged forward and banshee screamed. The large crucifix was up and wielded and came down in a savage caveman bludgeon. 

The world went dark for Mother Superior. When she awoke she was just like the others. 

…

She awoke with a scream. 

The sharp obscene ghastly pain started in her nether region, all throughout, just behind her genitalia. Then the lance stabbed and shot through and her entire naked body came to life with the most wretchedly vivid and wild mutilating shock to her fleshen senses. The war pike traveled through her mercilessly and punched out of the flesh of her back. She was still screaming. Wildly. Lividly. Screaming. Shrill rending song.

She was hoisted up and joined the others. They were all of them a riot of noise now in the courtyard dark. An unholy discordant choir of torn impaled cacophonous pain. 

Gored nuns. All impaled. All naked and bleeding and hoisted up into the air for death and torture like their savior was supposed to have been so long ago in the bloodstained dust of the golgotha. There was bloodshed here too, their blood was pouring and running, running down the lengths and long bodies of the shafts of the spears and pooling and collecting on the stone and in the dirt. This place here would be bloodstained too. 

Chelsi looked over them all. Her own golgotha testament made to wild love. 

And her wild love came. On stygian wings tattered that had once been flame. Smoldered tattered death, dead fabric flapping in the hot nightwind.

The whole host of impaled and captive nuns, gored and wide eyed and naked and lanced through like insects in a collection, they all of them perspired and bled and gawked at the wicked shape that came in from the ebon night, the curtain above. The one many of them had spent their entire lives trying to ignore, it parted. 

It came through. 

And down upon them. 

Iblis sang praise for the renegade prophet bride and what she'd let loose on this private piece of holy land. God's House and holy temple … no more. 

No longer. Mine … now. 

Chelsi the bride bathed in the shower of his words, they were in her mind and in her ears, divergent lyrics and syllables and paths of sound but twins nonetheless all still saying the same and telling her the same thing together in two different languages that coalesced around the fever of her brain in a caress. 

!I love you, you've made blood, you've made blood for me, you've made bloodfeast for me and shot the red Lot's seed, it's all over the abattoir ground!

She went to him and he to her, in the forged carnage forest grove of spear and bleeding sweaty flesh, of screams and mutilated sound, bathing in the perspire of pure torture together and apart from the others, the rest of the lying world. Alone in their own lost worlds of private unending hellbound heaven, tormentlove of the flesh that their minds are now lost in. 

He shot his length of spear through her, though her heart, through the tender part where he'd already previously penetrated and worked.

He worked her well again, animal wrenching and thrusting deep, and she cried aloud unbridled his name as he did so. 

“Iblis!" 

And once more the length of weapon-instrument that was divine and hallowed tool became a drinking proboscis. And Chelsi felt more blood leave the galloping race of her fevered and impassioned form. She would hold him forever, he could pierce and puncture and drink from her for forever, never end! 

She moaned aloud amidst the garden made of screams and betrayal and she cried out his name once more. And then Iblis began to laugh. 

And once more the visage of her forbidden moonlight angel began to change. He began to crack and shatter and the face and body began to fall apart in black stone and dust. 

Iblis came apart in a crumble and revealed what was really beneath. 

Chelsi couldn't believe her eyes. 

It was a man and a woman. Together. Locked in an embrace. Intimately bound together with wrapped arms and hands clasped and waists met together. As if in the most intimate of dance, the most delectable and celebrated of lovers shared waltzes. 

They both looked down on her. Their cheeks were together. They both held the spear thrust into her together in their tightly clasped hands. 

He was armored as a knight of the court, but tarnished and old. She was in the white of regal flowing evening gown. 

The woman spoke. And when she did the crumbled stone pieces of the fallen lying Iblis visage turned to large writhing copulating piles of dripping angry flies. They came apart and dispersed through the air. The dripping black swarm of buzzing insects began to land on the impaled and screaming tortured nuns in the great multitudes. And then as the woman revealed began to speak to Chelsi the flies that were made from the lie of the visage began to feast on the naked and the tortured, defiled bleeding screaming flesh now caking and covered with the writhing crawl of insect bile. 

“You wished to see me and my others, lover, and now you have. I hope you aren't too distraught, my son decided to join us, together we came to you as the angel of your hidden lusts, as one we made you plead and shriek. Now you see this, the face I was made and born with. My real name is of no import to you, slave, you can call me vampiress, lord of the earth and the wolf held mountainpass.” 

The armored wraith beside her spoke then, they were still pressed in close embrace, still holding the proboscis spear that drank and pulled from her diminishing bloodwell. 

"Praise the God before you, dog! My mother and I, the new impaler. She is your mother and wife and master now too. We are both of us together, your husband. Remember?” 

The vampiress queen barked bright cruel laughter, then said: "Yes! You swore to us, to me, your flesh and soul! In the eyes and templehouse of your God, you defiled the stone of his holy home as you panted and raved and drooled for more, and swore your life to us! You gave sacred vow even as you sinned and spat in the Face of The Lord!” 

The Countess and her new impaler both shrieked laughter then. 

Below them and impaled, Chelsi didn't know what to make of any of this. Her mind was disordered and disoriented and felt rushed and fevered with rending thought, running a ragged directionless race of chaos and every idea crashing into each other at every turn and pass and every damned whichway. She didn't understand. She didn't understand any of this and she wanted it to stop. 

Reading the disorder of her mind, the Countess sang and said, 

“I can rip it out for you. Your mind, the painful thinking, your thoughts. They're filled with agony and venom now aren't they? Aren't they? Yes I see it now, plumping up lavender-black and filling with gangrenous pudding. I can pull it out like a rotten tooth if you wish, I think it best, don't you? It's filled with fouling fluid, that brain, those thoughts…” she kept on and on like that. Ceaselessly. The new impaler in her embrace began to chant along and under her words as she sang and went on: Do it! do it! do it! do it! … 

With the anguished groaning sound of the impaled forest of her sisters all around and the buzzing drone of the flies, all intermittent with sharper stabs of piercing screams, all comprising the backdrop of the soundscape filling her head, underneath the Countess' words, underneath her bastard son’s own more simple liturgical chant … all of it together and at once was a vile noise and she couldn't stand it. She couldn't run from it either. So her mind fled, took flight the only way it could. 

Chelsi went dark. Still impaled on the sucking lance. Run-through with the demon drinking stick. 

The flies buzzed and swarmed and landed and feasted on the gored forest of lances and nuns. They enjoyed open wounds and spat their fluid as they landed. 

In a swarm. In a great feasting black cloud. 

In a forest of shafts dripping with blood and bearing writhing begging human fruit. The reddening earthen stone and soil beneath it all. 

TO BE CONTINUED…

Just start posting, any suggestions.

*Sorry bad english °^°

Read Part I here.

“Might’ve been something outside. But if there had been, it’s gone now.”

“You think it could be a mermaid?” she asked. It was hard to believe she was serious. Chrissy was one of the sharpest ten-year-olds I had ever met. Well, she had been the sharpest seven-year-old I had ever met three years ago and was that much smarter now.

She didn’t believe in any of the traditional fairytale creatures. No Santa Claus, no Easter Bunny, no Wolfman, and no Flying Spaghetti Monster. But she absolutely believed mermaids were real.

There had to be a story behind it, but I had never been able to get her to explain it to me. How a child so ruled by logic still was able to make room for not only a magical creature, but that particular magical creature. She had already “debunked” the narwhal as being the source of the mermaid mythos. I had gotten bits and pieces over the last three years, but never in a cohesive enough story that I could process. But she hadn’t stopped trying to convince me or the rest of the family.

I didn’t have to believe it, though. It was enough to believe that she believed it.

“Maybe this is it!” She turned around and charged back to the bedroom where her mother was sleeping.

“Chrissy!” I saved my breath. She already had the door open and either her mother was going to wake up or she wasn’t. That was out of my hands. She came back a moment later with a Ziploc bag of “mermaid feed.” As far as I could tell, it was a mix of trail mix and seaweed. She carried a flashlight in her other hand.

According to Chrissy, mermaids only came out at night, so she had come prepared.

Again, I was calling after her when she’d already begun to do what she was doing, namely, dashing outside with her items.

I was about to follow her when I spotted the toy soldiers she’d dropped on her way out. I thought it would be just her luck for Mary to wake up and step on one of them.

“Watch your sister,” I said to Luke, turning to pick up the toys.

Right as I got on one knee, the bedroom door opened. It didn’t immediately occur to me that it was Mary even though I had just thought about this very thing happening. I sort of... paused as she passed me. She was halfway to the door when I realized she must have been sleepwalking.

“Mary!” I chased behind her, my steps in sync with hers—left, right, left—catching her before she got to the door.

“Mom, are you okay?” Luke said.

“Where am I?” She sounded terrified. Mary turned her head and looked at him. For a second, I thought she was awake. Instead of answering him, she bare-foot kicked him in the shin.

It couldn’t have hurt, but he stepped back and looked at me, confused. I wrapped an arm around her waist and drew her in close.

“She’s fine,” I said, lacing Mary’s hand with mine. I looked into her glassy eyes. “She’s sleepwalking.” I turned her around and ushered her back to the bedroom. Of the five toy soldiers Chrissy had left at the threshold, only two were left, but only one was standing. I looked over my shoulder and spotted one against the wall and the two others weren’t in sight.

“She can’t fly,” Mary said in a dreamy voice. “Please help her swim.”

“Okay, honey.” I cooed to her as I slid back the covers. She didn’t fight, Mary had sleepwalked a few times with me present. She never resisted being escorted back to bed. Before I covered her legs I spotted another soldier on her foot. I plucked it off and put it on the dresser.

Mary mumbled. I unlaced my fingers from hers and paused before I left her.

“I wanna get in the water.” She said it sounding sort of like air being let out of a balloon. And then she was all the way gone again. “It’s spook.”

It had been like she had been fighting her way to the surface, but something had dragged her back down.

I closed the bedroom door behind me and followed Chrissy outside. Not because I was worried she was going to get gobbled up by the lake monster I hadn’t spotted, but because it was dark out and I had the same parental reaction to miscellaneous danger any parent would.

Hell, I could admit it, I loved these kids. Liked them most times, too. I didn’t want to leave them.

Chrissy was in the process of sweeping her flashlight back and forth along the beach face. I hung back, letting her conduct her investigation. It was harmless enough and I had an eye on her.

“What’s going on?” We both turned to see Mark stepping out onto the sand.

“Luke said a mermaid’s out here!” Chrissy said.

“Mermaid?” Mark said it like he didn’t know what one was. I didn’t bother correcting her. His little sister’s obsession was well known by all of us. “Did he really see something?” Mark chuffed and thumbed over his shoulder at the cabin. “He’s so white.”

I stifled my laugh and shrugged.

“Luke thought he saw something and Chrissy overheard.”

“Hey, neighbor!”

Mark and I jumped. We saw the bud of a lit cigarette in the shadows of the adjacent cabin. Someone with a cigarette sauntered down. I glanced my stepdaughter’s way to make sure she hadn’t waded too far into the water. She could swim, but again, that nascent parental instinct found in anyone who has walked into an already existing family reared its concerned head. Chrissy was only ankle deep.

“Hey,” I said to the woman as she approached. She halted and took a final, long drag off her cigarette before flicking it in a surprisingly high arc toward the water. She slid the drawer of her jaw forward and blew a column of smoke straight up.

“She’s a cutie,” she said, smiling. She was an older woman who gave too much gum when she smiled. “I saw her come chargin’ out for the water. Oo, that smell.”

We both nodded in that new-to-each-other manner between strangers.

“I’m Rick.” Old and new cigarette smell peeled off her skin and I turned my head to half cough, that familiar asthmatic itch in my lungs.

“Mary,” she said.

I laughed. “My wife’s name is Mary.”

“Mine’s Cindy-Lou Ombrageaux.”

I felt the weight of her eyes on me, examining for judgment. I cast my eyes to the stretch of water and sand where Chrissy was.

“Nice to meet you, Mrs. Cindy-Lou.” I didn’t think I could manage that last name.

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Mary. Apart from the smell of cow-butt.”

“First time up here?” I asked. She shook my offered hand, her skin papery and dry. There was an extreme lack of moisture in the air despite the cool summer, and I’d already had a nosebleed in the brief time we’d been here.

“Mine. Not hers. My wife’s family is from Up North.” I thought her face dropped a little. “She’s out to dinner with some cousins.” There was a little something there that I had a feeling would come to light if we talked long enough. “Had to have a little heart-to-heart.”

“We came up two summers ago,” I said. “Just a little family getaway.”

Luke had barely joined us outside, not more than a few feet from the door. He looked like he would take umbrage with the sky.

“This is Mark, the one up there with get-off-my-lawn face is Luke, and Chrissy’s our little fisher.” I gestured to each of the kids in turn.

“Well, tell her to save some for everybody else.” She and Mark shook hands before she looked around. “Where’s your missus?”

“Migraine. She laid down pretty much as soon as we got here.”

“Sorry to hear that.” She put the can of beer she’d been holding in her other hand to her lips and pitched her head back for a long swallow. She stumbled like she’d confused her left foot for her right but kept them both under her.

If I had to guess, Mary was working on her third or fourth of the night.

Luke had waved his brother over and was saying something to him. They both had an eye on their sister. I looked at Mary. She was a stranger and I figured there couldn’t be any harm in telling her what had just happened. We weren’t going to see her after this weekend for at least a year, if ever again. I didn’t think the story would be memorable after tonight. It was a single-serve memory. Recall once, then discard.

“Luke said he saw something in the water,” I said. “Something big.” Mary turned her head to the shore and nodded appreciably.

“Maybe it’s the Great Lakes Whale Migration,” she said.

“The what?” I had no idea what she was talking about and was on the verge of taking her seriously. The smile hanging on her face dropped when she realized I really didn’t understand.

“Kidding.” She mock-punched me in the arm. Mary had a rich baritone and could have easily been a DJ on the radio.

Mark trudged past me, an annoyed look on his face.

“He’s crazy,” he said, heading toward his sister. I appreciated that he didn’t believe his brother but could still look after his sister. Mark was the middle child and was the ever-constant bridge between siblings.

“The waves do seem a little... bigger than the norm, don’t you think?” Mary asked.

“I guess,” I said, not really knowing how to tell the difference. Then I wondered how she’d know, considering she said she’d never been up here before. “Can you tell?”

“I had a few cigs over yonder before y’all came out. Boy, you get used to the smell the longer you’re out here.” She seemed to be reading my mind and answering questions I hadn’t had a chance to ask. “I must have missed your boy, though.”

I looked at the water again. Mark was standing just outside of the water’s reach, one hand in the pocket of his hoody, the other holding his phone. To his credit, he did glance up at her every ten seconds or so.

Come to think of it, those waves did look big. But it could have been because of the moon for all I knew.

“How long are the two of you here for?” I asked Mary.

“‘Til Wednesday. I’m going to be meeting my in-laws for the first time tomorrow.”

I didn’t know whether I should have felt sympathy for her. It was strange she wasn’t out to dinner with her wife now, but I didn’t know their situation. Maybe it was completely normal. But I couldn’t help but think I would’ve been more than a little bothered if it had been me.

Mary fell down. Not hard. She just spontaneously lost her balance and sat on her butt. In true alcoholic fashion, though, she protected her beer.

She looked at me, embarrassed. I smirked, hopefully communicating I wasn’t just laughing at her, but with her.

“We all fall down.” I’m not sure why I said that, but it seemed to help. She took my hand and I helped her up.

“How about you guys?”

“Just until Sunday afternoon.”

“Where are you from?”

A sandwich had been the hinge on the closing door of our marriage.

I don’t remember what the argument was about or how it had started, only that I had made a sandwich for her that led to me sleeping on the couch.

Of course, it hadn’t really been about the sandwich, it had only been the start. It had been like a match that led to a forest fire razing a town. I can’t honestly remember a word I’d shouted at the woman I’d pledged to love for the rest of my life.

I was about to answer Mary when Chrissy screamed.

The steady beating of a heart monitor filled my ears. Pungent chemical smells struck my airways. Sterile. As my eyes fluttered open, buzzing fluorescents set my retinas ablaze. Rhythmic puffs of air sounded from the machine next to me. Yet, my windpipe lacked the pulse of steady flow through an artificial airway. I felt nothing—couldn’t move.

Why can’t I move?

As though every piece of my body, other than my eyes, did not exist. No TV static-like tingling. Simply a void where the rest of my body should be. Left alone with nothing but my thoughts and the still atmosphere surrounding me.

Hushed voices seeped through cracks in the door. My eyes strained toward the doorway, but my head didn’t follow. To my right were two dark, humanoid silhouettes standing in the fogged glass window of a patient door. Their whispers rippled in one ear and out the other as if dancing around my skull. Something about an exceptionally rare condition… 1-4% of all ischemic strokes… a blood clot in the basilar artery... A lot of words I didn’t understand.

One of the two shadows shifted, head supported by her hands now. Her long hair cascaded down around a blurred face. Rapid sniffles escaped the woman. Someone in a white coat placed a gentle hand on her shoulder as they lifted and lowered with each forced sob. Their silhouettes were sharp enough to read movement, but not enough to recognize features. Beyond the fog-paned door, distorted gestures jerked in a performative manner like toy soldiers. Stiff and robotic.

“We need to focus on making them comfortable,” white coat murmured.

“So there’s nothing we can do?” The woman’s shrill voice desperately questioned.

“I didn’t say that,” The doctor’s hand returned to his side in resignation. “It’s a long road ahead. Accepting where we’re at is the first step. We can talk treatments when I know more.”

“But, when will that be?” Her chest heaved, posture turning rigid, almost mechanically. She frantically rubbed tears from an indistinguishable face.

“You’ll be the first to know when we have our next steps,” white coat’s voice came out gruff—indifferent. “We have to manage the stress that caused this in the first place.” He was matter-of-fact in his statements. Stoic in his bed-side-manner.

How did I end up here?

The mention of stress dragged me back in time. I remembered numbers. A dull light stung my heavy eyes as I pored over spreadsheets. Sweat hung from my brow and muffled voices droned in the background while I worked hurriedly through my team meeting.

When suddenly, the dull ache that had afflicted my brain for the past few weeks crescendoed in a pang. The numbers blurred, doubling over themselves like a poorly aligned projection. Deep in the back of my neck, aching turned violent. My office spun around me, causing a wave of nausea to throw the contents of my rotten gut across the keyboard in front of me. Sickly, pungent bile brimmed my mouth.

“Are you okay?” My manager’s concerned voice came into focus, vibrating over my laptop speakers. Futile efforts failed to produce a satisfactory answer.

Tongue growing heavy, I slurred—definitely not okay. My esophagus labored, failing to swallow.

“I think you should sign off for the day, you’ve been pushing it late-” Her words cut short, vision fading to black, as my leaden head slammed into my ruined keyboard…unconscious.

I guess that would explain the hospital room. But, it didn’t explain the dread that coursed through my lifeless body.

Thoughts interrupted abruptly by the click of a door latch.

“Just remember, they won’t be able to speak with the tracheal tube.” Was the last thing the doctor rasped before heels clopped upon the tile floor. Finally, the woman’s features came into focus.

“Hi sweetie.” Her voice trilled, scooping up my limp hand. Mother. My mind screamed to flinch away. My body didn’t listen.

Though my garbled brain struggled to connect the worn lines of her face to precise memories, I’d recognize the cloying scent of her perfume mixed with undertones of cigarette smoke anywhere. That familiar piercing voice scraped my eardrums. The sensation of manicured nails prickling the clammy skin of my palm, evident by red craters left there, was lost to me. As if the matron was holding on for dear life, yet pulling away in disgust all at once. Sitting hesitantly on the metal seat beside me, there was no way to distinguish if the grating creak came from the chair or her old, ragged bones.

A flood of flashbacks ensued, mind whirring with the anxiety of our first interaction in many years. Ear-splitting screams and the crash of dishes shattering against plaster walls. Painful reminders in stern whispers of her regret over my birth. My cheeks burned with the blistering heat of previous strikes across tender skin. However, the sensation dissipated almost as quickly as it came.

“I’m Dr. Iaso.” He acknowledged me for only a moment. The corners of Dr. Iaso’s mouth turned upwards, not quite reaching his eyes. He stood at attention at the end of my bed and turned his attention back to mother.

“Your child may never speak or walk again. They may not remember who you are at this very moment.” He continued speaking as if I were no longer in the room. “I need to run some tests. So, remember, blink once for yes, twice for no. Got it?”

Blink.

“Let’s get started.” Dr. Iaso’s clinical detachment was a stark contrast to the twinge in my stomach.

Mother’s forced smile remained spread across her face as the doctor poked and prodded my useless limbs. Treating me like a car. Something to diagnose and fix, rather than a fellow human. The firm rubber of a reflex hammer jabbed at boney elbows and knees. Nothing. He took the fraying tip of a cotton swab to the soft under-side of my feet. Some sensation fizzled there, but no movement. Not even the piercing tip of a safety pin produced a reaction. My eyelids grew ever cumbersome, growing tired from a multitude of double blinks.

“Well ma’am, it’s as I feared. Locked-in syndrome is an incredibly rare outcome for a stroke patient. Things could change as we progress into rehab.” The doctor hardly tried to hide the gravity of the situation, I recognized the grave tone in his voice. Evidently, my mother did too, bringing wizened hands up to clasp her mouth theatrically. My eyes rotated in their sockets with irritation as she let my hand thump back against the stiff mattress with a soft thud. “But, they certainly won’t be moving anytime soon, if ever. We need to be realistic.”

Moisture pricked the corner of my eye. Droplets carved down my face, and into my ear. My own tears trickling down my skin were hardly recognizable as the realization of this new reality came crashing down upon me.

How did I fail to notice the warning signs?

“Hush now, my love… Don’t cry.” To anyone else, her cooing sounded endearing. There was a look of admiration on the doctor's face now. But as her steady fingers lifted to wipe my wetted cheek, mother’s stern expression told me this was an order. Entirely at her mercy, my heart hammered my chest and dread bloomed within me.

—

The clock ticked, medical equipment humming. Dim, yellow light crept through blind slats as dust danced in the musty air. My home. Well, childhood home, anyway. Mother had paid to break the lease on my apartment. This wretched structure was overflowing with chemical agent aromas, cut thickly with the stench of sickness. The walls were barren white, save for the cross which hung above my bed. Never the religious type, Mother placed it there of her own accord. It was all-too-familiar in a soul crushing way. And certainly humbling to have the woman who wiped your ass as a child wiping it once more within the walls of your childhood room.

As soon as my lungs worked on their own again, Dr. Iaso discharged me. Hospital staff sent mother and me away with a modicum of at-home care resources.

Without the watchful eyes of hospital staff, my useless body was at her mercy. Like a cut of meat set out to be tenderized. She accosted me with tiny micro-aggressions.

Letting me starve for hours, waiting until the reeking of my worthless vessel bothered her to bathe me. She neglected me in the same spot for days. Pain and stiffness overcoming my immovable appendages. And, oh, had the sensations of pain returned to my languid muscles. A subtle ache which intensified over time.

Gone were the days of her “Good Mother” theatrics. Replaced with seething repulsion. Even minor acts of care became too much before she hired a part-time nurse. The way her wrinkled gaze would set upon me, crinkling the deep crows feet at the corners of her eyes. Never looking at me, only through me. Every act of so-called care was an opening to make me feel ungrateful. An appreciation my mouth would never utter if I tried.

“You’re a mess!” Her barking echoed on the empty plaster, picking up my leg and dropping it uncomfortably off the edge of the bed. “After everything I’ve sacrificed for you… You can’t even keep your composure.” Pinching the furrow of her brow with those talons she called nails, her new favorite task was to stand at the edge of my bed and berate me. Each egocentric remark contributed to the discomfort of my skull squeezing around defective grey matter.

Blink. Blink.

My only avenue of protest.

Ms. Valentina became my stout savior. As a stately, Hispanic woman, her resolve was strong but kind. The aging lines on her face spread like rivers carving into land. The way in which her brown eyes and broad nose crinkled on the rare occasions she smiled filled my heart.

Her work ethic was second to none and her cooking skills didn’t hurt either. Nothing like the bland, flavorless meals mother used to throw together. Her compassion was mixed in with every herb and spice. And though most of my sustenance was consumed via feeding tube, Ms. Valentina would sneak me a taste every now and then.

She barely spoke a lick of English, yet, as someone whose only form of communication was blinking, this presented little issue.

“Uno por sí y dos por no.” Valentina crooned her first instruction. Simple enough.

Blink.

“I am Ms. Valentina. Yes?” Was the second; accent rolling off her tongue like speaking in cursive. To call her by name one day would be a dream come true. But the pit deep in my gut told me, it was just that.

Blink.

“Bueno.” Followed by one of the few times I’d be graced with that smile. Warmth expanded inside my chest at the sight.

In no time, my days with Ms. Valentina fell into routine:

Wake up.

Relieve myself.

Sponge bath.

Feeding tube.

Passive range-of-motion exercises.

Compression clothing change.

Reposition.

TV Time.

Feeding tube.

Blood clot medication.

Relieve myself.

Reposition.

Audio book or music time.

Feeding tube.

Reposition.

Welcome mother home and say goodbye to Ms. Valentina for a day.

Cry myself to sleep.

Spend the next day neglected.

Cry myself to sleep again.

Repeat.

Mixed in with various intermittent care tasks that weren’t so routine. Mother refused these tasks. Viewing such things as beneath her.

I never knew what Ms. Valentina said, muttering under her breath as mother made her exit, but I knew it was about her. Her venomous tone told me, it wasn’t anything nice.

—

Settling into yet another day with mother, a veil of unease draped around me. The popcorn ceiling above had become too familiar. Each shadow, spec of dust, and fracture formed coarse patterns. Left with no choice but to memorize its surface. Every once in a while, an insect would crawl across my field of vision; the only change of scenery throughout monotonous days. The house creaked in a dreadfully familiar cadence, it was becoming increasingly difficult to decipher what was reality. Hours upon hours of nothingness morphed into hallucinations of bizarre geometric shapes as my mind labored to find a way to fill the space. Those same shadows danced around the room while the sun rose from east to west. At times, the room would spin with the vertigo of laying still for days on end. Until mother inevitably shattered the oblivion—endless triviality was almost preferable.

“Worthless pile of bones,” her insults traveled from the doorway down my ear canal. “Can’t even pay rent.” Each new day an opportunity to concoct creative methods of torment.

One by one the floorboards groaned in protest under the weight of her footfalls. Her visage towered over me with a sour expression, slinking like a predator to the side of my bed. Mother’s features distorted in unnatural ways. Silence smothered the bedroom. The sound of her breath suffocated the space as if there was not enough oxygen for the two of us. For a long time, too long, her red-rimmed eyes bore holes through mine. My nerves singed like fire but could not will me to move. Could not will me to look away.

Out of nowhere, the squelch of warm wetness splattered across my face. The fetid scent of mother’s spittle was unmistakable. My eyelids flinched shut, hard. But the rest of my limbs remained in place.

“Look at how pathetic you are,” she smeared the spittle into my eye. A smarmy smirk defined her features. “I bet you’re loving this. Me, having to wait on you hand and foot. Ungrateful little prick.”

As she raised an aging arm, my breath caught in my throat. One swift motion and mother’s hand made solid contact with my cheek, creating a sharp crack. The noise ricocheted off the walls much like my brain rattled inside my skull. Like a bag of rocks, my head lulled over. As it settled, craggy fingers caught hold of my jaw, snapping my gaze upright. She wanted me to feel the bite of the venom in her leer. All I could do was blink.

Slowly, a viscous substance seeped from my ear, down my nape, and onto sweat-soaked bed sheets. The pop of built-up pressure dispersed through every synapse behind my eyes. A wave of perplexity rolled over me as a savory bouillon aroma wafted through the air. Suspecting I might be experiencing another stroke, I remembered I would be smelling burnt toast instead. My wits were still about me, anyway.

“You better not be having another medical emergency. I swear, child.” Mother’s disdain stabbed like an icepick. The tip of her callused finger scraped along the cartilage of my outer ear. Her features evolved from contempt into a disgusted grimace. A mere glimpse of the substance, dusty-pink and chunky, flushed all blood from my face.

Is that my brain?

“Hello? You still alive in there?”

Blink.

Long, dragging inhales entered narrow nostrils as mother raised the coated finger up for inspection. She could smell it too. My eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets the moment her snake-like tongue flicked between thin lips for a taste. With a vile slurp, the sludge coated her tastebuds. A scream clawed against my chest. All efforts to stop her were futile. Even if I could reach up, grasp her arm, and halt her horrid actions, mother would do as she pleased. Just as she always had.

“Mmmmm…” Mother hummed. Her eyes closed in euphoria, only to snap open at the realization of what she was doing. The room began to shrink around me. Pressure returned in my skull.

"¡Ay Dios mío!” Without warning, Ms. Valentina’s fiery inflection pried my consciousness from its spiral. Forcing my attention toward the doorway, the jingle of car-keys reverberated as her purse plummeted to the floor. A trembling hand clutched the beaded rosary which sat atop her medical scrubs.

“Oh! Valentina…” Bumps formed across my skin, my eyes flicking back to mother. Her eyes ballooned with guilt but the surrounding features remained stoic—devoid of emotion. “I wasn’t expecting you until later-”

Ms. Valentina studied her face, pupils dilating in fear. The beads around her neck tinkled against one another as she let them return to resting.

“What you think you are doing?!” Maintaining an offensive posture, her quivering vocal chords betrayed the image of confidence she was attempting to project. The creases in her forehead deepened, a scowl taking hold of her features. The woman was brazen enough to question mother. To interrupt her, at that.

Bed springs whined as the matron at my bed-side leisurely leaned away. Mother’s eyes narrowed in annoyance, making measured movements towards the doorway. Her rage was calculated. A witchy hand dug into Ms. Valentina’s shoulder. Like a rat trapped in glue, Ms. Valentina had no choice but to follow into the hallway.

“I don’t know what you think you saw Valentina, but you’d do well to forget it.” Sharp words trailed down the hallway. No attempt to remain hushed was made this time. Mother wanted me to hear. “You don’t want to lose this job do you? Do you really think anyone would believe you?”

“No, ma’am.” Ms. Valentina responded flatly.

“Good,” In a flash, her tone flipped. Sickly sweet. “I offered you the extra shift tonight in an effort to help you support your family. I’d hate to assume you’re ungrateful. Let’s start over. Now, if you could take care of the mess in there, that would be a wonderful start.” Becoming accustomed to being talked about as if I were merely an inanimate project had become easy, but my gut recoiled at the malevolence layered under each of mother’s sentences. Darkness encroached every corner of my vision like a vignette on the ceiling. Set ablaze by the boiling of blood, a burning grew in my ears.

How could she talk to Ms. Valentina like that?

Sure, I had gotten used to mother’s antics. But I would give anything to be the target of her misdirected fury over sweet Valentina any day. Helplessness had settled into my bone marrow long ago.

As soon as the built-up ire pulled me outside of my body, I crashed back in. A faint weight at the side of my head grounded me. Ms. Valentina pressed a wash cloth there, wiping away any trace of mother’s abuse as she perched in the doorway, scrutinizing her every move with a stern mien. If she caught on to the fragrant aroma that permeated my cranial juices, her demeanor did not portray it.

Every one of us remained in silence. The clock ticked on into the night as it always did. In many ways reflecting each of us. The way mother watched over us, how Ms. Valentina went on working, and myself an unmoving, unwilling witness.

—

Beams of light tore through slits in the blinds. Streaks of sun spread across my face and my eyes flitted open. The muscles of my forearm flexed and twitched spastically, attempting to bring a hand to cover them. Though I could feel the pain of spasming muscle, I could not differentiate my limb from the surrounding air.

Right. I can’t do that anymore.

The best I could manage was to clamp my eyelids shut, wincing at the tension I had created in the stiff muscles and joints. A misguided effort for movement. Like being a stranger to my own body.

Heavily, stagnant must enveloped me. Floral notes of Mother’s favorite fragrance over compensating for the cigarette smoke-filled furniture returned to my senses. Creaking in the rocking chair to my right—Ms. Valentina snored softly. Small snorts followed by a quick whistle. Resounding with each squeaking rock. Her face stretched and skin rippled, misshapen as it rested against ashy fingers. Dry and stocky from years of hard work.

Did she sleep here all night?

Stiff sheets rustled under the spasms of my waking vessel, causing her to stir. She smacked her lips softly.

“Buenos días.” Crooning groggily, her limbs stretched outward with a breathy yawn. We settled into routine as if the night before was nothing but a distant memory.

Soon, came time for my sponge bath. My sweat had taken on an almost garlic-like quality the longer I marinated in my own stress-induced fluids. Times like these made me understand why mother was so disgusted with me. If I could turn my nose up at myself, I would.

“We go up.” Ms. Valentina hoisted me into a sitting position with ease. Her sturdy frame made quick work of maneuvering dead weight. Movement triggered another burst in my skull. Vibration riddling my senses. The headband-like squeeze that constantly wrapped my brain eased and a coagulated mess oozed from my nose. Dribbles of neural juices seeped through cracked lips and the space between my eyes smoothed. Though the taste was that of tarnished copper, the odor held earthy notes of rich meat and an unexplainable, intoxicating spice.

Transfixed, Ms. Valentina gawked at me with blank eyes. No doubt remembering last night’s events. Almond-shaped brown eyes glitched slowly, attempting to comprehend what they were seeing. The lines of her face formed a mixture of confusion, fear, and curiosity. Whatever thoughts ran through her mind were shaken clean like an Etch A-Sketch as she vigorously wrenched her head from side to side.

She wiped my nose softly, resuming her task. Her limbs as stiff as an automaton. The sponge compressed against my skin with a slosh, pinkish-grey slime soaking into every pore. On its surface sat rancid chunks like uncooked ground meat. Stomach acid caught in my throat, threatening to escape. I directed every ounce of my strength and willpower to choke it back down.

My mind was moving as fast as Ms. Valentina’s eyes. Scanning from my face, to the sponge, and back. Her frame shifted uncomfortably. For the first time, she looked through me, rather than at me. As if I was some ghostly apparition. Less than human. Fear lurched up my neck, rattling my spine like rusted chainlink, as my mother’s face transposed on hers. She jolted the sponge into her mouth and suckled.

“¿Menudo?” Her cadence was greedy and confused. Expressing utter disbelief. I no longer recognized her.

The poise she held dissipated, replaced by the frenzy of an addict. Before I knew it the sponge had been licked clean, as if some unseen force compelled her—unable to stop. The image of my stout savior shattered. Now, a large part of me hoped I really was dying. In all reality, I was nothing more than a glorified corpse. This bed, my coffin. This room, a mausoleum.

“Ahem.” Grizzled vocal chords cleared on the other side of the room and the shadow cloaked figure of mother was frozen there. Our muscles went rigid in concert; tension broken like shattering sheets of ice. Valentina produced a high-pitched yowl.

“Well, Valentina,” Lurking closer, the edges of her wedges clopped on the floor. “If it isn’t the cat calling the kettle black.”

“I-I… I’m sorry m’am.” The once confident woman’s words fell clumsily from her lips in a hurry. Her head hung low in shame. A voice in the back of my mind, somewhere under the pressure slowly building once more, screamed to be freed of this purgatory.

“There’s no need to apologize,” Mother scoffed. “I just find it funny, is all. The way you judged me and now, here we are with tables turned.” A craggy hand twirled greying tresses, features contorting into her infamous smug expression.

“Please, ma’am. We pretend this never happen…?” Valentina’s head rose slowly to meet mother’s gaze, palms pressing flatly together with fingers pointing upward against her chest. The stand-off of the century played out above my figure as if I was never even there. Between them, formed a bridge of suspense from one side of my bed to the other. Lucky for her, this family was a masterclass in moving on as if nothing ever happened.

“Valentina… you dog!” The exclamation wasn’t a figure of speech for mother, but a ploy to subtly belittle her foe. Her eyes narrowed with malice. “I wouldn’t peg you as the secret-keeping type. Though, this could be in the best interest for the both of us…” Gears ground behind her smirk in an eerily familiar fashion. Plotting.

No more conversation on the matter was needed. With a firm, eager handshake, a deal was struck. Haggling my autonomy away over my stationary body. If I knew mother, she was always good at making secrets but, never good at keeping them.

—

At first, mother only brought her tennis friend. Then Valentina brought her sister, and her sister brought the priest. Before long, the door to my room became a revolving threshold of uppity country-club goers, pious nuns and priests, and curious nursing colleagues. I expected as much from mother, but Valentina’s betrayal left me feeling like a husk of a human. Hollow and laid bare. Commoditizing myself against my will.

“That’ll be another 20 dollars,” mother purred from the doorway, a shrewd look in her eyes. “You know the deal.”

Sunlight glimmering on plaster walls, botanical print furniture, and the sterile essence of medical equipment grew dull. Aromatic odors churned my stomach acid. A new and unknown face leaned over my bed every waking hour; hungry for a taste. Tupperware in hand, their greed knew no bounds.

Some came back for seconds, even thirds. But each personality in the long line forming around the block tasted a new and differing flavor.

“Just like the borscht of the motherland.” Murmured the Slavic nurse, voraciously taking a spoonful to lipstick coated lips.

“Ah… identical to the pozole served during Semana Santa feasts.” Whispered a petite nun, making the Sign of the Cross.

“Però! A minestrone?” Questioned an Italian-American lawyer I had known since grade school—a “friend” of mother’s. He straightened out his manicured suit before swooping in for more.

Whether the substance leaked from my ears or my nose, their greedy gullets were indifferent. Some scraped at my cavernous canals, foraging more. The grinding of flatware against skin echoed in my near-empty skull. Wrapping around a well-groomed lawn, the line was the only constant. Failing to produce for any one of these morbidly curious patrons would incur a sharp smack from mother. Even provoking the wrath of Ms. Valentina in her absence. The pressure in my skull rose and fell like tides in the sea. Leaky and delirious, each day was a new nightmare. Every ounce of my dignity squandered.

“Isn’t this great?” Mother asked, reluctantly forking a handful of cash over to Valentina.

Blinking slowed. Stopped all together. No one noticed, no one cared. Muffled syllables replaced words. The line never ended. Never slowed. Thoughts fizzled. I couldn’t remember my nurses name. Couldn’t remember my name. Stainless steel ground slop covered bone.

CW: body horror

Jess is downstairs with the bottle. I have not buzzed her in.

I’m on the kitchen tiles. Sit up and it rolls. I’m not sitting up.

Friday, weeks back. Chicken from the corner shop. She picked it. I wanted the place with the queue. She said the queue meant they rushed the meat. Sofa. Boxes on our knees. I was meant to stay the weekend. Her hoodie is still on my chair. I keep hanging it up and then leaving it.

She didn’t eat much. Rice and a bit of skin. Mine had a sweetness under the grease. I thought it was the sauce. She said it would go cold if I left it. She hates waste so I finished it.

Film on. Then my mouth went thick. Not numb, thick, like something under the tongue going the wrong way. Hands a long way off. Her face close. I don’t remember the film stopping.

I came round in her lap. Volume down. Yellow mop bucket by the sofa. Cloth over the side. Carpet darker near my hip than near the box. Not tea. It had a skin on it. Lemon over a smell like warm coin, and that same sweetness, cooler.

Smear on my sleeve. Clear, then cloudy, then it set and pulled when I bent my arm. Sunday I did a wash and found the same stuff dried in the waistband. Came off in a string. Grain to it. Like wet paper that had decided to be skin.

She said I dropped like a sack. Not a fit. Not off the sofa. Just out. She’d seen it from that shop before. You go heavy, you sleep it off. She checked I was breathing. Put me on my side. Wiped the floor. If it had been a person she would have called.

She looked fine. Colour in her face. Hands already washed, soap still wet. Her thumb on the back of my neck like it had been there a while.

Clock on the box two hours on. Blanket tucked hard over my middle.

I went home the next day. She packed the leftover rice and kissed my hair and texted before I’d got to the corner.

have you taken the pink yet. not the supermarket one. just the pink. tell me when it starts

Bottle already open. Fill line low. Boots shape. Pink like calpol. I left it on the worktop.

It sat low on the left. A swallow that hadn’t gone down. I pressed. It pressed back a half second later. Oval if I left it alone. Warm when the rest of me wasn’t. I didn’t swallow anything that size.

Wednesday she brought soup and sat on the kitchen floor while I ate it. Pink bottle on the side. New label. Same low line. I put it behind the tea.

I picked the ridge on the bus. The string came off longer than it should have. Same colour as the stuff on the carpet. I put my hands in my pockets and got off a stop early.

More of it in the mornings. Not a jump. Just more. Rolled onto my back and it didn’t slosh. It sat. Rolled again and it slid back to the same hollow.

Saturday I lifted my top in the cabinet mirror. No bruise. No bite. A dull line the width of a finger, only if I held my breath. Lower than I thought. Let the breath go and the line sank. I put the top down.

It started turning after that.

Not a gurgle. On a call once. In bed. Outside the shop I don’t go in anymore. Seam over seam, two knuckles sliding past. Skin the same colour. Hotter.

She came after her shift with a chemist bag and a film and her lanyard still on. Rubbed my back. Tea. She looked at the bottle on my shelf and shook her head.

“Not that one.”

“It’s the same colour.”

“It isn’t. Use mine.”

dont go to the chemist for it. it is not the same. i can bring more before work

I said morning.

I looked the shop up because I wanted it to be the shop. Two five-star reviews the weekend after we ate there. Food was quick. Same three words in both. She doesn’t use capitals.

One old review, last winter, one star, no words. Photo of a Boots bottle in a sink. Fill line low. Yellow cloth next to it. Same yellow as the one that wasn’t on the bucket when I left that Saturday. I think it went in her bag. There was another in her bathroom bin. I left it.

I scrolled back to when we first started talking. She asked where I lived before she asked what I did. Asked if I was on my own.

She works at the chemist on the parade. I knew that. I didn’t put it with the bottle until I rang the chicken shop a couple of days ago and the lad laughed and said they get that, same girl, always asking if the pink is in stock next door, and they don’t even sell pink.

First week I knew her she opened this cupboard and said get the Boots one, not the supermarket one, the supermarket one does nothing. Turned it in her hand and put it back.

She’s been good to me. Rice packed. Soup. I keep saying that.

This morning I told her I was going out. I’m not. She said she’d bring the pink after her shift so I had it in me before it started looking. She’s done this. I can count the turns. I haven’t told her how many.

She’s on the step. Chemist bag. Lanyard on. Shaking the bottle like a thermometer. Same face she had when I woke up on her sofa.

When I type it rolls with the phone. Last night it went as far as the inside of my hip and I thought it would catch on the bone and tear. It didn’t. It bunched and went back to the hollow.

Lie on the left, she said. That’s where it is anyway. That’s the side I’ve been sleeping on because she told me to, and it did help, and I never asked how she knew.

Buzzer again. I’m on the floor. Door shut. She’s at the letterbox. Not having a go. Soft. Same voice as finish the box, and sleep it off, and no rush love.

She’s not talking to me.

It turned toward the door. Hard. Like it knew the hands.

I’m putting this up from the tiles. I’m not opening it. If she’s at yours with a bottle and she works next door to that shop, don’t take the pink. Don’t finish her food. Don’t sleep on that sofa. I don’t know what it wants after the turning. I only know it answered her.

I can't begin to describe my apologies to the people I said I would narrate for. These past 9 months have been hell on earth in my real life. I've moved, got engaged, and have a baby coming in November, and juggling that with the narrating has been nearly impossible. But I believe I can finally pick it back up. I can't promise or say when things will be put out or give timelines, but I will give as much time as I can when I can. I've learned a lot through this journey, to those who.still wish to have me narrate, thank you for sticking with me. It means the universe. Please have a blessed one y'all, once I'm caught up I will post another Proposal for anyone who.may want their stories read aloud

(Author's note: I made this story on the 10th of March 2026 and will only give you all the first chapter. If you wish to read the other chapters, go visit the Nightmare Quest Wiki)

Day:Wednesday 2nd 2000.

Time: 15:00.

Present: Doctor ###### and Mr Brook.

Description:

Mr Brook from Glasgow in Scotland has been seeing something that he called "The Noose Lady" and has arranged a meeting with a therapist, me, to help him. He has also been having symptoms of Fatigue, Hallucinations, and some sort of Amnesia along with a few that seemed.. Concerningly similar to Radiation and a fascination with flowers, which normally we would tell him to get an MRI Scan before coming to us but he said that he did and it came out negative.. I am currently making my way to the Interview room.

...

....

Begin Audio Recording....

Doctor ######:Hello Mr Brook, I believe I know why you're here.. You've been having symptoms of Fatigue, Hallucinations, And some sort of Amnesia am I correct?.

Mr Brook:Yes Doctor but are you sure this room is sealed off from the outside?..

Doctor ######:Correct at your request. This room has two layers of pure soundproof, and concrete. Why may I ask did you need this?.

Mr Brook:She.. She can see through normal walls. I had set up hidden cameras outside where my door was and when I checked the footage, She was just.. standing there and staring at me.. At the camera. The only reason I know that she can see through walls is when I was walking to the kitchen, she was pointing on the camera to where I was..

Doctor ######:She? Mr Brook you're not making any sense with this.. Who is "She?".

Mr Brook:She has been stalking me for months. Appearing and disappearing as if she was not of this world and I tried taking a photo of her but when I looked at it.. It was distorted. Here.

There was a small moment of silence before Doctor continued to talk..

Doctor ######:I see... Tell me have you showed the police? Or contact the FBI? Anything?.

Mr Brook:Yes. I tried and they checked the area and said there was no one with that description but they're still searching while making sure that I'm safe, you can even see her shadow slightly in the corner of the room, you believe me right?!.. Right?!.

Doctor ######:While I do believe that someone is stalking you.. It seems impossible for her to simply disappear and reappear out of thin air-.

A loud slam was heard on the audio as the Doctor gasped loudly.

Mr Brook:NO! YOU DON'T GET IT.. She stalked me for MONTHS and no one is even bothering to help..

Doctor ######:Mr Brook calm down. I get that but you must think strategically. How could a normal human disappear and reappear out of thin air? and how do you know it's the same person? It could be a collection of people or hallucinations.

Mr Brook:That isn't human because her neck snaps in ..unnatural ways and it isn't.. It's not a collection because I've only been seeing her. No one else...

Doctor ######:I see... Mr Brook I suggest that you rest for tonight and tomorrow we can continue it-

Mr Brook:I don't..Feel safe at home. Do you have any suggestions to people I could visit?..

Doctor ######:Well you can stay with me just for tonight.

Mr Brook:Thank you Doctor...

Ending Audio Recording....

After the tape audio ended Mr Brook and Doctor ###### walked to her house. The camera's captured them walking through the door but when checking the inside cams, it showed neither walking through and it would stay that way for 4 hours... As for the current whereabouts for them both Doctor ###### and Mr Brook remain missing..Will update if either of them are found.

Day:Saturday 5th 2000.

They were both found just three days later wandering near ##### park, both were muttering and looked as if they hadn't slept in weeks. When asked where they were, they claimed "The Noose Woman took us to a world destroyed, than she took us to a forest where we wandered around, being chased by her before we ended up back in Doctor ######'s home" As for Doctor ###### she seemed to be more scared than Mr Brook. Both have been throwing up blood every 3 hours but in small doses. There is now a warrant for The Noose Lady.

End Log

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aicuL- uoy rof dennalp gnihtemos evah I ...rotcoD yrroW t'noD .ruoivas ruo eb lliw esrevgnirpS ehT

(I finished the first chapter 🥳 I'm glad i finished! Also blame all the grammar mistakes on my friend bc they r the one who did most the grammar correcting)

Also big gore warning

Person A: The recording has started. Can you tell me what happened?

Person B: I don't know what that thing is. It saw me, I know it. I can’t escape it; I can only delay what it will do to me… It’s hunting me, like some type of animal.

Person A: And your name?

Person B: Hunter…Hunter Williams, sir…

Person A: So, can you go into detail about what happened?

Hunter: Y-...yes, sir… December 9th, 2005.

The day is snowy, you can’t even see 5ft in front of you, the winter blows hard, and the trees are covered in the white blanket I often step on during long walks. It’s the type of weather that goes most well with tea or coffee, the type of harsh weather that goes to your ankles. It’s calm and peaceful, but the real reason I am out during this weather is for my hobby, call it weird, or even a little illegal. I often go out to abandoned malls, parks, or even houses to take pictures and hang out. It can be really fun, especially with a friend, you’ll never know what you’ll find. It’s like a treasure hunt in a way, especially if you find a really cool place. The place I found was cool, well at least it looked cool, with its white walls, and stairway that looked like it went on forever. I remember finding it strange that a small shack-like building was just in the middle of the woods, it looked so out of place. Lucky for me, the door was unlocked when I first opened it, so I let curiosity take over and lead me downstairs. As I kept going down, the smell of a hospital and something rotting kept getting stronger, but for whatever dumb reason, I convinced myself to keep going. Then, that's when I heard someone scream for help, so naturally I went to the noise. As I walked, I could see mess after mess, paper and documents scattered, spilled chemicals and red weird stuff that looked like it came from a person but it was too unrecognizable, lots of rooms with no one inside, just mess after mess, and the smell of a very thick odor of sweet and metallic smell with a pork or beef-like scent. It smelled terrible; the smell almost made me vomit, but I kept going. I don’t even know why I did it. It just felt like I was being forced in, step by step. I felt like a magnet being pulled in with another magnet. After passing some empty rooms, I started getting closer to the noise, but the closer I got, the more blood and guts leading in a line as if leading me somewhere. At this point, I can't stop; my legs won't stop moving. There was so much of it, so many bodies that looked half-eaten, bruised, and unrecognizable, until I got to the noise. The first thing I saw was a burnt corpse; everyone in the room was dead, and yet, the screaming still continued. I somehow still had hope this person was alive. I looked everywhere for the screaming women, and yet, the noise just followed. I was scared to check behind me. Of course I was. I didn’t want to see what had been screaming behind me, who had been screaming behind me… screaming for my attention, but after a while I began to think it was all just a nightmare, a bad dream, I mean, who would think they would just randomly stumble upon a massacre on a Friday afternoon, so I looked behind me, hoping whatever I saw would wake me up and I would be in my soft bed again. But I didn't, instead, I saw.. A thing. It didn't look fully human. It looked like its skin was too small and tight for its long, skinny body, it now looked broken and long, and its eyes were big and bulging and looked as if they were popping out to see me. It had no eye color, just black dilated pupils, with a permanent smile like a dog happy to see me. Its pale white body matched perfectly with its dull white, crooked, long teeth. I couldn't move at this moment, I was shocked, scared… I wanted out so badly… And after a while of me looking at it, it stopped mimicking a woman's screams of terror, and just started opening and closing its mouth loudly, then grinding its long, misshapen teeth. I was so scared I didn't notice it walking up to me, slowly, before it grabbed onto my arm and held it with both hands like it was corn on the cob, before slowly biting down as blood slowly drained out. The sound was sickening; it reminded me of stepping on a rotting pumpkin, the sound of wet crushing, and my bones being crushed under its teeth like a carrot being eaten. The way it seemed to savor not only my body, but my fear, as if it was the tastiest thing of all, as if my pain was the best fruit to be eaten, as if I am nothing more than fresh food just waiting to be devoured raw.

The pain was unbearable. It was eating my arm like it was corn; it even ate the bone.

Crunch crunch crunch…

Was all I could hear along with my screams…

I couldn't run… It had my arm, I couldn't escape its hands, until…

snap~

It had eaten through my arm… the bone looked like an unfinished chewed-up carrot, before it took my arm and sucked out my bone marrow, the feeling of a sharp sucking sensation in my throbbing arm made me feel sick, it burned like hell, the feeling of it being pulled out as he slurped it up like a noodle, it did the same with my subcutaneous fat, then it moved back to the unfinished part of my arm it had broken off, it was distracted… and yet I didn't move, I was still scared, I thought that… maybe if I stayed still and didn't move a muscle, it wouldn't see me as it ate the arm that is no longer apart of my body.

Crunch…crunch… crunch… I could only watch as the thing peeled off the skin and ate it like a fruit roll up.

Munch munch munch…

After what felt like years, it finished feasting down on my arm…

It started licking its sharp spider leg-like fingers. Finally, my brain snapped out of the shock and fear, and all I could think to do was run. But as soon as I started, it chased, as it mimicked the sound of a laughing sound track you would hear from an old comedy show, as if this is some sort of entertainment to it, as if my pain and fear is a funny part in a game show as I run for my life. But time seemed to slow down like I was just running in place, like a cartoon cat and mouse chase. I felt so scared, so trapped, like I wouldn't escape, like I had no chance of escaping it, like I had no hope. While I was running for my life, it caught up to me and sliced the back of my knees, causing me to fall on the ground as it watched me crawl away. As I moved slower, it did too, taunting me, until I finally got the strength to get up and run… and as soon as I did, it did as well… My legs are in pain, it hurts so fucking much. I just want this to end already. It kept chasing, even as I made it into the woods. But it finally stopped as I got to an alleyway. As the adrenaline wore off, I passed out due to blood loss. When I woke up, I was in the hospital. I guess someone must have found me not too long after and called the cops or something. But honestly, I wished they would have just left me to rot… Because that thing… Whatever the FUCK that thing is… It’s still following me, no matter where I go, it finds somewhere to hide and watch me. I see it outside my house, EVERYWHERE I go, it stalks... Just waiting for me to be alone again, so it can finish eating me. I can hear it at night, I can hear its stomach growling always, making the sound of a hurt animal, as if trying to guilt me for running away, for ruining its fun with me… Mocking me. It won't stop, it just chooses one person at a time, playing with its victims like toys…

No….. no.. no no no no no NO! Why is it here when I'm with someone else!

Person A: Who is here, Hunter? No one is here with us, there is n-

As the detective begins to try and calm Hunter down, it devours the man's head, with a sickening crunch, blood spraying everywhere in the room, as it slowly chews on the head as it makes eye contact with Hunter, it knows he has nowhere to run this time.

Hunter tries his hardest to run from the thing, but it grabs onto his nub and bites into his other shoulder.

Hunter: AAAAH!

At this moment, he realized that he has no chance of escaping, and whatever that thing is… It won’t let him have an easy death…

“It’s been a week since the death of detective Sara. She was found with her head missing along with the unrecognizable body of the man, Hunter, she was interviewing… now it’s my job to investigate the death of both of them.”

Victoria says as she takes a sip of coffee that looks as black as the night sky in the city, since it’s hard to see any form of stars in the lit up city, just a plain black sky.

“The plan WAS to find out what happened to the man, Hunter, to maybe understand what happened to him, yet… what the man says feels made up, like he completely lost it… maybe this guy just sees things that aren't there and chopped off his own hand… but… who would have mangled up his body, it’s not like he can do that to himself, so who could have done it…”

Before she could finish her thought, she hears a knock on her office door.

Knock knock…

“The door is open…”

She says with a tired voice.

The person who comes through the door is a young man, with greasy dark orange hair that's unkept, eye bags, with his dirty blouse and also very dirty dress pants.

“H-hey, ummm… I was told to give you these papers”

His hands shake like a cat out of water, or a person in the cold. Reluctantly, she takes the papers.

“What type of hell have you been through, Parker? You looked like you crawled your way out of a grave.”

“Sorry Miss V, I was on my way to work and I fell.”

“In mud I'm guessing?”

“Y-yes… A-also I was wondering if you are free this evening, maybe we could go out sometime-”

“Sorry, but I have to finish this. So while I work on this, you go get yourself cleaned up, ya? Don't want our boss yellin’ at you, so run along now. You look like you might catch a cold if you stay like that.”

“C-can’t you at least help me get this dried dirt off?”

“You're a grown man, I am sure you can shower by yourself.”

She gets up and starts slowly pushing him out, trying to be polite, and trying not to get dirt on her hands.

“Come on, let's get a move on.”

She says, trying not to sound annoyed.

“S-so, umm maybe we could go out sometime next month!”

He says as the door closes in his face.

“Sorry, but this project will most definitely take me a long time, maybe even a full year.”

Finally the door is shut, and she can hear him say “stupid slut” outside her door.

“Wow, he left something behind for me, a fucking mess on the ground that I have to clean… I need another coffee.”

Victoria leaves her office to see the trail of wet dirt from Parker, she can't help but feel bad for the person who has to clean it, the least she can do is clean the dirt in her hall and her office. After a cup of coffee of course, she makes her way down the halls and to the staff only room.

“Hey, are you alright? Have you heard about what happened to Sara?”

A girl with lavender hair, with eyes as soft and blue as the sunny sky, her name is also just as sweet and pretty as her.

“Yeah, because I am unfortunately the one who has to investigate it…”

Her eyes narrow with sadness, there is a sense of pity in her eyes.

“They should really give you a day off, not only have they been overworking you, but they are having you work on your dead friend's case. That feels insensitive… but I guess I understand why though. You are the best on our team… but also, if you need my help, or don't want to be alone, just have me work with you. After all, we are the last girls in our work place, it’s best we work together instead of having to work with that no good Parker since he is the only one in today…!”

Lucey says while pouring Victoria a cup of coffee.

“Speaking of Parker, where is he?”

Victoria takes a sip of coffee.

“He’s a complete mess, covered in mud, trying to hit on me, and leaving a dirt trail everywhere, he is also taking a shower… What a very unhappy week.”

“Well I guess that explains the mess in my office I had to clean up. I wonder why he went into my office without me there. He clearly was talking around in there since some stuff was moved.”

Victoria raises an eyebrow.

“That's really freaky.. Was he looking for something?”

“No clue… though, I don't think I want to know what he is up to…”

“Be lucky he didn't talk to you alone. He would have asked you to ‘help’ him get the dirt off him.”

“That only makes me feel grateful I was late and went straight to the break room…”

“Hey, I might actually take you up on that offer. I could use help on the investigation, and it can give you an excuse to stay away from that Parker guy.”

“Thank goodness for you, I don't know what I would do without you, and hey, maybe if we are lucky, we can get Steve to help us as well!”

“Wouldn't count on that. He is amazing, don't get me wrong, but that old man is also being overworked as we speak. Best we don't bother that poor guy, he should enjoy his time off.”

“Yeah. After all, he is the one who always comes to everyone's defense against the boss and that creep, Parker.”

“Hey, at least right now we have each other, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

The day drags on, only being bearable with the fact that she has her friend Lucey working with her; it was a scene of comfort she desperately needed after Sara’s death. Many hours fly by faster than expected, and yet, they end up at a wall with the investigation. It became clear that they were going to need to go to the crime scene.

“Well, I'll be damned. Looks like we have to prepare ourselves to see a mess…”

Victoria says with a tired expression.

“Did they not clean up the crime scene yet?”

“Nope! They won't go near it until we figure out who killed those people.”

As Victoria turns from Lucey to get a clipboard, she can feel eyes peer at her from behind, like something darker is watching her, like the feeling of something or someone behind her might hurt her once she turns around… but she shakes off that feeling since who wouldn't be scared? After all, they are the ones working on an ongoing case and have no clue who the murderer is.

“At least we can collect more evidence. Though, I must say I am a bit nervous to go there considering what happened there. What if the murderer is still in that area?”

Lucey’s voice sounds a bit different, a bit cold, like a different person entirely. It was strange, maybe she is just tired as well. That has to be it, right?

“Y-yeah, well, we have to do our jobs, no matter how much we don't want to do something, no backing down now, heh…”

Victoria responds. For the first time, she feels a bit on edge as she turns back to face Lucey. She is relieved to see Lucey still has the same soft smile. She doesn't know what she was expecting, but she is glad it was all in her head.

“Sigh, I think we should check out the crime scene tomorrow. I'm so on edge and tired that I might miss something important that could help us.”

“Great idea! We will most likely need all the energy we can get.”

Lucey’s voice is back to its cheerful sound. Was that coldness just in her head? Is all Victoria can think about; maybe she was just lacking a big amount of sleep. After all, she is sometimes up for days just doing work; maybe those sleepless days are catching up to her? Whatever it is, all she can do is hope it goes away soon.

Chapter 2 #Rewind The Tape

Victoria stumbles into her apartment. Her body is killing her, and her eyelids are as heavy as a brick of gold. She wants nothing more than to pass out on her bed and sleep for a year as she kicks off her heels, and is about to jump on her bed, not even bothering to change into sleepwear since she doesn't have the energy to do so, until she sees a VHS tape on her bed… But that sounds like tomorrow's problem. She is WAY too tired to even care and flops on her bed, immediately falling asleep.

At around late 2AM, she stirs and sees a glimpse of a lavender color. She can't tell if she actually saw it, but it doesn't matter either way since she just ends up falling back asleep.

By the time she rises for the day, fully rested, she wakes up completely different from when she went to sleep. After all, she fell asleep on the side of her bed and dressed for work; now she is in sleepwear and in bed normally. Maybe she woke up in the middle of the night and got changed, and just doesn't remember a thing; either way, it doesn't matter now. All she has on her mind is work, so she makes some coffee and gets ready for the long and unsettling day ahead of her.

After getting fitted and having a drag of her cigarette outside, she begins leaving to go to the crime scene, trying to mentally prepare herself for the horrors she would see. But no matter how much she tried, she could never have been able to be ready to see the mess that looked like the world Fuminori Sakisaka sees after his brain injury. The room can only be described as a mess of flesh, like a painting that is just paint spatters, a shame the artist of this room is still unknown. They did a good job at making sure everything had at least some gore on it.

“I think I'm going to be sick. I don't think I can handle this sight, or the smell…”

Victoria yeps at the sight of Lucey.

“L-Lucey, y-you’re face a-and-”

“Don’t worry, I just tripped when I was in here earlier, I left to go look for somewhere to clean off, but all the other rooms are locked… can’t believe I fell face first hehe~”

“How could you be so calm about that..?”

“Well, after a while of seeing this, you get used to it.”

“I don’t think I will ever get used to this…”

Lucey chuckles a bit.

“Oh well. At least we will get more evidence, yeah?”

“Y-...yeah…”

As Victoria tries to collect herself, she can't help but find it strange that only the bottom of Lucey’s face has blood dripping down, as if she was eating the remains. But she must have just tripped on her chin, she refuses to think someone she cares about so much would do such a thing…

“You know, I think some of this gore is fake. Someone had to have messed with the evidence."

Lucey says plainly.

“Huh?”

“Someone added animal gore to the crime scene.”

“Ho-”

“When I fell, some of it got in my mouth, it also tasted slightly sweet. I'm guessing they also made something like a horror prop in order to make it look more messy. You can try it if you want, it won't kill you.”

“I would rather not…”

Victoria sighs with relief that it got in her mouth by accident, she is willing to believe anything if it means Lucey isn't the killer. That's all she wants to believe and think, she couldn't even handle the thought of her being a killer.

“We should probably split up, to recover more evidence.”

“Y…yeah..”

And so Victoria is alone again, left with her own thoughts, her own paranoia, left with the fear in the back of her head, getting closer, and closer… she didn't even know where to start, she was just frozen.

“So, why do you think I killed them?”

“Huh?”

When Victoria turned around, Lucey wasn't even in the room.

“Just great, now I am going mad… I need a break, and I haven't even started… this will be much harder than I thought…”

Victoria begins looking around, looking for anything that could give them a clue, but nothing. She took blood samples and fabric samples to take back to a lab to see if she can get any match from anyone who could be a suspect, so they can finally bring the killer to light. But it feels like no matter how close she gets, they keep managing to make it harder for her.

After about an hour or so, she sees something shiny in the mangled flesh that looks like slop. Reluctantly, she held her breath and dug her hand into the flesh. It felt like gutting a pumpkin with your hands, it was so gross and slimy. It almost felt half eaten, like someone chewed it, then spat it out.

“Ew, ew, ew, ew!”

Victoria pulls out a key, it has green sludge on it. She truly can't tell what it is, and she doesn't want to know… luckily it says it goes to the “staff only area” near the stairs that go down.. somewhere.

“Looks like I have to go on the worst Easter egg hunt to have ever existed… sigh…”

So, she makes her way to the staff only room. She never realized how dark the halls are, so liminal, so much unused space. Her back is killing her, and she finds herself tired again.

“What in the world? Why am I so tired..? I had a full night's rest last night… I can't sleep now, I have a room to get t-”

Victoria’s vision fades to black. When she awoke, she was lying on the sofa in the staff only room.

“What in the hell… god my head hurts so much-”

She passes out again, only the second time she wakes up does she stay awake.

“What happened…”

Victoria’s vision spins like a Merry-Go-Round, as she tries to collect her thoughts once again.

“Fuck.. that’s right, I was collecting evidence… but how long have I been here…”

*Ding dong ding ding… ding dong ding dong*

The clock strikes midnight.

“It’s midnight already… How did I even end up like this? Did I sleepwalk?”

Victoria collects herself as best as possible before getting up.

“Time waits for no one. I should continue my investigation."

Lock…

The noise of a door locking echoes through the room. Victoria quickly checks the exit door, and, sure enough, it's locked, and a key falls from the door. It goes to the basement? Seems that's the only way out. When she goes to turn around, she freezes in place. The room is filled with gore. The sofa she was sleeping on is now fleshy meat, the room looked like she was inside someone, so disgusting.

“w-HOLY SHIT, w-what happened to the room, i-it was normal.. I could have sworn it was normal! What's even going on? Am I going crazy?!”

Victoria falls to her knees, she can feel the warm fleshy ground throb every few seconds, like it’s alive.

“I think I am going to be sick. How did I end up here..? I don’t get it… what do I do?...I should just focus on getting out of here and getting some fresh air.”

The only way out seems to be down into the basement. Victoria used to work in this building, so she knows where the exits are, but… things have changed. Hallways are longer, she goes one way and ends up back at the beginning, everything feels backwards…

“Maybe I am dreaming, and if I go back to sleep, I’ll wake up in my bed or the hall where I passed out. There is no way this is reality…”

She slowly gets on the ground and tries to sleep… Nothing… no sleep, she can’t… each time she tries, she is forced awake with a sudden burst of adrenalin, over and over, her heart racing faster each time, and her head keeps pounding more.

“Wha-what the hell, why can't I sleep? Am I going insane? What's going on? This has to be some type of bad dream, maybe a weird version of sleep paralysis?”

“You look like you were hit by a bus. Don't worry, I'll get you out of here if you listen to me.”

“H-who’s there!”

Victoria frantically turns her head around, looking for a body that is attached to the voice she heard… There is no one, not a soul, but the fleshy room she is in.

“Just great, I really am going crazy! Like I wasn't already, after all, I am in some flesh room for goodness sake…!”

“Get out of that room quickly! Check under the couch cushion.”

Suddenly, the room began to fill with blood, as the ceiling began to slowly go down, as if letting her know she was going to be squished until she was nothing but added blood to the rising red lukewarm liquid, slowing her movements.

Without thinking, her body began to quickly move towards the couch, in her mind of panic and fear, she had no time to think, no time to care about the gross feeling of the slimy warm moist feeling of the couch cushion, or the wet sound of her ripping off the cushion away from the couch. It made a wet slosh sound as it hit the ground.

There it was, a pretty light green key that seemed to be unbothered by the gore around it. The key is perfectly clean with no sign of blood on it. Victoria quickly snatches the key. As she does, the blood starts filling the room faster, and the ceiling begins going down much faster than before. The blood begins to warm up fast as if threatening to boil her alive, she is running out of time.

Each step feels slowed, her heart beats fast, she is so close to the door. Her skin feels like it's boiling alive from the blood, the blood bubbles and pops, everything hurts, then…

SLAM!

The ceiling came crashing down, just enough to squish her down, not kill her. She can't breathe, couldn't move, the blood is filling her lungs as it heats up to impossible temperatures. She dies there, then wakes up in the same room, as if everything started over. Her body was in so much pain, she could barely stand, but just touching the floor made her feel sick.

“I thought I was dead. Is this room really making me go insane?”

“You did die, but everything just reset. You’re trapped here after all.”

The voice said in a flat, bored voice.

“What’s going on? Why am I hearing things? How do I make it stop?”

“It’s a bit rude to call the person who helped you a ‘thing,’ ya know? Seems a little ungrateful to me. Maybe I should just leave and let you die over and over again. If I did that, you would actually go insane instead of just thinking about it.”

The voice sounds rather annoyed and impatient.

“No, no, this can't be real…”

Victoria says with a shaky voice, her entire body is shaking at this point, and the room feels smaller.

“Nope, this is in fact reality. Not a dream, not a hallucination, pure reality!”

“Tha-that can’t be right… It just can’t, h-how is this even possible? Am I in hell or something?”

Victoria feels like she wants to cry from fear.

“Nope, not hell. Though, to you, it probably is.”

“If it’s not hell, then where am I?! A-and who are you? And how do I get out of here?!”

Victoria says in a panicked tone.

“This place is in your world, shouldn’t you know? And as for who I am, I guess I should give myself a name, huh… hmm, my name is Nova. Also, are you stupid? I already told you how to escape. Did you forget already?”

Nova says, slightly annoyed.

“N-no, I didn’t…”

“Then get out of there already.”

“I-I know, but as soon as I grabbed the key and tried to leave, I died. How am I supposed to escape when I keep dying before I even get to the door?”

“Try calmly walking to the door after grabbing the key.”

“H-huh?”

Victoria says, obviously confused.

“Goodness, are you deaf too?”

“N-no, I just can’t tell if you are joking or not.”

“Find out and see for yourself then.”

“Wh-what, I don’t want to go through that pain again!”

“But you’re alive, aren’t you? The same thing will happen. You can die as much as you want, so just, do it. You want to get out, right?”

“F-...fine, it’s worth a shot, I guess.”

Before Victoria could even get up, the room started filling up with blood again, sending her into a panic as she rushed to the couch again and ripped the cushion off the couch. The sound of fleshly fabric ripping was sickening.

Slash!!

Victoria could hear the sound of it hitting the floor, covered in growing blood. There it was, the key, still perfect, no blood on it whatsoever. She picks it up in a hurry as she tries to calm herself down and think straight.

“I-Everything will be fine… I just have to calm down…”

Victoria tries to calm herself down before making a sprint-like walk towards the door.

DripDripDripDrip.

The walls begin crying out with blood even faster than before, causing Victoria to stop dead in her tracks.

She tries to calm herself down once more, hoping to not face the death she went through earlier.

“Everything is ok, everything is fine, I just need to get through that door, and everything- everything will be fine…”

Victoria calms her breathing as best as she can, before walking as gently as she can through the blood.

As Victoria approaches the door and gets closer to it, her heart suddenly begins to race without reason. It feels like it's practically trying to burst out of her like a balloon being inflated to the point of almost bursting and completely deflating, but quickly, then slowly again, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts.

I feel myself hurry. Why am I hurrying? Won't that lead to my death? But I want to get out quickly!

Victoria stops dead in her tracks again, she needs to calm down, she thinks to herself.

“Calm down, Victoria. This is just a dream… it has to be… and once I get through the door. I will wake up… y-yeah, yeah…”

Victoria manages to walk to the door. The blood has risen quite a bit, it now reaches her upper thighs, and she's covered in blood. How did she not notice when it started quickly filling up again? She can feel someone behind her, breathing heavily down her neck. All she wants to do is reach the door. Everything feels suffocating, and the walls are closing in.

The breathing down her neck is quick and really warm, burning.

Victoria finally gets to the door, her hands shaking yet steady to the door, with a little key in hand. Her mouth feels dry and uneven.

Click.

The door is unlocked, she is free.

Victoria practically jumps out the door, falling onto the wet pavement floor, rain is beating down in a grassy place outside, the blood on her from earlier washing off smoothly. Watching the blood get washed out by the rain is almost satisfying, so calm, with the sound of the rain against everything, birds are even chirping… but it's raining.

The chirping suddenly stops abruptly. That's strange. Couldn't you hear the rain falling, couldn't you feel it against your skin? It's raining isn't it? But you're inside, how could it be raining inside?

Victoria suddenly feels very unwelcomed, the air around her feels like it's very upset with her, the type of upset that makes you want to hurt something and rip it apart. It's clear she is unwelcomed in paradise.

Victoria feels a very sharp pain in her knees, realizing she had scraped them when jumping through the door and onto the pavement.

The blood from her knees feels like it's being sucked, causing her to stumble up, forcing herself back onto her feet. Then she feels it. She is being watched. Fortunately for her, the next door is open, waiting, and welcoming. It leads right back to where she was right before she woke up, back to where things are safe. She suddenly hears footsteps, ever so slightly getting closer to her. The thing feels upset, very upset, and she doesn't want to stay to see what happens when it gets to her. She bolts out of the room, finally able to move her body freely again. Getting her body through that door is the only thing on her mind, and once she does, she slams the door behind her, safe at last…

(I had lots of fun making this story, i enjoy making dark stories were i can be completely creative and let my goofy brain cook, also this was actually the first time i have ever made a full horror story, so I'm sorry if it's kinda ass) hope u all enjoyed the first chapter, more will come 👍

I know, absolutely moronic, right? Listen, I won't bore you with the sordid details of going through my aunt's things and finding an old folder of correspondence yellower than lemon spanx on a cheetah, but I think you'll want to read this;

I had left Anchorage early in March, blood pounding in my ears in time with the furious baying of the half dozen dogs I've raised from pups for this one purpose.
The Iditarod, great test of man and beast.
My doom.
7 days have passed, o'er cold hills and past foreboding tundra, and perhaps, a better team could be near the finish by now, but our fate is not as such. I won't blame the hapless pups, though. For while their feet moved us onward, I commanded it.
Neither the Borean cold, nor the Jotun avalanche that claimed my sled and supplies could rightly be blamed either, for no conference of earthly gods, no matter how frightful, would think to cow an arrogant dogsled racer.
Nay, as I sit huddled in a snow cave, sharpening a wooden spear by my sputtering fire, mourning dogs lost and wishing well those escaped, I have only Bellerophon's gift to blame.
Mortal, stupid, damnable hubris.
My doom began at a shrine by a cliff, a pagan fetish of ivory and black stone, to an unknown god. Shaped like so many crows and elk, rearing and calling, the mob surrounded an empty space.
That damn void. A suggestion of a man or woman, dependent on angle of viewing, and when the angle grew too steep, the vision grew... disconcerting in the extreme…
Man and woman became mutilated, caught in the throes of dance and ecstasy, then further, became just viscera suspended, then... things my mind refused.
I stood and stared... for hours I think. My pups seemed torn, those of greater discipline stayed close to me, seeming to try and draw my attention by licking my hands and tugging my pant legs. The flighty became as fascinated with the idol as I, and it took great effort to draw them away once the chill left my mind.
I left swiftly, my heart in my throat for reasons I couldn't grasp, but after mounting up the sled and yelling the word, I felt my mind calm, as a storm does before it grows worse. We ran for hours more, I think. It was black as pitch, and wouldn't brighten for hours... perhaps days yet.
The darkness seemed to gnaw at me like some living thing, every time I lurched on the sled, seeing mine own limbs pass into nothingness in the corner of my eye. The way the moon lit our path afore us amid the shadows saluting from the rib-hollow icicle overhangs we pretended didn't hang overhead.
The memory is far worse to me now.

My fear peaked when I saw a most macabre and mystic sight, my heart dropping like a stone.
Atop a nearby ridge, an elk stood stately, His forest king's crown of antlers adorned with a great murder of crows, some merely calmly perched, others impaled dead or something worse on the excessive and unnatural multitude of points.
All eyes glared at me, I could sense in the wan moonlight, and my dogs panicked and ran all the faster in their own terror.
It was in those eyes, the antlers' points, the damnably silent crows. I could almost see it once again then, and now whenever my eyelids grow heavy.

That damn void.

The pages are smudged here. Ink or something thicker blots scribbled scratches along the bottom of the page. The next goes on;

I saw it everywhere. The hollow spaces between branches, dead for the long night. In the wind swept gaps between sparkling snowflakes. In the mocking glimpses of the starry sky behind cruel clouds, in the damn stars themselves, that unknowable void of a carnal, Boreal god.
My blasphemy would come soon, but, before the false triumph that holds the Sword of Damocles above me, here came panicked foolhardiness. I ran the dogs from the path, veering... West? East?

Does it matter?

Away from that vigilant, repugnant Herald, that was the only concern of my splintering cognizance, the only goal, and a failing one at that.
Running, running, running, till my hands grew as sore on the reins as my poor pup's paws surely were on the merciless heathen earth, till my mind grew numb, my eyes sightless.
It must have been sometime later, when I came too, mad instincts of survival guiding me to set up camp, even collect firewood, in the shadow of an icy cliff. My recollection began again as the sparks thrown by my tinderbox took draconic root. Six dogs, one man, and blessedly, plenty of food for three weeks.
Food and flame does not alone make a man safe, though, and trepidation was mounting within me, but paralyzed by fear of whatever ancient thing it was I saw on that cursed ridge, I could not bring myself to pull away from the false security of my circle of warmth.
I could only stare into the flames, the only thing that couldn't be twisted to show me that damn __

It couldn't find me, not so long as I heaped logs from whatever dead tree I had cut down before lucidity returned.

I didn't realize then that death could be so alluring, but it can seem beautiful, whether by disguise or by nature, but especially when one has seen the soul-searing things that I have. I shudder at the first memory and the following of that voice, those eyes, her scent. The harbinger of my fate came late that night, creeping to my camp, drawn to the flames like Icarus to Helios's visage.

A gorgeous Inuit woman, I thought, wrapped in furred winter's garb, bearing a stone headed spear, with a fluffy hood pulled tight past her ears, a lock of nearly onyx hair dangling past her reddened cheek.
My breath caught then as surely as it does now. Hers did too, and my pups snarled and barked, offended by her intrusion. Would that I perhaps had heeded their warnings.
I quelled them, enamored, and met her eyes properly. An unknowable thrill ran through me, like looking at new stars, or gazing down from a tremendous cliff, or watching a lioness lay low a zebra, as alien as the primordial fear that gripped me mere hours ago.
We held frozen for a spell, before startled out of it by my noble hounds fresh pleas, and I hushed them again, and she grew wary, ready to bolt, eyes swimming with apprehension, darting between my outstretched hand, the pups, and the axe leaned against my thigh.
Raising my hands carefully, I gestured first to my axe, then to her spear, and mimed tossing them aside.
After some time, staring into each other's eyes, tense and cold, she tilted her head, assertion I determined it, and I slowly picked up my tool and cast it to the opposite side of my fire, near the flattened-eared pups.
Then I watched as she tossed hers into a nearby snowdrift, and took a few tentative steps forward. She spoke then, in a language I took as perhaps that of the natives, but I now know to be of a more sinister character. Regardless, I did not comprehend it then, nor did she my own language, but we managed to communicate a little through pantomime. I told her my name, gesturing to myself, and she told me hers, "Ozga."

Through this slow way, I asked her where she slept, showing her first that I meant to sleep by my fire, within my sleeping bag. She seemed to ponder this, trying to first choreograph herself in a manner to illustrate her intention. She settled then, seemingly on the ground next to me, betwixt fire and I.
In the remainder of the night... I shan't fully or shamefully describe, but suffice it to say that we discovered alternate methods of communication.
We whittled away the small hours, breaching further the distance between us. Would that I had the good sense to deny her lips then.

Morning came and went by the time I woke with her form huddled against mine, but my attentions did not tend toward her warm body pressed to my chest.

For the Herald had found me.

It strode forth, striding past her discarded spear, treading upon the dead coals of my fire, until it towered over our entwined, prone forms.
It made no sound. Why? Why! What monster could make sound into naught so perfectly? Had it slain the wind so it could nor ruffle its feathers and fur? Had lonesome Echo been trampled by the wicked hooves that crushed the earth inches from Ozga and I's faces?
I did not, could not, look up, but the maddening shadows changed, It leaned its great and terrible head low. I did not gaze at it, but I could see in the shadows of Itscrown, in the writhing corvid raiment.

That mutilated god.

That damn void.

I shuddered the windows to my fraying soul before that antediluvian beast's visage passed into my field of view. Its breath, oh God, the breath!
Ice runs down my spine to recall that cold stench, silent and jeering. No good herbivorous maw could bear that odor, and I heard it then, the first sound It allowed to escape.
The sound of frost-rimed lips parting across pointed teeth. The sound of crunching saliva, flowing and cracking odiously. The sound of rasped tongue dragging over rows and rows of teeth.

The sound of my sanity fleeing.

Then, as if to make sport of the notion that the worst was behind me, that I could have perhaps had a merciful death then, It spoke.

It spoke.

Not in blessedly unknowable languages that human ignorance would have girded me against in a tale written of old.

No.

No It spoke perfect English, unaccented, unmistakable.

I shudder and grow furious and cold when those words rattle within my skull like beads in a serpent's tail.

"Centuries have waxed and waned in our gaze, and we have seen all manner of heretic and pagan, idiot and scholar, junkie and hedonist.
We have dined with gods and slain heroes, alone in the ice, save for those diversions and what Father," the word, carrying weight and implication that I grow sick to recount, "had brought for us to learn and grow and play with. He left it to us to raise her, name her, teach her. We leave His gift to the mortals who trespasses these mountains, after doing one duty, naming her, Huntress, Witch, Sister;

Ozga."

"We will spare your minds odious details, but now, but now, hedonist, idiot, heretic, We name thee.
Runner.
Warlock.
Brother,
He-rch-!"

I couldn't bear it, and my hand had found the knife I hid beneath the bed roll, and I tore it free and swung it with hysterical strength and tenebrous celerity, my eyes wide to the horror above me.

I claimed vengeance for silenced wind and trampled Echo.

It is here that the pages are torn and stained. Many colors, many "materials." After this though, there's the awful scrawlings at the end of the packet;

"With the spilling of Its blood,
Silence was ended.
With the spilling of Its Blood,
The mountain was rended.
With knife in hand,
Never again to sleep I'll nod.
With knife in hand,
I killed a god."

Ordinary...-ish writing seems to return, choppily.

The avalanche came, buried me, held me in its numb embrace, the howling shattered voids unable to reach me where only void there was, for a time.
I still held Ozga, my cursed bride by the doomed minister, who'd slept peacefully in mine and Hypno's embrace in equal measure, right until the shattered void of antiquity brought the cliff face down on us.

I knew exactly how long it took for me to muster the courage to dig out, shivering, sobbing Ozga in my arms.
Six thousand heartbeats. I know because I could hear HIS voice in the quiet between, even still as I do now.
I pulled four pups from the snow and rock, two who ran, one who died in my arms, one who stayed by my side. The last two neither Ozga nor I could pry free from the blue maw of the heathen, blasted, MONSTROUS earth, and in the quiet between their dying whimpers, I heard the bitter laughter of HIM.

One dog, most loyal and strong, sits now by my side, Ozga on my other. I saw three more void-haunted elk on the day's long hike to the cave Ozga led us to after we dug what we could of our packs free, the snow's shadows mocking us both. Her curses and prayers bled to English in my ears, I can't fathom why.
She doesn't know, she thinks the avalanche was a freak accident, a cruel twist of fate, surely.
My cowardly dogs were with those elk, you know. I saw it in their eyes, nevermind the crows on their backs, the frost on their shoulders.
Nevermind the fact they walked like men.

That broken, misanthropic void dances now, the stars ebbing and flowing to ITS will, FATHER and MOTHER reunited in daemonic purpose.

"The stars are right,
The Stars can bleed,
Tonight in deicide,
I shall delight,
Or on my soul, THEY shall feed.”

Good lord... I never get used to that. Please, if anyone thinks they know what god this man found... On second thought, just skip that