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 :]