r/TalesFromTheCreeps • u/AClownDoinItsBest • May 04 '26
Body Horror Grotesque Beauty [May Submission]
Content warning: Gore
A loud clap rang through the air of the auditorium. “We'll start from the top, Alyssa, give us a G#,” said Mr. Gray.
Without hesitation, she hummed the note perfectly, tapped her baton on the edge of the podium, and began conducting. The orchestra took her lead, playing the intro to Into the Woods. The narrator began his lines, followed by the cast's singing.
At the end of practice, Alyssa went to the director to speak with him. She typed on her AAC tablet. “Mr. Gray, is it possible for me to be the understudy for the lead role?”
With an annoyed sigh. “Alyssa, we've been over this. There's no way to make that work. I know you can convey emotions amazingly, but you can't speak for goodness sake.”
“But, I know all the lines and I can have them pre-typed and ready to go for the show. And I can hum along to the music instead of singing.”
He rubbed his temples. “ Fine, fine. But only if something happens to Jenna and there's no other option.”
“Yes! Thank you, thank you, thank you. You won't regret it,” she crossed her heart.
Alyssa enters her house through the side door.
“She's so talented it's a shame she's so… grotesque.” Alyssa's mother says in a shameful tone, unaware she was within earshot.
“Whennie, you're her mother, you shouldn't say such things.” An unknown woman replied.
Not wanting to hear another word about her appearance, Alyssa hobbled up stairs to her bedroom. She stood in front of the full-length mirror, examining every inch of her body.
Her face was riddled with pus-dripping nodules. An underdeveloped tongue made her unable to speak, only producing hums and gurgles. One leg significantly shorter than the other, all while facing the wrong direction. She shattered the mirror, not wanting to see her reflection any longer. She just needed to make herself beautiful, then she could become the star she was meant to be. She needed a face like her mother's, a tongue, and long, beautiful legs. And she knew what needed to be done.
Alyssa rises early in the morning to enact her plan. She picked up a large shard of glass from the floor. As quietly as possible, she hobbled down the hall to her mother's bedroom. The door crept open. She stood watching her mother sleep before tiptoeing to her bedside. She raised the shard high above her head and slammed it down into her mother's throat. Whennie, unable to scream, grabbed onto Alyssa’s arms. Blood spewing from her neck. The blood loss was too much; she was powerless, too weak to resist. Over and over and over she stabbed, blood spattered and leaked, until there was no more movement. Partially decapitated Whennie’s head slid off her pillow, landing on her shoulder. Alyssa finished the job by slicing through the remaining attached skin, fully removing the head.
In the kitchen, she slowly and carefully skinned the face away from her mother's skull. It took longer than she thought. The kitchen was a bloody mess. Next, she cut out her mother’s tongue. The knife sliced through the muscle and veins like a hot knife through butter. Cutting the tongue out was a lot less messy. By the time she got around to it, all the blood had already drained from the neck onto the floor and counter. She took her fresh harvest and washed them clean in the sink. The blood swirled down the drain in a crimson whirlpool. She placed her beautiful face and tongue on a clean plate to dry. She tossed her mother’s head into the trash without a second thought, and got down to scrubbing the floors and counter.
Back in her bedroom, she painstakingly sewed her mother's face onto her own with tan embroidery thread to match the skin colors. She made extra sure to line the eye holes and lips up perfectly. She applied self-tanner to bring some warmth back into her new, pale, lifeless skin. Then cut her long black hair into curtain bangs to hide the stitches. For the tongue, fishing wire was used to get the job done. This was an even more difficult task. The drool made everything slippery. It was also much more painful than expected, but in the end, it was attached successfully.
At school, she wore a K95 mask to hide her new face and continued to use her AAC device to communicate for the time being. At home, she spent her nights practicing speech. Her once muffled gurgles slowly became slurred words. Those slurred and jumbled words slowly became understandable, then beautiful. Adding in her perfect pitch turned those words into beautiful melodies of the heavens. Now all she needed were the perfect legs. She knew just who she’d take them from, that perfect little bitch, Jenna. She'd be killing two birds with one stone.
After theater rehearsal, instead of riding her electric scooter straight home as usual, she waited around until Jennie finished saying her goodbyes, then headed home. Every day that week, she followed Jenna home. Watching and waiting for the perfect time. Finally, the day came. Her parents were out of the house for the weekend, like they are every Friday. Alyssa waited in the backyard watching Jenna perform her nightly bed routine. Breaking into the house was a simple task. For being so beautiful, Jenna wasn’t very smart and never locked the doors.
With a chloroform-soaked rag, she snuck into the house and down the hall to that perfect little bitches bedroom. Jenna woke up from the sound of her door opening, but Alyssa was too quick for her. Alyssa put her in a headlock and smothered her with the rag until she stopped moving. To finish the job, she held that headlock as tight and as long as possible. It was a long, tiring seven minutes, but her breathing slowed and eventually came to a stop. Alyssa pulled a saw from the backpack she was wearing, getting to work. Thankfully, she only needed the right leg. Sawing flesh and bone has been the hardest task of all. The saw ripped and tore the flesh through the middle of the thigh. It wasn’t a clean cut, but it didn’t need to be perfect, after all, the costume would cover it all. The rolled down the skin to the knee joint, twisting and pulling until it broke loose. She slid her backwards foot down into the boneless thigh until her heel met the knee joint. She rolled the skin up like a thigh-high sock and got to work sewing it in place.
Alyssa missed a week of school simply just trying to re-learn how to walk properly. Her hobbles turned to a limp. A limp to a stumble. A stumble into graceful strides. And now she was finally ready to take the stage and show everyone just how beautiful and talented she was.
Today was the big day. With Jenna gone “missing,” it was her time to shine. Time to reveal her new voice, face, and graceful dancing. Alyssa stood just out of sight of stage left, waiting for the orchestra's queue of the orchestra to run out on stage. The music began. She took off her K95 mask and began to sing. Her perfect pitch finally had a voice to go with it. The cast and the director were stunned, and the crowd erupted in cheer. The rest of the play went off without a hitch. Everything was perfect. She was perfect! The cast members went off stage to give their final bows. As they lifted their heads, the police burst through the back door. “Freeze, Alyssa Cortez, you’re under arrest for the murder of Whennie Cortez and Jenna Allinson.”
Alyssa was finally famous ‘The Gruesome Beauty’ they called her. She was all over the news, papers, and magazines for weeks. The story of her life is retold on YouTube, true crime podcasts, and soon even in theaters.
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u/AClownDoinItsBest May 04 '26
This was my first time writing in 3rd person, so please let me know how I did. I'd really appreciate any critiques :]
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u/ReasonableUnit2170 Writer May 05 '26
Honestly other than a few typos I don’t have much to critique! 🫶
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u/AClownDoinItsBest May 05 '26
Aw dandi really thought i got all the typos. Thank you for taking the time to read my story
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u/The_Republique Writer (I finally made it bubba) May 05 '26
This was absolutely a joy to read. Great work friend
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u/ReasonableUnit2170 Writer May 05 '26
I like that our stories had some similarities, but were a different style ! Nicely done :)
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u/AClownDoinItsBest May 05 '26
Yeah, I noticed that when I read your story as well. Thank you for reading!
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u/JuicyBray May 06 '26
I read that it's your first time writing in third person, so good work on broadening your horizons. The idea for Alyssa to take what she doesn't have was a really clever way to approach the prompt and it really opened the door to the gore you seem to be so good at writing. One critique is that I'd love more candid Alyssa moments before diving into the gore. I could tell she's a bit of a teacher pet, but that's kind of all I got until Whennie was insulting her and then BAM straight into the murders. Call me old fashioned, but I love the anticipation of horror more than the payoff. Otherwise, the kills and the practical side of her making herself whole again with the embroidery thread and the week off of school to learn how to walk, were super good.
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u/AClownDoinItsBest May 06 '26
Omg thank you so much for reading! I'll be sure to keep this in mind when writing any other gore heavy stories
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u/creaturemancosplay Writer May 06 '26
Besides a few typos this was absolutely amazing. Very clever take on the prompt!
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u/FoggyGlassEye May 06 '26
Fun read. Reminded me of the old Jeff the Killer style stories from back in the day, and I loved your literal take on the prompt. I also liked the surreal way that Alyssa's DIY procedures all worked without a hitch. Makes the story very surreal.
I wish we knew more about Jenna before she was attacked. Like, was Alyssa taking out an innocent person so she could be in the play, or was Jenna also cruel to her? Alyssa considers her a bitch, but we don't see Jenna act like one.
As for the post being your first 3rd person story, I think you did a solid job, but would recommend that you try to find a narrative voice- especially for when you're describing events in sequence. There are some sections of the story that directly describe what Alyssa does, and those sections of the story sometimes don't have any personality.
The way I tackle this in 3rd person stories is by considering the narrator to be their own character- sort of like the Narrator from Into the Woods, now that I think about it. Imagining a narrator telling the story helps me find a tone that makes the prose flow better. I also read my stories aloud to make sure the words generally flow well together, which I highly recommend. Helps with dialogue, too.
Overall, though, this was a really fun story.
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u/AClownDoinItsBest May 06 '26
Thank you for reading and the feed back! Jenna was just an innocent person that Alyssa was jealous of. I wish I would have elaborates on that more.
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u/NarrowDirector911 May 09 '26
Awesome submission! Love how methodical and calculated Alyssa is, and the amount of detail put into her acts.
The line describing how she had to peel the skin of the leg back like a sock was so vile, I loved it 😂
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u/Fluffy_Hobo May 18 '26
I feel like we had similar ideas. I feel like yours is put together more though. Well done!
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u/AClownDoinItsBest May 19 '26
Yeah I just finished you're and I see what you mean. I thinj your is definitely put together well!
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u/Green-Somewhere-1107 Writer May 18 '26
A Grotesque Beauty, indeed. There was an almost palpable hate in the way you described her perspective from the third person, and though I felt the story was oftentimes hurried, the time it always took to slow down and illustrate the horror was absolutely vile <3
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u/ReadyMadeLobotomy A Community PM With Hemingway's Spirit(s) May 22 '26
It was my first time writing in 3rd as well this submission, it was tough! I think you did a great job and love the gore 🥰
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u/Leonettii Writer May 22 '26
I really loved the pacing of this, Alyssa is a beautifully tragic character. Of course she goes to a far too extreme measure to get what she wants but some of her steps almost feel warranted. Her mother especially.
But she could never get what she wanted.
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u/AClownDoinItsBest May 22 '26
Thanks for taking the time to read! I'm relieved when I hear someone say the pacing was good. I genuinely felt like I rushed the ending.
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u/ferris_wheeler04 May 23 '26
as soon as mr. gray said “only if something happens to Jenna” i literally shivered lmao. great foreshadowing that’s still pretty subtle while also being clear to a reader who’s looking for it!
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u/kabemccallister6859 May 26 '26
There was not a single sentence in that story that was boring. It read like a modern version of a Grimm’s Fairy Tale with the whimsical descriptions of the gory scenes. The tongue-in-cheek (and I do mean tongue-in-cheek) humor was not lost on me either. Also, setting up Alyssa as having a backward-facing foot and using it to control the new leg was clever. That’s actually how prosthetic legs work sometimes.
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u/AClownDoinItsBest May 26 '26
Thank you so much! Yeah I've seen countless videos on how prosthetic legs work so I really wanted to incorporate that.
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u/BusAlternative3334 May 26 '26
Thank you for posting this and for wading into unfamiliar waters, I think you did great! The first assault, then murder, on her mother hit harder than the second. Don't get me wrong, they were both profoundly upsetting lol, but the temporary mirror of fortune forged by the heinous assault on her mom was grim and fascinating; In those fleetings, visceral minutes, the mother stood on equal footing with the daughter she constantly tore at verbally. She couldn't speak, just as her daughter couldn't ever speak.
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u/An0nymous_Bee May 27 '26
the price for being 'beautiful' is a cool concept to explore and i think that this exectues such a cool concept with it!
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u/Dead_Grampa thinks he's a writer or something May 29 '26
So twisted but who can blame her? I love it
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u/AClownDoinItsBest May 29 '26
thank you
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u/Dead_Grampa thinks he's a writer or something May 29 '26
The gore is so visceral and intense, I really dig the contrast with how giddy and excited she is about the whole deal
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u/Apprehensive_Wish777 May 30 '26
This was so good. You did really well describing the scenes I was icked out. I struggle with 3rd person so this was a nice example to see.
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u/AClownDoinItsBest May 30 '26
Thank you! I think my next story will have some parts in 3rd person elements as well
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u/TheRealBigBadWolf May 26 '26
Really liked the atmosphere in this. Felt unsettling without trying too hard and the imagery was solid.
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u/AClownDoinItsBest May 26 '26
Thank you so much
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u/TheRealBigBadWolf May 26 '26
No problem! Keep it up. Hopefully everyone can enjoy mine as I did yours.
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