Content Warning: Implied Sexual Abuse
If I had never heard the quote “Our eyes are windows to our souls,” studying English, I don’t think I would ever know how deeply my mother loved me. Roaming through the halls of the university made me remember what high school was like. How difficult it was to be alone. No matter what I did or what happened to me. She would always support me. Always gave me a comforting look that let me know I’d be okay.
She passed away recently. I always said those menthols would kill her. I’d give the rest of my tampered soul to spend another second with her, tell her what I should have had years ago. Maybe things would have been different; I wouldn’t be writing this to you all. I’d be somewhere comfortable, grieving like any other person, but I can’t. I know most of you have been following my past through the news, and because of that, I’d like to get my story straight before this disease rots away any piece of me I had left
I had just moved back in with my parents. I needed a place to stay after my roommates decided that my belongings looked better on the curb. Can’t say that I miss them, besides, my parents' apartment was a nice place, well, the nicest place the lot of us could fit in.
The Patriots won the Super Bowl the day I moved in. 34-28. Easy to remember the score, I have spent many countless nights trying to forget the faint memory of my mother shouting it, letting her hands fly through the air. Despite my childish loathing, I always admired that about her. Not the obnoxious fangirling. Just how loud she could scream, no matter who was around her.
That night was our annual viewing party. The whole family came over. Beer, wings, shouting matches… mainly at the referees, acting as if they could hear them. As for me, I'm sure you could guess I was never really into it, if I’m being honest. Having a distraction so I could slip into Mick’s hidden drawer full of his “expensive” drinks was nice. My family surrounded the only TV we had in the apartment. While I, after realizing how terrible Mick was at hiding things, went to bed early.
It was the dead of night. A sweet breeze from the cold air trickled down my spine. My eyes struggled to open. 3:32 AM, a faint light from the clock filled the room. I was shivering. Falling back asleep would be a nightmare. I couldn’t move. I needed to get up and shut that stupid window. Sitting on the edge of my bed, I saw the steps to get there, yet something was holding me back. I decided. I wouldn’t let some random fear hold me back. As soon as my foot landed on the ground, I heard what sounded like a wet sponge seeping into the hardwood floor.
I slipped, snapping my left foot. Lying on the dirty floor, I couldn’t feel my foot. Couldn’t move it at all. My eyes slowly drift toward its rough figure hidden in the darkness. I had to be alright. This was nothing. I squeezed the sole. My thumb sank into it, making a hissing sound. My heart sank with it. I pulled my foot closer to me. Lying to myself that it was nothing. I was wrong. What was left of the skin was all squishy and hollow, like flesh and bone were missing. The heel was still there. I could still see somewhat of a shape.
“What the hell are you doing making this much noise this late, Em?” Mick said in a hushed tone. I wanted to scream, tell him to call an ambulance, but the noise came out faster than my words. He saw me in my own puddle of tears and puke lying on the floor. His eyes widened with fear. Mick shoved his hand through his pocket and grabbed his phone to dial 911. My mother came soon after that
“Oh my- sweetheart, are you okay?” She said, bending down, so she could lean me against the wall. I couldn’t say anything. My throat was dry up with words I didn’t have. I saw my mother fight herself from gagging when she saw me. She sat with me for the next few hours. Distracting both of us from my body disgust.
“It’s all going to be okay. I'm not leaving the hospital until you're better.” My mother gripped the gurney a little harder. I threw a wry smile. The loving look she gave me helped little then.
The doctors couldn’t explain it. I was one of those strange, unexplainable cases you read about on the news. I wasn’t there for long, and it wouldn’t be the only time. Once I was stabilized, and they learned we had trouble paying the rent. They kicked us out
For a time, I slept out in the living room with our Rottweiler. Mom gave me some of her pills to help me sleep; she’d always cut them in half as she was afraid I’d take too much. During that time, the fact that I could find Buffy sleeping on top of my legs always made me sleep a little better. To be honest, I was just afraid of that room, afraid of dozing off again. I was afraid of what else I could lose. None of the pills did much, but I found that after a few months, things slipped back into a routine. Sure, things weren’t normal. I often found myself crying in the bathroom with whatever cheap bottle of alcohol I could find.
I needed some help adjusting to life with a crutch at first. Waiting around to win the lottery so I could fulfill my dreams of becoming part woman, part robot was surely abnormal, but you move on. Learn to live with it. Soon, the abnormal parts of my life became diluted by the passage of time. Proving my hopeless despair wrong. For a short while, I was at the best thing I could call peace. I soon found myself moving back into my room… but that paranoia never went away, and in a few weeks, I would learn that the small voice inside your head telling you that it wasn’t over. It’d only get worse, and you’ll always have to live with its consequences. The one telling you there's nowhere to run isn’t a voice, but a warning.
Parker was a scraggly kid who looked like he knew more about comic books than girls. To both of our concerns, I was right, since his father is my stepfather, Mick’s best friend, we were great together as kids, but we drifted away after Mick had gotten into a huge argument with Parker's dad. Though they fought. We were always close. He would always come stay with my family while I was home for college. He’d stay for months at a time, and nobody really cared. It was just the way it always was.
“Hey, I thought I’d stop by. You look good.” He said, shutting the car door
Whether or not he knew about my foot didn’t matter. He decided to cheer me up, and that was punishable by death.
“Yeah, I know,” I said, showing him my foot carcass. “It won’t fit on any glass slipper, but I’ll be okay…right?”
I saw his face turn green, then pale, then he vomited all over our sidewalk. I did not feel bad.
The day he came to visit always came through my mind like a swift breeze. It was easy to remember the finer details. We had dinner as soon as Parker woke up. A couple of steaks served with our best mashed potatoes. I’d remember even to this day. It was also around that time that I noticed Parker’s amazing ability to sustain his focus on my foot.
“You know you could be more conspicuous; some of us are actually trying to eat.”
“Sorry its just, what the hell happened?”
“Read about it, I've already talked about it enough.”
“Sorry”
He was embarrassed. I saw him start to eat like he was on death row
“Hey, shouldn’t you slow down a little bit?”
“Only fools waste time and food”. He said eloquently, transitioning his barbaric eating habits to dapping up his lips with a fine napkin.
I chuckled, and soon enough, both of us could feel laughter barging in our way of despair. It was the first time in months that everything had felt so light. I’ll always savor the memory of Parker sharing his stories. Telling us what life was like out in the country. Did you know not every bumpkin wore a straw hat and chewed wheat between their teeth?. It was always bittersweet for me, though. Almost impossible to remember the good without the pain that came with it. I try to live through those memories, yet I always find myself clouded with the agony of what went on later that night. How my body continued to eat itself alive. This time I saw it happen.
My body was under a chokehold, suppressed by a weight I couldn’t comprehend. All it would take is a few steps, yet each one of those steps would take light-years. Every part of my body was in a purgatory. I couldn't see. My mind was screaming at my body to move, get up, do anything to fight back. I could feel everything down to my blood cells trying to bring my fingers back to life, but you can’t reanimate a corpse. Every breath was a lifetime, living, dying, living again, dying again. Nothing I could do or say. It was taking what was left of me to stay afloat. I was falling into a bottomless pit. Then, suddenly, I was hit with a jolt of life, a rush of adrenaline, my ring finger twitched, then my pinky, then middle, then thumb. Soon, I regained control of my hand, and after that, getting the other parts of my arm was easier. I had to feel around; it pained me to know what came next. My hand smoothed over the slight curvature of my body. My heart was racing. “Check.” I thought. I slowly reached down to my pelvis, touching my outer thigh. The back of my hand knocked back into something soft and thin. Like fur. Hot breath ran down my leg, making my body quiver. The rest of my muscles tensed, hearing springs in the mattress slowly rise and fall, I was too frightened to look. It was Buffy. Had to be. Eventually, I heard him slither through a crack in my doorway. I had to keep going. I slid my hand down my leg. My body conformed and twisted toward its axis. The effects of my surrender were wearing off. Everything was void of color except for the bright red seeping through my bedsheets. I could finally see. I was shedding, and dried skin lingered below my knee. My calf was exposed, showing the raw mix of muscle and fat beneath the skin.
I had lost more of my leg. Flakes of skin crowded my bed. It was nothing short of hot red flesh up to my knee. The lack of pain made me more afraid. I knew another doctor's visit would be hopeless.
My only hope was the pills. Better to let the disease run its course. I reached for my crutch next to my bedside. The uncomfortable pain of my sticky, raw flesh peeling away from the bed made me almost vomit. I wrapped my fingers around the handle. I wasn’t going to let go. Every step I made was progress. I couldn’t think about why the door was shut. I couldn’t remember hearing it open. A feeling of dread washed over me. There was a puddle of blood soaking into my carpet. I swung it open. Claw marks filled my door. I could see bits of bone in them. Everything told me to walk away. That my own body wasn’t the only threat. Gritting my teeth. I moved on. I needed an escape now more than ever, even if it was temporary.
In the end, I had reached paradise. I didn’t feel, didn’t think, I wasn’t aware of anything. Every step was made perfect by the result of my action. What could have been weeks or days felt like seconds. Soon I’d have to face reality, but even if it was for a moment, it was bliss
I woke up in the hospital a week later. I saw my mother asleep in a chair with her head on my bedside. Parker was there too. He looked awkward standing near the entrance
“I see she trudged you along.”
“No, I was…” he found comfort in looking at the ground, “kind of worried.”
“Kind of?”
“Well, don’t act so shocked.”
We laughed, but my drifting eyes snapped me back to reality. My leg was gone. Not only the calf, but all the way up to my thigh. What was once my leg had now turned into a revolting stump. Spots of mushy darkness scattered around my other foot. Soon I’d be in a wheelchair, bound by the limitations of my own rotting body. I didn’t have the energy to cry; I couldn’t emote in any normal sense anymore. I didn’t want to think about that. I heard my mother rustle awake. Then we locked eyes
“I…”
Neither of us knew what to say. Only the quiet hums of an unconditional love filled the air between us. I was fine with that because I already knew everything she wanted to say, everything she felt. Her concern.
“How’s Buffy? Is she okay?”
“I’m sorry. We had too…”
“Put her down,” Parker interjected quietly
They wanted to keep me there for more tests, but I refused. I would rather let this disease swallow me whole until there's nothing left of me than die in a hospital bed surrounded by unfashionable men in lab coats to be filled with a false assurance that I might see another day.
The night I came home. Walking through the apartment felt like a vague memory. A blurry version of an old picture. Time moved on without me. The first odd thing was that Mick was actually cooking. I couldn’t tell which was more horrifying, his food or my “disease”.
“Welcome home Em,” he smiled
I revolted. I hated it when he called me that
“What's Cookin'?” I said, trying to divert the conversation from anything to do with me. Mick was over by the stove. Burning whatever was in front of him on the skillet.
“Grilled cheese. " You're in luck, it’s already done.” He set the table with our plates. Which was even more unusual. I could never figure out why my mother married the man. The best conclusion I could come up with was a tax break. Though part of me had to admit. There were times he did step up to the plate. Even worse, he does a stint as the good guy. Sometimes he’d just grow on you before it got worse. I like think I always saw through his bullshit.
Parker sat down next to me. Out of the darkness, from the living room. He had a black eye. Half his face looked bruised. Every breath was through his mouth. Showing missing teeth and the bloody spots left behind.
“What happened to you?” Parker looked at me. His face only got worse.
“It's…” He looked at Mick, “Nothing, don’t worry about it.” He looked right back at me. Threw me a smile that I knew was fake.
I put my hand on his. “Hey. It’s not nothing. You can tell me anything.” I tried to be as comforting as possible. He looked like he was on the verge of tears. All I wanted to do was be there for him. As he was there for me.
The table slammed with ferocious anger. “That's enough! Your dinner's going to get cold. Now eat before it does. You were lucky enough that I made it.”
“Yes, Lucky me,” I thought and gave up on trying to pry into Parker's life. Not because of Mick and his childlike behavior. Because I knew he wouldn’t tell me. If I pried any further, it would only push him away.
Parker took a bite of his sandwich. A slight hesitation was on his face before. I followed, thinking nothing of it.
“Your mother’s working late tonight, isn’t that right?”
“Yes, it’s going to be a long night for her.”
I saw Parker grip his spoon a little harder when I said that. I wanted to ask him what was wrong again. Break through the barriers I put between us already, but that look he had. The quiet tension between us. It felt wrong, too.
“So, I guess it’s just us then, huh?”
Parker couldn’t eat; he looked sick. I found him staring at his food more than he was eating it. Mick shot him a look, not an angry one; it was more threatening in nature. Parker shot up. He didn’t say anything. All he did was rush towards the bathroom. I had to check up on him, I thought he might’ve been sick. I excused myself
“NO!” he yelled, slamming his fist into the table, then clearing his throat, “ You’ve barely finished your dinner.” He threw an imitation of a real smile.
“Fuck you. He could be vomiting his guts out by now.”
I marched towards Parker. Every step felt like a burden. My eyes were losing again and again. Finally, I had reached him
I slammed the door shut, locking it so we’d be alone. The room was spinning out of control. I saw him fully exposed. Nothing was left hidden anymore. Parker was on the floor, tears rolling down his cheek. His fingers had been shoved deep within his mouth. His gagging was frequent, but no vomit ever came.
“It’s Mick,” He said, sobbing, “He’s been drugging you.”
Everything became dizzy. My body hit the floor, and everything went black
Parker sat at the edge of my bed when I woke. The moonlight cascaded on him from my window. His hand rushed to mine. It was then that I noticed the same black mold I had. Has taken three of his fingers.
“I’m going to kill him.” I didn’t know how he was doing it or why. If we were just some screwed-up experiment. Or if he was just some menace who hated us. The other alternative shrouded my mind with fear. The simple fact that it could be unrelated.
“Think about this, think about what you're doing,” Parker said desperately
He was almost unrecognizable, with his black eye, broken nose, and bleeding, pale lips. I could only make out his voice.
“He could kill you without even trying. I saw a gun before I saw all the pills.”
“I'm already dead, Park, there's nothing left of me.”
“You may have nothing to lose, but we do.”
What he said sent me back a bit. I didn’t realize it then, but Parker was the closest thing I had to a friend during all this
“Okay, hero, what's your plan?”
“We could run, go out of state somewhere far away.”
“I’m not leaving her behind!” I lowered my voice “Mom doesn’t know about any of this.”
“And if you kill him, you’ll never be the same in her eyes, First she finds out the man she married was a…” His lips move as if he thought of a different word. “A monster, then what her daughter is a killer. The woman she raised.”
“You're right, but if I have to look like the monster to save her from him, then so be it.”
There was a long pause. Parker took a deep breath and sighed
“Fine, tell me what you need me to do.”
I didn’t notice that I had lost both my legs. I didn't notice the gross pool that sank into my sheets or the rotten smell permeating from it. I was hellbent on convincing Parker, and if I’m being honest myself, that killing Mick was my only way out, that it was the right thing to do. I didn’t have a plan. My rage was blinding to my soul. Guilt trembled through me. I had just convinced Parker to murder a man, and I didn’t know how I was going to pull it off. We thought Mick would run, maybe he’d think he got too bold, but when my mom came home and he acted like nothing had happened, we realized that the bruises on Parker’s face was a message saying “I own you” he wasn’t afraid that we would do anything, to him we weren’t even human just soulless flesh bags ready to fulfill his secret desires. We were desperate. We couldn’t prove anything; the pills weren’t even his. Looking back, I would’ve found any excuse for anything short of killing him. Eventually, a plan formed
Mick had always been terrible at hiding things. birthday presents, alcohol, and drugs. Didn’t matter what it was, you could always spot the difference in any room. I think he took “hidden in plain sight” too literally. His most prized possession, a bottle of a vintage 92 cognac, was found hidden in a drawer labeled “work stuff”.
It didn’t take long to find the pills; the hard part was finding a replacement. It needed to be dissolvable, hidden from the world like a getaway driver after the perfect crime. Can’t be traceable either. Bought in cash. Something very easy to come by. Honestly, after very little research. I found a sugar pill. Parker went on his way.
Park came back after a while. He looked nervous, trembling when he saw me
“Are you sure you want to do this?”
“Yes, you switched pills around, didn’t you?”
“Yes…”
“Good. Next, we wait.”
It was a normal day like any other. Fall had just kicked in. I had to admit I lingered by the window. Nature was God's masterpiece before us. Vibrant colors lingered from the trees. The smell of the air sent me back to when I was innocent, playing in the leaves. For a moment, I thought about running away. To never look back, carry on as if nothing had ever happened. I know I wouldn't have gotten far; I’d probably end up dead in a ditch somewhere. Maybe that would have been better, yet I know I would hate myself more if I didn’t try. Even if my mother never saw me the same way again. If she never looked into my eyes and saw the sweet, innocent girl she raised all alone. If I poured my heart out trying to save her from that monster, then at least I’d know I would have some peace in the end.
A knife was hidden under my pillow. I had played it over and over again in my head. I’d wait until he was on top of me, then stab him right in the throat
BAM!!
A gunshot rang through my ears. I wasn’t desirable to him anymore. I slumped out of bed. My thin fingers wrapped around the handle, leaving room for the knife. Walking with a crutch has become normal to me now. I didn't think about the base slamming into the floor, or how a slight misstep might throw me out of balance. With every step, my mind was on Parker. Sifting through our memories. I gave in. I let the false hope convince me that he was okay. That I would open the door and he’d be perfectly fine. Park would throw me one of his awkward smiles, then tell me he dropped something. Reality stung looking into his face,
“drip….drip….drip”
I didn’t need to go in that room. I knew what happened. Mick was gone. The gun was next to a body. He wasn’t human anymore. The soul of his eyes was gone
“drip…drip…drip”
I already knew everything he did, what Parker did to him.
“drip…drip…drip”
I lunged forward as the crutches fell off my decaying shoulders, my heart beating against my chest
“Drip”
My guts spilled out onto the floor. Blood soaked into the floorboards. Organs lay out on the dirty floor like a silver platter. Ribcage slightly poked out of my chest while it rose and fell. I should not be alive. I was a surgeon's playground. A nightmare for all to see.
I saw Parker’s corpse lying beside me
“Why,” I could barely get the words out, “Why didn’t you wait for me?”
“....”
The only thing that came from his wrinkly lips was blood
My eyes yearned for a light. I must have lain there for hours, yet it felt like days. No one was coming for me. No light at the end of the tunnel. I felt it all: anger, disgust, fear, and an aching heart yearning for a final end… Why was I alive?
I was in the hospital for two months. Once they figured out they couldn’t do anything, they sent me to some government lab for research. Reporters, Journalists, they all wanted to talk to me, but I didn’t know what I’d say. How could I tell them that my only hope was for this disease to take what's left of this body of death? I’d continue to decay. Fingers, nails, bones, I lost it all. Eventually, I stopped decaying once half of my face was gone. In the end, everything just became numb like a shaded reflection of the outside world. They never figured out how or why. I’m not even the one writing this, just a floating head in a tube telling some researcher what to say.
I didn’t have the voice box to speak. One of the men in a lab coat figured that since my brain still works, I should be able to speak through a computer. I wish they didn’t. Talking to those people was mind-numbingly boring
Matt Gaiman from the New York Times. That's what he said when he introduced himself. He was a young man. Maybe late 20s, said he wanted to do an interview. I refused at first, but after the third or fourth time he had asked, I gave in. The first round of questions was what you’d expect.
“How do you think this all started?”
I let the screen go blank
“How do you expect to adjust to a life like this?”
“I d o n t.”
“Interesting,” he said, tapping his pen alongside his clipboard. Oh, where had the empathy gone? They might as well put me in a museum. Next to a war that people had already forgotten about.
Eventually, he asked me a question that actually made me think.
“Your stepfather's trial has recently blown up. If they manage to put you on the stand somehow. What would you say to him?”
I didn’t answer that one either. Only the bouncing line on the monitor spoke for me. I let him go empty-handed, but what he had said stuck with me. Throughout the time spent, I was imprisoned with my own thoughts. That question had always rang through my mind. Not about the trial. He deserved every year he got on his sentence. Though personally, if I saw him again, I know what I would say.
I had lost everything that night. I saw evil in the eyes of a man I knew too well. Yet I couldn’t answer my own question when I asked myself before. What would I say to the monster who took everything from me? The devil who stole my body. All my thoughts were always complemented by a seething anger, a desire to wrap my pretty little hand around his throat and see his mangled soul come out of him. Day after day, the foul look I saw on that beast's face became the only face I could make out. I saw it on the Researchers, Matt, I saw it on my mother's face looking into her casket. Even then, he took more away. Letting me watch through a damn monitor. I saw his face that night Parker and I had said our final goodbyes. There was no escaping it, no justice to be served, no punishment to fit the crime. All that was left of me was a burning passion for hatred. Writing this has helped me understand that I can’t live like this anymore. If I had just one more day to live, if this disease had given me another day to live, then I’d know that I wouldn’t want to spend it with this anger.
Which brings me to why I’m writing this. I needed people to understand why I’m choosing to forgive what that monster had done to me. No, I needed to understand why. What he did to me was pure evil. Nothing he could ever do could make up for the atrocities he had committed. I don’t know when this disease will take me. Every day, it gets worse, and I get to see if it's mental pain or a physical paradox. I chose this purely so I could see another face, one whom I love. I only wanted one last day before I die. I already knew what that was like.
Update: 3:32 AM, my eyes struggled to open. I was blinded by the light that surrounded me. I felt the cold tiles of the lab. An unbearable sting of pain shot through my body. Then the feeling in my fingers came back to me. First, my ring finger twitched, then my pinky, then my middle, then my thumb. I felt the smooth curvature of my body; eventually, I was brave enough to look down. My body was all back in one piece, but it was bruised, and every bone felt like it was broken. Yet through all the pain, I knew I was going to heal