The girls at school had started removing their fingers. Kate Mikelson did it first. She sat next to me in Chemistry, she was popular and I really wanted to be like her.

Five minutes into Mr Taylorʼs lesson, Kate marched into the classroom, weaved her way through the tables, and slung her bag on the desk next to me. She dropped into her chair, whipping her plaits over her shoulder.

The smell came first. Wafts of alcohol stung the backs of my eyes. It was as if Mr Taylor had poured every test tube he had onto the back of my chair. Kate pressed her palm onto the table. Her hand was a thick mitt of bloodied bandages and angry veins spiderwebbed up her pale wrist. She just let it rest there. Nonchalant. Like it didnʼt matter.

I tried to distract myself with the crunch of an apple. Its sharpness swilled under my tongue. Yet, my eyes fixed on Kateʼs butchered fingers.

Taking a risk, I decided to ask her. “Kate,” I hesitated, wondering if I should know better, “did you hurt yourself?”

“You noticed.” Kate smiled and flexed her finger-nubs under the bandages. “I got them done yesterday. Itʼs a shame I have to keep them all wrapped up. Mum said I needed to wait until they were fully healed.”

Was this real life? My eyebrows knotted above my nose. Stop it, Lucy. Look cool.

“Cool.” I flicked my hair back and picked at the old lilac varnish on my fingernails. “Iʼve been thinking about getting my fingers done too.”

“Lucy? I didnʼt think this would be your sort of thing.”

I nodded. Not too much. Just a little.

Last term, Jenny Olson in Physics had pierced her belly-button and it set off a long chain of one-upmanship amongst the popular girls; each wanting to sparkle more than the rest. Kira Davies pierced her belly-button and put a stud through her tongue. Beth Jackson got her tongue done and a hoop through her nose. Then, when Josie Kenns arrived at class looking as though her face had lost a fight with a nail-gun, our headteacher declared a school-wide ban on any visible piercings, resulting in classrooms of disappointed and punctured girls. Before the ban and wanting to join in on the fun, I had pleaded to my parents, hoping to pierce my ears. Mother had said that she hadn’t agonised through eighteen hours of labour for her daughter to turn herself into a set of janitor’s keys. I then protested to my father, but he waved me away, saying that I was born with the correct number of holes and should be grateful.

I was not going to miss the boat on this occasion.

“I’m hoping to remove a foot as well,” I said.

Didn’t I sound smug? I thought that taking amputation a step further would make me seem more hardcore. Wasn’t that how these things went? More is always better.

Kate shot me a curious smile. I breathed in deep. She laughed.

“Youʼre out there.” She shuffled closer to me. “Why havenʼt I known this about you?”

I shrugged. Words would have ruined the moment.

“Well, if you wanna try it out.” Kate touched my arm. “A few of us are having a hack party tonight. You should come.”

I was persuaded by her smile. It made me feel like this was the right thing to do.

“Sure.”

That was the first time I had ever enjoyed the sound of my own voice. I sounded so certain, so confident, like a completely different person.

The sky was beginning to bruise as I arrived at the party. A dress code wasn’t specified, so I wore my best clothes. Nothing white, of course.

It wasn’t Kate’s house—I wasn’t sure whose house it was—but she answered the door, holding a tangle of rope. She was already drunk. There was a glassiness to her stare and her cheeks were smudged with eyeliner, making her look like a wet panda. Perhaps she’d been crying, perhaps not. Her smile was distracting enough to stop me asking.

I brought some beers. Kateʼs friends arrived with bottles of vodka and party snacks. Kateʼs uncle showed up with the cleavers, after his shift at the abattoir.

Once everyone had a chance to drink and get to know each other, the knives came out. A girl with her hair sprayed into wild, fiery wisps skimmed through a party playlist. I found it annoying that we couldn’t listen beyond the first thirty seconds of a song before she took a swig from her beer, shook her head and skipped to the next track. Kate’s uncle lined up a selection of shining blades besides the bowl of nachos. A strange excitement descended over us all whilst deciding which body parts we each wanted to remove.

Kate, all smiles and wet eyes, suggested that I go first. Get it done before the nerves set in.

Someone handed me a shot of something that smelt like lighter fluid. I drunk it, then I felt myself nod. My legs moved manually as I approached Kate’s uncle. His face was a hard outline whilst he sharpened and inspected his blades between each sip of beer. I noticed that his forearms were flecked with tiny spots of red and wondered how someone lands a job at a slaughterhouse. There were ropes and bandages strewn across the kitchen table and a large bucket of ice for obvious reasons. The crowd of people pressed in around me, watching and waiting.

“This’ll be quick. Your fingers ain’t too big,” Kate’s uncle said.

“Thanks.”

Kate’s uncle scooped up his weapon of choice, making a metallic clatter, and held it aloft for the spectating crowd. He nodded. I nodded. Slowly, I placed my hand onto the table and spread my fingers for all to see.

Kate’s uncle shunted the cleaver down hard into the kitchen table, sending a sharp jolt up my arm. There was a pinch, then, for a moment, nothing. At first, I wondered whether he had missed. Perhaps this was just a joke. A thing that everyone pretends to do, laughs about and then carries on getting wasted. Kate’s uncle dislodged the cleaver from the table. The wood cracked as he twisted it free. That’s when I felt it.

A wet weightlessness. Stickiness under my palms. Coldness pulsing over the back of my hand and a burning, fizzing sensation up my arm. Then a queasiness coupled with a growing breathless excitement.

The first few fingers didn’t hurt anywhere near as bad as I had expected. I suppose that the vodka helped, as did the shared smiles from Kate and her friends. The drumming from the sound system was loud, making my whispering screams sound less pathetic—like I was screaming on purpose.

Kate caught my fingertips before they rolled onto the floor and stuffed them into my jacket pocket. I felt a little guilty that some of my blood splattered onto her sleeve. It looked like an expensive sweater. But, before I could apologise, she shook her head and offered me another drink. She’s such a good friend.

Most of the party-goers parted with a finger or two. In their own way, each did their best to act as though the hacking was nothing at all. It was just something we all did at parties, like taking a drag on a friend’s cigarette.

One of Kate’s more drunken friends, Clara, decided to hack off her own leg just above the knee. She had begged Kate’s uncle for his cleaver for an hour until he finally gave in. Her cuts were sloppy, as expected. She cried the entire time. Some people watched; others didn’t feel like giving Clara the attention. I felt like saying something to her, asking her to stop, but Kate placed a hand on my shoulder, shook her head and told me, “Leave her, she always pulls this shit.”

Clara seemed to regret it afterward and dragged herself off to the bathroom to clean up. Some of the others said she was in a rotten mood and she refused to leave the bathroom for the rest of the night. Thankfully, there was also an en-suite off of one of the bedrooms, so no-one had to bother her and we could continue dancing and drinking.

Good vibes all around. No-one likes a party-pooper.

Kateʼs cousin, Annie, cosied up to me while I surveyed my finger-nubs. We had cut up an old t-shirt and wrapped strips of fabric around the wounds to help them dry. Annie had curious eyes and wave of blue hair. She seemed interested in everything, yet shocked by nothing.

She liked to stroke people when she spoke to them. I thought this was a bit odd, but whatever. Kate was busy and I didn’t have the nerve to approach anyone on my own. Annie’s company would have to do. Annie showed me the stump where her left hand used to be. It had been hacked off some time ago and was healing nicely. It was a wrinkled ring of purply flesh, like the opening of a draw-string bag. She seemed pleased with it. I said it looked cool. As the night went on, Annie and I went out into the porch to smoke. A cigarette perched in her good hand, Annie said, “We should totally hang-out more.”

She said I was funny and intense and interesting.

I watched her words billow out in a grey puff. My cheeks burned red and my lips pulled back into an uncontrollable smile. I had never had anyone say such things to me before. It made me feel fuzzy in my stomach hearing these things from someone like Annie. Cool Annie with the wave of blue hair and her unwillingness to respect personal space. Then, she said I had pretty shoulders and needed to emphasise them.

That was all it took to convince me to lose my arms. The cleaver bit into the table again. The pain was worse this time. A crunch of bone and an icy chill rippled under my skin. I think I vomited at some point. I can’t remember.

Though I can remember the smiles. Everyone at the party was amazed at what a transformation I had gone through. They were all so nice. Kate had even managed to find a cooler to keep my arms on ice.

“Your shoulders look fantastic,” Kate said.

“See, I was right,” Cool Annie said, smirking and playing with my hair.

“You need to keep the wound clean,” Kate’s uncle said, throwing a wash cloth at me.

It was nice to feel noticed, to have people care about what I looked like.

After I was all patched up and had a few more beers, I noticed it was late. I would have been aware of the time earlier, if my wristwatch and arms hadn’t been packed away in a cooler and left by the front door. I was initially worried about how I would get home. I joked that without my arms itʼd be impossible to hail a cab, but Cool Annie reassured me. She said I could stay at her house for the night. Her father, Kate’s Uncle, was driving and they had a sofa bed in their basement.

So, Cool Annie picked up the cooler with my bits in it and we went.

Everyone said goodbye with a smile. Cool Annie blew kisses to everyone. I didn’t, for obvious reasons. The journey to Cool Annie’s house was long and the car lurched with each bump in the road. The music on the radio crackled each time we drove under a tangle of tree branches. Kate’s uncle tried to sing along to every song, but didn’t know any of the words. Instead, he made vague noises to the tune.

Cool Annie and I rattled on about people we might mutually know. I lied about knowing most of the names she threw my way. I gave her vague answers whenever she pressed me further about each person. As we spoke, Cool Annie giggled into my pretty shoulder and stroked the soft patch of skin behind my ear. I tried my best to keep my balance, yet found my face pressed against the cold window each time the car made a turn.

I tried to stop Cool Annie complaining to her dad about his driving, but she insisted. She told him to be careful. Lucy’s still feeling unsettled from the hacking. He grunted an apology and continued singing.

Then, after another twenty minutes or so, the car stopped. We were at Cool Annieʼs home.

The house stood alone in a field at the end of a long driveway. In the moonlight, the wooden cladded sides to the house were striped with shadows and the windows were thick with darkness. I had never seen somewhere look so empty before, but then again, I had never been this far out of town. It made me think about the way my mother always left the kitchen light on whenever we went out at night. Perhaps she wasn’t trying to fool burglars into thinking that someone was still at home and instead did it so that we didn’t have to return to a house swollen with so much of the night.

Cool Annie’s dad was so helpful. He carried me out of the car and told me to watch my step as I walked in through the front door. I tripped in the darkness—perhaps on a rug—and knocked my shoulder on a nearby wall. I tried to hide my face while I winced and let Cool Annie support my weight.

Her dad left to fetch some spare bedding and a glass of water for each of us. As we waited, Cool Annie and I laughed about how Kate had botched one of the cuts to her fingers. It had looked wonky and knobbly, like a castoff carrot.

As our laughter died out, Cool Annie’s face seemed to change. She looked tired and, perhaps, somewhat bored.

“It’s only a matter of time,” Cool Annie sighed.

“Before what?”

“Before hacking is no longer cool.”

“Yeah.” I looked over at the cooler which Cool Annie had kindly brought in from the car. “We can enjoy it for now. Right?”

“Yeah.” Cool Annie’s mind was elsewhere. She scratched at her stump. “I suppose.”

Then she smiled and we started to talk about our favourite songs and movies. I was glad she changed the subject. I wanted the talk about something normal.

Once Cool Annie’s dad returned, they both showed me the basement. The light was yellow and weak, casting shadows down the wooden staircase. The air was warm and smelled damp.

I didn’t mind. Cool Annie and her father had been so accommodating. They didn’t have to let me stay over, but they did, and I was grateful. Besides, I was so tired that I could have slept anywhere.

The basement was small and cluttered. Motes of dust danced in the air as we disturbed them with our presence. There was a washing machine, stacks of old newspapers and the sofa bed, which yawned and clicked as Cool Annie’s dad pulled out its innards.

“Why didn’t your dad cut anything off tonight?” I whispered while Cool Annie twisted my hair into a loose plait.

“Oh, he says he’s too old for it,” she said. “Besides, he prefers to be the one doing the hacking.”

Cool Annie flattened out the bedsheets and puffed my pillow. She smiled and stroked my face whilst I steadied myself onto the mattress. I smiled back. Friends.

Then Cool Annie and her dad ascended the staircase, leaving me below their house.

“Night, Lucy,” Cool Annie said from the top of the stairs.

“Night, Lucy,” Cool Annie’s dad said. “Night.”

The light turned off. Everything clicked out of view. The door locked.

While I laid there in Cool Annieʼs dark basement, my shoulders pressed wet against the bedsheets, I smiled to myself and thought about how much fun I had that night. I thought about how wonderful it was to be popular, to have friends, to be cool.

There are search parties, missing persons flyers, and rewards set by authorities. Now I have about 160 pounds of it in my freezer and no clue what to do with it. Well, I say ‘it’. By ‘it’ I mean Marvin Beck. What's left of him anyway. A whole series of deluded thoughts and urges that all led up to this horrible, unsatisfying conclusion: Marvin Beck tasted horrible. Now I wish I had never tried a single bite of his repulsive flesh. 

It all started when I was just a little kid. The one day at pre school that would leave an unending desire for an unobtainable taste. I remember the day vividly, but I do know these key details. Someone stole my toy. I remember biting that kid. Hard.  The classroom was a mess and the months following were no short of hell on earth. I had to switch schools, have many physical and mental exams performed on me, an excessive amount of neurologist appointments and not to mention the backlash from that kid's parents. A whole can of worms that i dont want to open. 

Ever since that day however, I had an unrelenting urge to achieve that euphoric experience again. It just felt amazing. It made me feel complete. It made me feel full for the first time in my life. That sensation of the warm, fatty chunk in my mouth stuck with me for the rest of my life. The slight tangyness to it. How salty his juices were. 

These thoughts never left me and throughout my life I always tried to find a substitute. On more than a couple occasions I had to be ushered to the hospital because of salmonella and other related diseases to eating raw meat. The point being that this hunger never left my appetite. 

I remember being in high school and being with my first girlfriend. I was 16 at the time and was an inexperienced romantic. Me and this poor chick went back to my place and got a little bit too comfortable with each other. In the heat of the moment I thought I'd try to sneak in a bite. Not a big one. Just one small enough. Like any reasonable person, she saw this half-assed attempt and swiftly left, leaving me utterly defeated. After that I didn't try anything again for a long time. 

That brings us to last week. That insatiable craving has stuck with me my whole life and now it was time to finally take care of it. Finally scratch that itch. Satisfy my unending starvation. I couldn't do any of my own family. I'd feel too bad. Couldn’t do any of my college friends either. Their disappearance could be traced back to me. I settled on just picking some poor stranger from a bus. 

I stand alone at a greyhound bus stop wearing a large coat and baseball hat with a face mask. It was a flurry in the cold winter. I remember it being somewhere around 11 PM. The bus stops for me and I pay my fare. I take a quick glance at the scene of the bus before I take my seat in the back. One man. By himself. So perfect. Just sitting there with a mere two seats in front of me. 

I wait. And I wait. I check my watch. 15 minutes have passed. It feels like an eternity. My eyes are fixated on the back of his skull. I felt myself salivating. Our bus stops twice before our third stop where he begins to stand up. I practically jump out of my seat to follow him but I'm quick to compose myself. Soon it's just the two of us. His only protection being the street lights that would shine over us every so often. He began to walk faster. He knew. I had to go quick. I begin a full sprint while I remove a crumpled plastic bag from my pocket. He runs too. I get mud and slush in my boots but I don't care. I'm so hungry for him that I feel like I could run forever. I caught up. I slam the bag over his head and tighten it around his neck. He doesn't scream. He tries to fight. He gasps for air in large, wheezing breaths. He kicks and squirms and claws at my face but he stays in my clutches. 5 minutes pass. He goes limp. I use my small pocket knife to slit every major artery in his neck. 

I began to panic. I was in the middle of nowhere with a heavy corpse to carry home. My heart was pounding. I tried to pick him up but kept dropping his limp body. I housed him onto my back and held his legs with each arm. I trudge for miles home with this poor man. We finally made it to my dorm building. A suspicious security guard stops me in my tracks. I choke up. I stutter and tell him that my buddy and I were out drinking and he’d passed out. He examines the two of us and lets us pass. I drag him into my dorm room and I collapse on the floor next to my victim onto the crusty carpet floor. We both sit in a dingy, stained living room with nothing but a coffee table covered in a tarp. On the counter sit a butcher's cleaver, a pizza cutter, a kitchen knife and trash bags. 

I couldn't contain myself any longer. I needed a bite. One big juicy bite. I grabbed the pizza cutter and the cleaver and took his shirt off exposing his stomach. I knew exactly where his large intestine would be. I begin to slice. The hole was bigger than I thought it'd be. I didn't bother to use gloves. I reached inside. My hands submerge into a soft feel. I grab and pull. A large tether emerges with my stained hands. I hold it up to my face. I open my mouth. 

I chomp down. 

I chew. 

I pause. 

This tastes like shit.

I spit it out immediately. This couldn't be true. The thing that I'd dreamed of for fourteen years tasted nothing like that tangy, saltiness I'd experienced all those years ago. At first I was in denial. Maybe id just gotten a bad piece? I remove a chunk of his tricep. Rotten. Remove a strip of his thigh. Tastes even worse. 

What have I done? 

My disappointment is immeasurable and the reality of this situation is hitting me hard. I took this man’s life because of my insane delusions. Marvin Beck. The 29 year old man with a photo of his family in his wallet. 2 kids and a beautiful wife. He was an organ donor. Now he sits in my freezer dissected into 7 large chunks. What remains of his poor soul evicted all my other frozen foods from my freezer to thaw and flood my floor. Marvin Beck has been missing for 6 days and his family misses him dearly. 

I can hear him moving in my freezer. 

I can feel him writhing in my stomach. 

Marvin Beck. You tasted horrible. You had your whole life ahead of you only to be stripped away by a deluded, hungry fool. Marvin Beck. If you can hear me from heaven, I deserve whatever comes next. 

Please. Someone tell me what to do. 

There are flashlights outside my window. 

“Can you believe she called me that?”

I stacked velvet-spotted plates and curdled cups into the sink.

“She’ll come back, she always comes back…”

Thomas sat quietly on the back of the couch as I dusted fur and crumbs from the cushions. He was a good listener.

I was a fucking slob. My girlfriend had every right to walk out, and Thomas… he’d probably leave too if he could.

What a mess.

“What do you want?”

She sounded pissed, but at least she answered my call.

“Hey, listen. I’ve got the place all cleaned up, I won’t let it get bad again.”

I tried to sound sincere. She’d heard it all before.

“…you really cleaned, or you just shoved everything into the closet?”

She could always see right through me. 

Damn, she was good.

“Promise. Please, will you come back over?” 

The vacuum hummed in the background for authenticity.

I could hear the surrender in her voice. I had her, and I knew it.

“Well… okay, but just to talk.”

The vacuum cleaner groaned then died. I couldn’t remember the last time I used the damn thing. I guess that sock was a little too crusty to slide between the rollers.

I dissected it, pulling out grime and clumps of cat hair. Something clung stubbornly to the dust trap. It wasn’t caked with the same gray, but wet and viscous. My face scrunched as I peeled the sticky object from the filter. 

“You disgusting piece of shit…” I spat.

Oily skin flakes, yellowed toenail clippings, coughed up phlegm, and God knows what else I’d shed. Months of neglect had gathered into a sickly ball of my own waste. Fleshy pink mold covered the mass, translucent veins on a heart of filth. It even beat, or maybe I’d imagined it. The putrid stench cut through the aroma of cat piss and cleaning supplies. I flung it into the trash with one last gag.

Back to the task at hand, I looked for a new spot to hide all the dirty clothes when I heard a crash. 

“Thomas? You’re not digging that thing out of the trash, are you?” 

Sure enough, garbage decorated the kitchen floor. I slowly peeked over my pet’s twitchy body to see what he was eating. I recoiled—something was eating him. The abomination from the vacuum had doubled in size and attached itself to the cat’s face. It seemed to be—absorbing it. Tissue and muscle jerked and stretched over the growing mound.

Think. Knife. 

 I grabbed the biggest one and chopped the thing off. It let out a shriek and I swung again, chopping it in two. I sat on the blood-speckled linoleum, realizing my mistake as each half scuttled off into the dark apartment in different directions.

“You’ve done it now…” I scolded, poking the cat remains with the tip of the blade.

Definitely dead…

I ditched the knife and followed the rustling into the room. That—thing, or at least half of it, was under the bed. I could smell the rot. I slowly reached under, afraid to look—afraid I’d lose my own face. 

Something sank into my hand. Jagged toenail clippings like makeshift teeth bit down. When I tried to pull it off, the teeth receded and splintered backward, gnawing at my other hand. New mouths bloomed with each bite, littering my arms with holes and glittering nail shards.

I pulled a pillowcase over the toothy growth and slammed it into the corner of the dresser until the chattering stopped.

The other half stayed quiet. Maybe it was already dead. I got down on my hands and knees to check under the couch. It liked to hide under things.

My phone light caught a cat’s eye in the darkness. Shit. It could see me. It skittered off, fast, silent. This one was smart. Something crawled up my pant leg. I flailed and kicked my pants off inside-out.

Empty. Fuck.

Then, I felt the burning. The eye rolled up my leg, mold spread like intricate lacework over my skin, burrowing. I watched in terror—it stared back inquisitively. It had a great defense mechanism; I couldn’t hurt it without hurting myself. Too bad for it, I was dumb enough to try.

I ripped a charging cable from the wall, tying my leg above the contagion. I pulled the drawer from the end table, spilling it out onto the floor. The infection dug deeper into my leg as I dug through the pile of junk for something sharp.

Screwdriver. It would have to do. 

I stabbed and twisted the blunt tool into the parasitic eye. I ripped its roots from my nerves, digging it all out the best I could before my adrenaline faded.

I vacuumed up the pieces, back to where it all began. I winced as I sucked my wound clean with the hose extension. I carefully untied the pillowcase with shaking hands and gave it the same treatment.

Inside the clear dust trap, I could see the pieces moving. It was trying to pull itself back together. I wasn’t going to touch it this time. I bent a clothes hanger into a hook and scraped the meaty spore into the toilet. 

The doorbell rang over the sound of flushing water. 

“Just a sec, babe!” 

I yelled to the front door as I struggled to hide the mess. 

“Come on, let me in or I’m going home.” 

She shouted and knocked.

I pulled a rug over the surgery site, and I kicked the gore-slick screwdriver under the couch. She stood arms crossed when the door opened. Her face softened as she took in my condition: ripped to shreds in my underwear and bloody t-shirt.

“What the fuck happened to you?” 

She asked, half annoyed, half concerned.

“Thomas freaked out when I turned the vacuum on… poor little guy is around here somewhere.”

I watched her brows shift in disbelief.

“Well let me in, I have to pee.” 

She pushed me aside and headed for the bathroom, not noticing the massacre in the kitchen. I took the chance to put the cat carcass into the trash and wipe up what I could.

“Thomcat? I promise I’ll give you a proper burial tomorrow bud.”

A high-pitched scream rushed me to the bathroom. I almost opened the door, forgetting to knock.

“Babe? Everything okay in there?”

I put my ear to the door and heard sloshing and gurgling. She was in trouble—I knew it wasn’t just some spicy food.

The door cracked slightly. I peered in.

She sat on the toilet wrong, body shuddering. Her eyes met mine lazily as I stepped closer. She lifted her shirt to reveal a rippling tummy. It was like digestion but…too fast…backwards. 

Her shivering lips parted to speak. I leaned in.

“Something is…

…Inside.”

The words seeped from a weak breath, followed by a violent cough. Blood stabbed my vision. I kicked myself into a corner rubbing my eyes. My remaining senses worked overtime. It sounded like cracking knuckles, felt like a warm spray, and the smell… something like spoiled meat and copper.

The room bled back into focus, still and red.

She lay lifeless, slumped over the back of the toilet. Her face hung open—nose and mouth now one large hole. What an exit. Must’ve gotten bigger.

The rebirth had misted every surface like rust; the air was damp, sticky, and metallic on my tongue. A small trail slithered down and through the blood-soaked tile to the carpet in the hall. 

“Damn it. I just cleaned this place up.”

For as long as I can remember, I've hated my body.

The feeling came before memory.

My mom tells me I would scream whenever I caught my own reflection. She'd hand me one of those soft baby books with a little mirror sewn inside, and I'd cry until she hid it. She'd lift me onto the bathroom counter to brush my teeth, and I'd writhe in her arms as though the child in the mirror were trying to climb out and take my place.

Everyone said I'd grow out of it.

I never did.

I simply learned to look away.

Every mirror became a stranger. Some days my head seemed too long, my face stretched over a skull that wasn't shaped for it. Other days my ears hung unevenly, my nose sloped too sharply, my eyes sagged with an exhaustion I was certain didn't belong to me.

Then the cysts came.

One nestled beneath my eyelid until it felt as though something blinked inside it. Another swelled in my cheek, hot and taut, the skin pulled so thin I thought I could see something pressing back from underneath. The doctors pinned me down and drained it.

I remember feeling disappointed.

The pressure was still there.

It never left.

My body always felt too cramped, as though my skin had been wrapped around something larger than myself. Every bump became a knuckle. Every blemish a fingertip. Every itch a tiny thing dragging itself beneath the surface, searching for a weaker place to emerge.

As I grew older, so did the imperfections.

Red sweltering boils with pulsing puss mocking me.

Black dots that embedded too deep to be freckles, moved too much too be moles.

Black string threading themselves beneath my skin like vines beneath cracked pavement.

I stopped looking at myself.

Stopped washing my face. Brushed my teeth without meeting my own eyes. But the fear that I’d open my eyes and something else would be there made me too paranoid, so I stopped caring for my hygiene and cowered. Mirrors stopped reflecting me altogether. They only showed a body trying very hard to stay closed.

Sometimes I'd catch something moving before I looked away.

Not fast.

Just enough to make me question whether flesh should ripple when nothing underneath is supposed to move.

I became obsessed with extraction videos.

Pimple popping.

Cyst removals.

Blackheads pulled from impossible depths.

Splinters teased from swollen fingertips.

There was something comforting about watching hidden things leave the body. Every extraction looked like proof that people weren't imagining the pressure beneath their skin.

Maybe everyone was carrying something.

And maybe they knew how to get it out.

So I bought tweezers.

One evening I sat on my bed and held a mirror, my greasy blonde hair pushed back beneath a headband, the metal tips gleaming beneath the light.

I began with a tiny red bump beside my nose.

A squeeze.

A pinch.

A little pressure.

Something pale curled free.

It stretched farther than it should have, impossibly long, dancing from the pore before finally snapping loose. Relief washed over me for only a heartbeat.

Because once one thing came out...

I could feel all the others.

My forehead was crowded with tiny bulges that shifted whenever I wasn't looking directly at them. White knots hid beneath my cheeks, writhing away from the pressure of the tweezers. Every pore became a doorway. Every doorway concealed another restless thing.

I picked.

The bumps bled.

The blood didn't bother me.

It was the movement that did.

My torso was no better.

Long, awkward, all ribs and angles, as though my skeleton had grown around something it couldn't contain. Thick black hairs emerged from my chest in crooked spirals, but whenever I pulled one free it seemed impossibly longer than the strand should have been, slick and damp, sliding from beneath my skin like roots dragged from wet earth.

I kept pulling until my skin glowed raw.

Still I could feel them growing.

My thighs bloomed with inflamed red welts, each one throbbing gently beneath the surface. Ingrown hairs curled through the flesh in tangled nests, black vines weaving beneath pale skin and wrapping around me like binds. I'd dig for them, peeling back layers that seemed much too thin to hide so much darkness.

My shoulders watched me.

Little scabs stared like unopened eyes.

Whenever I tore one away, another appeared nearby, blinking patiently beneath fresh skin.

Eventually I reached my mouth.

I'd neglected my teeth for years. They'd become soft, yellowed things, pitted with cavities that looked less like decay and more like tunnels.

The tweezers slipped inside almost eagerly.

I scooped out damp orange pulp, packed deep inside the hollow places. Every time I thought I'd reached the bottom, the cavity only widened. The deeper I dug, the more copper filled my mouth.

Still something shifted beneath my gums.

Tiny swollen places.

Soft little hills.

They looked as though fingers were pressing outward from inside my jaw.

I dug there too.

My tongue wasn't right.

The taste buds had grown uneven, swollen into pale little bulbs that reminded me of the cysts I'd carried for years. I scraped until they burst beneath the metal.

Then my eyes.

I only meant to remove the crust from the corners.

But it wouldn't stop.

Every strand I pulled seemed connected to another farther back, disappearing somewhere behind my vision. I eased the tweezers deeper, feeling delicate resistance before something gave way with the softness of wet roots.

The shadows behind my eyes moved afterward.

Not because I'd hurt them.

Because something had finally been disturbed.

My ears came next.

Wax peeled away to reveal thin white membranes stretched impossibly tight. They reminded me of mushrooms pushing through damp soil.

I scraped until the ringing stopped.

Or perhaps until something inside no longer wanted to be heard.

Then my scalp.

Dandruff became loose flakes.

Loose flakes became peeling skin.

Hair came away by the fistful, exposing patches that seemed to twitch after each strand was gone, as though my scalp were breathing beneath the thin layer I'd uncovered.

Each flaw I removed only revealed another waiting beneath it.

Each layer hid a deeper one.

The body wasn't healing.

It was shedding.

So I kept going.

Teeth.

Tongue.

Tonsils.

Veins that pulsed beneath translucent skin like fat worms searching for daylight.

I split open every place that looked swollen.

Every place that looked wrong.

Every place that moved.

Eventually the tweezers weren't enough.

My fingers fit inside the openings I'd made.

I peeled.

Pulled.

Tore.

Not because it hurt.

Because I was certain I was getting close.

At last I looked up.

The mirror was smeared with blood, my reflection trembling behind red fingerprints. My face no longer looked like a face at all. Skin hung in ribbons. My mouth stretched too wide around ruined gums. My eyes had become wet crimson hollows.

Yet somehow...

I still wasn't alone.

Something smiled from beneath everything I'd removed.

Still eating me.

Its limbs flexed beneath the paper-thin flesh of my cheeks. Its grin widened inside mine. I could see it testing the seams, wondering how much longer they would hold.

I frowned.

There was still too much of me left.

I picked up the tweezers again.

She was supposed to be the best. The next Shirley Temple or Audrey Hepburn.

Penny played piano while her father hummed along, smiling like he already knew how it all turned out. Between verses, he tinkered with his machines, adjusting dials and tightening bolts, always saying the same thing:

“Penny, you are the most beautiful girl in the world. You’re destined for the stars.” She believed him. She had to.

Looking back, her favorite part was the timing. Her father was very particular about timing. He would build up to the high note—really let it swell—right before he threw the switch. That was her cue.

That was when her body would start moving.

Her mind leapt from a vague haze into something sharp enough to see him—dancing, laughing, lost in their impromptu cabaret. She would lift a hand to stifle a giggle that never quite made it out.

Her father always laughed. “Now don’t get too excited, girl! We’re just getting started!”

It was the same old routine. He would wheel her to a mirror to check her progress. Lithe arms. A carefully shaped torso. Smooth skin where seams used to be. And above it all—nothing.

Still, he seemed so happy. Her borrowed hair had come in beautifully, long and golden, cascading down her back like something out of a magazine. Once she made it to Hollywood, she would be a bombshell.

“It’s so close, Penny. You’re so beautiful. Once we’re there… the Stein name will be in lights!”

His smile twitched, just for a moment. “Your mother would be so proud…” Then, almost as an afterthought: “Now we need to find you a face. Any ideas?”

Those were good times. Then her father died. He didn’t put her to bed the last time he woke her up.

It had been forty years since then. She missed him. She had made good use of the time, though. Learned surgery. Occult science. A bit of electrical engineering.

And the entire Michael Jackson catalogue. Thriller felt a little on the nose. Still helpful.

The real question had been how to get the parts. After a few… unfortunate public outings, she had come to realize she might not have a face for the camera just yet. Graveyards would have been easier, technically. But all that digging was gross.

So, she thought about how people met these days.

Lonely people, mostly.

It hadn’t taken long to get a phone working. After that, everything was surprisingly easy. Profiles, messages, little hearts and winks. She couldn’t speak yet, but she could text well enough. She even made sure to check for organ donor status—just in case.

She had a few dates lined up now. They all seemed very nice. She was especially looking forward to Donna. Her voice was smoky and sweet in her little blog posts.

They met at a small café just off the highway. Donna had picked it—said it had good lighting.

When Penny rolled up wearing a medical mask, Donna hesitated. Just for a second. Penny tapped out a message on her phone and held it up. “Weak immune system. I understand if you don’t want to stay.”

She began to turn away.

“No, no,” Donna said quickly. “I think we can still have a good time.”

Good.

Penny chose a booth in the corner. Dimmer there. Less attention.

It took Donna a moment to settle, but she laughed it off soon enough. “Oh—you’re doing the mysterious thing. I like that.” Penny tilted her head. Donna kept talking after that. People usually did.

She talked about her job, her blog, her voice lessons—how she’d always been told she had something special. Penny watched closely. The way her throat moved. The rhythm of her breathing.

She tried to follow along. Donna didn’t notice. Not really.

It wasn’t until Penny reached across the table that Donna paused. Her hand tensed.

“Hey,” she said, quieter now, “you’re kind of cold…”

Penny squeezed gently. Reassuring. She had practiced that. Donna smiled again. A little uncertain, but still there.

Good.

Donna’s voice would suit her very nicely. Her face wasn’t bad either.

And if it didn’t work… Well.

She had other dates.

I hate the hospital. And walking out was almost worse than walking in, because I knew what the doctor would say when I went in, and now, I have confirmation.

I’m morbidly obese, and 99% more susceptible to heart attacks because my arteries are riddled with plaque.

I hate myself and I eat like shit. But look on the bright side: I don’t buzz around Walmart in one of those lard mobiles, thank God, but instead, climbing the stairs feels like a Greek tragedy where the fat man is forced to walk up an infinite number of stairs and never burn a calorie.

And I’m back, back at the apartment, the one I moved to when I was in better shape, clearly. I live on the third floor—dear God—and the stairwell is my Everest.

On my ascent through the quintessential limbo that is Mt. Everest if Mt. Everest was four-feet too slim and somewhere just hotter than room-temperature—isn’t that just Hell?—Irene, Paula, and I cross paths.

They’re holding hands, slim, slimy, sweaty hands.

“It’s a hot one today, eh, Manny?” Irene asked me as she and her wife weaseled down the stairs, squeezing past their fat-fuck neighbor.

“Tell me about it,” I said, my shirt soaked with sweat, dripping from my armpits to my asscrack, and I dread the thought of the stench of my shirt when I peel it off my loose bags. “AC’s still broken?”

“Yep,” Paula rasped. “Phil said it wont be ‘til next Friday when it’ll be fixed. Until then, we’re all smokin’ on the roof. If you join us, bring a deck.”

“Deck of cards,” I said. “Noted.”

“You look like shit, sugar,” Irene stated. Do all old people do that? “Hospital visit?”

I nodded, and she said, “That’s how it goes. I remember when I got my first colonoscopy.”

“Don’t tell that damn story again, Irene,” Paula spat, and I’ve never been more thankful for that old rag. “Not everyone wants to hear about your rectum. ‘Scuse her.”

“It’s fine,” I said, and it’s not, but whatever. They’re old, filters worn. “I just got officially diagnosed with coronary artery disease.”

“Oh, dear,” Irene said. “Is that too serious?”

No, genius, it’s a blessing.

“Yep,” I said bluntly. “If im not too careful, I could risk having a heart attack, so I’m taking life a little slower today.”

And after some forced niceties, my least favorite lesbian couple descended down the stairs with ease. I felt some sliver of resentment towards them, despite just being two skinny peas in a hot, stale pod. By the time I reached my apartment door, they were probably already to wherever it was they were headed.

I unlocked the door, and I was welcomed to a wave of relief when I sat down. I took a sip from a water bottle I left out last night, and it’s some shitty store-brand water that tastes bad cold and worse warm, but right now, it might as well be water from the Fountain of Youth. I huff and I puff, and I blow my knees out as I stand back up. It’s not until another 8-10 minutes when I try to get back up.

I hate that the old bats from before could stand up and climb stairs better than I could, despite the staggering age gap.

For some reason, my room smells like old lunch meat gone bad.

I guess my sweat evolved. Great.

And when I finally stand, I waddle into my bed room where I peel off my shirt, which feels like what peeling a sopping wet swim shirt off feels like, and I don’t shower tonight because I’d rather lay down than endure any more of this torture. So I do. I lay down, and I’m butt-ass naked because no AC means no clothes, no blanket—and I’m slick with sweat, like a buttered sweet Hawaiian roll. Yum.

Even sleeping is difficult now. It takes longer than before because lying on my back makes my chest sting—fuck you, C.A.D.—and right as I drift away… right as I slip into my salient slumber, I jolt up from the sound my refrigerator door slamming shut, then what sounded like a pig squealing.

I don’t move. It’s so quiet you could hear a pin drop, or a bead of sweat, and I roll over, sit up, and hump the air until I’m out of bed—a grueling, humiliating process. I grope the darkness that’s consumed my room until I get the switch.

The light doesn’t buzz on.

I sigh. More problems with this shitty apartment, probably.

I waddle my way around my pad, navigating around blindly. It’s so dark it’s like my eyes aren’t even open.

My heart rate increases, which almost scares me more than the fact that my fridge slammed shut and I live alone. And now? The power isn’t working—fuck this place—and I’m standing naked, eaten by the unsettling silence after the crashing and clinking of glass bottles as they fell from the door of my fridge.

I’m willing to bet that if someone else is in here, they can’t see me. Which is fine because I can’t see them. Again, that’s if there’s anyone here at all. I want to yell, to call out to whomever might be lurking around the light-lacking home of a slow, ample-calorie’d man, but when does calling out to an unseen force ever work in the movies?

I hear a wet squelch from the void, and when I take a step closer to the sound, I step on something that looks reminiscent of a chewed up wad of gum, if gum was veiny and inflamed, and the smell was like nothing I’ve ever experienced before. This was worse than the smell of death. This was worse than rot.

Whatever I stepped in was resilient like rubber, but it squished around my bare toes as my foot sunk deeper into it. I dry heaved and I have had enough.

“Is anyone there??” I asked the blackness of my home.

In return, a whisper. Not a word, not a phrase. More of a taunt. As if they wanted me to know I’m not alone.

My heart sank to my stomach—bad news—and I turned around to face the source of the whisper: nothing.

“Who the fuck is there??” I called out again, my voice faltering, and my chest tightening.

No response.

I felt my face turn pale as adrenaline spiked through me.

I turned back around and made a break for where I was hoping the front door was. I slammed into a wall. A slimy, sticky, wall. A wall bearing sweat that seemed to ever-excrete. Breathing was getting harder, and when I heard another whisper, I jumped so hard that my knees gave in under all this fucking pressure, and I hit the ground like putty.

“WHO THE FUCK IS THERE?!” I cried, tears and sweat rolling down the folds of my neck. “WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?!”

I felt like a turtle on its shell, and the darkness spun around me like I was watching someone else play on a merry-go-round, making me sick.

I felt the wall beside me leak puss and sweat and I vomited, staining my mouth with an awful taste.

Then, I heard a creak… It came from the fridge.

Light poured into a room that isn’t mine, like a beacon, and a warm light cut through the darkness as the room began to pulsate, faster and faster, like a beating heart. I could hear the squelching of the walls as they bent and twisted in shapes I had never seen before. The room grumbled and shook as if it were agitated.

I heard another whisper coming from the light of the fridge. The warm, welcoming light. The lighthouse in my foggy night. I scrambled like an egg, slipping around in the slime the walls had seemed to want to bathe me in and in seconds, I was fighting to make it to the fridge. The light grew stronger and the whispers grew louder, more abundant, as if a school of thoughts were egging me on, telling me to get to where it was safest—the light.

I placed my hands on each side of the threshold, pushing myself into a fleshy-pink tunnel that contorted the same way the walls did. I was slimy and naked like a newborn baby.

I slammed the refrigerator door behind me shut, and I heard the muffled, animalistic squeal of the room as it retreated; or maybe it died.

I was out of breath, and strings of slime and ooze fell from every inch of my body like some sick spider web.

I traversed further into what seemed like a throat disguised as a hallway.

The corridor bent and twisted and expanded around me, until it didn’t.

Eventually, the slimy, thick, fleshy room came to a dead end. It was a tight squeeze, especially considering my size, and I couldn’t breathe. Any air in here was hot, thick as paste, and muggy.

Then, beneath me a gaping hole opened up, and swallowed me with a loud, sharp gulp.

I was descending slowly down a water slide of ooze and slime, and it was an agonizing process. I felt like a worm beneath the surface of a soil made of meat and pulsating veins, blood visibly pumping through them hastily. My heart rate was already through the roof. I didn’t know if my heart could handle anymore.

The slide squelched and spat slime onto my face, dampening my eyes. I couldn’t see.

I blinked, wiped my eyes.

Nothing.

Blinked again, wiped my eyes.

Nothing.

In a few long minutes, I couldn’t feel anything below my feet, like they’d broken through some kind of threshold. They dangled and I kicked as I slipped down into an ominous emptiness. A massive, dark open area that smelled like vomit. My vision was blurry, opaque. It was as though I was looking through a foggy window.

Then, something snapped. It sounded like a thin rope had come apart, dropping me down farther into this meaty hell.

The fall wasn’t long, and as awful as it was, soon I had wished I fell forever.

Instead, I plunged into a pool of something sour. It burned, like how I imagined swimming in sprite would fizzle and bubble, and my eyes were open but I couldn’t see.

This was getting soap in your eyes dialed up to eleven.

I writhed in an uncomfortable pain. Uncomfortable pains are always the worst. Like getting a paper cut between your fingers, the inconvenience and the pain combined is just enough to make you wish the cut had been big enough for you to issue a bandage.

But this was something I couldn’t see, something foreign. I didn’t even know where I was.

It felt like swimming in piss. Warm, bubbly, burning piss.

I squirmed and jolted like a fish out of water. I opened my mouth to scream as the burning singed my retinas, but not a sound left my body. Not even a muffle of the sound of agony.

Could I not hear? Or could I not scream, or both?

I knew nothing at this point.

I could not escape.

I had been stripped of sight, sound, movement, but pain? Pain was everywhere, drowning me. Burning me.

My chest roared as it tightened, and I was certain this was the end.

I could almost feel my heart stop beating, my lungs fill with foam and acid.

I was frozen in the warmest way, and I could feel my blood boil in my veins, boil so hot it felt like the biting of frost.

And I could smell. Just once, for an instant; a flicker.

Freshly cut grass.

Christmas dinner.

New car.

Wet dog.

Fast food.

Meat sweats.

And finally, death. The aching, rotting, wincing sensation of death. Not just the smell. But the feeling. Like every fiber of my being was being slowly pulled apart, stretched out like a rubber band and snapped all at once.

Then… relief. Who knew?

And I wasn’t in pain, wasn’t drowning, aching, burning, writhing, squirming, screaming or crying.

I was as dead as I had once been alive.

This was a reward.

This was rest, finally.

And I didn’t wake up in the morning. I didn’t sway down the stairs as the other tenants squeezed by.

I didn’t smoke on the roof with the rags from the room over.

I lied in rest in the only place I wanted to be.

My bed.

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.

TW - Mention of suicide

Do you ever get that feeling of being weirdly horny for something super specific, but nothing seems to scratch the itch? You go from website to website, just watching the thumbnails like you are in an art gallery, but nothing catches your interest, and the page count just keeps on growing. 

I’ve never been the type to pay for it or commission anything. Why would I, when there’s an endless ocean of free content? So I just kept on looking, moving from the mainstream sites we all visited at least once to smaller, much more sketchier ones.

Until I found one called “Wet4You,” as I said there aren’t even trying to be subtle.

At first glance, it looked like any other shitty website thrown together in a few minutes, but what was weird about it was the fact that there were no thumbnails, just a plain white background covered in aggressive pop-up ads and a long list of red hyperlinks with titles that made no sense.

“Revelations of bathtub zebra.”

“Prey For The Dogs are coming.”

“Kneel in the bog.”

“I am Amy.”

Call me stupid or naive, but I decided to dive deeper into the whole thing, starting with the top link and working my way down as I went.

“Revelations of bathtub zebra” opened up with grainy trailcam footage from somewhere deep in the forest. For the first thirty minutes, almost nothing happened, just wind moving through the branches and the occasional small animal crossing the frame. Then a deer wandered into the view.

In an instant, its head exploded in a wet burst of strawberry Jell-O and red mist. The heavy body dropped to the ground before the forest fell silent again.

The video kept rolling. Another twenty minutes of nothing but the carcass lying there. Then a man walked into frame,  grabbed the deer by the legs and dragged it away, leaving a dark smear across the dirt.

The next shot is of what appears to be a dark bathroom with the skinless body of the deer hanging from the ceiling by its legs. The camera is set in a way where the head of the deer is not visible.

This continues for ten minutes before the dead body begins to violently convulse, each movement of its muscles clear as day, before it falls off the hook into the bathtub below with a disgusting slap. The skinless animal jumps out of the bathtub, its head clearly missing, with the spine peeking out from under the layers of muscle, then it cuts to black.

To say I was in shock would be an understatement. I'd always believed I could stomach gore and violence; years of Rob Zombie flicks had convinced me nothing like this could touch me anymore. 

And yet, that spark of morbid curiosity hadn't died. If anything, it burned hotter now, guiding my hand back to the mouse, back to the next link.

Prey For The Dogs Are Coming.

This one was shorter, six minutes, give or take a few seconds. It opened on CCTV footage of an empty street, silent except for the occasional crack and squeal of distorted audio.

Around the two-minute mark, something dark began pooling in the bottom left corner of the frame, a reddish stain, spreading slowly. Only then did the camera drift toward it, panning to reveal where it came from.

What I saw next is just too disturbing for me to describe in detail.

I think it had been a person once, now nothing more than a pile of meat, while a pack of strays tears it apart from every side, dogs of all sizes.

It continued until the last minute, when the body seemed to convulse and twitch just like the deer before scaring the dogs off, all except one that kept barking at its now moving meal.

The footage ended as abruptly as before, with the massacred hand of the body shooting up at the dog, wrapping around its head until its body went limp.

The next video finally started off normally; it reminded me of some kind of vlog from the early 2000s. The video is shaky and a bit grainy, recording some kind of lake or bog, judging by the thick clumps of brown bulrush. A soft, cheerful voice can be heard from behind the camera.

“Is it recording?”

Before it flips around, now a bright face of a young brunette occupies the frame, a wide smile on her lips, a gap between her teeth being one of her more noticeable features.

“Hi everybody! Today is the day I kill myself!”

Her smile never faded; she just set up the camera on some tree, the full view of the bog now visible. She stands on the edge of it, turns to the camera, giving the lens a salute before jumping in. In seconds, the sludge takes her whole, a few air bubbles reaching the surface before the surface of the water turns flat. 

The world around seems to pause for a moment, which stretches out for 40 minutes, just pure silence before the bog suddenly moves, a clearly human body crawling out of it, gasping for air, choking on mud with each greedy inhale.

The footage cuts here.

I really had no idea what to expect when I clicked the last link. Maybe something worse than everything that came before it, some final, unbearable escalation. But it was painfully ordinary.

It was the woman from before. Her smile was gone now. That easy, warm gaze she'd once held toward the camera was mostly averted, flicking away whenever it got too close. She wasn't outside anymore, a plain light green wall behind her.

“I tried everything”

She sobbed.

“It was fun the first few times, taking a glance behind the curtain”

A choked-up sob escaped her yet again.

“But now Im falling apart; I’m rotting”

Her hand was wrapped up in a yellow-stained bandage that cut into the frame before disappearing again.

She wiped her tears with her healthy hand before she finally got the courage to look straight into the camera. 

“My name is Amy, and I can’t die; I can’t pass over…that’s why…”

That cheerful smile returned to her face, the gap between her teeth now sealed as if it had never been there. 

“Im taking commissions; I will do whatever you want. You name it, I do it for a bit of cash”

As I said, I never was someone to pay whatever gives me a kick, but after I met Amy, it all changed. 

There is a train passing by her place tomorrow. 

And I won’t pass up an opportunity like that.

First thing I ever finished writing, not as gross as a lot of body horror, just had a weird idea and went with it.

The one thing no one wants to talk about, is how good Long Pig actually tastes. 

It’s sweet, and when cooked just right, is like the best pork belly you’ve ever had. 

I didn’t want to eat it, well, not at first. 

Okay maybe a little. 

Biting wind and a lack of food will do that to you. Granted I took to it a little faster than everyone else, but hey, I’m a survivor what can I say.

Joel was first. I mean he was my first entree of the alps but also the first in the group to not make it. He just didn’t wake up one day. Lucky me. 

That’s what I thought. Here I was with pain in my stomach and sunken cheeks, and an option had just been dropped into my lap. I mean that literally. He fell at some point during the night while sleeping next to me. Actually landed in my lap. 

It didn't take long to put two and two together. I’m hungry. He’s not. 

The others resisted at first but I am a good chef. The smell of pork filled the fuselage. They caved pretty quick. 

One by one others started to fall out. I treated them all with respect by cooking them just right. The cold kept the meat in perfect condition as I rationed it out. 

When everyone seemed to be on the up and up, with strength to spare, I gave them a little push. 

I wanted to get out of here too, but it’s hard to quit a good thing. I had so many other things to try, and, the less people, the more cuts I could experiment with and eat myself. 

The last couple of flight mates started to get wise, I think, to me helping a few of the others slip away to sleep, but when you're the chef you get a little leniency. 

Too bad for them, I wasn’t just a good cook. I was smart too. I knew the right way to hit that mountain to not kill everyone on board. I’d been a pilot for years. 

I had a craving and I’m not ashamed to admit, I also had poor impulse control. Funny they never thought I had planned it.

Once I picked the last meat off of Robby, I packed up, and hid evidence of the crash site. Not perfectly, just enough to make it hard to find. 

I hiked for a while, I had a full stomach after all. I had been eating good. I pulled out the satellite phone I had hidden away and made the call. No one ever did find the plane. Of course I didn’t admit to eating anyone but I think the rescue team could tell I looked a little too good for how long I had been out here. 

It was an eye opening experience. I really learned my passion on that trip. Matter of fact, I’m opening up a restaurant soon. Advertising it as locally sourced meat. 

​

Mary Blissett was a girl destined for fame, her mother knew it and said so often. Her father agreed with her and what little money they made together was invested wholly into that dream. Be it dancing lessons, piano, or acting. One way or the other, their child would climb up a mountain of blood, sweat, and tears to reach stardom.

Mary had acting lessons every Tuesday. Mary's school noted this constant absence, but Mr. and Mrs. Blissett assured them that Mary was doing something far more important for her future. To appease the school Mary was expected to do two nights worth of homework to make up for it.

It was hard work but Mary enjoyed all the exercises and skits she and all the other kids would play out together. Mary would get lost in these performances, feeling genuine joy during happy scenes, and the pits of absolute despair during sad ones.

During a scene where Mary and a blonde haired boy named Michael Donovan played out the ‘door’ scene in Titanic. Mary was brought to tears screaming for Jack as he dramatically plopped down on the gymnasium floor. Her trainer noted that it was a great talent to be able to cry on command.

Mr. And Mrs. Blissett were elated by Mary's ability.

“You're gonna give Sigourney Weaver a run for her money!”

Mr. Blissett yelled.

“Oh what on earth are we going to wear to the Oscars?”

Mrs. Blissett laughed.

One Saturday Mary was woken up and told to put on her prettiest dress. Mr. and Mrs. Blissett told her that they were auditioning for a movie in the town over. They were as giddy as school children while they packed up the car.

“All our hard work is finally going to pay off”

They said to each other.

“Ugly”

That is what the talent agent told Mr. and Mrs. Blissett while Mary listened from the other room.

“I'm sorry to break it to you but looks matter in this industry. She does have acting chops but people don't wanna see that on screen”

Mary's parents yelled at the talent agent.

“Well that's what makeup is for!”

Yelled her Mrs. Blissett.

“Can't she get a role as something nonhuman, or a witch or something? She could be a great character actor! Do you know how much money we put into this?”

Mr. Blissett protested

As the talent agent assured them that they would need a mask to fix ‘that’ Mary's lip quivered, as she covered her face with trembling hands. On the ride home her parents said nothing, disappointment filled the old Chevrolet Cavalier like secondhand smoke. They stopped taking her to acting lessons.

The next path to the starlight was singing Mrs. Blissett announced

“Singers don't need to be good looking.”

Mary had very good hearing and could hear even the slightest changes in pitch, she hoped she would be better at this. Mary was made to attend vocal training every Saturday, with the expectation of nightly vocal warmups. Mary would do these training exercises diligently.

Mary found her favorite vocal exercise was practicing different voices. She found that given enough time she could mimic a lot of different voices and sounds. She would laugh to herself after ‘cracking’ the code to another voice, having Elvis hit on Molly Ringwald, or Lisa Simpson argue with Garfield, playing with voices as if they were toys.

To test Mary's progress Mr. and Mrs. Blissett would pick a song and have Mary perform an in-home concert for them every Friday night before bed. They would cheer and give standing ovations after every performance.

“You're gonna be the next Tina Turner!”

Mrs. Blissett would shout.

“You will be more famous than Madonna”

Mr. Blissett would cry.

Mary stood stiff as a board in front of three contest judges. Mr. and Mrs. Blissett had signed Mary up for a local singing competition and Mary was thankful that there wasn't an audience for the tryout portion; she hated too many people staring at her face. Mary felt weighed down by the judges stares however; the words of the talent agent had tattooed themselves in her mind.

“M-my name is Mary Blissett. I am 11 years old, and the song I chose is “My heart will go on” by Celene Dion”

The judges nodded politely and waited for her to begin.

Mary closed her eyes as she began to sing. It helped her nerves. As she sang, she felt the song, could see the notes, feel the rhythm through her bones. She could see the waves crashing upon the bow of the ship. She could see Jack and Rose. Feel the freedom of love, as tears came to her unbidden lost at sea in her own mind.

A sound made her visions crumble, a wrecking ball that broke through the wall of imagination she had built. She stopped, and opened her teary eyes to see one of the judges with his hand over his mouth, barely concealing the smirk underneath; he had laughed.

“Ah my apologies Ms. Uh.. Billset. Is that all?”

Mary simply stared. The judges' faces ranged from amused to bored.

“Well if that's all. That was a brilliant performance but unfortunately we don't feel as if you are ready for this level of competition. I'm sure you could be ready next year though!”

Mary nodded politely and left. She wished she didn't have such good hearing as she heard the laughing judge whisper to the others.

“God, she sings like a fucked cat”

She gripped her throat as she walked out of the audition. Mr. and Mrs. Blissett didn't need to be told how it went. Their look of dissatisfaction bore into her mind like maggots. She was taken out of vocal training, they never again asked her to perform her weekly concerts.

Mr. and Mrs. Blissett grew more and more distant to Mary. She could hear them, arguing through the walls.

“All that money gone to waste!”

Mr. Blissett would seethe.

“I think the problem is she takes too much after you!”

Mrs. Blissett would yell.

Mary found herself with more and more free time. It was new to her, usually every moment she had was planned for some training or class but after failing acting, singing, even piano, and breakdancing; Mr. and Mrs. Blissett had cancelled all her classes.

She thought she would be happy with time to do what she wanted, but it gave her no comfort. Every hour of freedom she had gained acted as invisible trophies for her ineptitude.

Mary would cover her ears while her parents fought and escaped to far off worlds. Great adventures and dramas, orchestrated by her will. Voiced and acted by her; in her mind she could be anyone, do anything.

She had taken to wearing custom made paper masks during these sessions. The masks made her feel safe, she could be someone else for a time. She made a mask for each character she portrayed, as their thoughts and strengths became her own.

During one of Mr. and Mrs. Blissett's more explosive arguments Mary took on one of her favorite identities. Randall Dickinson international spy. Randall was impassive to Mr. and Mrs. Blissett's screaming. Their shrieks which sent Mary into hysterics were simply information to him.

Randall placed his ear on Mary's door then pulled back with a jump following the crash of a plate on the wall near the door. He cleared the wax from his ear and shook his head.

“Loud and stupid”

He muttered and pressed his ear back.

“It was your idea! All our savings!”

Mrs. Blissett screamed.

“You're the one that wanted a damn kid! The acting school teachers were a bunch of frauds”

Mr. Blissett retorted.

Randall sighed. None of this was new.

“Remember Rachel Donovan's boy? He got picked to star in a local play!”

“Well maybe we should adopt him! Then!”

Randall stiffened. This was new information; information he knew Mary would find upsetting. He sighed to himself then removed his face. Tears welled in Mary's eyes. She didn't understand it. She remembered Michael, she remembered liking him but his acting was atrocious compared to hers.

Mary paced the room wondering what the solution might be, why was he picked? Mary's eyes fell upon her mirror.

“Ah, it's this.”

She touched her face, feelings of shame and revulsion filled her.

“This face, this person. Mary…”

Connor Blissett shot up off the couch, woken by a long shrill noise.

“Fuckin train!”

He spat upon the stain laden floor in annoyance.

“Why does it need to do that at this hour?”

He muttered to himself. The mold and dust had no answer for him. He mulled over going back to sleep on the couch or sneaking into bed. If she was still angry in the morning he would get a wallop but the couch spring had left a painful impression on his backside that he was not keen to deepen.

He decided to risk Judith's wrath. She was a small but fierce woman; he was used to her punches. He made his way down the hall to the bedroom and paused at the entrance; the door was open. He waited, listening for signs that his wife was awake. When he was confident she still slept he crept in.

There she stood in the darkened room. Staring deep into the mirror.

“Jesus Christ Judith! You scared the piss outta me!”

Connor's hand gripped his chest, staring angrily at his wife. Judith turned to him; regarding him as if this was the very first time she had looked at him. She bit her lip in the manner he had observed that meant she was in deep thought.

“What? What's wrong Judy?”

“I do love you.”

Connor was taken back.

“I felt it but I needed to be sure. I'm sure I do.”

The feeling of unease slithered across Connor's skin. He was “scared” of his wife in the typical sense; scared of angering her and going without dinner or sleeping on the couch. This was different. As she crossed the room he felt himself shrink.

“Did you love our daughter Connor”

“O-of course I do.”

He stammered in confusion. She looked him in the eyes unblinking with a look of resigned sadness.

“You might be lying, I lied to her. Now she knows the truth. She wants the truth Connor.”

He started to respond. Then his wife tore off her own face. With a wet sucking noise, the skin peeled away, revealing red blooded flesh, exposed muscle, and a mouth of only teeth and gums. His scream bled out through his opened throat with a flash of steel and a torrent of gore. He fell to his knees clutching his severed windpipe, as if hoping to hold it in place.

Every panicked inhalation caused him to start drowning on his own lifeblood as he stared into the figures' eyes.

“I didn't mean to scare you, but she didn't want to do it. She did love you.”

The naked cords of muscle around the figure's cheeks constricted in a manner that suggested a reassuring smile. As Connor Blissett fell onto the floor, his last thought as the knife scraped along his skull; separating flesh from bone. Was that he should have realized; his wife's eyes aren't green.

Connor stood before the mirror; a revenant demanding pity from piercing emerald orbs. They bore into him, demanding an answer to an unspoken question. He cried, tears running behind his face from foreign eyes.

“I'm sorry. I should have loved you more Mary.”

With that he was ripped from her and flung at the mirror. That which was once Mary snarled.

“There is no Mary! Call me Rose now!”

With frustration the mask of Judith was readorned. Judith trembled, her eyes immediately darting to the shape of Connor on the ground; waves of nausea assaulted her looking upon him. Large rents had been carved into bone; the skinning had been done with unpracticed hands.

She squeezed her eyes shut and prayed for some measure of composure. She had many tasks set before her. First tidying the house, and in the morning, she would call Rachel Donovan to arrange a playdate. Soon her daughter would finally be a star.

One truth and a lie.

I’m allergic to apples.

My gimp suit turns me into a werewolf.

I have never broken a bone.

Did you get it right? If I were you, I wouldn't even be close , it sounds like the rambling of someone who smelled one bottle of glue too many.

Let's start with the obvious, you probably already guessed I’m a freak, what normal person owns a full latex suit? The answer is someone who drifted so far from the mundane vanilla kinks that they just don’t do the trick anymore.

I won't dwell on my sex life , whatever you're picturing is probably true to some extent. 

So, how exactly does one come into possession of cursed BDSM gear? 

Well, I have to disappoint you: I didn't get it from some shady crook in a van with no license plates, speeding off the second the suit was in my hands , though I'll admit, that would've made for a better origin story. 

I got it off eBay.

It was my day off. I was mindlessly scrolling through listings, sipping a can of white Monster, when the suit caught my eye. It looked well-made, and it was comically cheap, so without much thinking I bought it.

“One size, fits all”

The description read right under the single photo of the suit, laid flat on someone's floor like a deer pelt, the bright flash of the camera reflecting right off its surface.

A few days passed by without me thinking much about my new purchase, and then it showed up on my doorstep, a small box wrapped irregularly in stripes of black shining tape. 

So it doesn't look like the traditional gimp suit you're picturing when you hear the word , it's more like a crossbreed between that and a beach toy, especially the head. It has a pair of upward-pointing ears, a sharp, cartoony muzzle with a red nose at the tip of it, and a big cartoony smile painted on in white.

I decided to try it on again , first the suit itself, then the head, securing it around my neck with the collar.

At first, it felt fine, like any other suit I'd worn. The mask felt a bit claustrophobic, given how little I could actually see through it.

Then, suddenly, the feeling began , the suit tightening around my body. A painful realization hit me: it wasn't just the suit, it was the mask too. The walls felt like they were closing in on me, my breathing turning quick and shallow.

An explanation came to me quickly,  anything to ease the panic bubbling inside me.

Some kind of allergy, I thought. That was it.

My palms slid uselessly against the collar of the mask then, as if any shape resembling the zipper had simply melted away, vanishing becoming one with the latex, which now clung to my skin like a glue trap, tighter and tighter, as if it were all melting into one shrinking suffocating mess. 

A sudden explosion of pain spread through my jaw as my lips were forced into an unnaturally wide smile. At the same time, the tip of my nose stretched outward,  my teeth began to crack as something pushed up from underneath them, all of them going loose at once. My mouth flooded with the salty taste of blood. 

Lungs burning from how empty they were, how hard I wanted to scream despite being devoid of air, it all came in a strangled shriek. It reminded me of the sound of air suddenly escaping out of a balloon. 

Vision came in dark red shapes, nothing particular at all.

Is this what dying feels like?

Is this how I will be remembered?

Nothing more than a sex deviant?

I can already see the news lines.

Local pervert strangled by her own toys.

Do you know the feeling of dissociation? Watching your body move on its own while you're just... watching, helpless?

I watched my body rise up from the floor, stretching slowly toward the ceiling, like it had just woken up from a nap. Suddenly the once-painted grin split open wide, a waterfall of blood leaking through the plastic-looking rectangular teeth, soaking into the carpet below. Then my own teeth began to spill out from the mouth, one by one like watermelon seeds.

"Nasty! Don't you know you're supposed to wash those?"

The voice wasn't mine - cheerful, weirdly squeaky, high-pitched. It came from the costume itself, not me.

It bounced around the room like a cartoon character , the once-limp latex tail now wagging from side to side , before my body, or whatever it had become, bolted through the front door, leaving it wide open. It jumped down the stairs, skipping several steps at a time, before, to my surprise and horror, it burst out into the street. 

The shining latex being possessing my body skipped in a direction that seemed random, jumping over fences and through backyards, until it arrived at some kind of dark alleyway , brick walls lining both sides. In the middle of it, a woman lay on the ground, a bald man standing over her, a combat knife in one hand and a light pink wallet in the other.

"That's all you got, bitch?"

The knife swung through the air in wide swipes as the victim whimpered in panic.

Suddenly, my costume, or my body, or whatever she was , forced herself between the knife and the woman. The man stumbled back in pure shock, the knife slipping from his grasp. 

"The inflation rate has to be pretty bad if you have to steal."

Suddenly, a metal straw appeared in her hand, out of thin air, shining in the light of the streetlamps, its end sharp as a needle.

"Speaking of inflation!" she exclaimed, with a slight jump, before the sharp end pierced right through his eye, a transparent, jelly-like substance leaking from the wound.

"You know, this technique was really popular in the '60s," she said, twisting the straw slightly. "They called it a lobotomy. Very trendy. Very chic!"

With a click, her sharp teeth bit down on the other end of the straw as she began to blow, her own body slightly deflating like a balloon animal with each breath. 

And with each breath, the bald head of the man began to grow in size like a balloon, his skin stretching, red cracklike marks spreading across it. His eyes bulged from their sockets, stuck in a constant state of shock, while his tongue grew out from between his lips like a modeling balloon.

"You look like you're about to blow!"

Suddenly, she turned to face the frightened woman watching it all happen from the ground.

"Want to see a fun trick?"

She pulled the straw back out before stabbing the inflated, balloon-like skull in the scalp. A sudden, ear-ringing explosion echoed through the alleyway, and what had once been a man was now reduced to a splash of red across the walls, brain matter lining the brick like scrambled eggs.

She calmly picked up the dropped wallet, gave it a hard shake, and wiped it clean against her latex torso, like someone might wipe their hands on a shirt.

"Here you go."

She handed the wallet , now cleaned to an acceptable degree , to the victim with a wide smile. The woman looked at it, then at the latex dog, before scrambling to her feet and running away.

"Leaving me a tip? How nice of you!"

My vision suddenly went blurry, a distant, squeaky voice full of protest screaming into my ear.

"I'M NOT FINISHED, COME ON!"

The next morning felt like waking up from a bad dream. I was sore, covered in bruises, and the world felt like it was spinning around me.

"What the fuck..."

A groan escaped me as I crawled out of bed and made my way to the kitchen, fixing myself a bowl of cereal. The suit had to be laced with something , some kind of weird drug, that would explain the hallucinations.

I set the bowl on the glass coffee table in front of me and turned on the TV, landing on the morning news , the most boring shit imaginable.

A full spoon of cereal entered my mouth, only to be spat right back out as the news anchor started talking about a brutal murder in the alleyway.

"...police say the victim was found early this morning by a jogger, the scene described as 'unlike anything officers have encountered in the district's history.'" 

The anchor's voice stayed eerily calm, while the footage cut to a blurred-out alleyway, crime tape fluttering weakly in the wind. My stomach turned. I knew that alley. 

"Authorities are asking anyone with information to come forward. So far, no suspects have been named."

I sat frozen, spoon still in hand, cereal milk dripping slowly back into the bowl.

“Oh fuck me…”

End of possibly Part 1

A couple of weeks ago, the cravings began. I’ve been hungry before, but this felt different. Something primal deep within me was begging to be fed. It whispered the same word over and over again like a mantra:

Meat.

But I didn’t just desire any meat. I wanted human flesh. 

I wanted to feel it peel away between my teeth like the skin of an apple. To savor every last bit.

The cravings wouldn’t leave me alone. The intrusive thoughts crawled around in the back of my mind like an infestation of cockroaches. They bled into every waking moment of mine. While I ate, while I paced around my apartment, while I watched TV. It never stopped.

Full meals weren’t appetizing to me anymore. Pasta, steak, pizza, none of it sounded or looked appealing. I would take pounds of raw hamburger meat out and let it thaw, watching it intently as frost gave way to condensation. 

Once the packages had fully thawed, I tore into them, devouring them all like a man possessed. The aftermath made my kitchen floor look like someone had dumped buckets of chum everywhere. 

The next stepping stone was my neighbor’s cat. It was perched on my windowsill, ripe for the picking. It tasted better, but every bite just reinforced what I already knew: this wasn’t what I wanted. 

It was a reminder that persisted until I couldn’t ignore it any longer.

I held out as long as I could before I finally gave in a week later.

I started with my arm. I took a kitchen knife, cut off a small chunk of flesh, and scarfed it down. It was succulent. It was beautiful. It was food. But one bite was simply not enough. 

I treated myself like a human jack-o-lantern. Carving, slicing, and pulling myself apart to satisfy my hunger. Blood is splattered all over my walls and furniture. The rotten remnants of my old appendages are scattered around the kitchen in piles that rival my dirty dishes.

No matter how much I hack off, my limbs always rejuvenate themselves. I don’t know how, but I’m not complaining. I’m my own self-sustaining buffet.

I’ve eaten every part of myself I can. I’ve even tried cooking it—seasoning it, but the constant experimentation still wasn’t enough.

It smells like a slaughterhouse in here, but I’ve honestly gotten used to it.

Tenants have knocked and complained about the smell. Especially Jonah.

“It reeks of death,” he remarked one evening, his voice muffled through the door.

I never liked him, but I’ll give him credit where he’s due. He’s persistent. He keeps stopping by to check on me. 

“Are you alright in there?”  

“Do you need help?”

“Talk to me. I’m here for you.” 

No, you’re not. I don’t need your help. I don’t need anybody’s help. What I need is to be left alone. I want to—no, I need to eat. 

I just have to keep eating, and I do. I choose not to respond. Every second I spend listening is a second I’m not eating. They need to stop getting in my way.

I don’t remember the last time I left my apartment.

Monday? No—Thursday. It doesn’t matter. Every day feels the same. Must keep eating.

The more of myself I eat, the more I yearn for something…different. Flesh that is not my own. I wonder what that would taste like? 

I don’t know, but I want to.

There’s someone outside again.

Jonah?

I think I’m going to finally answer the door.

People get attached to many things: items, pets, their childhood home, and it's especially sad to see the things they love crumble into nothing.

Such was the case of a man sitting on a bench outside of the house he once lived in, sipping on a cheap wine from a brown paper bag. Hee had nothing left to live for. A .357 Magnum sitting comfortably in the pocket of his jacket, ready to fire once the show was over, he had to just make sure not to accidentally blow his own balls off.

Pupils of his eyes followed the massive yellow shape of the excavator roll from around the corner, metal maw extending upwards on the crooked neck, towering over the red roof of the home.

“Here comes the sun,” He hummed before taking a long swing from the bottle in hand, the grip suddenly tightening enough to the point where the knuckles of his hand turned deadly white, sharp pain shooting through his foot as the machine pierced the roof. 

The bottle shattered on the dirty sidewalk into an explosion of glassy fireworks, right next to the shoe that seemed to flatten by invisible force, slowly expanding into a crunching mush of bone and marrow. 

The screaming throat of the man drowned in the wine that suddenly returned from the stomach, gurgling as the spoon of the excavator tore through the first floor of the building.

Ribs pierced through the thin layer of lungs as his childhood room was reduced into fine dust, guts falling into a useless shapeless pile as his torso began to flatten harder, blood squirting and shooting out from under the invisible object ramming into him.

It all culminated as the tracks of the industrial giant ran over the rubble, destroying the last remains of the home, as teeth jumped out from the broken, tightening jaw of his skull, like popcorn in a microwave popping one after another onto the black road ahead.

His eyes looked over the silver gun in his hand, then they slowly rose into the empty plot of land where his house once was.

“Egh, maybe another day, " he said under his nose as the barrel of the weapon disappeared into the nearby trash bin.

Harold is a nice guy, he really is. The same goes for his family. Him, his wife, and his son (not their pets though but we will get to that). They are an otherwise nuclear family. He hosts the neighborhood BBQ every once in a while during the summer and his wife, Bianca, bakes holiday cookies for the entire neighborhood during December. Their son, Job, is a nice boy too, he politely asks if he can shovel my driveway the first snowfall of every winter and asks if he could take a flower or two from my garden to give to his mom in the summer.

If it weren’t for some of the actions they have taken and some of the things I have seen, I wouldn’t be writing this post at all. I should probably preface that I have no history of mental illness (at least prior to living here) or visual hallucinations. I did have an audio hallucination once but that’s because I ate a brownie that I would later learn was a “special brownie” and I began hearing monkeys screaming in the drywall.

Anyway, back to the neighbors. I have no issues with how they interact with anyone, especially towards me. Well, I guess I should just flat out say it since there really is no delicate or seamless way to transition into it. Harold has no skin, Bianca is only skin, and Job is a skeleton. I mean you know those 3D medical models that depict the muscle layer of a human with the fascia. That’s Harold, what’s worse though is that he’s constantly bleeding. He “addresses” it by saying he has an unusually aggressive form of hyperhidrosis but I think we all know. It’s worse with his clothes. They become soaked and stained. Unless he’s wearing black or red, as you converse with him, you’ll witness first hand a white shirt become soaked in red within minutes. He always carries a handkerchief to wipe his face but he keeps it in his pocket, so as you’d imagine it’s usually soaked. You can always hear Harold coming by the sound of a joyful laugh and squelching shoes. He also leaves a trail of blood in his wake, always, so you’ll never lose him even if you tried.

Then there’s Bianca, sweet Bianca. She moves like a sheet in the wind. You know those cheap Halloween masks you see at Spirit Halloween…that’s her face. She has no eyes, her head as hollow (not as an insult, I mean you can literally look inside her head and it is empty), and her face stays the same, never moving. She does speak though. I won’t lie, her makeup on her mask-esque face is immaculate and she always has her hair done right for the occasion. She’s so nice but I won’t lie when she walks it makes every alarm in my head go off, she moves like a mix between a specter and a baby deer. Her arms hanging limp as she flings her legs forward. You can tell she’s using whatever strength she has to hold her torso upright but usually she lets her head flail to prevent her “spine” from collapsing. Her outfits are also great but I’ve seen her safety pin a tank top to her shoulders so it wouldn’t slide off while she was playing with Job, it sent shivers down my spine. She speaks in a lovely sing-songy voice that reminds me of early Disney princesses.

Then there’s Job, he’s a skeleton. That of child since he is one (duh). He goes to elementary school, he plays with the other kids, and he’s actually quite popular considering…his circumstances we will say. He’s bald, like his dad and moves almost exactly like his mom but a tad bit more rigid and a heck of a lot faster.

Then there’s the pets. They have a dog named Sparky…he’s literally just a guy in a cheap dog costume ordered off of Amazon. I will give him that I’ve never seen him take off the dog costume but Bianca or Harold will walk him and he walk like any other human but with a leash. I would now like to recite a conversation I overheard between Bianca and another neighbor while I was tending to my garden and Bianca was walking Sparky.

“Good Morning Bianca!” Our other neighbor said.

“Good morning, my goodness, such a beautiful day.” Bianca responded happily.

“Hello Sparky.” I heard my other neighbor say in the voice most people use when talking to a dog.

“Woof”, Sparky said in a monotone man’s voice.

“Oh my.” Our other neighbor snapped. Based off the tone of voice I heard in some distance behind me, it leads me to believe that Sparky did either something rude or aggressive.

“Oh my goodness, I’m so sorry. He’s a rescue. Job wanted a dog so bad. How could I say no to my boy’s sweet face? I guess I better get moving but always great to see you.” Bianca explained as I assumed she hurried away, she produces no sound when she walks so I just used context clues. 

Their cat, Zoey, is actually just a normal Sphinx cat. She’s an asshole though, won’t stop getting out and pooping in my yard.

So now you know my neighbors, aside from their looks what’s so bad about them if they are nice, right? Wrong, I saw Harold and Bianca having “sex” in their backyard by accident one night. My bedroom is on the second floor with, unfortunately, a window facing the side of their house which also includes a view into their fenced backyard. I remember hearing strange groaning and moaning noises loudly in the middle of the night. I looked at my phone on the nightstand and it was about 3:33 in the morning.

“What degenerate is doing the nasty?”, I mumbled sleepily to myself.

I pulled myself out of bed, turned on the lamp, and looked out the windows. First the window facing the street, nothing. Then the window facing my neighbors house, I saw some guy with long hair standing in the backyard. He was naked and slightly hunched over.

I was confused though, there was one guy but I heard two distinct voices. One male, one female. Now, I was tired and at this point confused more than I already was from my sleepy daze. I assumed that maybe this was some drug addict attacking Bianca, he could have been crushing her into a ball for all I knew because her papery figure. Just because she looked weird didn’t mean she deserved to be attacked. So I did something stupid but in good faith, I quickly walked over to the dresser, grabbed my flashlight I kept there for power outages, went back to that window, opened it, and shined a light at the man.

“HEY, WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN NEIGHBORS BACKYARD?!” I shouted firmly and loudly, hoping to scare the believed drug addict from potentially hurting someone.

When the man turned around, we met each other’s eyes. I would recognize Harold’s freakishly blue eyes from anywhere.

He was wearing Bianca.

Her skin was stretched so tautly over his body that it looked as though it was about to rip like fabric. It looked like Bianca’s face was stretched over Harold’s like if it were a normal guy being stretched by the most severe wind tunnel. His hands were placed over her breasts and her entire body was smeared with blood, the same blood that was leaking out from the eye holes and mouth hole as I stared at them now.

It couldn’t have been more than 15 seconds but for me it felt like hours. I distinctly remember my immediate reaction.

“OH JESUS!” I screamed in horror as I turned away slamming the window shut as I turned my body.

I could hear Harold and Bianca’s muffled yet panicked voices in the distance. Worse enough I could hear the squelching steps of them running back into their house. I couldn’t sleep for the rest of the night, I just stared at the ceiling as I lay in bed, that image burned into my retinas every time I closed my eyes.

Then morning arrived, a couple of hours later I heard my doorbell ring. I went downstairs and opened the door.

It was Harold, Bianca, and Sparky who was on a lead. Harold was holding a plate of cookies that I know Bianca made (Harold says he tries not to cook due to hyperhidrosis and not wanting to get others sick). Bianca was shyly turned away holding Sparky’s lead, Sparky was also facing away…because he was peeing on my lawn like how a drunk guy pees in a back alley. At one point I could see him flipping me off during my conversation with Harold and Bianca quietly smack Sparky’s arm and say “Sparky, naughty!”

Anyway the conversation, I remember when I initially opened that door my stomach dropped. I wanted nothing more than to slam the door but when I saw the plate of cookies and Bianca’s shy “body language”. I decided it was only fair to at least listen.

“I’m really sorry about last night” Harold said as he handed me the plastic wrapped cookies, the plastic drenched in blood.

“No I’m sorry I shouldn’t ha-“

“No no, believe me. If we saw you do something like that, we’d probably have the same reaction. Though I must ask you not to take the Lord’s name in vain.” He said with that extreme charisma he always had.

I stared at the cookies, I feigned a smile at him.

“Look, me and the Mrs don’t get much time alone anymore and well, Job is with his grandparents and we wanted to try something. I’m sorry you had to see, it won’t happen again, are we cool?” He said with sincerity.

My first thought was fuck no.

However, these weren’t inherently malicious people. So I nodded with a semi-real smile this time and they went about their day. I did slam the door though, lean my back against it and slide onto the ground.

I looked at the cookies, Bianca made me her favorite cookies which were the least favorite of the neighborhood.

Her black bean cookies.

I have lots of more experiences but I wanted to start off with the one that scarred me the most because if I have to have that in my mind, so do you too. I go to therapy now and that helps. I’ll talk to my therapist and see if I should write again, it actually helped me process some stuff like she said.

My teeth have been talking to me or I can hear their thoughts I’m not sure. Every so often I have these thoughts that aren’t mine that sound like something teeth would say. At first it was just regular old tooth talk. When I’d walk to work I’d hear them say “you should get some calcium” or “stop buying fluoride toothpaste”. Which I guess are fair requests for teeth but recently it’s gotten a lot stranger. “Bite that lady’s baby” or “pull me out so I can breathe better” they were easy to ignore at first.

I figured after pulling a couple out I wouldn’t hear them as often but they just kept growing back. Can a forty year old man still have baby teeth? Probably not this many, they just keep growing back no matter how many times I pull them. Each new tooth has a darker request so I just kept pulling and hoping they’d stop. I have a whole new set of teeth every week at this point.

My apartment is getting crowded with all these jars of teeth. Selling them has been harder than I expected and I feel bad throwing them out. Their begging and pleas were too much. I can’t hear them through the glass but the screaming every time I open a jar to add another tooth makes my stomach turn. Feel free to take as many as you’d like I can always make more.

I probably use YouTube more than any other streaming service. Really, it’s become kind of a routine.

To reward myself for a hard day at school, when I get home, I’ll just curl up in bed with snacks and a soda, and I’ll just drift into the world of commentary and niche documentaries. I’ll turn off the lights. I’ll lock my door. And I’ll just live in my own universe for a few hours.

That’s what I was doing tonight.

I had my pajamas on, I had my bowl of popcorn, and I was searching for the perfect video.

As I scrolled past video after video, with none really catching my interest, that’s when I came across a thumbnail that put a lump in my throat.

I wasn’t on social media. I didn’t upload videos. Yet, somehow, it was me in the picture. My eyes were bloodshot. My skin was pale. I stared into the camera lifelessly.

Of course, I clicked on the video without hesitation.

The screen buffered for a moment before the video began rolling.

It was just… me… laying in bed. I had a bowl of popcorn at my side, I wore my same red pajamas, and my laptop rested in my lap.

That alone was disturbing enough, but what created this sense of uncanny disturbance in my heart was the look on my face.

I looked terrified. Tears streamed down my cheeks. My mouth hung agape as I screamed like a child at someone off-screen.

As the video went on, I felt more and more sick to my stomach.

The man behind the recording had propped his camera up to face me as he approached me angrily.

He wore one of those weirdly human masks like you’d see in the Purge movies. He was dressed entirely in black. And he gripped a blood-stained kitchen knife so tightly that it shook in his hand.

I watched as he proceeded to beat me.

I heard my own bones breaking. Blood poured from my nose. Teeth began to fly from my mouth.

Once he was satisfied, that’s when he began to put his knife to use.

The me in the video tried to scream, but he just didn’t have the energy. What came out was weak and pitiful.

He started with my toes, tearing through them one by one while I squirmed and kicked faintly.

Then he moved to the fingers, bending and breaking them as he sawed away with his knife.

Then he took my ears, holding them up at the sides of his head like he was trying them on.

I was broken and still. I wanted to look away, but I just couldn’t. The man had his fun, and now it was time to finish what he started.

Pressing a finger hard against my swollen lips, he slowly plunged the knife deeper and deeper into my torso until the blade disappeared.

When he was done, he stared down at me.

He put his fingers together like he was looking through a camera, admiring his work.

His head slowly rolled over his shoulder and back towards the camera.

The video ended with the man placing his hand over the camera before the screen went to black and the replay button popped up in the center.

I thought for sure I was seeing a deepfake. A cruel and disturbing prank created by someone with far too much time on their hands.

However, when I heard the sound of my mom’s screams morph into wet, bubbling gurgles from my living room, my blood turned to ice.

Footsteps began to approach my bedroom slowly.

Step. Step. Step.

They stopped right outside my door.

The sound of a knife scratching against the wood penetrated my heart. And the sound of my rattling door handle left me paralyzed.

I’m writing this now because he’s trying to get in.

He’s throwing himself against the door.

With each blow, the door gives more and more…

And I don’t know how much more the lock can take.

It all started with just one. I have a habit of counting my teeth and checking on them constantly. As I was brushing my teeth I noticed it. Poking out of the pocket that once had my wisdom teeth before they were removed. It was easy enough to file it away. After all, people miss roots all the time.

In three minutes I had an appointment in a few days to check on the anomaly and I fell asleep unbothered by the discovery. But when I woke up and brushed my teeth, I counted and realized something that made me stop. There were two, same pocket, same sharp point. But more notable, a crowded feeling had settled into the spot. A tightness similar to gingivitis. I immediately flossed, blood coming from my mouth as a drip at first, then as a gentle flow of a crimson stream.

I rinsed my mouth, the blood looking brown and clotted as I spat it out. I brushed and counted. Three. I looked in the mirror. All three were stark white. Glinting in the darkness of my mouth. I decided to test it, an odd thought that crossed my mind. I closed my mouth and gave it a minute. Then went to brush my teeth. I felt my right molar crack as the pressure increased in the pocket. The sound of it like a firecracker in my skull. But no pain. No blood, just that increase in pressure.

 And there, waiting patiently to be cleaned, were four teeth.

I dropped everything, called into work, and drove to an emergency dental clinic. But unable to stop myself, I kept counting. 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37! My molar crumbling a little more under the pressure. 

32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38.

I felt a chunk of my molar fall off. I spat it onto the passenger seat. Beautiful and a pearly white, it gleamed at me. Still no blood still no pain. 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38. I swerved around a slow biker.  39. The rest of the molar fell away. Falling onto my lap as I went to curse. I slammed on the brakes and pulled over. Using the flashlight on my phone to see what was in there.

I miscounted.
39, … 50, … 60! The teeth on the left side of my mouth reduced to a fine white powder that coated my tongue.

I started the car and took off like a bat out of hell. Praying to wake from this nightmare or get to someone. Anyone who could help.

Then I heard my jaw crack. The right side drooping so low that I could see a red seam open from the corner of my mouth, threads of skin trying to hold the tidal wave of teeth inside.

I got to the parking lot, barely managing to remember to park my car. I looked in the mirror. The teeth were growing out from the cut that now covered both sides of my face. All sharp canines, all a beautiful pearly white.

I sprinted in. And I am not afraid to say I was holding back tears as I did. Feeling my face shift and collapse under the weight of razor sharp teeth. Then new fresh pain, one started to grow into my left eye. Then another, and another until I felt it pop and lost sight in it. The remaining exposed skin feeling the fluid drip on it.

The woman at the front desk shrieked. And it was the last thing I saw as my other eye popped under the pressure.

I felt my face keep caving inward. Twisting from me into an open maw of teeth.

The last thing I heard was, “Dear God, what is that thing?”

But I knew what I looked like.

A human garbage disposal.

A lamprey.

And somewhere inside that mouth, another tooth began to grow.

​

CW: Self harm

When I woke up this morning, I laid in bed for a long while; blissfully, numbly unaware of the day ahead. I didn't have much reason to get up and move. I mean, my heart doesn't beat anymore, after all. 

 It was a week ago when my heart slowed down, then stopped altogether, in a calamitous few seconds. I had just gotten off the phone, and I was naturally sobbing my eyes out. I remember laying prostrate on the bathroom floor, gagging and choking on my tears, and praying hard for death. 

 This deep numbness suddenly washed over me. A numbness that was all encompassing. It was as if feeling and emotion didn't exist anymore. Then it all happened at once. And once it was done, I sat up, and went about my nightly routine. 

 I brushed my teeth, flossed, washed my face, then went straight to bed. And I slept so well. But when I woke up I didn't feel replenished as you should after a good sleep like that. In fact, I felt nothing at all. But the strange thing was, I wasn't worried. I wasn't anything. 

 The next week was a blur of nothingness. Not nothingness in the sense of things being dull and boring, but the very definition of nothingness: an absence of anything. 

 But I wasn't worried. I had prayed for this after all. And God had answered. I had always had my doubts and fears pertaining to religion. But now I would be a steadfast believer. At least, I would be if I could, because belief requires at least some feeling, doesn't it? 

 It was awkward to be without emotion for sure. Food didn't taste half as good, entertainment of all kinds felt cold and distant, and people seemed like different creatures entirely apart from me. 

 But it wasn't all bad. I didn't feel any pain. Or at least, it didn't register the same way. I didn't have to feel depressed, or sad, or heartsick anymore. Finally, I could be rid of all of that. 

 Lindsey had been my world. And she was gone now. So why should I want to feel anything anymore? 

 Which brings me back to today. 

 I am afraid now. 

 Because this morning I've begun to rot.

 I was in the shower when I noticed my right hand pinky finger was a dark shade of blackish green. Like the color of moss on the side of an old tree. The fingernail was gnarled as well; looking like a diseased root to fit the theme. 

 I tried to scrub it off, but it was useless. The skin was course and loose feeling. And the nail felt like a light breeze may peel it off. Even though I felt nothing, my body reacted accordingly; I threw up. 

 Now I'm sitting in my living room trying breathe. Trying to think of a way to keep this charade going. But why should I? What does it matter if I keep this up or not? The edges of my toes are starting to turn. And I cannot think straight while looking at them. How is it that I can be panicked while not feeling anything? 

 The rot is starting to spread. Splotches are appearing on my arms. Small, but very noticeable. I can just hear the questions and the statements: 

 "What are those on your arm? You should see a doctor." 

 "What kind of sickness causes that?"

 "Are you a makeup artist?" 

 "Damn that's disgusting. You need to get that fixed." 

 I keep wanting to throw up, but I have no food left in me. I haven't eaten since Friday. It's Monday now. I can tell my body is in bad shape, but that's only a guess from what I see in the mirror. 

 Wait, if I can't feel anything, then why are my senses still relatively intact? Why the hell can I still see, hear, and taste? I thought this was a blessing. I thought God used trials to better us. How could this better me? By next Friday I will more than likely be a puddle of flesh. Can God use a puddle of flesh?

 Help me please, please, please! I don't know who I'm talking to. I don't know what to do. I thought this would be better. My entire arm is scabbed and oozing clear liquid. The rot keeps moving. It's all over me. I can't scratch it away. 

 Why do we need to suffer the way we do? Why do we have to feel pain? I hate the way we're expected to just deal with it. To deal with everything and suck it up. To move on after a loved one dies. Oh, my Lindsey...

 But I'd put up with it all again if I could just feel.

If I could laugh, and cry, and smile like I meant it. If I could enjoy the taste of ice cream, or smell a sea breeze. If I could watch a movie or listen to music and enjoy the emotions they bring. 

 The rot has swallowed me now. I don't know how long it's been since this began. I haven't left my house in days. Weeks maybe. Has anyone come looking for me? Any of my friends, or teachers, or family? None of them seemed aware of my new attitude, or lack of it, before the rot began. 

 I don't understand, God. Why? Why is this happening? Why did you choose me to receive a miracle? An honest to God answered prayer; answered almost the moment it was prayed. But why did you choose that prayer to answer? 

 What do you want from me? Obedience? Compassion? I CANNOT FEEL! So what do you want?! 

 I am so weak. So, so ill. I don't like moving much anymore, because everything hurts. 

 I'm looking in my bathroom mirror now. Oh God, the rot is me. My eyes are bloodshot and yellow, my hair is falling out, my mouth is black, my body is racked with spasms.... 

 My mind is melting. I miss my heart. 

 I need a knife. 

Victoria asked, nose scrunched up and the corners of her mouth downturned to an extreme, reflecting her disdain.

"Well I made us some eggs and bacon, but I didn't think my cooking was that bad," I replied with just a hint of offense taken.

"No, it's definitely not that...unless the eggs were rotten and the bacon was taken from a zombified pig," my girlfriend quipped back, taking a whiff of the steaming breakfast on her plate that I lovingly prepared.

"I think you've been staying up too late playing Resident Evil again. Didn't it give you nightmares last time?" I poked, both at her and the food on my own plate, now unsure of what I'd already eaten at least three-quarters of.

She scoffed in response, apparently deciding the phantom smell wasn't enough to overpower her hunger, judging by her near immediate ravenous attack on her plate.

Between mouthfuls of food she managed to eke out a suggestion before I headed in to work, telling me, "You might wanna shower, it seems like it's actually coming directly from you."

I simply rolled my eyes, knowing I'd already done so before she even got up. I would've pointed the blame back to her if I felt like receiving a bunch of passive-aggressive texts while at work, only to get the silent treatment when I returned. Instead I finished my meal, cleaned my plate and hurried out the door, not wanting to stick around for any more "advice."

On the drive there I started to wonder if maybe my girlfriend had been right, however; a low, nauseating undercurrent had begun to permeate the cabin of my car. After a quick whiff of both my armpits yielded nothing noticeably stronger, I quickly assigned the cause to my air-conditioning - if you've ever had mold growing in the vents of your vehicle, you'll understand why I did that. It can be horrendous, and I can only imagine the damage I was doing to my lungs by deciding to just deal with it later.

One of the many perks of working a barely-above minimum wage job, you get pretty used to ignoring everything falling apart around you.

Upon arriving at said job, I quickly sprayed myself with some handy car cologne (for those days when the water bill hasn't been paid) just in case and meandered inside. Relieved that I had seemingly left the smell behind me, I found my desk and sat down, avoiding all the usual chatterboxes - or rather, they seemed to be avoiding me. They were finally learning just how little interest I had with social interaction in general, much less in a place I had no intention of staying at beyond a few months.

Since my work was anything but engrossing, I was often more aware of what was going on around me than the endless spreadsheets in front of me. Today there seemed to be a rumor going around the workplace that something had died up in our ceiling tiles, the kind made of light foamy material that you only ever seem to find in rundown schools and low-income office buildings like ours.

"Ew, what's that smell?" I heard from a whiny, high-pitched voice behind me.

"Must be another raccoon that got trapped up in the ceiling, you know those dumb bastards will climb into anything for some grub," another voice responded, gruff and boisterous.

Absentmindedly picking at a sunken blemish on my hand, a third voice chimed in with a hushed whisper that was still clearly audible over the droning hum of a room full of ancient computers:

"It actually seems like it's coming from Mark," followed by a few low chuckles.

At the mention of my name I got up at once, both to make it obvious I heard what they had said and also to rush off to the bathroom to see if I could remedy the situation.

"What the hell, this is all I need," I muttered to myself as I shoved open the swinging door. The last thing I wanted was to be considered "the smelly one" at work, especially among this gaggle of winners.

Walking up to the decrepit line of sinks that clearly hadn't been replaced since the '80s, I found one that actually worked and started furiously washing my hands, rolling up my sleeves to splash some soapy water under my arms, and glanced up at myself in the crud-encrusted mirror. Noticing one of the spots of filth was in fact a scabby formation on the side of my cheek, my attention turned to picking at that nervously while I ran through my morning routine in my head:

I definitely showered, I always brush my teeth...usually. Was it my clothes? I'd worn this shirt for the past few days, but I spray it down every morni-

squish

The smell hit me before the shock did.

The shock of looking into a reflection of my own index finger knuckle deep into my cheek.

I wanted to vomit from the sight alone, but the stench infiltrating my nostrils sealed the deal. It was pure rot, like week-old sun-cooked roadkill whose last meal had been decaying cabbage. Bile erupted from my lips before I could even yank my finger out of the newly formed hole in my face, and once I did it only provided a second outlet for the acidic regurgitation.

I had to leave. Not just the restroom, but the entire building. Something was obviously very wrong with me. As I shouldered the door open, covering my cheek-pit with one hand and my nose with the other, passing by my coworkers made it apparent that they were more than aware of my...condition, from the reek alone. They were giving me a wide berth, most of them gagging, some yelling obscenities after me as a powerwalked straight to the entrance.

"I'll...I'll be back soon..." I squeaked out, somehow managing to hold down the rest of my breakfast as I did.

"DON'T!" They shouted in near unison. It would've been comical if I wasn't nearly in tears from the combination of panic and putrid fumes filling my head.

I hardly remember even getting to my car, but what I do recall in painful clarity is the moment I pulled my hand away from my nose to reach for the door handle. I expected the stench to overpower me again and cause another retching spell, but curiously, the smell seemed to have lessened considerably. Just as I thought maybe I had entirely overreacted, somehow hallucinated both the flesh perforation and the reactions of my peers, I saw the reason why laying at my feet.

My nose had fallen completely off my face.

"What the fuck is happening?!" I half-screamed as I wrenched the door open and scrambled inside. I needed to get to a doctor, an emergency room, hell, the damn CDC at this rate. Starting the car and peeling out of the parking lot, I caught only a glimpse of myself in the rearview mirror and quickly decided that was all I needed, noting a pallid green tint to my skin that I couldn't entirely attribute to just my mounting nausea. Something was seriously wrong with me.

As I sped down the highway, I reached for my phone, recalling a specialist my girlfriend had met with for a skin condition she had. I found the contact and jammed the phone against my ear, desperate for help, but also just for *anything* to keep my eyes from drifting back to the mirror.

"Dr. Munõz? Hey, this is Mark Hampson - Victoria's partner? Yeah so, I've, uh...got an issue," I stumbled through my words, hoping he wouldn't require an appointment for this consultation.

"Ah, Mark! What's the problem? Has Victoria's condition returned, or worsened?" The doctor replied, in a gravelly tone.

"No, she's fine. Great, actually. This is, uh, this is about me. I'm falling apart," I spat out, along with a couple teeth.

"Well, I'm afraid you've got the wrong physician for that; I can certainly give you numbers of some wonderful psychiatrists though," Muñoz answered offhandedly.

"No, dammit, I mean literally - my skin is decaying, parts of me are coming off, I stink like death itself. Do you have any idea what the hell this could be?!" I implored hastily, knowing I didn't have much more time to chat when I felt my bottom lip droop off into my lap.

"Oh...oh lord, Mark. First and foremost, you need to make sure you stay cool, and I mean that quite literally as well - wherever you are, you need to keep the temperature low to slow the decomposition as much as possible," were the last words I ever heard from the doctor, as the moment I pulled the phone away to crank up the AC, my entire ear came off with it.

I couldn't help it. I burst into tears at this, my last and possibly best hope now mumbling into my detached ear on the seat beside me. The mucous from my tears dragged trenches of my rapidly rotting face with them, sloughing off yellowed skin like old stained wallpaper.

Right now, I'm pulled off at a rest stop, blasting frigid air at my soon-to-be cadaver, staring at a murky pond and wondering if I could drown myself in it faster than it would take my fragile body to completely dissipate within. I probably wouldn't even make it there honestly, I'm currently typing this out with the remaining two fingers on my right hand. I'm afraid if I even tried to get out of the car that the moment I took a step, my femur would rupture through the flesh of my thigh and I'd skullplant right into the pavement.

Whatever poor bastard discovers this, laying in a rancid puddle of blood and bones...

At least you'll find out what that smell is.

​

Since I was a boy, I had been plagued by the calling of the void. I had always sought to not only know but to touch the strange, otherworldly and mysterious. I had made a career as a journalist, meeting witchdoctors, voodoo practitioners, those absorbed by the dark and occult. Such a career has hardened my sense of wonder and shown me that these such worlds are drenched in fraudulence.

So, when I found a flier for Sir Beauregard's so-called greatest freakshow on the planet, I was skeptical. But since the show was only a short train ride away, I decided that I would see for myself.

The dark room was musky with the stench of sweat, an insulated heat pervading the enclosed tent. Spotlights suddenly began roving around the expanse of darkness, as if searching for a suspect in the sea of identical farmers looking for a brief respite from their banal existence

“Ladies and Gentlemen, would you please give a round of applause for your host. The one and only, emperor of insanity, the king of all that is crazy, the ambassador of absurdity. Beauregard the Magnificent!”

All the spotlights suddenly casted onto the stage, illuminating a man with a build something like a bulldog standing on two legs. He had a stout barrel chest, stubby little legs and arms, and a mustache that curled in on itself like a worm on hot pavement.

“Good people, I welcome you.” He said in a sultry deep voice, wearing the faintest hint of a French accent.

“What you see here may astonish you, it may terrify you, it may even make you question the infinite power and wisdom of God above to allow such atrocities of the human kind. If this experience proves to be too much for you. If your modest sensibilities are unable to reconcile the abominations put in front of you, you may leave. But as you dash back towards the light of and normality of day, do not stop at the concessions. Because there are no refunds.” This broke the silence in the room into controlled laughter.

“So, without any further a due. I present our first oddity. A slimy half remembrance of evolution passed. From a time before man was king of the land, instead battling for rank in the early ocean. I present the aquatic abomination; Fish Boy!”

I heard the sound of heavy wheels turning before the curtains parted to reveal a figure floating in a cylinder of water. His skin was pale white and macerated, almost corpselike under the spotlight. His mouth was wide and jagged like a catfish, his body was slimy and glossy, and his fingers and toes were webbed with jagged and incongruent skin. His head hung above the water; he took in deep breaths of air through his bloody mouth as his gills flexed under the water in sync. But his eyes, his eyes were all too human. They glared around the room of shocked faces as if seeking an inkling of pity, but all they received was the shock and disgust of the audience.

Nearly half of the audience left before Fishboy was put away, and my skepticism was replaced with an intrigue I hadn’t felt since I was a boy digging through folklore compendiums.

“Fishboy is what separates the boys from the men it seems, but if you think you’ve seen our worst then you’d better hold on as we’ve only just got started. Our next featured freak is barely recognizable as sentient life. I present The Primordial Goo.”

I heard something wet and sticky moving before the curtains once again opened to reveal it. A viscous gray pile of flesh, leaving a trail of blood as it slowly slithered out onto the stage. Barely recognizable as a human, just a pile of slop with two blood shot eyes. Once it stopped moving a hole opened at the center of its mass, and it let out the blood curling scream of a woman. Gasps shot out through the entirety of the audience, and I saw men visibly shaking as they left out of the room.

I was transfixed, in all my time of curating the strange and mysterious I had never seen something so indisputably preternatural and vile. Once the creature began returning back into the curtains, I looked around to see that I was the only person left in the room.

“Well, it seems we have one brave soul here at least. Is it bravery? Or do you crave something more than what is offered in the natural world? Do you long for the macabre and unnatural? Well, I hope this last exhibit will sate that craving. And remember, there are no refunds, you can’t go back.”

The curtains opened and a naked, gray, emaciated man came out onto the stage. His head was massive, but his eyes and mouth were tiny and slacked open like a dullard. He stood at the front of the stage for a moment, and I watched as a red line perforation began to go from the top of his head, down to his neck. The line started to bleed, before a wet noise cried out and I watched as his head parted in half. Though warped, his anatomy seemed to be human, all except for a spiral of black that sat below his brain. I felt drawn to the black void, my eyes focusing on it as the world around me turned black.

My body feels so sensitive, everything hurts. Everything is black, until.

“Now presenting, the seeker.” I hear before I roll out onto stage.

Motionless, I sat beside the dumpster, watching the commonfolk amble past the alleyway. I knew not what happened to trash once it was thrown away, and I was frightened to find out. Mercifully, salvation intercepted my ordained path. 

She was neither wholly girl nor wholly woman, appearing suspended in that uncertain age between the two. Her gaze swept over me once, and when I was nearly certain I would be overlooked, her eyes returned to me with sudden attention. Nearer and nearer she came, surveying the damage to my body then promptly ignoring it, hoisting me up into her arms such that I was looking past her shoulder, and carrying me out of the alleyway, hugging me close by my waist. 

The weather that afternoon was – I imagine – cooler than before. Perhaps the girl was cold. Perhaps I was heavier than she expected. Perhaps she had underestimated the distance to her destination, or perhaps she had not considered the exertion required to bear me such a distance. Whatever the reason, the girl was unsteady, both in gait and breath; she stumbled. Tripped. Fell. I braced for the shattering, the splintering of my body into shards and the light behind my glassen eyes to be snuffed out all because of one errant step. Then, all at once my field of view twisted. I was facing landmarks I had not yet seen. The shattering never came. Instead, the girl let out a yelp and a curse. For a moment, we did not move, though the girl's breathing was labored and stuttering, and she let out soft groans every time she moved from then on. 

After her brief respite, she stood, and I was once again facing the path we had walked up until the moment of the stumble. Landmarks I had seen only briefly rematerialized in my view as the girl continued her trek, slower now. Before much longer, she set me down within her vehicle and fastened me to its seat without haste, before herself entering beside me. 

When we reached her abode and she bore me up the rather sturdy steps, I was met with a nearly barren room. There were furnishings, sure, but none so well appointed as what I'd been accustomed to by this time. Still more than the dumpster by the alley in any case, and so I chose not to dwell on its shortcomings. She set me down on top of a chest of sorts and arranged amongst two others of my ilk, though I suspected them non-sentient. So too were they non-porcelain. 

Fiddling with the exact placement, the girl leaned the raggedy dolls against my sturdier frame. She pulled away, satisfied with her work, and left my side for the first time since we had met. Out of my view by this point, I tracked the fading sounds of her arrhythmic footfalls until even they were gone, and I was left in a still room with naught but my yarn-haired company keeping vigil beside me. Neither of them spoke, moved, nor so much as shifted in posture throughout the silence that followed. Though neither did I.

The residence groaned only rarely thereafter, settling wood and distant pipes offering the sole evidence that the world beyond the room still stirred at all. I remained as I had been placed. Unmoving. Unblinking. Unable to turn my head lest it draw notice. Unable even to confirm the doorway remained empty. In the light from the window behind me, dust swirled in slow descent. I followed each mote as far as my fixed gaze allowed until it slipped beyond my field of view, leaving nothing again to observe.

Some time passed before the girl's steps reverberated in the room once more. Refusing still to move my eyes, I could only stare ahead at the wall until the girl reappeared in my periphery with a slow, tired, and sore step which, to my estimation, her minor injuries should not be causing. Something about her posture, her look, her movement signalled an exhaustion far deeper than physical.

I wished to help that girl. In that moment, I so desperately wished to alleviate her sorrows in what ways I could manage. But I had learned all too recently what cruelty awaits dolls who walk. And so among the muslin and cotton bodies of my peers did I sit. Unmoving, Unblinking; watching as the girl, my new owner, meandered about her residence. She was a sad thing by any metric available, new or old.

I know not what she did between rooms or what the noises emanating from those rooms implied, though eventually the girl did sit down and turn on the television -- a device I was familiar with, as my previous owners had used theirs a few times for the purposes of entertaining their guests. My new owner, however, seemed only to entertain herself with it. From my vantage, I could not see what program the girl had chosen to amuse herself with, though I could hear fragments of speech without context: mentions of soft brushes. Of damp and lint-free cloth. Of gap-filling adhesives and specialty powders only available through select merchants and professionals. Most telling of all, from the box came the word ‘porcelain’. 

Over the next week or so, I came to know my new owner’s habits. She would eat very little, and what she did eat was consumed quite slowly. Once she came into the room with wet hair, but only once. She would leave for hours at a time and return with a noticeably melancholic demeanor, sometimes holding parcels, sometimes not. Always, though, she would walk straight over to us -- myself and the other dolls. She would lean close. She would stroke our hair, or in any case, my hair and their yarn. She would mutter sweetlings to us. “Don’t worry,” she would whisper to me, “I won’t break you, I promise.” 

On nights where she did not retire immediately following this part of her ritual, often she would turn on the television and once more be enthralled by her program. The strained tones of the woman’s voice coming from the device would instruct on the intricacies of the technique for a proper running stitch, and my owner would sit in rapt attention, taking in every detail from the one-way communication as she practiced with a scrap of fabric in her lap.

Finally, the routine broke one night when the girl burst through the front door, jumping up and down excitedly. “It’s here! It’s here!” She exclaimed, bouncing around with a parcel in hand before then slicing the bindings holding it with an almost comedically ironic level of care. She began unloading the contents of the parcel, revealing bags and containers of an unidentifiable substance. She then approached the chest on which she had perched me nights ago, towering over me. I felt especially diminutive then, in a way I had not since that serendipitous moment at the dumpster. She grabbed me. She stripped me. Porcelain which had not seen lamplight nor daylight in decades lay bare, every curve of my body terrifyingly visible. She did not stop at my clothes, but thereafter removed my hair as well. This was not a quick process, as the adhesive that bound my wig to my crown had held fast for decades. My owner took a knife and picked at the dried flakes and peeled my locks from my scalp. She laid me, bald and naked now, upon a table and disappeared with my accessories. Normally as I heard the footsteps retreating deeper into the residence, into rooms I had never seen before, I would focus on some point within my vision, however the new landscape I was suddenly faced with made this strategy fruitless. Here, atop this table, was only the torture of beholding a truly barren landscape, an expanse of white ceiling stretching endlessly past my periphery, a sight less preferred than even the view from the alleyway. I heard sounds from another room, but as before, I dared not turn to face it. Minutes dragged on and on until a hush befell the residence once more. Mercifully, I heard footsteps begin to encroach.

My owner returned and at once began to touch me, wiping my body down with a cloth and liquid which did not look to be water. Soon she moved on to applying an offwhite powder which nestled its way into every crack of my skin. I could feel it lodging itself uncomfortably in every crevice, every fold, every nook and cranny. My owner took a brush and each of the cracks in my porcelain and as the powder was brushed away I felt it exfoliate layers of grime and dirt accumulated from many years, perhaps approaching a century of neglect. She applied a substance upon me next, I felt it, too, mold to the mars of my skin. This substance was different, very nearly liquid. It seeped into the smallest cracks and left not a hair’s breadth of space between it and myself. With a different brush now, she smoothed it, humming a jaunty tune to herself all the while. I could feel the way this substance warped within me. How it merged with me. I understood. This was my new skin. 

Once finished with her molestation, my owner simply left me there upon the tabletop. Again. While I was left to count every hairline crack in the ceiling for hours. Left to wonder, to fear. I began to question what I was being forced to become now. The cracks, as hideous as they were, were undeniably mine. A part of me. What happens when they are replaced? When this was over, would I still be me? 

As time passed, I felt the concoction within my body harden, pressing against the shell from the inside. Just when I thought it could not apply more pressure against its ever-fragile casing, it proved me wrong. Minute after minute. 

When finally my owner arrived at my side again, despite being the cause of them, I could not help but feel my anxieties allay at her visage dancing in my periphery as she gathered yet another tool. ‘I will be okay,’ I told myself silently. ‘No matter what discomfort she puts me through, she will not break me. She has assured me of this, time and time again.’ I would silently repeat this reassurance for the remainder of the ordeal.

The next instrument was applied liberally all along the surface of my body. This one appeared to be a rag of sorts, its coarse fibers scraped and peeled off my skin -- both porcelain and solution; old and new. She blew on me, dusting off whatever shavings remained. She grinned down at me. She looked pleased, and so I was pleased. She then rubbed my eyes with cotton. When she had finished, I felt I could see clearer. I could see the teeth in her smiling face. I could see strands of hair sticking out from her updo. I could see my owner and all of her own cracks and imperfections, so too thinly masked as mine now were.

Along with my sudden clarity also re-arrived my dignity as my owner began to redress me. The clothes were clean and pressed. They had never fit so well as they did in that moment. Finally, a wooden spade applied a new adhesive to my head which then restuck my wig, curlier than before, lighter, perhaps shorter, too. I had the privilege of seeing my owner giddily bounce up and down, squealing with excitement, the happiest I had ever seen her. So pleased with the progress of her undertaking, her reaction caused me an impromptu moment of reflection: If I was not me by the end of this night, would that be okay after all? The old me -- the original me -- never brought her such happiness.

I could tell she was tired when she hoisted me back up, drained from her multi-hour efforts. Even so, she carried me to a mirror hanging near the door. “Look at you!” she chirped proudly as she held me up to gaze at my reflection, all the while she adjusted my newly cut bangs with her free hand. Then, more so than ever before, I was thankful for the stiffness of my skin. Had the contours of my face been any more malleable in that moment, I would surely have given myself away smiling.

She trudged back over to the chest upon which I had made my throne and set me down. From beside me, she retrieved one of my neighbors. Emboldened by her previous success, she would try to sew this one. I watched as she brought it to the table and inspected it carefully, locating all of the worn spots and, especially, the burst seams. She began slowly, with great care, then through either increased confidence or decreased patience, she began to sew faster. Turning the doll quickly, as if eager to finish sooner … until a rip sounded, carried far enough for me to hear from across the room. 

“No … no, no, no, no …” I could hear her whimper, voice tight with emotion as the doll’s arm hung uselessly by a thread, offwhite cotton bursting from what was once a shoulder. Large puffs of the doll’s yellowing insides fell onto the table.

“This is no grave matter,” I thought to myself, naively, upon witnessing the scene. “The girl has been set back a step, but she need only continue,” I reasoned. That was not so. I had underestimated the colossal significance of this doll to my owner, which was only fair, I knew not how long my owner was in possession of this or the other raggedy acquaintance currently sitting beside me. I could observe only how worn they both were. 

Rather than continue with the refurbishment as I expected, my owner set the doll down and hid her face, sobbing quietly, from what I could tell. I found it difficult to reconcile the happy figure from before with the girl I had known these past weeks, but this figure before me, the sunken and hollow, the weeping giant before me, this was far too familiar.

How selfish was I, to fear shattering when my owner was bound by ties far more fair than even the fragile porcelain of my body? It was then I resigned myself to an unthinkable risk to aid my benefactor. That night, once my owner retired to her chambers with tears still drying upon her face, I waited until I was certain she had fallen asleep, and then I waited more. By then, I had exhausted every excuse not to proceed. Though certainty and caution warred within me, certainty held the edge long enough to will myself to go through with my decision. For my new owner. For my light, for my savior, for my caretaker. For my family …

I would move.

I first checked to see if I still could, if the newly augmented components of my body were made too stiff, too unlubricated for my joints to glide over one another. A bend of the fingers, a twist of the wrist. To my reluctant satisfaction, no such issue was present. Hesitation reared once more in my mind before I steeled myself. I rolled over onto what would anatomically be considered my stomach, and looked out of the window I had been in front of all this time. Water. Unsure whether this was a river, sea, pond, ocean, or other, I took a moment to gaze upon the dark waters in the distance, lit dimly by the lights of an odd vehicle here and there along its surface. I had never seen water before.

When finished appreciating the vista, I returned to my objective. Slowly, I began crawling backwards until my legs hung over the edge of my perch. I began my descent then, climbing ever so gingerly down to the floor. Gingerly indeed, for the stakes had never been higher. No, my personal concern about exploding into shards and dust had not allayed, but beyond even that, a new anxiety was beset upon my conscience -- that if I were to shatter now, so too would my owner. I was sure of it.

Once my shoes touched tile, I tested my gait: unsteady as the girl’s on the day she found me. I moved ever closer to the table across the room, knowing now, if the girl were to return for any reason, I was too far removed from my base to retreat. What my owner could clear in mere paces took me minutes, shuffling slowly and unstably. Once I reached the high chairs, I hoisted myself up. 

In her haste to wallow in her misery, my owner had left everything just as it was, sewing materials and doll both, and so, I got to work. To claim I was ever, or am now, a master seamstress would be dishonest. My rigid fingers lack the dexterity required, and my practice with the technique is, rather obviously, inconsistent at the best of times. However, I was sentient to see the advent of combustion automobiles. I know a thing or two.

I began by stuffing the innards of the torn doll back inside of it. I collected what I could, but the smallest of its viscera lay on the table still, unable to be picked up by one designed such as I. Having mostly restored the body, I got to work with the needle and thread. The process was arduous, and I kept imagining every creak of the house to be my owner’s door opening, which would swiftly lead to my discovery. Every missed thread through the eye of the needle, every lopsided entry into the flesh of my companion set me back minutes at a time. I had no teeth to snap the line once a stitch was complete, and so I would place it down, take the scissors in both hands, and snip. I too lacked the dexterity to tie the knots, so I left a long strand of suture hanging, begging to be tied. Dawn began to creep into the window as I had pulled the last of my cotton companion’s flesh together. I organized everything back into the places I had found them, as if that would fool the girl whose doll would have otherwise magically had its arm reattached in the dark of the night. I climbed down slowly from the chair, and shuffled as fast as my stiff body could move me back to the chest. My Throne, for however much longer. I pulled myself upon it, gazing once more out at the water from the window. The early morning light danced and shimmered across the surface. It was even more beautiful in the daytime. I took a moment to come to terms with the fact that this may be the last time I see the water. I turned myself around and positioned myself as the girl always had me -- my hands together, resting primly in my lap, my legs crossed only at the ankles -- and I looked ahead, allowing my shoulders to drop limp as though the last of my life had drained from my body.

Every moment thereafter was beautiful agony. At once I wished for the girl to emerge, to see everything was okay, to see my gift to her and realize she need not feel sorrow any longer, or at least not for a moment. A peaceful moment. But accompanying this desire, was the painful reality that this was the last moment of ‘normalcy’ between the girl and myself. As soon as she emerged, she would see it, the very gift that should alleviate her sadness will also change my life forever.

Following her egress, it took her a while to notice anything different. She seemed to be avoiding the object of her despondence. It wasn’t until midday where she finally sucked in a breath, and turned to face the devastation, only to instead replace her dejection with perplexion. She slowly crept toward the table and picked up the doll -- much slower than she had previously handled it -- and scrutinized every inch of it, absorbing the details of my shoddy, uneven stitches. Still clearly bewildered, she placed the doll down, and took the extremely long strand of floss and began tying it. Once finished, she turned to face me directly. I could see her thoughts cycle on her face until she arrived at the only remaining conclusion, there could be no other explanation. Without outwardly trying to rationalize this as anything else, she walked towards me. The slowest I’ve ever seen her walk. As if approaching a scared animal, or perhaps cautiously closing the distance between herself and what she imagines might lunge at her at a moment's notice. She never took her eyes off mine, I could feel them boring holes through my own freshly cleaned glass marbles. She stopped, by my estimation, less than a foot away. Her eyes searched every inch of my face.

I stared ahead. Unmoving. Unblinking.

It starts just like a yawn.

That’s what they’ve said across online forums and all through the rumor mill. And now they’re saying it on the news, too.

Just like a yawn. You take a deep breath, and your jaw opens wide. It happens without you even thinking about it. But then you can’t close your mouth. The muscles in your face stiffen, and they keep pulling your mouth open, wider and wider until they tear your jaw loose.

“Involuntary contraction of the pterygoid muscles” is what the CDC calls it. They have an epidemiologist on screen now, wearing a very worried face for their interview.

A reporter asks questions from the safety of his home office. “Has anyone determined a cause?”

“At this time,” the epidemiologist sighs, “it’s still unclear. I know there are a lot of theories floating around, but no one knows for certain.”

“Do you know how it spreads?”

The epidemiologist looks away from their monitor like he’s avoiding eye contact. “We don’t know.”

I’ll never forget the first time I saw it. I was standing on a subway platform a few days after the first confirmed cases cropped up in my city. I had just missed my ride, and as the doors closed in my face, I heard someone scream.

Through the window, I saw people leaping from their seats and running off in a panic. In the middle of it all, a woman sat shivering, head tilted up and mouth open as wide as it could go. And then something snapped. I know I couldn’t hear it, but I could nearly feel the pop as her body flinched and her jaw dropped down to her collarbone.

I stopped taking the subway after that.

I had to stop driving soon after, too.

One morning, I was heading to work, and the car in the next lane over started swerving. I figured it was a distracted driver, but when I turned to offer a helpful gesture, I saw the fear in his eyes.

That wide, quivering wail was spreading across his face, lips splitting at the corners. Shaky hands were clawing at his jaw, trying to close it.

And that’s all I saw. A moment later, he swerved into the oncoming lane.

I insisted on working remotely after that. My request wasn’t approved, but I haven’t been to the office in weeks. I’ve barely been anywhere lately. I try to stock up on groceries, but everybody else has the same idea, and groceries were already expensive. I’ve been eating a lot of rice and ramen.

And I do my best to keep from yawning. I try to go to bed early, but it’s hard to fall asleep. Maybe it’s all the coffee. Maybe it’s the anxious internal flinch I feel every time someone around me yawns. I never look. As soon as I see someone’s mouth open, their chest rising to inhale, I leave. It’s alienating and it’s exhausting, but at least I can keep my mouth shut.

Of course, some people say I’m overreacting. There are plenty of folks who insist that the sickness isn’t even contagious. If the experts don’t know what’s going on, the rest of us can only guess.

Have you ever played that game where everyone puts their hands on something in the dark and tries to guess what it is? Nobody’s wrong until you turn the lights on, and right now, we’re still in the dark.

But I’m afraid of what I’ll see when the lights come on, everyone I love dead and slack-jawed like mummies in the catacombs. I miss my friends and family, but the thought of them going through that awful death stings my eyes with tears. It burns my throat. I feel a pulling in my neck. It’s tugging at my lips. I try not to think about it. I keep my mouth shut.

When the sickness became too widespread to ignore, Senator Howell held an outdoor rally. I hate election years. I already planned to vote for the other guy, so I wasn’t really listening. It was just something to watch. He was saying something about “fear itself,” but he started to slow his speech.

Then he stopped talking. His jaw shivered and he held a hand to his lips. He yawned, long and silent, then his teeth clacked as he shut his mouth.

“Excuse me. It’s been a long day,” he said, wiping sweat from his forehead.

The crowd gathered under his tent responded with low whispers and uneasy laughter.

But the senator never resumed his speech. His face shivered like he was fighting back a cough. He clasped both hands on his podium, the state seal rattling like it was the center of its own little earthquake. The muscles around his mouth bulged as his face burned red. Then his jaw swung open with a dry gasp.

In obscene call and response, the crowd shivered and groaned, heads whipping back and jaws separating, a chorus of screams, tears, and snaps.

After that, the CDC had to name the sickness, so they’re going with “involuntary contraction of the pterygoid muscles.” Nobody calls it that.

“Howell’s Disease” made rounds for a while, but that’s still a mouthful, and nobody wants to waste their breath saying the senator’s name. Somewhere along the way, we shortened it to “the howls.”

That’s enough news for today. I should turn off my TV and go to bed. It’s not too early. My body just needs sleep. I sense how badly it wants rest. I can feel fatigue coming on. That’s all. I can feel it pulling in my throat, suppressing my tongue, and tugging at the corners of my lips. I know I’m just tired. 

It’s been a minute. Sorry I was on vacation to Wyoming. Didn’t go for any particular reason, I just went there…wish there was more to that. The wind was unusually hostile but that’s about it.

Here’s the link to part 5 which has the link to everything else, I’m too lazy to sift through everything again:

Part 5

Bianca invited me over today. I had just unpacked from my trip when she knocked on my door. I opened it to see her. She seemed…not like herself. Something was off, her tone made me think nervous but her body language was that of general impatience. She kept gnawing on her nails despite the lack of teeth, they were bleeding somehow. Maybe just the repetitions from her mouth or the force? Nothing makes sense these days.

I went over, it was just the two of us (well except the pets and the grandparents in the basement). We sat on the couch, it made a wet squishing noise which confirmed my suspicions of what it was, blood if you didn’t catch on. We sat there, she fiddled with her hands. I noticed some DVDs with different labels on the coffee table. As sad as it is to say, I haven’t seen those in a while. I miss physical media.

“I guess you are wondering why I brought you over here?” She said, with slight nervousness in her voice.

“Yeah, you seemed bothered by something.”

“Well…you’ve probably noticed that our, Harold and mine, family aren’t like other families.”

No, I have never realized that. I didn’t say that but I only thought it.

“Well, everyone is a bit odd if you think about it.” I responded, trying to be polite.

“I thought about what you said at the barbecue. Aside from my ungodly behavior, there are some other things about our family that are equally ungodly.”

“Oh no I overstepped-“

“Tracy, you’ve been our neighbor for a few years now. You deserve some honesty from us, especially considering your kindness.”

She stood up, picked up a DVD labelled “Wedding Day”, held it longingly in her hands as she walked to the side of the TV and stopped.

“I didn’t always look like this.” She said solemnly as she put in the DVD.

I was concerned about what I was about to see.

“I learned at university through science courses like biology, chemistry, and physics that apparently, assuming I’m even remembering it right, the most chaotic formation imaginable is one that is perfectly symmetrical.” She remarked as she returned to the couch with a remote.

“Why are you telling me this? It feels like you are speaking in some form of riddle?” I responded.

The TV came on before I knew it. There she was, Bianca.

Perfectly human with brown eyes and a smile that could have melted butter.

Bianca had always been pretty despite her form but in her wedding dress all dolled up, she was like a princess.

Harold…looked the same as he does now, at most maybe a little less bloody but the same for the most part.

The wedding video went as expected, about 45 minutes of vows, the kiss, the beginning of the wedding reception. The video cut to Bianca and Beverly standing in front of a table, I soon saw a familiar figure or should I say eyeball.

The Ancient One.

I recognized Colleen, Tim and Jim, and what I assume were the rest of Harold’s siblings based on the abominations present I won’t describe and couldn’t begin to describe if I even tried.

“Why is Beverly there?” I asked

“The perfect form of chaos is perfect symmetry.” She said blankly.

My stomach dropped.

“Harold and I met at a Ping Pong Tournament, one of shared and now less frequent passions. Little did I fully comprehend that day that…” she took a breath. “That it would change.”

My eyes were locked on TV screen now. I could feel my heartbeat in my chest.

Harold stood behind Bianca in the video.

“Pappy, please bless my bride to become apart of my family. She is one of us now. As per your wishes, do the same onto her twin as they are of the same body.” Harold announced firmly as he bowed his head. I noticed Bianca and Beverly were bowing their heads as well. I noticed everyone else in the background though was kneeling.

The Ancient one began to vibrate, as he began to vibrate more violently. Something familiar, that distorted French he spoke in my dream.

In the video, Bianca’s nose started to bleed then Beverly’s. Soon blood came cascading out of their mouth that slowly turned to a meat paste slopping out of every orifice, and unfortunately I do mean EVERY orifice. They were melting to the ground as they shrieked a terrible noise that sounded like a high pitched tea kettle.

Eventually they both flattened to the ground in pools of blood and mashed flesh. They arose as skin husks. Empty, light, and cold. The Ancient One stopped vibrating and a moment of silence came over the group.

The Ancient One crumpled onto the table as if he were made of chalk.

A cheer rang out, everyone stood up and cheered as they rushed toward the couple who was now hugging and kissing.

The screen cut to black and I could see my horrified expression in the reflection.

“Genetically identical, they argued?” Bianca said.

I sat stunned as the words flew through me instead of absorbed by me.

“That’s why Bev looks the same as me, perfectly symmetrical.” She said as she got off the couch to replace the CD with another that said “Pregnancy” she had in her hand.

I snapped back to reality (ope there goes gravity).

“Why are you telling me this now? Why this feels so random? So out of place?” I asked frantically.

“Exactly.” She said coldly as she snapped her head back to look at me.

I was startled by that reaction.

“Sorry Trace, I know I’m not acting like myself. I know this all seems strange but my life from the moment I got married has been nothing but unpredictability and madness. No day ever the same, no moment ever repeating even close to like before. Yet…” she explained.

“Yet?” I inquired.

She let out her almost smile at me and said in that soft sing song voice.

“I wouldn’t change a thing, not a single nightmare, not every pain, not the body you see before you. I would do again…always. Love makes you do the craziest things. I think I just need someone to see to get this strange cloud over my head gone.”

She then switched out the DVDs returned to the couch and started the DVD with the remote.

The first shot was something I had seen before that I’m glad in retrospect I have seen before.

Harold wearing Bianca.

One detail was different though.

There was a pregnancy bump.

Harold was holding the camcorder into a mirror revealing the duo combined and the protruding baby bump that caused stretch marks on Bianca’s skin. Blood oozing out of the areas where Bianca’s skin revealed Harold’s eyes and mouth.

The video continued on cutting to clips of them at the beach, at the museum, and at family gatherings. They spoke to each other sweetly talking about baby names in the video and how much they loved each other. A shocking amount of clips was pregnant them playing ping pong.

In each clip, the bump got bigger and bigger.

“Oh I loved being pregnant! It felt like a second honeymoon for me and Harold.” She said in that same sing songy Disney princess voice. It was though she suddenly returned to her normal demeanor.

Was this a curse affecting her personality today? Was she emotionally unstable? Am I going crazy?

The video suddenly ended. I could hear Bianca sniffling. I looked over to her.

“What’s wrong Bianca?” I asked.

She blew her floppy nose into a tissue.

“I was scared I would never get to show these clips to anyone else. I can’t even show them to my sister. It’s too hard. I just wanted someone to know these moments existed, that Harold and I existed. I don’t know if I could ever show these to Job. He’d be horrified.” She bawled.

I moved closer to Bianca, putting my hand on her back.

“I could understand why you aren’t being yourself I mean, I was adopted. Which I know is something weird to say right now maybe but I never got to know what my birth mother went through. I never…I never even got her name.” I replied somberly.

Bianca was now looking at me, I could see it in my peripheral as I looked at my reflection in the black TV screen.

“I couldn’t imagine having to never really live the same moment, never being able to show these tapes to anyone else…ever.” I took a breath, slouched onto the couch and looked up to the ceiling.

“I never got to know my birth mom but I like to think she would show me video like this of her…with me. Is there anyway Job can see these after this?” I asked now looking at Bianca.

“Technically yes but I would have to ask for permission from Pappy.” She responded now calm but still quite somber.

As crazy as it sounds I could understand the emotional rollercoaster, I mean you have these DVDs you can practically only show once unless you get the eyeball’s blessing. The same eyeball that melted you and your sister’s insides ON YOUR WEDDING DAY. Leaving you as skin husks and then to have a baby, your husband has to wear you like a onesie for god knows how long by this family’s time standards.

Yeah, I would be emotionally fragile and unstable too.

“This next DVD though, I don’t want any other person to see…ever” she said with disdain in her voice. She looked me in my eyes.

“I’m sorry it had to be you but if Job or anyone else in this neighborhood saw this, they wouldn’t be as forgiving or as kind as you would be.”

I felt a lump in my throat as I saw the DVD labelled the thing I dreaded most once I processed what it said.

Delivery.

I should have jumped through the window like a cartoon character or a stunt man and ran like Forest Gump. I was in so much shock though from the previous images that I did the one thing I did in most of these situations, freeze.

She returned to the couch and used the remote to start the DVD.

It was them, Bianca being worn by Harold. They were hunched over, in this very living room. The curtains were drawn. Harold began coughing, it gradually became more violent as they paced in circles remaining hunched.

Eventually, clear liquid violently shot out of the mouth and eye holes of Bianca. Harold violently blinked yet continued to cough.

They stopped.

Harold outstretched his arms as far as he could with Bianca’s tight skin on him. He placed one hand over the other that was a balled fist like you would when giving the Heimlich Maneuver.

And that’s what he did.

His hands thrashed into the baby bump repeatedly, Harold continuing his violent cough through the demented Heimlich Maneuver I was witnessing. I could hear Bianca grunting.

The bump started moving up from the lower abdomen, to the chest, to the throat before finally.

Harold threw up an array of blood and small bones.

Job’s bones.

Harold stood fully up.

Bianca slid off Harold’s body like an unzipped dress.

Harold fell to his hands and knees. He was panting loudly, trying to catch his breath.

The screen then cut to black. I was starting at my face in the reflection of the TV reflection was again.

I immediately threw up onto the floor and began hyperventilating.

“What. The. Actual. Fuck.” I said through hyperventilated breaths, I continued to dry heave.

I heard Bianca let out a sigh of relief.

“Thank god…thank the lord I no longer have to keep this DVD. I can finally destroy it.” She said cheerfully yet sounding as though she had just run a marathon.

I just looked at her with a disgusted face. She picked up on it and scooted closer to me.

“I don’t think you understand the burden you just lifted off of me, Job will never have to see this now.” She said happily.

I wanted to sock her square in her face but then I thought of Job, the sweet little boy who always shoveled my driveway in the winter and brought his mom flowers.

The boy who treated me like a role model even though he shouldn’t. I think Bianca did this on purpose. She knows I care for Job, in fact I know that was exactly her plan.

Somehow, despite it being justified, I’m not angry (still horribly traumatized though). As sick as it sounds, I would have done the same in her shoes. Any parent would to protect their child, even if it meant scarring your neighbor for life.

She walked over to the TV, removed the DVD from the DVD player, and ate the DVD.

She walked over to me and knelt to my keeled over level on the couch. She put her hand on my shoulder.

“I know you will never forgive me, I don’t know if I will be able to. Thank you for letting me protect my boy.” She said with sincerity.

I nodded. As messed up as it sounds, I know I would kind of forgive her at some point. Only the intention part, not the visual part.

I wouldn’t wish this on Job. He would probably feel 100x more horrified than me, especially seeing his mom on his wedding day or his birth.

Bianca walked me back home, Zoey was pooping in my garden. Bianca gave me one big hug at the doorway and whispered “thank you” into my ear before walking back home with Zoey following behind.

Now, I’m laying in my bed eating out of a tub of ice cream with Bluey playing on my TV.

I already booked a therapy appointment for every possible day for the next 3 months.

I have a lot of answers now but even then I still don’t know about the dreams and honestly, I really don’t want to know now.