r/anxietypilled

part 1

“Well?! Where were you?! How could you leave him alone?!” 

I couldn't bring myself to look at her. My eyes remained on the thing resting in her arms. 

“I was… out.”

Even as she continued to berate me with questions my focus was locked on that thing.

I know what I saw. I could still feel my feet aching from running. 

What the fuck was my mother holding? 

My mother snapped her fingers to get my attention. My head whipped up to meet her eyes, which seemed to catch her off guard as she stepped back a little. 

“Mom… after he was born, were you with him the whole time?” 

She raised an eyebrow, cautious to answer me. 

“Of course… Obviously for a moment they-” she stopped herself, then looked me up and down. 

She took another step back. 

I was so sure of myself, until I saw that expression on my mother's face.

It was like she couldn't recognise me.

Before I could ask anything else, the baby began to wiggle in her arms as it opened its eyes. Once it saw me, the wailing began again.

My mother patted its back and started to leave the room. 

“I've got him. You just go lie down.” 

For a moment, I just stood and watched them walk away. Not sure what else to do with myself, I dragged myself to my room and flopped down on the bed.

My body felt weak, but my mind was heavy. I felt like I was trapped in a thickening fog.

It was becoming harder to discern what was real. I could feel in my gut something was wrong, but should I really be trusting my gut? 

I definitely went somewhere.

I was holding something.

Did I put it in the carrier?

I remember doing that. Right?

Everyone always talks about a mother's intuition, from the beginning I thought something was wrong.

But at any point have I had any instincts towards being a mother?

It hurts to think. It hurts to feel. Everything hurts.

I wish I could just be numb.

I curled up in a ball and hid under the blanket. I just wanted to disappear. I didn't care about the truth anymore, I just needed this to stop. 

My bedroom door creaked open, but I kept my head under the blanket. From how they took a breath before entering, I knew it was my mother.

I felt the bed move as she sat at the end and put a hand on my leg.

“Dear, we've been talking. We think you should probably see someone.” 

I said nothing, remaining hidden.

“It's clear you're struggling.”

“We both know why.” I muttered.

My mother's hand moved away. 

“What are you implying?” 

I pulled my legs closer to myself. 

“I don't want it, mom. I never wanted it.”

“Everyone struggles at the beginning. You can learn-”

“Please, just go.” 

For a minute that stretched on for far too long, she sat there. I could hear her open her mouth to try to say something a few times, but nothing ever came out.

Then without another word, she left. 

I stopped sleeping.

I couldn't handle the images I saw. 

At first, I'd be relieved when I woke up. But with the more time that passed, the more I enjoyed the outcome of my dreams. I was even disappointed when I woke up to reality.

My mother booked me in to see a therapist. 

I debated telling the therapist everything. If she couldn't help me, she'd at least be able to separate me from it. Though that would mean ending up in some asylum somewhere. 

Though at this point maybe that was preferable.

It wasn't like my life was amounting to much anyway. Even if everyone viewed me as a monster, at least I'd be able to leave. 

Most days I just decayed in my room. 

Eating became a chore that I refused to partake in. The most I'd nibble at were the odd crackers and chips my mother would hand me.

I tried to refuse them at first, but she'd stand her ground and remain in my room until I took them.

Why did she always force me to do things I didn't want to?

I hadn't seen the baby in weeks.

I made sure to avoid it.

I feared what would happen the next time we crossed paths. I'd even begun locking my bedroom door in case I ever fell asleep and my body decided to act on its own.

When my mother realized I wasn't feeding it when she was at work, she took time off. At the beginning I would've felt guilty, but now I didn't care.

This was her fault anyway.

If she wanted a baby so bad she could have it. That just meant I wasn't her daughter anymore. 

After days of avoiding sleeping, I passed out. 

I don't even remember the exhaustion washing over me. I just recall being in my room one moment, then the next I was standing over the baby.

It slept peacefully, undisturbed by my presence. Even as its eyes peeled open it didn't cry when it saw me. 

Didn't smile either. Never did. 

I doubt it even knew I was its mother.

I was disoriented when I first opened my eyes, but any confusion was washed away by a flood of spiteful words. 

I wasn't sure what to do with my hands. I kept them by my side but every part of me was calling for me to reach down to its throat and squeeze. Just one little motion is all it would take to snap it.  There were multiple pillows around as well if that didn't work.

It was making my blood boil having to resist it. I was starting to wonder why I was resisting at all. 

It must've found my anger amusing as it began to giggle a little. 

I looked away and began to inspect its room. I couldn't see the toys I took when I attempted to abandon it. 

So I didn't imagine that part at least.

The baby caught my attention again when the laughing grew louder.

“What do you want from me?” I mumbled under my breath.

It just continued.

“Well? What the fuck do you want for me?!” 

The laughing stopped. 

It stared at me for a moment, not moving. It was as if it were a tiny porcelain doll, ready to be dressed and displayed as I pleased.

A strange noise I didn't recognise then began.

It was like a cough, but more coarse and rough. The baby moved about, struggling as its skin went red from the stress of its coughing. Small drops of saliva littered the air while tears formed in the corners of its eyes.

It was choking. 

Before when it was in danger, something always pushed me to help. I think it was more basic human empathy than any motherly instinct. 

But now, I just wanted to watch.

So I did. 

Its eyes looked to me, hoping to be saved. I just stared back. 

“What's wrong?” My mother sounded tired, but alert.

She swung open the door and approached. Without looking at her I responded.

“I think it's choking.”

My mother was already holding the baby before I got the words out. Concerned, she patted its back.

“Why were you just standing there?!”

I didn't have any explanation. 

I didn't care to come up with one either. I was too disappointed she'd arrived. 

If only it would've died quicker.

Between ‘I've got you's’ and ‘come on's my mother had begun to hit its back with more force. 

After one big thwack there was the sound of something dislodging followed by air releasing from its throat. My mother then looked in its mouth and took out the source of the problem.

In her finger was a tiny grey fluffy sphere. The saliva covering it made it look like a furball.

Unless, it really was fur.

Like that of a small rodent. 

My mother flicked it away and began to hold the baby tight. I couldn't share her relief. She grumbled suggestions about how he maybe chewed on one of his toys or blankets or something. 

But none of them were that color.

I hadn't imagined it.

I started to sleep again.

While waking up filled me with dread, the moments of relief in my dreams were too much to give up. Imagining a world where I got to get rid of that thing filled me with such joy. 

It was addicting. It was a drug I refused to give up. I needed it.

I tried to hint that it wasn't my baby to my mother and step father a few times. The only responses I'd get were concerned looks and mentions of my upcoming therapy appointment.

I couldn't sense they were in any danger so I decided to leave it be.

I needed to get out of there. I knew if I left it alive it would kill me, but I didn't want to kill it either.

It was agony resisting the desire to get rid of it. With it being so small and fragile it would be so easy.

But I knew that would make me a monster, at least I would appear to be one from everyone else's perspective. I wasn't sure if I was prepared for that yet.

One night, my stomach growled louder than my thoughts so I gave into hunger. 

The baby was quiet and my mother was asleep, so I tried my best to creep along without creaking the floorboards. I knew just one sound would set the damn thing off.

Before I made it to the kitchen, however, I saw a light in the living room. 

Sitting inside, was my mother reading a book with the lamp on. And beside her, was the baby sleeping in a cot. 

I felt my blood rush to my head and my heart rate increase. Trying my best to calm down, I didn't pay attention to my hairs on end and just continued on my path to the kitchen.

But I had already been caught.

“Diana? Come in here.”

I stopped. Then I tried to continue to make my way to the kitchen.

“You can't hide forever.” 

Her voice sounded agitated and tired.

I wasn't sure if it was fear or shame that made me obey. 

I stood awkwardly in the doorway. My mother set her book to the side and rubbed her face under her glasses. 

There was a mix of emotions on her face. Some I couldn't recognise. Concern and frustration were the most notable. 

Any words I had to say got caught in my throat. 

My mother had plenty of words of her own.

“Do you plan to hide in your room from now on? You both live in the same house, you can't avoid him forever.” 

“And whose fault is that?” I snapped back.

“Yours, Diana. It's yours.” 

I could feel my blood boil. I was so devoid of energy though, I just let it be.

She was always so damn sure of that part. Even though she never thought to ask.

She relaxed a little and tried to collect herself.

“Just come look, he-”

“I can't.” 

Her brow furrowed as her tone became harsh again.

“Diana. Like it or not, you're his mother.”

I could see her move towards the cot as she began to rise from her chair. Her arms stretched down to take the creature in her arms. An image flashed in my mind of her handing it to me just for me to tear it apart like some wild beast.

Panic took over me as my voice shook in desperation.

“I-I don't want to be! I never wanted to be!” 

The little relief I gained as she instead turned to me, left when I saw her frustration transition to rage.

“How can you say that in front of him?!”

“It's a baby! It doesn't understand what I'm saying.” 

The baby began to coo a little in its sleep. My mother gently rocked the cot and shushed it. 

I didn't care what it or she thought of me. I just wanted to be left alone. 

I turned to leave, but my mother continued.

“I'm sorry. I never meant to pressure you.” 

Surprised, I looked back at her. Any anger on her face had vanished and been replaced with guilt.

“If you didn't keep him, I would've supported you, you know that right?” 

I wasn't sure if I believed those words, even if she believed them herself. The next words I did believe though.

“But he's here now, and that doesn't have to be the end of your life. I'm certainly not going to let you throw it away. I'm here for you, ok?” 

Maybe I would've said something sweet in return under different circumstances. But I was just so tired and fed up all I could say was…

“If you want to help me, get rid of it.” 

With that sparks flew again.

“Diana!”

“What?! You never listen to me!”

“You never listen to me!”

“Listening to you is what got me stuck in this mess!” 

The baby began to toss and turn again as our voices raised higher and higher. My mother tried to bring the volume back down but I just kept raising it.

“You just don't understand mom! I-it's like… It feels like I'm drowning, constantly. A-and all you do is come paddle in the water with me but I need out! I need to be pulled out of the damn water!” 

“You don't get to pull out! You made a stupid mistake and now he's your responsibility!” 

“My responsibility?! Why do I have to deal with the aftermath and the other culprit doesn't!” 

“He does!- He should! Just because Matthew got away doesn't mean he shouldn't be here! It's unfair, but him not doing the right thing doesn't give you the right to do the same!” 

“So after everything he did, he just gets to walk away but I have to keep going?”

“After what you both did.”

“What makes you so certain I-...” I hesitated a little and tried to change my words, “I don't care what anyone did anymore! It's just not fair!”

“Of course it's not fair, but he's your baby!”

“Well just because he's my responsibility doesn't mean I have to love him!”

A long silence followed.

My mind came to a sudden halt. So did my mother's, as she just stood there.

The baby crying broke the stand still.

I tried to find something to say as my mother approached the crib. She took the babe in her arms and started patting its back while bouncing up and down.

“Leave Diana.”

“Mom-”

“Just go. You can't even call him by his name…”

I considered continuing to protest, but with my mother's back now to me all my sudden vitriol left. 

I was just so tired.

I couldn't help but think, if she knew it was me or the baby, that she'd choose it every time.

Before I could leave, the crying stopped. I thought nothing of it, my mother must've finally gotten it to stop again. 

Something about it was so sudden though…

It then began to laugh. 

A soft giggle that crescendoed louder and louder. It filled the room, echoing and ricocheting off the walls, until it sounded like it was trapped in my own head. 

I covered my ears in hopes of drowning it out but it didn't work. The volume just kept increasing, the pitch getting higher and higher. It scrapped at my brain, tearing it apart and the seams.

I didn't want to look back.

But I knew I had to.

Looking back at me over my mother's shoulder was the baby. 

Or what remained of it.

Its face was beginning to melt into a pile of blood as the bones in its skull protruded out. Its jaw clicked and clacked as it continued to laugh but its expression was wiped clean as its skin peeled off its face.

I could see the remains of the rat stuck in its hollow throat. It was lodged in the cavern, only a few muscles still on its bones. 

I wanted it to scream out for my mother to run, but I kept it inside when I realized he had no interest in her.

It just kept looking at me.

“What do you want?” I managed to mumble out.

It just continued to laugh.

“What do you want from me?!” 

My mother looked back at me.

“Diana?”

“Why won't you just leave me alone?!”

I lunged forward as its laugh reverberated in my bones.

I wasn't sure what my plan was, I just wanted to shut it up. I'd do whatever it took just to make it quiet.

My mother turned, covering it in her arms. I think she shouted something but I couldn't make it out over that laugh.

I clawed at it, trying to reach it as my mother shielded it with her back. She then dropped to the floor and cradled it inside a cocoon I couldn't manage to tear apart.

“Just leave us alone! Leave me the fuck alone!”

I thrashed about, trying to squeeze my way between my mother's arms but to no avail.

It only fuelled my rage. I had to get to it. I had to break through and remove it from this world. It wasn't supposed to exist, I never wanted it to, it had to go.

I needed it gone. I hated it.

That laugh. That cry. That face. 

Why did its face look like his? Why?

Why couldn't it just die?!

“Diana!” 

I stopped. 

The laughter was gone. The baby was back to normal. Instead, it was crying as it had been moments before.

Tears also filled my mother's eyes. Petrified, the whites of her eyes visible as she sat crouched in a disheveled heap.

Her skin was covered in scratches from my unkempt nails. Some dripped with small trickles of blood but most were just purple and bruised. 

Clumps of hair had been torn from her skull and lay in clumps on the ground. A few strands were still wrapped around my fingers, her blood and skin was under my nails.

Her glasses were smashed on the floor and her shirt was tattered. 

Her eyes refused to move away from me. It was as if she feared even blinking would set me off. 

I stood up, and began backing out of the room.

“I didn't- You don't understand… that's not… that's…”

My mother said nothing, backing into the corner of the room while trying to keep the baby from my sight.

“M-mom. Please, it's not… that's not my baby…You have to believe me.” 

I could already see her hand reaching into her pocket for her phone.

Not sure what else to do, I ran. 

I couldn't bring myself to look back. Even as I could hear the sirens gathering in the distance, not once did I look back.

I just ran and ran and ran. 

Until eventually I collapsed in the middle of nowhere, and let myself drift off to sleep to forget it all.

I'm sure if I returned home and agreed to get help, my mother would've welcomed me.

But I didn't need help.

I don't know what happened in that hospital. Maybe in that moment, me or the baby were meant to die and now the world was trying to balance itself. Maybe it was some creature sent to torment me or my real baby was switched out in the maternity unit.

All I knew, was that was no baby.

While my dreams continued, being away from it made all those moments more vivid to me. My mind is clearer, a bit less foggy and whatever that thing was it was dangerous.

If it ate that rat, it could go after mom next. I won't let that happen.

I stopped sleeping again, but I just know it in my gut. I know that's not human. I just know it.

And I know what I have to do.

It's me or it. 

I've considered letting it live and taking myself out. It would maybe be for the best. But no matter how many times I tried I couldn't bring myself to do it. 

So, instead I'm sitting here with a pistol and a single bullet in the chamber. 

I barely managed to salvage together the money to buy it from some random crackhead. A couple favours and some cash I managed to grab before I left the house was all it took.

It'll decide for me who it will be.

If only, my mother changed the locks after I left. Maybe she was hoping I'd come home.

I should probably get this over and done with before my mother or step father wake up.

Mom, no matter what happens, I don't know what to say other than sorry.

 

I never wanted to be a mother. 

My dreams were always filled with images of fortunes and academic successes. Instead, I was stuck with a pile of flesh that was incapable of dreaming. 

Perhaps that's presumptuous. Maybe the thing cooing in the cot beside me has simple visions of its own. 

Whatever they are, I just want to end them with a pillow over its head. 

I'd make it swift and painless, so neither of us had to suffer. Though the creature that I cradled in my arms deserved a worse fate. 

What had so often refused to feed from my bosom, what had ended my ambitions and ideas of glory, what lays in peaceful slumber, is no babe.

I refuse to believe that thing is my child. 

I had plans for college.  

Years of studying went down the drain when I saw the two lines on that stick. I went from potential Ivy League pathways, to barely being able to finish high-school.

One mistake. One mistake and a few too many drinks is all it took. 

The father made sure to move states when he heard the news. By the time his family was done moving him around, it was like he never even existed. 

We couldn't afford a lawyer. His family had an army of them. 

So, I was left with the consequences of our actions.

I wanted to get rid of it.

It was all I could think when the news was confirmed. 

I was unable to hide it from my mother. When I returned from my first secret doctor's appointment I broke down in tears. 

As regret and shame poured down my cheeks and spilled out my throat, my mother insisted on one point.

I was keeping it.

She had once been in my shoes. In her twenties she was left alone with me and only a dollar to her name. 

She managed, she claimed. So could I. 

I refused at first. Then after many arguments she talked me down to at least considering keeping it.

I don't know if she even realised what she was doing. It wasn't like she ever told me to keep it or else. Just anytime I broached the topic of aborting it she'd bombard me with alternative solutions and anecdotes about others who didn't want their kids at first but grew to love them.

By the time I realised argument after argument was only a way to guilt me from making a swift decision, it was too late. 

The labour was long and painful. 

My stomach ached like it was being torn out and everything below my waist felt as if it were on fire.

Yet despite wanting it so desperately to be over, I did not want it to end either. 

Anything to avoid looking it in the face. Anything to avoid being stuck with that parasite for the rest of my life.

My mother insisted that it be as natural a birth as possible, so I endured. I was so disoriented I just accepted whatever she said to avoid talking. But there came a point I could no longer appease her and began begging for any pain killer they had. 

I thought she'd be disappointed, but after the first eight hours of torture she seemed to agree. 

I had grown to resent her. But as I saw her go pale at the state of me and the panic in her eyes, I realized she was still my mother.

My mother, who had given up her own dreams to raise me and never complained. Who despite everything never asked how, why or when. Who married a man she felt little affection towards just to give us a stable home.

And the woman who assured me she loved me every moment she could.

I knew she blamed herself for allowing me to end up with the same fate as her. So, any comments she had to make about my actions remained to herself. 

But if that was all the case, why? 

Just why did she make me keep this tumour?

When I heard the baby's cries, I knew it was over. 

I did not recall the moment of release, or the final push. It was only the sounds from the infant that indicated it was over. 

There was something soothing about it. A new sensation moved within me as my arms reached out to it on their own. 

Everyone told me a mother's love for her child was natural and pure. I had worried I'd never feel such things, but perhaps my fears were unfounded. 

All I desired was to meet what I had pushed out of me.

It was hard to focus and my hands were unsteady. I think the nurses spoke to me, their tones switched from joy to concern. 

I tried so hard to make out what they were saying. 

It was just so hard to hear anything over the thumping in my head.

Everything went black. 

In the void, I could see myself. I held something small and red. I rocked it back and forth with sweat on my brow.

I looked exhausted. My hair was poorly kept together in a bun and my exposed stomach was carved with stretch marks. Despite just delivering a newborn my body was skin and bone.

In my arms, was something wrapped in a blanket. Then those soft cries I heard before everything became dark returned.

It didn't take me long to realise those dreams I always had were to now be replaced with a nightmare.

I reached out to the blanket and moved it to see the child's face.

The crying stopped before I could see anything clearly. It was sudden enough to make me pause. 

Trying to overcome my hesitation, I continued with my motion. 

Instead of soft skin and big eyes, I was met with a clump of red liquid and fragmented bones. 

A small skull with no flesh or muscle was drenched in blood and puss. 

My heart leaped to my throat and I felt this sudden urge to mourn something I never knew. I kept back the tears and tried to remind myself I was dreaming.

That was until something grabbed my ankle. 

Something wet and cold trickled up my leg. 

My neck stiffened, resisting looking down. 

I gave in when the red started to pool on the floor in front of me. 

A hand made of blood and puss gripped my leg, and spread its fingernails into trails of blood up my calf. The blood moved further and further, coming to my thigh just to break apart and drip down to the floor. 

The tighter the hand's grasp, the further the blood would travel. 

I tried to break free, but soon my other ankle was being kept in place. 

No matter how much I screamed and thrashed I could not move. Instead dozens of hands continued to trap my legs. 

When I looked back at the bones in the shape of a babe, I discovered only the blanket remained. 

That was until I felt something caress my cheek.

I awoke with a jolt. 

My body curled, as I gasped for air. My lower half throbbed in agony anytime I moved, so I tried my best to stay in place as I calmed my breathing.

The first thing I discovered was my mother's hand on mine.

The lines on her head were creased with worry. I could tell she was fatigued from the bags under her eyes but had come alive again as I came to.

She called for a nurse nearby to check on me. My head was still fuzzy, the only thing I could make out were the consistent beeps of machines around us.

I pieced together that I was still in the hospital. The only details I could pick up from the nurse was there was some complication during the labour and they brought me in for surgery.

It was when I heard the word ‘baby’, everything came back to me.

Part of me wanted to go back to sleep. Another part of me wished they let me bleed out.

After the nurse left, my mother began to fuss over me. 

Apparently my step-father's flight was cancelled and she had been left alone. I felt guilty making her worry, even if it was out of my control.

Eric was a good man, but he often worked overseas leaving us alone. I thought he'd manage to pull through this time.

I guess we had both been left alone. 

“The baby…?” was all I could muster. 

As if it heard me, a cooing noise came from beside me. 

My mother managed a small smile as she moved to the side to grab what had been lying next to me the whole time. I could see its small hands move as mom lifted it in her arms and rocked it up and down with a little bounce. 

“It's a boy.” Her voice was as gentle as her hands when she set it into my arms.

I stared at its face. Its eyes were shut over, still asleep. Barely the size of my forearm I was scared I would crush it if I wasn't careful. 

I tried to take in every detail and let it grab one of my fingers in its tiny hand.

This is mine. This is my baby. Who I made. 

That's what I kept saying to myself, waiting for the rush of love to enter my heart. Waiting for a tear to form in my eye or my mind to imagine our future together. 

Instead, all I could say was;

“This isn't mine." 

Bewildered doesn't begin to describe my mother's expression. 

“What?”

“This isn't my baby. It was a girl.” 

The confusion morphed to concern, but I could tell she was trying to be mindful of my condition. 

“Diana, you were unconscious before you could see him, how would you know?”

“I could tell from how it cried. Boys don't cry like that.” 

With a cautious look, she began to take the baby back into her arms.

“Well, I was there for it all dear. This is your little angel.” 

Turning away she moved back to the little box the nurses had prepared for it. 

My eyelids felt heavy and the room was still unfocused. My heart said if it was mine, I should've felt something when it was in my arms. But my mind cut through the fog to be reasonable, insisting my mother couldn't be mistaken. 

I kept my eyes on it as it slept. Watching its small breaths in and out.

“I wanted a girl.” 

“You didn't want anything.” 

My mother sounded irritated now. Realizing her patience was wearing thin, I just looked away. 

“I did say that, didn't I?” 

When we arrived home, it wouldn't stop crying. 

Every night without fail it would wail like a banshee. On and on and on. 

This cry was different from the first I had heard. Something about it scratched my brain in a way that drove it mad. It was nothing like the soothing sound I had heard in that hospital bed.

We started to become concerned, so we went back to the hospital. They insisted everything was fine. All tests came back clear and he was as healthy as could be.

If anything, the visit was embarrassing. Because every time he was in my arms the floodgates would open. But every time my mother took him, it was like an angel had rocked him to sleep. 

I could feel the eyes of the staff piercing through me. I could hear all the thoughts they had about me being a poor mother. 

They all thought I was his sister at first, which just made me feel worse.

Shame was my main motivator to grow close to him. 

I was sick of judgemental eyes, but more than that it was my own thoughts tormenting me. 

What kind of monster doesn't love her own baby? 

I was meant to be good at this, right? Maybe I wasn't born with parental skills, but I should feel something, wasn't I?

But when I looked at it crying and throwing itself about in its cot all I could feel were varying levels of anger and exhaustion. 

I'd hold him every night. I'd rub his back and try to sing him a lullaby that my mother always sang for me. No matter the tune or the lyrics or the rhythm in which I patted him on his back, he would not stop crying. 

As I'd hush him, desperate to get some sleep myself, I'd silently beg for him to stop. Anytime I tried to assure him “Mommy loves you.” I just couldn't…

The words would get stuck half way up or they'd be so drawn out they were barely strung together. Maybe it knew they were empty. 

Or maybe it wasn't my baby.

Though maybe that was easier to accept than the idea we would just forever hate each other. 

Why did I have to care for it anyway? What, it leeched off me for nine months to promise me at least eighteen more miserable years with it, and I should feel some kind of bond? 

So what if it came from between my legs and hid itself in my stomach? The one who helped put it there gets to live on without a care in the world. 

Of course people condemn him for leaving, but they accept it. It's some inevitable tragedy about the world. But while his apathy is lamented over in passing, mine is villainised? 

Why can't I run away too? 

Why did he get to do this to me? 

Even now he gets to control my life in this way. He left what is now a baby without a father, but if I leave it I'm abandoning it. I'm ensuring it is alone in this world. 

Why did I have to live with that burden?

All I could do was push on and try to ignore my lingering hatred. If I continued to let my mind run wild, we'd only grow to resent each other more. 

It was hard though.

The damn brat wouldn't even feed from me. 

No matter how many times I tried, it'd always turn its head away. If I attempted to force it, it would just start crying again.

Day after day I'd sit in the armchair in my living room and plead with it to eat. I'd beg and beg until I'd end up crying with it. 

When my mother returned from work she'd often find me despondent with my shirt still down, the baby laying on the couch beside me. 

She knew I was struggling, but didn't know what to do outside of alleviating some of my burdens. 

She'd take the formula and feed it herself. She'd change its nappies and sing it to sleep when I gave up. 

I know she was trying to help, but it just made me feel worse. Seeing her do everything I couldn't make me realise how incompetent I was.

She was doing it all without her husband as well. 

While he'd be home every other weekend, and would help where he could, most days it was just us. 

I wished I could just give them the baby and run. Hell, I wished we'd have arranged to give it up from the beginning.

Instead, I'm trapped.

And sometimes, I swear its wails sound more like laughter. 

One day, I sat once again on that arm chair.

I had no will to fight it. I just made the offer and planned to leave it at that. 

My head was already against the couch cushion, ready to shut my eyes and drift off when it started crying again. 

Instead, I felt a gentle suckle.

I was scared to move. I feared the slightest movement would put it off. 

I looked down from the corner of my eye, to see him taking his fill. He was almost peaceful. 

I sunk a little more into the couch, and in a mindless state began to stroke its little head. I stared up at the ceiling, a smile creeping in from the small success. 

I rested my head and closed my eyes…

Then a sudden pain surged up my body. 

I almost screamed, but it was so sudden it came out as a shocked gasp. I knew the source it had come from and immediately jumped up. 

The sudden movement caused it to start crying again, but I paid no attention to it. Sensing possible danger, I had this instinct to chuck the baby aside. I needed to lay it down fast so I could focus on my wound. 

Once back in its cot I looked down at my bloodied shirt. 

Right where the baby had been eating, was a large bite mark.

It bruised my skin, already going purple in the shape of its little teeth. Red streaks dripping from pierced skin, globbed together with chunks of skin that had been ripped off.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck.” 

Swearing under my breath was all I could bring myself to utter as I dashed back to the kitchen. I scavenged around for bandages or something to stop the bleeding. 

I settled for an old white towel, and slumped down onto the floor in a panic. 

“Fuck, shit.” Was shit all my mind could muster.

I had no time to process what had happened, as the front door opened. 

I called out for my mom on instinct. 

From my voice, she must have known something was wrong. Dropping her bag she threw herself down in front of me and cupped my hand in hers. 

“Hey, hey, Diana, what's wrong?” Her voice trembled a little, struggling to sound reassuring.

I was incoherent due to me sobbing. 

I wasn't in pain anymore, but the shock had sent my adrenaline racing and now it was crashing.

After getting me to take a breath with her, I finally managed to calm down to explain. 

“I-I finally managed to get him to f-f-feed but” I started through sniffles, “t-t-then he bit me.”

My mother looked confused, but like she was trying her best to understand.

“Let me see, dear.”

With a gentle hand, she moved my arm and the towel away. 

“See, you're fine Diana.” 

“What?” 

I looked down, just to see the wound was gone. 

“The little guy's teeth aren't even through yet. He wasn't going to do any damage.”

“B-but-...” 

I couldn't bring myself to say anything.

Was I going mad? I could've sworn…

“How about we take this as a little victory despite the ending, ok?” 

My mother tried to help me to my feet. 

After that, she just insisted I should rest and she'd take care of the baby for the night. 

I didn't want to protest. 

I had been falling asleep at the time, maybe I imagined it? Or maybe he did bite a little and it caught me off guard?

It felt real though…

I curled up in my bed and focused on sleeping. Whatever happened, all I knew was I was tired.

And maybe mom was right. I should take the little victories, shouldn't I?

That was when the nightmares returned. 

Now instead of a skeleton in cloth, every night the baby that laid in the other room would appear in my dreams. 

And every time I would kill it.

At first it was just when I was going to bed, but soon it became whenever I tried to close my eyes. 

It was the same every time, just with different outcomes.

As always, it would cry.

The sound would get louder and louder and drown out any thoughts I had. It would eat away at me until there was nothing left but blind rage.

I'd give in and do whatever I could to make it stop.

Suffocation. Mutilation. Decapitation. Cannibalism. Dropping it on his head. Letting it fall over the banister. Burning it alive. Throwing it off a building. Leaving it under my car tire then rolling forward. Bashing it against the pavement. Throwing it onto train tracks.

It would be different each time, but the result was always the same.

Sometimes I'd try to resist it. 

I'd summon all the power I had to stay calm. I'd continue to hold it and try to shush it and tell it everything was going to be ok.

When I did, it would eventually stop crying.

That was always followed by it clawing at my skin.

It would rip out chunks as I tried my best to hold him. The pain would make me squirm, but I resisted fighting back.

I'd repeat ‘I won't kill my baby, I won't kill my baby’.

But there was always this other voice that would say, ‘It's not your baby.’ 

I'd usually fail. 

It was so hard not to give in and the pain was unbearable. 

Sometimes though, I'd keep going.

I'd let it tear me apart until my muscles and bones were visible. 

Once it realised that wasn't working, it would just stop. 

Still gripping my skin, it would start to melt down into a fleshy pulp of blood and bone. Creeping down my body it would spread apart and make its way to my legs.

Like clockwork, I'd fall back and try to swipe it away. In this state, it was impossible to remove it all though. 

As I'd try to pull it off mel, the remaining goop would continue up my thigh and do whatever it could to re-enter my womb. 

Even though it was just a dream, I swore I felt everything. All the pain, like my insides were being shredded. 

It was worse than the labour, worse than the surgeries, worse than any pain I had ever felt. 

All I could do was beg for it to stop, but it never would. 

My organs became mush, absorbing with it as my nerves screamed out for mercy. Calling for help didn't deter it, nor would anyone come. 

After a while I wouldn't be able to speak, it was too hard as I gargled on my own blood. 

From there, I'd hear a ringing as the world disappeared…

Before dying alone on the floor. 

Waking up felt like going from one nightmare to another. The sweat pooled together on my back and my body would quiver. 

At the beginning, I'd wake up to my mother asking me what was wrong. Apparently the way I'd shriek in my sleep put the fear of God back into her.

After a while though, I grew used to it and stopped screaming.

Though it always made me wonder, if the baby was crying so much because he saw the same things in his sleep. 

I wasn't sure why I started having such cruel dreams. The message was clear though.

Either I died, or the baby did.

I didn't need a dream to tell me that, it was something I already understood.

I could feel myself deteriorating day by day. My eyelids always felt heavy while my body felt light. Often, I'd forget to eat until my stomach reminded me with searing pains.

Physically and mentally I could feel myself disappearing. My body on auto pilot brought me to the baby to try the same ineffective routine again and again. 

After months of agonising over something that hated me as much as I hated it, I decided to give up.

I rotted away in my bed, shutting the blinds and putting on headphones to drown out that incessant noise. 

Not even the pits of hell could conjure a noise that vile. 

I let my mother answer it. If she wasn't around, I just ignored it. 

Her and my stepfather would persuade me to put in a little effort here and there. But it would just start making that sound again until I found myself screaming back at it.

I knew they were worried. When my step father was home I could hear them murmuring in their bedroom. 

It was only a matter of time before they sent me to some nut house.

A mother who can't look after her own baby, what cure would they have for that?

What hurt more than the empty pit that grew in my stomach and the fear of being fundamentally broken, was that they couldn't hear it.

Why couldn't they hear it? 

It wasn't just crying, it was screeching. 

My mind at first compared it to an animal, then a ghoul. But nothing my mind could comprehend could even begin to describe that awful sound. 

Every time it started my stomach tried to empty itself. 

Worst of all, no one could hear it laughing in-between howls.

I found myself standing, staring at it. 

There was no crying this time, my mother had just put it to bed. 

The more I stared the more it looked like a demon than a child. Some hollow husk that appeared to be a baby, but was really something sinister. 

I sighed and caught myself on the frames of the cot to avoid falling when my knees gave way. 

What was I saying? 

Of course it was a baby. What else would it be?

Was I really more willing to accept that it was some grotesque monster than me being a bad mother? 

I never wanted to be a mother, of course I was a bad one. 

If anything, I could feel myself losing my humanity. 

I hated what I was becoming. All I could do was cry at night and curse the man that fled. 

Even though I wanted to be nowhere near him, I couldn't help but wonder if this would've been more natural for him. 

I couldn't hold myself upright anymore and just collapsed to the ground. I covered my mouth to contain my silent sobs. 

I was scared. 

I was so scared. I needed help. I really, really needed help. 

But who would help someone who wanted to kill their own baby? 

The baby's movement caught my attention. Its arms moved about in the air, as if trying to reach out for someone to pick it up. 

My bones shook in anticipation, waiting for that sound to tear me apart again. 

But it never did. 

It just continued to wait, patient for someone to spot it, or content to go back to bed if no one came. 

While I watched between the bars, there was a moment of peace in my mind. As it dozed off, I rested my head against the cot and couldn't help but smile a little.

I was so used to it crying all the time, I didn't get to see it this way often. 

The small moment only solidified a growing idea in my mind. 

I need to get it out of here. 

The more dark thoughts that lingered after every dream, the more I knew it couldn't go on like this. 

Either there was more to these dreams and they were a warning, or I was losing mind. Both options would only lead to misery for me and the baby.

I knew my mother would never forgive me, but I had to give it up.

Really I should've from the beginning, it was mom who convinced me to keep it. It was always in an irritating way where I couldn't call her out for pressuring me. 

I think she thought I'd be like her. That, despite the struggles, I'd grow to love my baby like she did me. That I'd see it was all worth it in the end.

Based on the fact she clearly didn't know what to do with me lately, I doubt her struggles were anything like mine. 

I felt nothing towards this baby. 

I tried and tried, but the best I could feel was relief when it shut up. 

That apathy mixed with my erratic psyche was a dangerous mix. I knew it was. 

So, the next day when mom was at work, I prepared to leave the baby at a fire station.

I wasn't sure where else to leave it. That's what they did in the movies and shows I watched, it was all I had to go off. 

Anything else that came up online sounded too official, or I'd have to look someone in the eye. I needed a solution I could act upon and not be afraid I'd change my mind. 

It also couldn't be a long process so mom couldn't try to persuade me out of it.

I waited until the evening. 

I didn't want to go out in broad daylight. No one wants to be seen dumping a baby. 

I also felt bad, thinking one day it might grow up and think it was unwanted. It was wanted, just not by me. 

In hopes they'd one day be passed on, I took a couple teddies mom had purchased for him and tucked them in the hand carrier beside him. 

For once, he slept without a fuss. Even as I walked at a rapid pace against the cold breeze there wasn't a peep out of him.

I kept my hood up, in part to hide my disheveled appearance, but mostly to remain unnoticed. We lived in a big town so I doubt anyone would recognise me in this area, but I couldn't be sure. 

My skin on my feet was starting to blister, I had been walking for so long. If I could drive it would've taken me twenty minutes to get there. 

That was a plan for my next year in college though. I had no license and no car. It didn't help that I hadn't been outside in weeks, maybe even months now. 

The light was irritating my eyes. It was dim, just after sunset. When it went fully dark the bright street lights didn't help.

I tried my best to think about having to walk back home. I maybe should've brought money for a taxi on the way back. 

Something about the idea of making small talk with a stranger after abandoning my own kid didn't sound like a good time though. 

I was worried about becoming a monster, but I already was one, wasn't I? 

This kid will forever wonder who I am. They'll want to know why I left them. And if they ever search for me one day I'll have to explain to them I was trying to protect them.

I could just imagine his face when I said I was protecting him from myself. 

The more steps I took forward the more I considered turning back. 

If anything, maybe I should be running away. I should be the one to leave. He could just stay with my mother.

But I had no money. 

Maybe I deserved to rot on the streets.

I was concerned about hurting the baby, but there was always the other option. It wasn't like I cared much for life lately anyway. 

My primal instinct to survive had not yet been overcome however. If it ever came to that though, I wouldn't let my dreams happen. I'd go out on my own terms. 

It wasn't until my two feet stopped by themselves that I realised I was at my destination.

Whoever worked at the station was nowhere in sight. Some lights were on inside however, so I needed to be quiet.

Shit, holy shit, am I actually doing this? 

I started to look around for somewhere to leave it.

I thought there were like designated points or something, where the fuck am I supposed to put it? 

I'm a horrible person. I am a horrible woman. I am a horrible mother. 

I heard movement from an open window. Panicking, I just set the baby by the door. 

I'm sure they'll find it soon. It would start crying then they'd hear it. 

I took a few steps back.

Is that it? Is this what I am doing?

I started to pivot, then hesitated and pivoted back. Just to repeat that again a few more times until I crouched down on the ground wanting to disappear.

Hugging my knees, I laid my head down and hid.

It's for the best. 

You didn't even want it. You still don't want it.

Why would you force yourself to keep a baby you don't even want? 

Hell, it's not even about that anymore. You know it's not safe in your supposed ‘care’. At the rate things are going you are either going to end up killing it or yourself. 

Either way you'd make your poor mother cry.

I took a breath and stood up.  

It was for the best. I knew that. 

I shook myself a little, then got ready to leave. 

When I took a final glance back at my own flesh and blood, the very being I was leaving in the hands of strangers, I saw something move.

From under a gutter, out came a rat. 

Instincts took over as I turned to flee. My disgust was interrupted by a realization.

The baby.

What if it bit it? Or gave it some horrid disease or rabies or something? 

I wanted rid of it but the whole plan was to try keep it alive. I couldn't leave it to be devoured by rodents.

I'd just have to chase it off without making a sound.

When I turned back, the rat was gone. 

I was confused. My best guess was it went back under the gutters. It was weird I didn't hear it though. I heard it's little patters coming out, you would think it would be the same going back in.

I don't know why, but the pitch black void that surrounded us suddenly seemed a lot darker. 

I ventured forward to investigate. I was cautious, only approaching with little steps at a time. 

When I peered over the hand carrier to see where it went, I only found a strange stain on the ground.

It was dark, almost black, with tinges of red and white.

That, and a long thick tail, with no rat attached.

It was then I realized the trickles of white were tiny shards of bone. 

Something was moving. I couldn't see it, only hear it. It sounded like some form of goopy substance, some thick liquid moving every so often.

I felt my body begin to stiffen, but it continued to move to check the one thing it knew it had to. 

The baby was gone. 

My feet acted on their own and broke out into a sprint. 

I ignored the pain on my soles and heels, I ignored trying to hide from people passing by, I ignored everything other than the motion of putting one foot in front of the other.

That thing was not my baby. 

I don't know what it was, but I was getting far away from it. 

Everything became a blur as I passed it. I wasn't even sure what street I was on anymore or if I was going the right way.

Home. Just get home. 

I just wanted to be far away from that thing.

I won't let my dreams happen. I saw the blood move towards me as I left. I won't let it happen. I won't.

Just because I spared its life doesn't mean I have to die.

I could feel my dream coming to life as my imagination ran wild. The thought of it clawing out my insides, mangling me and turning me into a gelatinous mold of blood and mucus like it. 

I could hear it laughing at me as it felt satisfied with its actions. Then that ringing as everything became dark and I was left to meet the nothing that was death.

No, no, no. It won't happen. 

I won't let it.

By the time I was home, I was out of breath. 

Safety was in reach, but I had become so distracted in my dash, I had forgotten to prepare for my mother's reaction.

Her car was parked in the driveway. 

She was home. The baby wasn't. 

That thing wasn't.

I debated telling her the truth. 

Mother may have insisted on going back for it. I wasn't sure what it was capable of, we could all be in danger. I wasn't sure how to explain it without sounding like a mad woman though.

…was I a mad woman?

It wasn't like I knelt down to check the baby. It could've been a trick of the light or it may have been buried in the layers of blankets I swaddled it in. 

No, but that doesn't explain the rat. 

Fuck, I don't know anymore. 

My head felt like it was going to explode. I needed to clear my thoughts.

What was even happening? I felt lucid, I was tired but not on the verge of falling asleep like before. 

But what could possibly explain what just happened other than some kind of misunderstanding. 

The fatigue could've caught up to me. Or maybe I shut my eyes for a moment without realizing and the dream started up again.

Or it was real. I was right. 

That was no baby.

How did it end up like that then? 

I found myself pacing up and down the pavement. 

My head hurt. Thinking about it just made it hurt more. Every explanation I could conjure didn't explain it. I feared feeling vindicated in my emotions, I didn't want to justify the hatred I had for my own child.

But maybe it really wasn't my child.

I tried to collect myself. 

There are two options. That baby was mine, or it was something else. If my assumptions were mad or sane in that regard, it didn't matter. 

The baby was in danger and so was I. That remains true for both options. So either way, it had been left where it needed to be. 

All I could do was deal with one problem at a time. 

I opened the front door.

As soon as it clicked shut, I could hear my mother's voice.

“Diana?!” her voice sounded accusatory. 

I was running just moments before, but now I could barely bring myself to move through my own home. 

I could hear my mother coming to me.

“Diana?! Where have you been?! What have you done?!” 

I thought she'd still be in panic mode, but she was already angry. 

I couldn't lift my head. I just stopped and waited for her to come to me.

“Mom I…” 

My heart froze when she met me in the hallway. 

There she stood beneath the doorway...

With the baby in her arms. 

part 2

Chapter 1:
 
I have lost count of how many months I have been awake for. Or has it been years? Our ship, The Nessie 14, was stocked up with at least five years worth of food, that was how I kept track of the passing time. This proved useful until we hit an asteroid field, its disembodied, rocky finger tips unintentionally unlatching two of the four food silos, and one of the three escape pods in the process. The Nessie still bears the accident's cracks and scars, like a wounded soldier.
 
My stretcher is stained a mustard yellow. My body's sweat and oil has seeped into the sheets. Cleaning it is no use, and it is too sticky to sleep on now, causing my back to break out into eczema and rashes. I have resorted to moving one of the medically designated metal tables and turning it into a makeshift bunk. Underneath is a thinner tray where Marcus would be able to sleep, but I haven't seen him get any rest for weeks.
 
When I first met Marcus, he was a cocky, fit party boy. He is somewhere in his forties, but with grey hair peppered in more than the usual man his age. He seemed like an unstoppable force of socialization with anybody he came in contact with, especially the number of men in the office who he had small, mutual, and charming infatuations with. I was plentiful shyer than Marcus, but I really did look up to him. I never told him. When we were back on Earth, I could never really get a word in edgewise anyway.
 
Nadia is our other crewmate. She's in her early 30's, somewhat young for this kind of mission, but makes up for it with how brilliantly smart she is. A little too smart if you ask me. I can't say much though, I am as thick as pig shit.
 
Once we made it into space, we went into what the movies call Cryosleep. Professionally the scientists at the office called it a Medically-Induced Hypo-Thermatic Coma. Before we left, the procedure was altered, improved. This allowed the coma, our "Cryosleep" to be elongated, far beyond the previous crews before us. There are rumors Walt Disney is hidden somewhere, sleeping through the same procedure. I call bull shit. If he felt anything like how I felt, especially in such an early attempt, he must have the mind and body of a puss ridden blob fish by now.
 
Our ship was called the Nessie 14 because, well, this is the 14th attempt. Twice the ships exploded before reaching orbit. Eight other times, we never heard from or saw the ships and crews again. And three times, the crews turned around, returning to Earth. That didn't matter though, they were ridiculed for abandoning the mission, an expensive mission at that. It had cost the companies hundreds of billions accumulated over decades of past attempts. The astronauts didn't care though. They had been in space for long enough that they now only ramble nonsense, forever changed from how the confinement of time twisted and hollowed their brains.
 
Our mission isn't one of necessity, but to everybody, especially at the companies, it is a need. The Gilling Telescope, the most advanced of its kind, picked up something from the farthest reaches we have ever found. It didn't just pick up something, it picked up nothing. No stars, no moons, no planets. Nothing. Human kind, after millions of years, has found what we believe to be the edge of space.
 
Chapter 2:
 
I woke up from my coma the first out of the crew. There were clocks on the ship, but no form of calendar. Command didn't want us to know how many years we had truly been asleep for. Even though they kept this from us, I knew, everyone I cared for or loved had most likely been dead for generations.
 
We were instructed not to wake our other crewmates up, as it would interrupt the rhythm of the procedure and could cause harm to the individual. I was isolated for a period that was unknown to me, my only company being the ship's terminal, which spurted out random notifications and warnings, as well as the amalgamation of strange galaxy clusters in view from the multilayered, thick windows. As I watched the clusters, they had the sway and movement akin to fish and whales, as if they were living beings.
That time isolated on my own were the loneliest 105 days of my life.
 
Marcus woke up to the overwhelming smell of body odour and old crushed food packs. His eyes, blurred with a clay thick glaze from the coma, scanned the room. As his eyes wet and adjusted to the light, I could be seen, curled in the dark corner. The vague hum and buzz of my discman could be heard through my cheap plastic headphones. A TOOL CD whirred around inside the small machine. I was ritualistically picking at the barcode sticker still adhered to the back of it. I didn't notice Marcus sleepily approach me. He dropped to a squat, laid an ice cold hand on my shoulder and cockily sputtered "You look a little worse for wear, bud". A relieved and friendly smile pushed up my cheeks. I slowly breathed out. "What took you so long".
 
It took another two weeks for Nadia to wake up. In those weeks, Marcus and I got to know each other better. We had an unmarked console onboard we could read, and write our personal logs on, though we mostly just used it for video games and karaoke. Due to the failure of previous missions, many brands no longer wanted to be seen in conjunction with the mission, so many of the useful items around the ship came in pastel and white unmarked casings. We had unbranded beers aboard, which originally seemed like a waste of space, something that could have been replaced with more useful cargo. We were exceptionally grateful for it in the end. They were all empty vessels of glass by the time Nadia came to.
 
I learnt multitudes about Marcus' life back on Earth. His personal life seems pretty much what it looked like from an outside perspective. Parties every weekend. Flatmates by choice so there were always others around to socialize with. The closer I looked at him, the more I noticed the scarred holes in his earlobes, and the flimsy and eroded septum from what looks like years of cocaine use.
 
We were alerted to Nadia's waking by hearing a guttural groan, and a thick, soupy liquid splatting against the floor. It was like the elevator scene from The Shining, but with much cloudier and beiger vomit instead. We spent most of that day cleaning sick from out of the needle thin panels in the floor, and adjusting Nadia to her surroundings. Seemed like her lengthier sleep as well as her smaller frame caused more side effects post coma.
 
Chapter 3:
 
The next three months were what we expected. Wake up. Eat breakfast. Check the scanners. Wait. Eat Lunch. Check the scanners. Do repairs. Eat Dinner. Check the scanners. Sleep. Repeat. It took Nadia longer to warm up to us. She was very dedicated to the job. Trying to prove her work ethic, only maintaining recreational small talk with us when either Marcus or I tried to include her in our bored antics. Eventually she started allowing breathing room in her busy brain to conjure up jokes. "What issue did the asteroid have with its bum... a hemorrh-oid". It was unexpected from her but extremely welcome. I don't know how the others feel, but I think we became pretty good friends.
 
One night we sat around having dinner together, and Nadia breached the topic of loved ones.
"Do you guys miss your family, I mean sorry for the sudden deep conversation, but I mean... I do". She twirled a curl into her wiry, dark hair. Marcus was the first to respond.
"I was on my own, so not really, didn't have friends and family, I'm a bit old for all that". I noticed a solemn glint in Marcus' eye. It was a noticeable juxtaposition to his strong willed demeanor. I always saw Marcus converse and playfully interact with people all the time back in the office. To think he never considered himself close to them tugged at me.
"Hey you aren't too old for that, you have me- you have us". I responded, my mouth talking faster than my thoughts. His expression shifted to smug and he chuckled.
"Haha ok big man, what about you, miss your family?". The sudden return to the question sunk me into deep consideration.
"I used to look after my father, he lived with me. He used to be quite demanding, even when he couldn't properly speak". I had a certain harsh tone on the word 'demanding'. Marcus' face indicated he picked up that I hid more in that word than what it seemed.
"Then he passed away and I lost my way a little, didn't really do or have anything else. So with what training I had before looking after Dad, it got me into this mission... and that's that". My voice trailed off and we all paused and breathed for a beat.
"Well thanks Nadia for that chipper topic!" Marcus' chuckle being so contagious the saddening tension all diffused and we continued onto lighter conversations. Those nights, with Marcus chuckling and Nadia's deep thoughts, were really special to me.
 
 
After three months, the accident happened. It was 11:45 pm. Nadia was asleep. Marcus was in the storage room, to which he sometimes disables the anti-gravity measures and floats around listening to music. I was reading a book called The Holy Innocents. It made me a little sick, but I had already read the majority of the books in the console over the previous months so I endured. The starboard side solar panels had been down for a week. Nadia and Marcus had been spending 12 hours a day, taking turns going for space walks with repair tools, attempting to fix the issue. I would keep myself occupied by the systems, communicating with them, and endlessly testing whether their endless attempts at patching finally succeeded. I heard the anti-gravity measures reactivate and Marcus, already cloaked in one of the three thick, bulky space suits, tiredly walked up to me.
"Ready to try this again?".
I sighed.
"Yessir".
 
I waved Marcus out through the abnormally thick glass pane in the airlock door. I watched as the pressure of space caused the interior panels to cling to the walls of the ship for their lives. Marcus, steadily hooked to the Nessie by a dense cable, routinely shimmied himself around the corner, out of my view.
I began walking to the heavy set, surgically designed terminal chair. I didn't make it though.
The entire ship jolted, rotating with great pace on a north-west axis. My body was launched, like a baby bird's premature first flight, directly into a hardened corner of the terminal chair. My head collided first. What I heard before going unconscious was a bone crushing crack.
 
Chapter 4:
 
I woke up. The pain, I wanted to scream. Scream so loud my stomach would slither up my throat, metallic blood fill my mouth, until it dribbled off my flaky lips. As much as I tried, all that came out was the muffled sounds of a dying mammal. My jaw was shattered, sharp shards of bone poked through my face muscles like gravel or stones in a bloody wound. It was locked shut, and started dripping dark, red fluid. I held it with my right palm, and helped myself onto both legs with the left. The ship had stopped rotating. Loose objects and panels were scattered across the floor. Few sparks fountained from worn cables.
 
I heard a groan. Nadia. Her silent, wet huffs crept from the bed bays. I hobbled towards her noises, the sounds of skin and nails clipping against the metal floors slowly coming into earshot.
 
Nadia laid in a pool of blood, thickening around the perimeter of her body. Her skin was pale, and eyes unfocused, the figure of a dying snow angel. A long handle had been snapped off during the accident, and as Nadia fell from her bed, the handle pierced the side of her waist, smoothly crawling through the meat of her body until it spurted out the other side. I slumped down to my knees, my lack of balance making it feel more like a fall. I sloppily trace my hands around her wound, trying to find the correct spot to apply pressure. I kept one hand held on her, and the other hand reaching for her bed shirt's sleeve. It was an old stained Freddy Krueger shirt, the soaking, red blood stains unintentionally fitting the faded design. I pulled hard with the one hand, slowly ripping off her sleeve. With each rip and tug, her torso would jolt, compressing her raw wound into the edges of the handle. She would gasp a hideous, wispy gurgle each time, guilt striking my heart like a crowbar.
 
Her harsh, pained exhales reminded me of the deer my father used to hunt. When I was in my early teens he would take me to a small island, about an hour boat ride from the beach near our house. I hated it, but for my father, it was a necessity. He was raised in a cabin in the forest with his father.
I never met my grandfather, he passed away in prison when I was a child a few months before he was to be released. I had only heard the few stories my father would grunt, with malice on his tongue. The way my father hunted was inhumane. He would find a deer, a large one, and lock his brain onto it, the rest of the world, a smoky fog. He would spend hours ritualistically sneaking through the trees, rifle in hand, a predator in a wooden city. I was just there to watch, a dedicated spectator for his sport. Once he had enough of his unnoticed taunting. He would fire the rifle. Hit somewhere that wouldn't kill the animal, just hurt it enough it would squirm and writhe on the ground. He would drop on one knee, always the right one, and stab from the belly to the neck, slowly, the deer vomiting its last breathes in perpetual terror. Nadia's eyes, her sputtering heartbeat, her slowing, sickening gasps... I couldn't let it happen again.
 
I wrapped the sleeve where I could around the wound, the jutting handle an obstacle for this act. She needed better medical attention. The only way this could happen is if I could get her to the medical bay. I looked down, guilt building even more.
"I'm sorry" I muttered to her, but the inability for any jaw motion caused it to be a wet, incomprehensible mess. As I did this flecks of my still dripping blood decorated her face.
I guided my hands under her back and under her knees, I then pulled up. I used all the strength I was able to muster in my state to pick Nadia up off of the ground. She screamed, no longer a raspy groan, but a needly, sharp scream of pure agony. The sound had no other emotion, her body, her mind, was only pain.
 
I am not exceptionally fit, but I had enough strength, especially in that situation, even in that state, to trip and stumble myself into the medical bay and drop Nadia's progressively more limp body onto the long metal table. A fountain of darker blood crawled out of her mouth as her body heaved onto the surface.
This is when her glassy eyed gaze started to come into focus. I was relieved, thinking she was at least cognoscente enough to leave her paralyzed state. Her eyes weren't focused on me though, they were focused on the other side of the room. I traced her gaze with my own, and realized I should have never felt any relief, I should have just felt pure fear.
 
Marcus' motionless body lay pressed against the large window that adorns the wall of the medical bay. Heavy debris from the loose food silos, which had now been fully torn from the ship, covered him, forcing his body to be compressed into the glass. I could not see his face. His helmet was just a doorway into a confined space of only blood. A tear rolled down my cheek.
"Get... him..."
I looked down at Nadia. Her face was determined, but weak. She slinked her hands to her waist, putting pressure on her wound. I grumbled a saddened noise, and slowly traced backwards, keeping my eyes on Nadia until I turned the corner. Her determined look fading as I left.
 
I had never been in space. I was trained for it, but I was on the mission to monitor the scanners, sort out the technology and analyse from the inside. I was in my suit, head peaking out from the thick valve that I twisted my helmet into. I couldn't focus, the scraping of the helmet mechanically screwing into its latches picked its soundwaves at parts of my brain. I was stood in the airlock. I had to lock myself in there, and then venture out of the room all by myself. This was a procedure that needed two people, but there was only me. I flinched every time I felt the cold, damp fabric lining of my helmet, soaking in the blood from my jaw. I took a step. I had to do it. I had to save Marcus. I took another step. The entire ship shifted and I fell to the floor.
A smaller asteroid had collided with the ship. I thought it was over. Why couldn't it have been over. I couldn't do it. I couldn't go out there.
 
Chapter 5:
 
My bare toes felt the chill of the metal floors. My heel tapping repeatedly, at a continuous rate, like a machine in an oil rig. I sat back against the medical bay doors. A small red light spread its glare onto the top of my head, curling into oblivion off the split ends and the tip of my hairs. The medical bay doors were locked. I couldn't face what was in there. My brain was filing thoughts through a fog, an endless fractal that was sporadically being combed through. I sat there for an hour. Paralyzed albeit for my heel. Another hour passed. A tiny metal clang from behind the doors pulled me back to reality.
 
With swiftness I slam my fist against the door, spidering my fingers with haste until I found the lock, and disengaged it. The doors slid open, and an uncomfortable darkness thickened the air. My pupils darted in threes, until they could finally focus on Nadia's stationary body lying on the table. Arm strung off one side, caressed by a thin line and a needle which laid coldly on the floor. The line connected to her wound. She had stitched herself up.
At that time I hadn't even processed that the only sign Marcus had been crushed against the window, were the deep scratches of metal against glass looking out to empty space.
 
I rushed over to Nadia's side. I held my hand near her chapped lips. There was barely any breath pushing against my palm. I shuffled as fast as I could possibly go over to a nearby counter. I stumbled and crushed my organs against the hard edge, silently pleading for air as I winded myself. I spiraled my arms out like an octopus, pulling cabinets open, throwing piles over, trying to find an oxygen mask. My stress unfolded at such a rate I did not notice the slow, heavy footsteps behind me. I returned back to reality again at the sounds of metal squeaking against metal, and a pressurized puff of air. I turned around.
 
Marcus stood, still in his suit, hand clasped against an oxygen mask pressed onto Nadia's face. His helmet was missing, exposing his completely blood soaked face, a thick, deep, red wound across his temple. Chunks of blood coagulated inside his nostrils.
"What were you doing?" He tiredly demanded.
"I was trying... to help her" I unintelligibly spat out.
"I don't even know what you're saying, you know where this mask is kept! We all do!"
"I'm sorry" I said so quiet and full of guilt it was almost a hum.
Marcus, displaying a cowl of anger limped out of the room, pieces of fabric from the bulky suit fluttering to the floor.
 
Chapter 6:
 
The next three weeks rivaled the loneliness of my first 105 days awake on the Nessie. Although we have built back our comradery now, there was an undeniable and dark tension swimming through the air between us after the accident. Marcus wouldn't talk to me, unless it had to do with our mission, or making small repairs to the wounded ship. I sat in the corner again, listened to my discman, as Marcus tended to Nadia. It took her five days to wake up. Five days of silence again, not that I could talk anyway with my jaw.
 
One night, two weeks after the accident, Marcus left the med bay and made his way to the dust glazed corner I resided in.
"Can you talk now?"
I crack open my jaw, the bone hinge popping and cracking in place.
"Yes" I sounded different now, a sultry mix between a new accent and a speech impediment. The way my jaw was healing, I'd never talk the same.
He stood, looming over me. We no longer seemed like equals, people that were friends days ago. Now we were just a strong man, and the broken jawed monster in the dark. If Marcus heard me say this now, he would scoff. Nowadays it seems like he always knows what is going on in my pale head, and says just the right thing I want to hear to make me feel like I'm not a failure.
 
"You did nothing, you left her. Why?" He asked, his anger not quite masking his genuine questioning.
"To save you" I croaked.
"You didn't save me" His tone became demanding.
"I went to save you! I did".
"I could see very little through that window, but I could see you leave, leave Nadia, and then nothing. For the two hours I was stuck at that window, trying to pull myself in, watching her die".
My breath picked up in a defensive panic.
"She told me to leave, she told me to".
 
A voice shot through the room. A bullet of words pierced my heart. Nadia paced out of the medical bay.
"Take some god damn accountability you little... you little rat!" Her breath was heavy, this was the first time she had stood since the accident. She was in a fresh shirt now, allowing a new stain of blood to take another victim.
Marcus twisted around, worriedly shifting his feet in concern.
"No Nadia, you need to rest".
"I can't just let him shout excuses and excuses and EXCUSES!" She dropped to the floor, blood sneaking through her gritted teeth. She gasped. The same guttural gasp she made when I held her bloodied wound. Meat machinery clicked in my head. My eyes lost focus and I stared into the room as if it were space itself.
"He made me cut the deer..."
"What?" Marcus mutters in utter confusion.
"He made me...". I wasn't a spectator. Another excuse.
"I wish your jaw was still broken you horrible fucking man" Nadia continued. She mustered enough strength to determinedly guide her arm towards a nearby table. Her hand lied upon a metal cup, and without a beat, lunged it towards me. It hit my jaw. I cried out the loudest my throat could expel, like a wounded animal. I am not a wounded animal. My eyebrows furled and the oily skin on my forehead tightened.
 
Chapter 7:
 
Those three weeks of turbulence are finally over. The yelling, the arguments, the disappointments we were able to put them behind us. They were a temporary asteroid field that we repaired together and now have moved on. I slip off of the table and the soles of my feet spread across the metal floor. A hard dried substance clinging to the floor panels dig into my skin, but I pay no mind. I cheerfully careen my way through the ship. I need to shower, but it is not an urgent necessity as my body odour isn't a dominant smell these days anyway.
"Marcus I'm up!" My voice bounces and twirls through the empty hallways, which are thick with static and silence. In return I hear him talking from near the main terminal.
 
I make my way up to the terminal. The hallways seeming more mazelike, and even natural. That was possibly just the mold and stains which relocated itself to bare surfaces, growing everyday like an infinite puzzle. I glide past the medical bay, the red locked light flickering in glitched, pulsating bursts. Without decelerating I glide my hand across the face of the doors. I can feel multiple dents from smaller fists that were punched through from the opposite side. I pressed in slightly, the doors staying idle as the lock refrains them from jostling in their place.
"You eaten yet Marcus?"
His monotone voice responds, as I can hear it passing through the hallway much easier as I draw nearer. I step into the doorway, facing the terminal, and see Marcus in his usual spot upon the terminal chair.
"Already at work I see" I chuckle to us both.
"Scanning... Scanning" Marcus responds, his robotic voice wheezing through the speakers. I pull up a chair, shrieking metal noise spouting out, as I scrape it in front of Marcus.
 
Marcus' corpse lay upright, strung up a distance from the terminal chair with cables and strings.
"How's the work going?" I ask, making tired morning small talk.
"Scanning... Scanning" Marcus responds again.
"Haha yeah I get you, work's work". I go to affirmatively pat him on the shoulder in jest. My mind contorts and clocks what I am doing. Do not touch him. Do not feel him. Keep the immersion.
 
Marcus' body is skinny and brittle. His stiff, sloppily positioned posture, strung about like clothes on a washing line, resembled that of a sapling, thin roots with even thinner branches. His eyes were a dark grey, both looking like they had receded into his skull, and like they were on the verge of toppling onto the floor. His handsome, grey, peppered hair was stringy and loose, no longer giving the aesthetic of a young spirited, charming man.
After a fluttering beat, my thoughts travel back to normalcy.
"I am going to go have a little break before I get into working ok"
"Scanning... Scanning"
"Ok yeah see you soon" I make my way to another room, and deactivate the antigravity measures.
 
"Scanning... Scanning... Warning"
 
Chapter 8
 
I let my limbs go limp, gracefully contorting in antigravity. I'm listening to my discman, floating in complete silence, letting all thoughts pour out of my skull, emptying my mind. I see out the window something unusual, well, it's what I don't see. I don't see anything. I see nothing. My eyes widen in complete satisfaction and amazement. Then, my skin tightens.
 
A sequence of crumbling and metal shrieks start echoing through the ship. A layer of the thick glass windows that line the ship start snaking thin almost unnoticeable cracks through their exterior. The ship starts vibrating at only the consistency of a small bumblebee, but noticeably increases within seconds. Pressure within my joints start popping like internal bubble wrap.
 
I grasp onto the wall and propel myself towards the exit. The red light disengages as my fingers, pivoting with an uncomfortable tightness, unlocks the door. I re-enter gravity as my body slinks heavily to the floor. I wind myself as my ribs collide with the stained panels. In a tornado of limbs I clumsily push myself forwards towards the terminal
"Warning... Warning".
"Marcus what is going on?" I shout towards his corpse.
"Warning... Warning"
"Piece of shit" I mumble under my breath, entertaining the idea that he could even hear me. I brush the cables that prop him upright aside, and type into the terminal. His face, frozen in shriveled, moldy, infinite sleep, watches over a short distance from my head. I type a string of messages, simplified to the question "What is happening". As the ship's metal groans the terminal spells out shrill audio from its speakers.
"Limited distance remaining, undocumented pressure damaging hull, repair or 98% human fatality hypothesised".
 
Sweat spirals off of my forehead as I fling my view back towards the window. The void of space started to gradient to a different colour, as we get closer a wall of murky light absorbs what was once darkness. Slowly, from a short distance, a lone piece of debris drifts from beyond the glass. I try focusing my eyes. There are thick letters dashed across the debris, almost unintelligible with how creased and compact it had become. My eyes expand with fear and awe as my brain pieces the words together.
"Nessie 7"
A sharp, unsatisfying crack pounds into my head as I watch an intricate web of thick white lines develop across the window in the storage room. Muffled whistles start pushing into the glass and I have only seconds to act. My toes press with force against the panels and I launch myself towards the lock. Shrieking sounds of glass and air becoming more overwhelming. Another push, propelling myself again. the web of glass expanding to the full size of the large window. My skin keeps getting tighter, shrink wrapping my bones and muscles in a fleshy package. With all my strained strength I launch myself one last time, a finger length away from the lock. Then with the cry of one thousand tiny glass shards, and the wind of a planet wide blizzard the window breaks. My hand reaches the lock as my legs and hips are sucked towards the murky abyss. Tears are vacuumed from my eyes as, with all the hope I have left, I activate the lock. The doors barrel towards each other and shut with a large crack and thud in the centre. I release a heart stopping scream and pull away.
 
Droplets dance along the floor beside me and I pull my gaze down. The bottom of the door's crease is painted red, and my left foot is missing three and a half toes. Red pulp and toothy bone protrude where the toes used to be attached. The Nessie moans and roars, twisting inwards on itself. The pressure, the pulling, the compressing, its overbearing. At the speed we are travelling towards the cloudy edge of space, we won't make it before we collapse inwards and transform into a crumpled piece of paper. I need more speed. I need to finish the mission.
 
There are two remaining escape pods that sit within a well at the bottom of the Nessie. Developed to protect us during an emergency, they launch outwards at a speed exceptionally faster than that which we are travelling now. That is my only way out. I hobble through the corridors, one wrong movement away from slipping on my own slinking trail of blood. One fall, one stop in momentum, and I could miss my window to escape, and become stuck, melded and bursting inside an imploded metal prison. I press on, past the red light of the medical bay doors, past our dingy, damp sleeping quarters, and to the few steps that remain to make my leave. With each hobble down these steps, I writhe in pain, gaining my breath before each drop as even the smallest bump shoots agony through my foot.
 
I now stand at the escape pods. Two undamaged circular orifices with a view to a compact metal char and a baron console. This is it, this will bring me past the edge of space. The ship roars and sparks, glass shattering and panels crumpling. I have no time to breathe and with my one healthy foot I push myself into the pod. The door speeds to a robotic close and decompresses with an industrial exhale. I don't even think about sitting in the chair, I set the velocity to max, ignoring the warning. Disengage the launch countdown and... The roar of the engine pulsates as I shoot out into space. I don't look out the front window. I look back. The walls of the ship are an obstacle to my view, but I know I'm in the eyeline of Marcus. Guilt wells up as tears thicken against my tight eyelids. My crew once trusted me. Considered me their friend, and what did I do to them. String Marcus' corpse up. Lock Nadia in a room to starve. I made that choice for them. I am the one leaving their bodies behind as I get to run away and see the outcome of our shared work.
The Nessie crumbles inwards slowly as I look away, my brain slowly focusing on the quick collapse of the escape pod. Alarms whirr and bounce their sounds through the deteriorating structure. I just need more time. One of my lungs tighten as the other one expands full of liquid. My face tightens on one side and sags on the other. The pressure is too much for my body. My ears trickle blood profusely, until it slips across my lips and into my mouth. The alarms are almost silent as my ears are blocked and muffled. The murky wall becomes brighter as I propel closer. I am almost there. The mystery uncovered and the mission almost complete. What is beyond the edge of space? Galaxy clusters shoot past and swirl around me, becoming strands and trails of light at the speed I am travelling. My knees swell, filled with fluid and my eyelids puff up until my vision is as though I am looking through two straws. I shut what remains of my vision, my body contorting and the escape pod ripping into strings of material and metal as I break through the barrier.
 
Space breaks into an exploding splash. Voids of stars and darkness spray and clump like a blast of water from a whales blowhole. I open my eyes, glazed over with blood and crust. I see a bright void, a sky above the space below. Static clusters of galaxies and stars resemble vast islands, and the dark pit that we know as space, just an ocean. I am but the size of an ant, in whatever this world is. It's beautiful, it's horrifying, it can't truly exist, can it? A large collection of space and galaxy reaches out with an elongated form, a limb, and swats me and the debris downwards. My head crumbles from the impact, my body just a collection of mush and bones gracefully twisting through a plateau of inconceivable life. My vision goes dark.
 
I lay on humongous interstellar grains. A beach of stars. What resembles the remains of my body decays purple, and frost claws and grasps at the edges of my skin. I do not remain anymore, just the mind and body of a puss ridden blob fish. The black, bleeding orbs that contain the last resemblance of my eyes drift upwards, and everything fades to black.

Rank	Story	Votes
🥇 1st	Nost	5
🥈 2nd	Theriad	4
🥉 T-3rd	From One Bird to Another	2
🥉 T-3rd	The Gods Are Great	2
T-5th	The Darkness Becomes Me	1
T-5th	DIANA	1

The cab smelled like sweaty cigarettes and stale sex, as the old leather seats flake like dead skin under my every shifting move. The smokey night reflects the neon to make the air a metachromatic tunnel of psychedelic light. Apathetic depression was a wet blanket strangling itself around my thoughts since she left. Standing in a field of yellow stood a man in a too small green plaid suit and wearing glasses with a crack that reflected as a luminescent yellow worm. He looked like the type to skip out on pay, but I needed a distraction. Thick bottles clanged percussively like a drunk drummer.

“Where ya going.”

“Here’s $100. Take me anywhere, I’ll tell you when we’re there.” His voice was soaked in whisky and dried with smoke, his hot breath blew past my shoulder like a long devil's tongue, hot and wet as it kissed my skin. 

“Sure pal.”

“So what’s your name?” I asked after watching him take a slow gulp of his bottle.

“You want a drink.” He said posturing an unlabeled bottle of whiskey towards me..

“No thanks buddy, I don’t drink on the job.”

“Come on friend, don’t make a man drink alone.”

“Really, I shouldn’t.”

“Just a sip won't hurt.”

I let out a chuckle. “Fuck it, I could use one. It’s been a hell of a day..” I said, grabbing the bottle.

The liquor burnt down my throat, but there was something off about it, a bitter rasp faintly under the taste of whiskey. 

“What the hell is that?” I said through a cringe.

“Just some homebrew my friend, the good stuff.”

“Strong.” I said before clearing my throat.

“So what’s your plan for tonight?”  I asked him, but the words came out a bit slurred. My tongue felt flat and lazy, and my words felt delayed like the dialogue of a foreign film.

“The plan is to find a plan, but I don’t know where it is yet.”

“Well I can drive til we find it, but the meters running.”

The reds, greens, yellows and oranges spiraled and flowed into each other as if pulled by currents of air. I couldn’t tell if the wild silhouetted crowds walking down the sidewalk were frenzied with hedonistic lust or maddened with righteous indignation, but I could tell there was something they wanted. 

“How long you been doing this?”

“You mean tonight or since I started.”

“All of it.”

“I’m thirty four.”

“Over thirty past what ya asked for, yeah?.”

“Tell me about it, I got piranhas snapping at my balls when I try to sit down and I’m standing on ice.” I said looking back at him.

“Stop!” The man shouted.

The breaks sounded like a castrato with phantom pains as I slammed my foot down. Snapping my head forward I saw there was a red light, and five men in identical gray suits and hair walked down the crosswalk. They turned to face me in the middle of the walkway.

“Good evening, can I tell you about our lord and savior Jesus Christ." They said in unison.

“Uhm, I’m good. Thank you.”

“You seem to be going through a lot at the moment, wouldn’t it be nice if someone could take the weight off your shoulders.” 

“Lights green, go.”

“I can’t, the christians are in the way.”

“They’re not christian they’re mormon.”

“Oh.” I said as I slammed on my gas. One of the mormons flipped over the car, but the other had turned to run and became perched on the hood screaming with my hood ornament stuck up his ass.

“I know it feels rude, but the only way you can deal with those guys is to ignore them.” The passenger said over the mormons wild screams.

Blood smeared over the front end of my yellow cab, rendering my headlights a dark red. 

“It’s a sign.” The passenger said, grabbing my shoulder and leaning forward.

“Take us to the red light district.”

The city around me went black, even the mormon and his incessant screams disappeared from my vision leaving only two glowing white parallel lines. There was nothing else that I could see, so I followed the path through all the bends and turns until a sudden surge of red light stunned my vision. The mormon was still on the hood, but he seemed to have passed out from blood loss. What a relief I thought, that guy was annoying. On the sidewalk were neon women posing seductively for crowds of silhouetted men who pushed and grunted. The air was hot, my clothes were drenched in sweat.

“You looking for a good time baby?” A gravely echo’d voice from my left.

I looked over to see a woman cloaked in red, her face was smooth but her body was covered in deep wrinkles. She wore a red tank top and a little red skirt that showed red varicose veins spidering down her red legs. 

“Uh no thanks, I’m married.” I said holding my ring to the woman.

She approached the car and leaned against the open window, and before I could react she put her mouth around my finger. She began to suck. I tried to pull away but the suction from her mouth was too strong. Vertigo struck me as my finger swelled to feel like it would burst in a geyser of blood, I looked down at my body and watched as it grew thin and saggy. The sound of metal on metal came from her mouth, and she let out a deep gulp before releasing her grip on my finger.

“You sure sweetpea?”

“Get in.” Came sternly from the back. 

The door opened and she climbed into the back. 

“So what do you want?” The woman asked.

Thousands of crunchy pops rang out as the woman’s legs began to curl in on themselves like a spooling rope,  before she threw them behind her back.

“I can do this.”

She limpy flopped her legs from behind her back and planted them on the floorboard. 

“Or I can do this.”

A thick snap like a fell’d tree sounded as the woman bent her spine in half to place her face below her ass.

“Or if you want it at the same time.”

She snapped back into position like she was made of rubber, she spread her legs facing the passenger while turning to face me. Her already wrinkled skin showed deep twisted folds on her neck as she turned her head 180 degrees to face me before opening her mouth. In the dim light of the car I could see her face wasn’t red it was white, significantly whiter than the rest of her body. I reached my finger out to touch the woman's face, and it sank through the pearlescent skin like clay. I began to peel at the soft flesh on the woman's face, as the thick caked on white rained to the floor in a muddy powder. 

“What are you doing?” The woman shouted, but I’d already torn away chunks of the white clay to reveal grey wrinkled skin.

“I’m sorry.” 

“Fuck you!” She shouted.

“You know what! Take your money back and go!” She shouted before unhinging her jaw to a wide circle.

Her mouth was warm and dry, and her throat was a damp leather tube that meshed around my arm like fleshy plaster and made high pitched squeaks as I pressed farther. I felt short horizontal marks going down the length of it that felt carved in, and assumed it was from a measurement of some sort. As my elbow went into her mouth I felt a pool of something wet, hot, thick, and sticky on my hand. My hand clumsily pilfered around the sticky wet until I found the ring wrapped around a length of latex. Her throat was a tighter fit as my hand was balled to hold the ring, the moist warmth of her flesh wrapped around my fingers as I pulled it out. I was surprised that her teeth didn’t scrap my arm at all.

 “You’re a fucking creep.” She said through deep inhales as I wiped my soaking wet arm on my shirt.

She stepped out of the car and began to shout. “Big Daddy! He done me wrong!” 

From the alleyway I saw a massive shadow that cloaked the car in its length. My heart sank in my chest as my mind dreamt up what this brute of a man might look like and what he might do to me. The shadow drew and grew before the assailant emerged from the shadows. A dwarf in a furry green suit was riding on the shoulders of a man who was the size of a sumo wrestler, but wore a gimp suit and had a gag in his mouth.

“What’d you do to my lady pal?” The small man shouted in a high pitched voice as the large man stared blankly ahead at us. 

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to do anything wrong.”

“Well you did and now you gotta pay for it.” 

I cowered away guarding my face from the inevitable pounding laid upon me by the small sadist and the monolithic masochist.

“That’ll be one hundred and five dollars.”

“Oh? I have a hundred.”

“Wont do.”

I turned to face the passenger. “Hey can you help me out here?”

“It’s kind of rude to ask your customer to pay your debts isn’t it.”

I let out an exasperated sigh.

“Is there anything else I can do?” 

“Wait, who's that on your hood?” 

“Oh, it’s just a mormon.” 

“Wake this guy up for me.” The tiny pimp ordered his crony.

The sound of metal being pounded rang out as the massive hand patted the mormons' kept hair.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph Smith that hurts!” The Mormon shouted as the hood dented around his ass, knocking him deeper onto the ornament.

“Hey you, you need a job?” The small man asked the Mormon.

“I already have a job, I’m a Mormon.”

“Not anymore, you’ve committed sodomy.”

“Oh god! My faith is the only thing I have in this life!”

“Quit your whining, you need a new job or not?”

“Well, I do need something. Tell me, will you always tell me what to do and threaten me with pain if I don’t follow your command?”

“Of course, and I’ll also make you feel guilty for obliging your basic human instincts to seek freedom and self fulfillment."

“Say no more, I’m in!” The man said, holding his arms in the air.

The massive man put his hands beneath the Mormons arm pits and plucked him off of the car sending blood pouring onto the hood.

“Alright we’ll call it even Stevens this time pal, but I don’t want to see you fooling around with any of my gals again. You got it?

“Yeah, no worries.”

“Alright then, scram!”

A sigh of relief escaped my lungs as we started back down the road, but my calm was interrupted by the sound of snotty sobbing behind me.

“What’s wrong with you?” I asked the passenger.

“I loved her man, I don’t know what I’m going to do without her.” The passenger leaned his head back and held the bottle over his gaped mouth, but only a few droplets fell out.

“Hey, let’s go to a bar.” The passenger said before throwing the brown bottle at the windshield. 

I cowered my face from the shattered shards of glass, but the fragments hit me as a cool liquid that rivuleted down my face thick and pungent as it soaked into my clothes and hair. My gaze shifted hastily back to the road to see the road through a downpour of brown liquid. The light refracted and bent over it’s surface but the white lines stayed as clear as ever.

The trail led to a dingy bar that I could smell before I could see, it smelled like a drunken orgy held in a musky attic with no AC. The building was a dilapidated shack with planks falling out of place, and as I got closer I could see what looked like bullet holes lining the walls. There was one massive round hole on the front exterior that gave a clear view inside. It wasn’t the chaotic party one might expect, the energy seemed to be reserved, maybe even reverent.

“You sure this place is safe.” I asked.

“What, you think cause it’s in a poor neighborhood it’s not safe?”

“No, it’s not that.”

“It’s not but you still shouldn’t be biased,”

“Let’s go in.”

As I walked into the dingy bar, the door fell off of its hinges and hit the floor with a wet, dull thud slumping limp on the ground like wet cardboard. The muttering that prevailed the room ceased suddenly as they all turned to face me, their faces were all grey and apathetic.

“Sorry, I’ll pay for that.” I said meekly before taking a seat at the bar. 

The stool creaked under me to sound like a heroin junkie having an orgasm, the legs had a little bit of give to them and bent down a few inches when I sat. In front of the hole that I’d seen in the wall coming in there was a round hole in the floor a few feet in front of it.

“What’s your poison?”

“I’ll take a whiskey.” The passenger said.

“Just give me a beer.”

The bartender who wore a bow tie and a mustache that curled in on itself so much as to look like indescript cursive poured the whiskey before filling a pint for me from the tap.

“What kind of beer is this?” I asked, cringing after taking a gulp.

“Hey what kind of beer is this!” The bartender shouted.

“Mostly Busch.” Came a slurred yell up from between the cracked floorboard.

I gave an inquisitive look at my drink before taking another sip.

“Ya know my life feels like an endless cycle of pain, an ouroboros but I’m a cock fucking myself in the ass.” The passenger said.

“My wife left me.”

“Better than losing yourself.”

“I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“Does anybody? You could be a brain in a jar dreaming your reality, so why are you dreaming it so morbidly?”

“Maybe.”

“But there’s no point, at least there’s a point to suffering which is to stop suffering.”

“Huh, ya know this is making a lot of sense. So the point is to find happiness in whatever form that comes.”

“What? Are you drunk? Barkeep, these guys had enough, give us the bill.”

“Twenty for the beer and whiskey.”

“Can you break a hundred?” I said reaching into my pocket.

“Three-thousand nine hundred and fifty seven for the door.”

“Well I don’t have that much.” I said sliding the bill back into my pocket.

“Well then you’ll have to settle your debts with the owner, he’s in the basement.”

The bar stared at us as we headed down the stairs, shaking their heads with looks of pity on their faces. Opening the basement door I was hit with the sickening stench of sweat, liquor, and shit. The stench grew in strength with each step, as the stairs cried out to sound like bullfrogs screaming. 

“Hello? Is the owner down here.”

“Oh yes, please come down.” The man said in a heavily slurred voice.

The room was dark, other than a spotlight from the floor above that shone through a hole in the floor and lit the owner. He must’ve been close to half a ton, he was naked in a bed of crusted over diarrhea, with vomit around his mouth and a mix of the two streaking along his body. HIs legs were pinned down under a cannon ball, his calves curling in on themselves like the wicked witch of the East. He had a catheter extending from his limp cock that went up to the floor above between a gap in the planks.

“How can I help you?”

“Uh yeah, well we accidentally broke the door when we were coming in.”

“Oh well accidents happen, roll me to my desk and we’ll get the bill figured out.”

I let out a sigh that I regretted when I could taste the smell of the room. 

“Help me push this guy.” I said to the passenger.

“Alright you get that side and I’ll get the other.”

Filthy slathered onto my body as I pressed my weight into the belly of the man, hot sweaty folds engulfing my arms as I put all my strength into flipping him. 

“Ah.” The man said in relief as his legs were removed from under the cannonball for a brief second.

“Ah!” The owner said as the cannonball flipped back over onto his legs. 

I did this until we reached his desk, at which point he put on a pair of glasses and began typing frenetically at a type writer.

“The guy said it’d cost Three-thousand nine hundred and fifty seven, but I don’t have that.”

“Nonsense, let me figure it up.”

We sat in the foul smelling room for ten more minutes as the man keyed in figures, before ripping the figures from the receipt and reading.

“It comes out to Three-thousand nine hundred and fifty seven.”

“So why’d we waste all this time figuring it down here, that’s the same thing the bartender told us!

“You didn’t let me finish! Three-thousand nine hundred and fifty seven and fifty cents.”

“I still don’t have that.”

“Hey we need a beer up here.” I heard shouted from upstairs.

“Hold on one second.” The man said before closing his eyes, and sending amber liquid flowing up the catheter.

I began to dry heave, but was interrupted by the owner.

“Well there is one way you can make it up if you can’t pay, the massive man said with a smirk.”

I sighed and began to take my shirt off.

“What are you doing! Not that! God what do you think I'm some kind of sicko.”

“Look man, it's been a long night!”

“I want you to kill me. Life is so miserable down here, all I can do is drink my sorrows away all day. But there isn’t really any drinking it away, just makes sorrow more bearable company.”

“I can’t kill you man, how would I even go about that.”

“It’s the only way. I want you to pull that catheter from the tap upstairs and make me drown on it.”

“You gotta do it, it’s the only way.” The passenger said. I looked at him and noticed how clean he was while I was drenched in filth.

“Fine.” 

I grabbed the still warm tube and began to pull it through the cracks, hearing the crowd complain about the tap stopping as I did. His bloated lips pursed around the end of the tube and I watched as the tube once again turned amber. The man's eyes looked so sad and defeated, he shook as the liquid poured down his throat. His stomach began to swell, followed by his face, and the amber liquid turned to a slow moving dark red. The man's face turned violently red as his cheeks and neck swole to twice their “normal” size.

“Oh shit,” The passenger said.

“He’s gonna blow.”

The passenger started up the stairs before me, leaving me trapped as the stairs crumbled beneath him.

“You bastard!” I screamed as I watched him disappear into the bar.

I looked around for another exit, there was a ladder leading to a closed hatch outside the bar. I hurried to it, but before I could get my feet onto the ground a torrent of warm water geysered me into the air. For a moment I felt like I was flying, but as I came down the last thing I saw was the cannon ball landing right in front of me. My head crashed hard into it, and everything went black.

I woke up in my cab, with the worst headache I’d ever had in my life. There was a note sitting on my lap.

“You passed out, so I brought you back to the cab. I hope you learned something from this.

-The Passenger"

I thought for a minute, what had I learned? The entire experience seemed devoid of any meaning or reason. I disregarded this as I started back onto the road. As I was passing an intersection a drunk driver ran a red light and smashed hard into my car, flipping it multiple times into oncoming traffic. My head looked slacked at the roof as blood dripped out of my mouth. I let out a laugh as my consciousness gave way to the cold hands of death. I finally got the point.

When the silver eye of the moon grows wide

The shutters are barred and the doors are tied

No laughter echoes through cobbled street

No careless wanderer drifts to meet

The midnight chill that haunts our breath

For the water holds a waking death

The elders whispered with bated tongue

Of iron chains and a soul unsprung

A phantom groom from the sunken deep

Who breaks the surface of holy sleep

It isn’t myth, nor a grandmother’s sigh

When the mist rolls thick and the horses cry

Beneath the ripples of Cinder Lake

Where rotting piers and weed-beds shake

An ancient grudge keeps restless watch

With skeletal fingers poised to catch

The living warmth of a beating chest

To drag it down to eternal rest

The water churns like a boiling pot

As seaweed clings to the steaming trot

Of a stallion born of pale bone and mire

Its nostrils spitting a freezing fire

No skin adorns its gaping skull

Its hooves are heavy, its gallop dull

Striking the mud with a hollow sound

As it leaves the drink for the sleeping ground

And straddling high on the spectral beast

A rider comes to a macabre feast

His cloak is woven from midnight shroud

Sweeping the earth like a low-hung cloud

Where eyes should burn in a visor black

There’s only the void of the trackless track

A cavernous hollow of death and spite

Hunting the living throughout the night

I sit at my window, frozen and pale

Watching the trees bow down to the gale

That heralds his passing, block by block

Counting the thumps of the master-clock

*Thud... thump... thud...* on the gravelly lane

A rhythm of terror, a shiver of pain.

He smells the fear in the trembling air

He pauses long by the public square

The phantom steed rears high in the dark

Its iron hooves leaving a sulfurous mark

The rider turns his faceless head

Seeking the pulse of the living dead

Through glass and timber, his gaze cuts deep

Into the chamber where mortals sleep

He points a finger of rotting bone

And names his prize with a silent moan

A sound like wind through a weeping willow

That chills the blood on a lonely pillow

The heavy oak of my bedroom door

Splinters and groans on the wooden floor

No lock can hold against spectral might

As hooves step into the candlelight

The stallion towers, its ribs exposed

Its breath a frost where the door has closed

The rider dismounts with a clanking grace

And steps right into my frozen space

He takes my wrist with a grip of ice

A brutal bargain, a fatal price

We tumble outward through mist and night

Abandoning hearth and the comforting light

Back to the shore where the ripples ring

To the dark domain of the phantom king

Down, down we sink in the freezing gloom

To share the silence, the lake’s cold tomb

Heyo! This was a story I wrote for my cousins 11th bday so this is my first attempt at Middle Grade writing!

Eric looked up at the arch over the gateway made of rotting wood and rusting steel. Pinewood Cemetery. He looked back at his friends, Tim, Jeremy, and Carlos. The moon was high in the sky and not a single cloud threatened to get in its way. He shivered standing with them out on the cool September night, but unfortunately for Eric, his shivering wasn’t from the temperature. 

“Do I really have to go in there?” Eric asked, knowing already the answer he would receive in return.

“Yes.” the other three said in unison.

“You chose Dare, dude. This is the dare.” Tim said, keeping an eye out for other people that might be passing by. The wind howled just beyond the gate, mimicking the howl of a wolf. 

“Just walk around the outside path once you get in there, you’ll be done in no time.” Jeremy urged. He hadn’t brought a jacket and Eric could see the goosebumps growing on his skin. 

“I don’t know guys,” Carlos started, “when we were here before dark, the groundskeeper told us to avoid the place at night entirely. You remember that don’t you?” Eric nodded his head, though Carlos left out the other part where the groundskeeper said, “If you end up only seeing a ghost, you’d be in pretty good shape.” He knew that it was childish and silly to hang on the words of a grumpy old man, but he had said it with such sincerity, and uncomfortability. 

“Carlos, stop freaking him out, he’s already being a wuss and trying to get out of it.” Eric felt heat rush to his face with anger. 

“I’m not a wuss! Don’t call me that.” Tim crossed his arms in defiance. 

“If you’re not a wuss then walk through the cemetery quick. It’s not that big, and like Jeremy said, you’ll be back in no time.” Carlos put a reassuring hand on Eric’s shoulder.

“You don’t have to do it, man. It won’t make you a wuss.” 

“Uh yeah…It will. He’d be chickening out of the dare. What’s the point of offering him a Dare if he’s just going to wuss out of it.” Eric felt hot enough that he thought that steam would start coming out of his ears.

“I’m not a god damned chicken! And I’m not a god damned wuss! I’ll show you! I’ll show you right now!” 

“Alright! Then do it! We’re waiting!”

“Hey! Quiet down he said, whispering as loudly as he could while still keeping it a whisper. Eric glanced over at Carlos, he didn’t seem to have any reassurance this time. Without saying another word, Eric opened the gate to Pinewood Cemetery and started to walk. 

*****

By the time Eric got out of ear shot of his friends, his confidence he had built out of frustration and anger had subsided and the fear had returned with a vengeance. The wickedly bent trees above him cause even more wicked and sinister shadows on the ground and headstones. Every breath he took felt like it was going against the eerie silence of the space around him. Each crunch underneath his every step, felt like pulling the trigger of a loaded gun, causing what he thought were echoes all around him. Wherever he glanced, unfamiliar dark shapes danced and swung. 

When he glanced forward he saw that he was coming across a mausoleum, a large one, so large you could see it from the road despite that it was in the dead center of the oblong cemetery. It was already spooky to him in the daytime, with its chipping away off-white stone and crooked black metal barring over the windows. But now that he was coming up to it in the dead of night…it was out right creepy. Half of the building glowed in the pale blue light from the moon, the other half sat in utter darkness, holding whatever secrets its nooks and crannies had to hold. He stopped for a moment, trying to get a grasp on his breathing and only daring to look when he felt it was safe too. Eric didn’t know why, but he felt like the mausoleum was staring at him, watching his every move. 

He looked back toward his friends, he could barely see them due to the only light source around being the moonlight. He wondered if instead of having to walk around the whole cemetery, if he could get away with just sitting on the steps of the building for a few minutes and then slowly start making his way back. He tested this idea by waving toward his group of friends. They made no response or wave in return, seeming to continue on doing whatever they were on about. The slightest bit of tension released from Eric’s neck and shoulders, allowing him to breathe somewhat normally for the first time since he had walked in. He took a seat on the bottom step and pulled out his phone, trying to open Instagram only to see that he didn’t have any service. 

“Of course.” He muttered to himself, resorting to opening up the Solitaire app and starting a game. Before he could make his first move, he heard something from behind him. It was muffled and faint so he couldn’t make out what it was. He raised an eyebrow suspiciously, seeing that the only thing behind him was the door to the building. He went back to his phone and got ready to start his game once again when the noise came again, but much louder. 

THUD.

Eric jumped up, startled at the sudden noise. He could’ve sworn this time that it came from behind him, he knew he was only imagining it, but he also could’ve sworn that he felt the ground shake a little when it happened. He stood there, his shivering returning and now on the verge of tears. 

THUD. THUD. 

The thudding continued, rhythmically, like whatever it was behind the door was keeping time to a song only it could hear. Eric took a few steps back now, scrambling to close out his Solitaire game and turn the flashlight on. As he found the flashlight mode on his phone the thudding stopped. Silence once again blanketed the world around him, leaving only the howling wind, crickets, and his heart thumping madly with anxiety against his chest. For a few agonizing moments nothing happened. Then, the knob of the mausoleum door slowly started to turn. 

Eric wanted nothing more than to haul ass down the path to the gate and run, screw going back to the sleepover, he was going to run all the way home and cry in his mom’s lap while his dad chewed him up for trespassing…but he couldn’t move. No matter what he tried to do, fear had frozen him in place.

After half of a minute of the door knob first squeakily turning one way and then even more squeakily turning the other, the door knob stopped moving and everything was still once again. Eric found that his lip was trembling and that tears had started trailing their way down his cheeks. He wished so badly to be able to run, but he couldn’t, so he now wished that whatever was behind that door would just come out already, enough with the waiting.

As if Eric himself had willed his wishes into existence, the door started to creak open, swaying silently and slowly, inching itself open. When the door was completely open, the sound of scuffling and a low moaning sound came from inside the pitch black building. He raised his hand that was holding his phone and shined the light through the open doorway, hoping to the heavens above that what he was hearing was simply just a critter that had somehow made its way inside…but he knew that wasn’t going to be the case. What he saw when the light shined inside shook Eric to his core.

It was a man in a withered suit, tears all over the jacket and pants, dirt covered almost every inch of the man as well. The skin was pulled taut and ripped in multiple places across the face and hands, showing rotted black flesh underneath. It was missing one of its eyes with nothing but inky blackness in its place. The man was missing hair in many places on his head and blood coated his chin and lips. A dead and mutilated rat hung by its tail from the man’s hand. Both Eric and the rotting man stood silently, neither one of them making a move. After only a few seconds that felt like a millennium to Eric, the rotting man burst forward toward him. Eric, thankfully, found that his legs were no longer frozen and booked it down the path from which he came. 

He could no longer see his friends, clouds had found their way into the night sky and essentially flipped the light switch on his part of the world. A horrid scream echoed through the graveyard behind him, a mixture of a little girl's scream and someone choking on a piece of fried chicken. He didn’t try to hold back his fear anymore, he openly sobbed as his legs pushed him forward as quickly as they could. 

He felt he was halfway there when another one of those horrible screams came again. Eric glanced over his shoulder and saw the rotting man was only ten or fifteen feet behind him, random bones popping and snapping as he pushed to get closer to the boy in front of him. 

“GET AWAY!” Eric yelled and managed to push himself harder.

Finally the gate had come into view. It was hard to tell at first but he quickly realized his friends were still standing there.

“Help! Tim! Carlos! Jeremy! Help me!” They didn’t respond, continuing to chat amongst themselves.

 He slowed down as he approached the gate, quickly getting it open enough to slip through. Before he could fully slip through, he felt the icy cold touch of one of its fingers grazing along the back of his neck. He grabbed the gate and slammed it shut. Then tried backing away so quickly that he ran into Carlos and found himself at his friend's feet.

“Why didn’t any of you come help me?!” Eric yelled. His friends looked at him and were confused. 

“What are you talking about?” Tim asked, looking behind them at the cemetery.

“I was just yelling for your help back there before I made it to the gate!” Once again his friends looked confused.

“We didn’t hear anything, man…not until you damn near ran through the gate trying to get out.” Carlos crouched down with Eric.

“Why were you trying to get out so bad?” Eric looked at Carlos and the rest of his friends flabbergasted. 

“Are you kidding me?! There was a dead man running after me! All the way from the mausoleum! He was running after me like I was his next meal!” The boys stood in silence for a second. Then Tim started to laugh, then Jeremy joined in. Laughter filled the air as Eric jumped up to his feet to look past them, only now Eric was the one confused. The moon was out just as strong as it was when he entered the cemetery. Everything was just as it was before the mausoleum. 

“The mausoleum…” Eric muttered.

“What?” Tim asked, starting to get his handle on his giggle fit. 

“You guys will believe me if you see the mausoleum.”

“No chance. We’re getting back to the house, my mom will notice if we’re gone for too long.” 

“But…but…” Eric started as Carlos gently pushed him along when they started to walk back to Jeremy’s house. When the four got halfway back, Eric asked Carlos a question.

“You believe me right?” Carlos only shrugged his shoulders.

“The dark can play tricks on you, man. I remember a few years ago when I was afraid that the sound coming from my closet was a monster of some sort, but when my dad checked the next morning, it turned out to just be a water pipe that was just above the ceiling tile.” Eric’s shoulders slumped and he felt tears starting to form in his eyes again. 

“So you don’t believe me…” Carlos put his arm around Eric’s shoulders. 

“Look, I believe you saw something that scared the hell out of you. Obviously. I just think that maybe it wasn’t what you claim it is.” Eric didn’t say anything more for the rest of the walk.

*****

They spent the rest of the evening snacking on Doritos and playing Fortnite until they eventually passed out between one and two in the morning. Eric’s friends had him convinced that what he saw was probably just a trick on the mind over a rotting man chasing him through a graveyard in the middle of the night.

When his mom picked him up, he told her about everything they did, excluding the part where he was forced to trespass into a graveyard. On their way home, his mom drove past the graveyard due to construction closing off the normal way home. Out of curiosity, Eric looked out the window. His mom coincidentally slowed down by the gate and Eric saw two things that confirmed that his night wasn’t just a trick on the mind. The first, was that a dead, mutilated rat lay just inside the cemetery gates. The second was that he could see the mausoleum clearly in the daylight, and the door was wide open. Though when his mom started to speed up again, Eric swore that he saw the door start to inch itself close…

Listen close to the wind as it rattles the pane.

To the tale of a miser driven wholly insane.

Old Silas Machen, a creature of greed.

Who planted a dark and metallurgical seed.

Deep in his cellar, away from the sun.

He melted the treasures his cruelty had won.

He sat by the furnace, his face bathed in red.

Communing with wealth while ignoring the dead.

For Silas loved only the shine of the ore.

The clanking of coins on his desolate floor.

He worshipped the silver, so pale and so cold,

But it wasn't enough to satisfy his soul.

But a rot in the spirit breeds rot in the bone.

And a man who loves metal will turn into stone.

Or worse, as the alchemical ledger decrees.

He will catch the metallic, unholy disease.

It began in the veins of his withering hands.

Like the shifting of heavy and heat-shimmered sands.

His skin, once a pallid and sickening white.

Now gleamed with a bronzed and unnatural light.

His joints became hinges that rusted in place.

While a terrified rictus was forged on his face.

He clawed at his throat as the sickness progressed.

A terrible heaviness crushing his chest.

He stumbled and fell to the cobblestone ground.

But his knees striking stone made a clattering sound.

Not the breaking of bone, nor the tearing of meat,

But the ringing of anvils upon a dark street.

A mercury sweat from his forehead did pour.

As his shivering body convulsed on the floor.

He wept for his life, for the sins he had sold.

As his teardrops crystallized into pure gold.

They rolled down his cheeks with a beautiful clink.

Leaving trails on his flesh, turning grayish and pink.

His eyes, once alive with a treacherous shine.

Grew heavy and blind, of a gilded design.

He tried to cry out for a god or a priest.

But his vocal cords snapped like the strings of a beast.

And what happened then? Well, the villagers say

That his shriveling heart grew three sizes that day.

It swelled not with joy, nor a welcoming warmth.

But expanded with iron, and malice, like cold from the North.

It tore through his ribcage, a grinding machine.

The most gruesome contrivance that ever was seen.

He slithered and slunk to his mountainous hoard.

A jagged monstrosity, forever abhorred.

With his newly forged claws, sharp as carving knives.

He sat in the dark where no goodness survives.

There would be no redemption, no singing of songs.

No carving the roast beast to right all his wrongs.

No welcoming circle of hand-holding friends.

Just a desolate vault where humanity ends.

Just the ticking of clockwork, the grinding of gears.

As the monstrous man-statue stood weeping his tears.

So beware of the glint of the treasure you seek.

Lest the copper and iron rise up for the meek.

For the metal remembers, the metal is cold.

And the flesh cannot carry the weight of the gold.

The weather outside makes the place feel cozy. 

Howling wind and torrential rain lashes against the windows. A single lamp illuminates the open floor plan with a warm, almost camp-fire glow. On one side, the living room is filled with Emma’s little touches: a sweater draped over an overstuffed recliner, a bloom of daisies in a vase on an end table, a hutch near the fireplace filled with books and knickknacks. 

On the other side, the kitchen is clean but lived in. A half-eaten loaf of fresh baked bread sits under a cloth hand towel. An orange tea kettle sits on the range. The refrigerator is covered with a collage of snapshots: Emma and her new boyfriend at a fancy dinner, Emma and her sister hugging at a birthday party, a save-the-date for a wedding, a niece or nephew in swaddling clothes.

Thunder rumbles. Lightning flashes. The house goes dark.

Emma lets out a cute little yip of surprise.

“Shit,” her boyfriend says. “Hang on.”

Footsteps clomp up the stairs. He walks to the front window and cups his hands around his eyes to look into the yard.

“Holy shit,” he mutters. Then louder, “Emma, get up here, this is nuts.”

Mincing, uncertain steps patter up the stairs, and she joins him. She’s wearing thick, comfy socks, little athletic shorts, and an oversized hoodie.

“Come look at this.”

She steps up beside him and presses her forehead to the glass, mirroring his pose. “Wow.” 

He points. “Look at that tree.” 

“Oh my God. Think it’s going to come down?”

“Don’t know. Hope not.”

“This is, like, actually crazy. Is it a tornado?” 

“No idea.” He pulls out his phone and slashes a finger on the screen, frowns, holds it up toward the ceiling. “I don’t have any service, do you?” 

“I left mine downstairs.”

He considers, then takes her by the hips and pulls her close. “Tell you what, go down there and get comfy, I’ll get some candles and some drinks.”

She purrs as he kisses her neck. “And then what?”

“Only one thing to do when the power goes out.”

“Play Yahtzee?”

He laughs. “Fine, two things.”

“Okay, but hurry up.” She trots off, feeling her way down the hall.

He stands there watching the storm for a moment longer, then moves to the kitchen and rummages around in a drawer. A small flame snicks from a bic lighter and he uses it to illuminate his way to the living room, where he opens a cabinet and pulls out a pair of mismatched candles. He lights one and looks over the bar cart set against the wall. 

“White or red?” he calls. 

She doesn’t answer. 

“Em?” 

Nothing. 

He shrugs and takes one of each, awkwardly cradling the bottles, two glasses, and the candles in his arms as he makes his way to the basement. 

Lightning flashes. Thunder rumbles.

The basement is pitch black, illuminated only by the candle. Emma has unfurled a down blanket on the sectional, but she’s nowhere in sight. He’s lighting the second candle with the first. The warm orb of light expands around him, but leaves the edges of the room in shadow.

“Emma?” he calls, squinting into the darkness. “Are you down here?” No answer. “Hey don’t be a bitch, I know you can hear me.”

A flashlight clicks on in the far corner, illuminating a leering, jack-o-lantern grin from below.

“Boo.” 

He jumps. "Jesus!"

Emma laughs, playfully shining the light into his face, casting twin shadows against the wall.

“Good one,” he drawls, shielding his eyes with his hand.

She clicks off the light and sets it on the coffee table alongside a battered Yahtzee box, then curls up on the blanket, tucking her knees inside the hoodie. He hands her a glass of wine and sits next to her. 

“This is nice.” He takes a sip from his own glass. “Like we’re in a cave.”

“I’m just glad you’re here,” she says. “I’d be freaking out if I was alone.”

He chuckles dismissively. “What, afraid of storms?”

“I love storms. I used to be terrified of them, but now I think they’re relaxing.”

“As long as that tree doesn’t come down and take out my car.”

“Then you’d be stuck here.” 

“I think I’m stuck here either way. It’s really coming down out there.”

“Good.” She snuggles up next to him. “But no, I’m talking about being alone with the power out.”

“Yeah.”  He wraps his arm around her and grins. “That’s when the monsters come out.”

“Oh, shut up.”

“Like, what would you do if that pale, Mitch McConnell-looking thing from Pan’s Labyrinth walked out of the shadows right now?”

“I would 100% push you into it and run away.”

“Nice knowing you have my back.”

“Not against that thing, I don’t.”

“Good news for me, I don’t think that’s going to happen.” He looks into the shadows. His eyes gleam with mischief. “It’d definitely be an axe-murderer or something.”

“Don’t.”

He plows ahead. “He’d run at us out of the shadows screaming at the top of his lungs, and—”

“Brian.” She pulls back and glares at him. “Don’t. I’m not kidding.”

“Okay,” he says petulantly. “Geez, you can hang with that crazy-ass fucking thing from Labyrinth, but not some random guy?”

“First, that thing from the movie is fictional. Second, you know my mind isn’t going to some random guy.”

He pauses. Winces. Pulls her a little closer. “You’re right. I’m sorry, Em.”

She sighs. “No, I’m sorry, too. It was forever ago, and it shouldn’t still bother me so much—”

“Hey, you don’t ever have to apologize about that. I was being a dick, I wasn’t thinking.”

“It’s just—” She hesitates, then rests her head on his shoulder. “I’m just glad you’re here.”

They sit like that for a while, watching the lightning flicker outside the glass blocks of the narrow basement windows.

He blows out a sigh. “I’m not getting laid tonight, am I?”

She swats his chest. “You’re such an asshole.”

“No, I went ahead and fucked the whole night up, didn’t I?”

“Yup. Ya blew it. The vibes are in shambles.” She’s smiling.

“Damn,” he says, but gives her a smile of his own. “So now what do we do with our cozy evening?”

“Yahtzee.” She extends her leg and taps the box on the table.

He laughs. “It's always Yahtzee with you.” He untangles himself from her and leans over to take a sip of wine, then pauses. “How about a compromise?”

She looks at him suspiciously. “What?”

“Strip Yahtzee?” he offers hopefully.

She rolls her eyes.

An hour and a bottle of wine later, Emma has frustratingly won almost every game. The only thing she’s taken off is the hoodie, revealing a tight crop top underneath. The warm candlelight makes her tan glow, highlighting the shadows of her collarbones and the subtle ridges of her abs. She looks spectacular. He’s down to his underwear and looks ridiculous in comparison, with his pale, scrawny chest and soft beer belly. 

“This is bullshit,” he whines.

Emma smugly sips her wine.

“Is any of this doing anything for you?” he asks, gesturing to his near-nakedness. 

“I think we have one more game before I can answer that question,” she says, nodding at his boxers.

He grins like an idiot and tears off a sheet for a new round.

Upstairs, the storm still rages. It’s not loud enough to mute the clatter of dice and shit-talking. It’s also not loud enough to mask the sound of shattering glass. 

Emma squeals. “What was that?”

“Shit, that might have been a window. I’ll go check it out.” 

“I’ll come with you.”

“No, there might be broken glass.”

A pause.

“You gotta stop wearing those gross boots inside.”

“Good thing I did this time, right?”

“I guess. But seriously, be quick.”

A minute later, he thumps up the stairs wearing only his underwear and a pair of unlaced boots. The beam of his flashlight cuts around the kitchen as he searches for the source of the noise. Finding nothing, he crosses into the living room, scanning the windows. 

Broken glass crunches under his foot. He points the light at the overturned end table, the shattered vase, and the daisies on the floor.

“The fuck?” he murmurs.

I step out of the bathroom and hit him on the top of the head with a hammer. 

He makes a startled nnggh sound and falls, his naked flank slapping against the floor. I look down at him and feel the anger I’ve been stewing on for the last year bubble to the surface. Emma is calling Brian? Brian? downstairs, but blood is pounding in my ears even as Brian’s blood pools around my feet. All I keep thinking is this is the fucking guy? This asshole? as I bring the hammer down again and again. 

The red haze goes away, and soon I’m calm again; calm enough that I’m able to feel bad about the mess I made, calm enough that I start to feel bad about scaring Emma so much. Just like always. I can hear her crying downstairs. It’s okay. There will be plenty of time to calm her down and make it up to her. I consider turning the power back on, but with the storm and the candlelight, I decide against it. 

It is very cozy.

https://preview.redd.it/kw0y6iv62hih1.png?width=736&format=png&auto=webp&s=2ffab12fb44d6931f3ee8e3cbab40835fe877fd0

Icarus' mother had just died. He and his father awoke one day to her lying motionless in her bed. Icarus was filled with unimaginable grief, and prayed to the gods for his mom to find paradise in the afterlife.

"Come to me, my child." The sun bellowed, Icarus covered his ears at the volume of which the sun spoke.

"B-But how?" A young Icarus said, shaking terribly.

"One day, many winters from now, you will be blessed upon and be given man-made wings."

Icarus stared at his father, who looked like he wanted to say something against the sun, but was too afraid.

"Use them to become whole with me, my child." The sun bellowed one last time as the moon rose from the horizon to take it's place.

Icarus finally turned around to his father, a craftsman named Daedalus.

"Will you make them for me, father? To allow me to become whole with the sun?" Icarus pleaded, tugging on his fathers tunic.

Daedalus shifted his weight nervously, glancing up towards the sky to make sure the sun was not about to hear what he has to say.

"My boy, that was not the sun we know or praise, that was a demon in disguise." Daedalus said, placing his hand on Icarus' shoulder.

Icarus was displeased with this answer, and broke out into tears. His father tried to appease him, but Icarus cried for many winters without stopping. Daedalus lost sleep, and was on the brink of death.

Icarus, now older, forced his old and fragile father to craft the wings the sun once begged him too. Icarus could not wait to join the sun and become what he had always wanted to be; A god. Threatened by Icarus, Daedalus caved in and made the wings for Icarus, but knowing that Icarus would fly into the sun, he made them of wax.

Daedalus prayed that the wax would melt before the demon could take Icarus' soul. Icarus, too blind by excitement, put the wings on eagerly, and the day arrived.

"Come to me, my child." The sun bellowed like it had all those winters ago. Icarus rose from his bed, and climbed onto the roof of their home.

"I shall." Stated Icarus, and then he took off.

Daedalus watched as his son flew towards the demon, and his fear turned to relief when he saw the wings start to melt. Icarus panicked, and begged for the sun to catch him. It did not seem to listen. Icarus fell through the sky, but before he could hit the ground, the sun spoke.

"Do not worry my child, I will catch you." The sun said, inflicting fear upon Daedalus.

Daedalus watched as the demon out stretched hundreds of glowing yellow hands to wrap around Icarus. Icarus screamed in horror and pain as they gripped his limbs tightly and seared their mark into his flesh. Daedalus could do nothing but watch as Icarus begged his father to save him, his flesh beginning to turn to ash.

After hours of screaming, Icarus was nothing but a charred corpse. Daedalus stood still the entire time, the grief of his sons death filling him completely. The smell of Icarus' flesh filled his nose as he begged the gods to show mercy upon Icarus in the afterlife. He was interrupted in the middle of his prayer however, by a familiar bellowing voice.

"Come to me, my child."

“I… I don’t know!” I stammered, looking frantically between the two kids he held at gunpoint