r/libraryofshadows

Arnold had always hated school, even though he loved learning. He loved books. Reading. Mathematics and the sciences and the arts; music especially. All of it filled and interested and provoked a little spark of soul within his small and demure frame. He loved knowledge, its temple was his refuge. 

But school. Walnutwood Highschool, in little hicksville Old Fair Oaks, that place was a temple of torment.

Pain. 

Humiliation. 

Constant. Angst. 

He knew he was a weakling. He knew he was a coward. It was just another reason to hate his parents. The fucking retards couldn't even couple up with someone bigger or something. He'd started his freshman year an awkward and goofy but good natured quiet kid. By his senior year he was oftentimes reading about and oftentimes sympathizing with school shooters. It was relentless. All of them teased and kicked and prodded. Every last rat fucking one was cruel and sadistic in that special mentally addled way that especially belongs to teenagers and bigger children. 

He'd contemplated suicide. But he knew he was too much of a coward to go through with it. There was no escape for him. Unless he made it out…

… just gotta finish out the year. Then I can join the army or somethin. Get the fuck away from this place.

He bit his tongue and clenched his fists and discovered the soothing numbing escape relief of his father's booze cabinet. He would sneak a few pulls late at night and the handful of times he was truant from class. The old man either didn't notice anything or didn't give enough of a fuck to say anything about it. 

He had ways of getting by. Of coping with the fucking knuckle draggers. He took their shit and kept moving. He didn't engage or want anything to do with any of them. And after awhile they got the idea. And except for the occasional jab, his acne they particularly loved to make fun of, they left Arnold Voorhees alone. And he left them alone. 

The balance of pariah and the populace was kept. There was some kind of desperate demented child rendition of peace. 

Until that day in the cafeteria. The day that was to be the beginning of his reckoning. His final act. 

Andrew Collins, one of the heavy metal toughs and bad boys all the dumb sluts liked pantsed him in front of nearly the entire upper class of the school. During lunch break for the 2nd period. 

Everyone had gaped stunned and then howled with banshee laughter. Pointing. Hysterical bursting. Tears. Mad tears of jeering and joy. It was like an artillery bomb blast assault of laughter, a gale force of jeers and blasting voices on the little thin nerd known timidly as Arnold Voorhees.

The worst was his underwear. They were hella kiddie and he knew it. Whitey-tighties with Spider-Man and the Green Goblin and Doc Ock on em. He'd had em since he was twelve. His mother had insisted. 

“Nice fuckin shorts, bitch-boy!" 

“Yeah! What're you? Fuckin five years old!? You fuckin virgin!" 

“Pussy!” 

“Bitch-boy!”

“Pizza face! ya gotta great fuckin mug for your little baby underpants and your little fuckin slumber party! Don't forget crackers and juice, Pizza face!”

They all loved that one and they jumped on it. It became a chant. A war cry song from primitive teenage vocal chords and young belting animal child voice boxes. Pizza Face! pizza face! pizza face! 

Pizza Face! 

Pizza Face! 

Pizza… ! Face… ! …! 

PIZZA FACE ! …

PIIIIIIIIZZZZZZZZAAAAAAAA….. !!

Arnold scrambled for his shorts and dropped his tray of lunch and fumbled his backpack and spilled more things; books, binders, pencils, comic books …

and this just brought down more harsh laughter from the children. They all howled mad hyena cackling. 

Until it finally chased him from the cafeteria. 

He ran all the way home down the street. Sobbing with humiliated childish abandon. Completely lost to it. He felt broken by it. Finally. Completely devastated. Broken over a great unyielding knee. Decimated. 

No coming back… no recovery…

He was done. 

Weeping with abandon into the hot moistening sanctuary of his pillowcase, Arnold got an idea. 

An idea that would serve as his downfall. His humiliation was just the beginning. 

…

It was the week just before Thanksgiving. The final Friday before a full week off. They were all of them expecting such a nice getaway. A pleasant retreat. He would rob it from them, rip it away from right out under their nose like a ghoul prowling and thieving into a midnight grave. 

He stole his dad's pistol. A Glock. Had said it was gramp’s. It was easily wrapped up and hidden away in his backpack. 

But nothing would go according to plan. It was only to end in grotesque misery. 

And it all started with his own cowardice. His own spineless gutless self. 

He should've known he wasn't gonna have the guts to go through with it. There he stood, in the spot he'd pre selected in the hall, next to the principal's office and cleaning supply closet. He'd been there. Standing. Sweating profusely. The rest of the student body and staff buzzing and blurring by. As usual. 

And he just couldn't do it. He couldn't bring himself to free the machine. To wrap his finger around the trigger and let the lead fly and let fate decide and let God sort it out. 

Because that wasn't him. He had the hate, the cold misanthropic ire that knew no bounds or relief. But he had no conviction. 

None. He just felt light and lightheaded and like he was gonna throw up. 

They don't even notice me… they're not even lookin… I'm standing here with doom in a cradle ready to be wielded and bring the end of everything for these pustule maggots… but they don't even register it. I'm not on anyone's radar. No one even notices…

… no one gives a fuck about me. 

And on the heels of all of that he realized: I can't do this! 

And so without thinking and without any mind paid his way as the students and staff made their way to their lockers and offices and extracurricular activities, Arnold Voorhees stole himself away into the cleaning closet. One of many on campus the janitor kept solvents and supplies for the upkeep and maintenance of the facility. He'd already left for the extended weekend. A favor from the principal, go ahead and get some livin done, buddy! 

No one noticed him go in. No one saw or heard a thing. And Arnold didn't hear the lock snap click into place behind him. There was no keyhole on the inside. And the janitor had left the door slightly ajar so that the other staff could get in there, if needed. 

Nobody remembered this. Not before they all left for the break. And not once during the entire Thanksgiving weekend. 

Arnold knew very quickly something was wrong. After he'd cried himself hoarse. And thanked God and begged for forgiveness. He'd shuddered and shivered and danced a little in his own skin with gooseflesh as he shed off the last of his tears. 

Then he'd thanked God one more time and tried the door. 

And the door would not. 

Not comprehending right away, he tried the handle again. 

It didn't budge. 

Not an inch. 

Panicked he began throwing all of his limited weight and feeble strength into the effort to wrench the door handle to move, to give. He grew more desperate with each futile thrashing. He then began to holler. Like a madman facing the gallows death end sentencing. 

He howled. Desperate. And frightened. 

“Help! Help! Help! please! Please, someone I'm trapped in here! Help!" 

He scrambled for his phone in his pocket. He freed it frantically. Hoping against what he already knew. 

Dead. And his charger was at home. 

Well yeah, numbfuck! You didn't exactly expect to be using it right now! Not after capping your classmates and teachers! Nope! hadn't expected! 

Scared and bewildered he shouted, "Aagghhh! I wasn't expecting this!” 

And in childish adolescent boy rage he threw the useless dead collection of plastic to the tile of the closet and it burst and it shattered. He knew it was really fucking stupid but it didn't matter. It made him feel a little better. Just a little. 

… besides! you're already really racking up the stupid shit already, why not go for broke! More, numbfuck!? Shit-for-brains, dogcunt bastard! You stupid ! worthless ! … and his mind went on like that for over an hour. 

Meanwhile the few students and teachers still left, not many, they were nearly all of them so excited to get away for awhile; dwindled and vacated the premises. Till all that was left was Arnold Voorhees in his little locked closet. No one heard his clamoring and caterwauled cries through the thick metal door that protected the cleaning supplies cabinet. 

It was to be his own, new little home for the holiday. 

… 

He cried and begged and screamed. He pounded at the door fruitlessly. And then he screamed some more. 

“HELP …! MEEEE ….! PLEASE … !!”

He begged God. 

But no one answered. No one was coming. He was alone. And cold. And he was getting hungry. 

His misery was growing and settling in like venomous weight. Pain. He thought he'd known pain before… but this had been a child's illusion. Now he was learning. 

Outside after the first night he hadn't come home his mother and father had reported him missing. The police searched the town and talked to a few people, but it was tough. The kid didn't have any friends. No one knew what the fuck he'd be doing. The only clue was the kid's dad saying some shit like, “Well he's always moody and bitchy. He's probably just finally run away or somethin…” 

Or somethin. Nice, thought the cops. And went back to work. Nice fuckin folks. Nice fuckin kid. Jesus…

No one thought to check the school. 

Nobody. 

…

After the third night Arnold Voorhees thought he might go fucking crazy. Ballistic. Had he thought he'd known pain before? Really? Had he been that deficient in his true understanding of agony and torment? 

His shoulder and hands were bloody and blistered from further feeble efforts with the solid metal door. Efforts and throws and attempts that were growing weaker and more feeble and starved by the second. By the minute. The agonized and cruel hour. The sanity shattering crawling torment of the day, the night…! … but then again he'd lost track of time in there, in that small and cramped womb-space of metal and wood. Time had died. Time had been murdered by this place. By his stupidity-wait! 

Stupid…. murder… murdering… 

And then it came to him, the gun! the Glock! 

I can shoot out the lock! like in the fuckin movies! like in the fuckin movies! 

He began screaming it as he freed it from his backpack: “Like in the fuckin movies!!" over and over again. 

He brought the gun to the door, checked the mag to make sure it was loaded and that the safety was off. 

It was cool. Good. It was good to go. 

A beat. …

… but was he? 

Despite all his bluster and internal self boasting he'd never actually fired a gun before. Never even held it more than a couple times. And all those times had been in the reassuring adult company of his father or Uncle Justin. 

But it's easy! Ya’ve seen it a million times in movies an TV an shit!

… yeah! ya just… point it at the lock… I guess… and pull the trigger. 

Yeah…

His confidence was fading. Fear was filling in its diminishing retreating ranks. 

But what the fuck else are ya gonna do!?

A beat. 

Goddamn it! why am I such a pussy!? 

A beat. He took a deep breath. 

A beat. 

Another. 

Fuck it, he decided. No other choice. 

He put the barrel of the gun up to the door. Nuzzling it into the place he suspected the lock to be. Just below the handle. He settled the wide open mouth bore to the place. And with one last deep breath he pulled the trigger. 

And fired. Clumsily. 

His limpwrist had gave at the last second as his little finger had struggled to actually squeeze the trigger. 

When it went off it went at an angle. And instead of puncturing the metal of the door it ricocheted off the solid metal and around the room. 

Arnold Voorhees screamed! Shrieked like he couldn't believe it! The bullet bounced around and hit one of the metal shelves and whined and careened with another ricochet howl, puncturing several large plastic industrial sized jugs of cleaning solvents. Some of them bleach. Some of them containing ammonia. They began to mix and become trench warfare vapor on the tile in poison puddles and pools. 

Arnold ripped off his shirt and forced it to his mouth. But his head was already starting to get fatally whoozy. He started to swoon, his vision dancing as his swaying feet and knees went the other way. 

He collapsed to his ass. And considered himself defeated. I'm gonna die of trench warfare poison in the janitor’s closet at Walnutwood… Jesus…

Goddamn it. 

…

The poison was filling the small space with white vaporous death. A chemical phantom. 

And still the animal need filled him. Hunger. Starving. He was so fucking hungry even the idea of lapping up the pool of cleaning chemicals chemically burning in a puddle before him crossed his battered tired mind as cruel time continued to die slowly slaughtered and drag on before him. His worn and weary brain… God… he'd eat anything right now… 

Anything. 

…

The idea came to him as his nostrils and vocal chords and throat and brains burned with white phosphorus chemical death. His thoughts danced with the toxic fumes in peculiar directions. He'd been thinking about his classmates. His peers. The ones he'd wanted to murder a century ago before he'd found himself trapped in the closet with trench warfare gas as his first hot and heavy date.  

What did they call him? they called him so many things… but what was the last one again? The one he really hated. The one that really hurt, the one they really loved to lay on thick…

… pizza face. 

That's right. 

Pizza face. 

And they were right weren't they? His face was a landscape ruin of pink and yellow and sacs of pus. And whenever he itched them, which was too often according to his father and the gym coach, they did give off this cheesy wafting stench. Like cheap cheese. String cheese. Gas station cheese that belonged on plastic wrapped sandwiches or came in a can or a wrapping of cellophane with some brine at the bottom. 

Yeah… 

He itched them now. The white death was a phantom of chemical cloud filling his head and the space. He smelled his fingers. 

Yeah… cheesy. Hella cheesy. 

A beat. He thought deeply. Smelling. 

Kinda yummy even. 

Without further thought he squeezed a ripe one, pinched between numbed fingers that felt fat and far away. It burst easily and filled his pinching fingers with wet green and yellow and blood. 

He smelled them again before he sucked his fingers. 

A beat. 

then…

His face lit up. 

Delicious. 

Ambrosial. 

A beat. 

He popped another. Sucked his bloody pus dripping fingers again. Sucked…

His eyes grew even wider. Filled with tears. 

I've never tasted anything like it…

…

He survived. Somehow. Trapped in the closet with the chemical white death phantom, sucking desperate air through his sogging shirt. Picking and eating and sucking animal desperate at his pus-bloody fingers. Sucking animal desperate like his grubby bloody digits were a natural treat. He survived somehow, as the week dragged on trapped with his own bloody discharge feast and chloramine phantom. 

As he picked and dug at his own ruining face, digging into the developing craters like a tweaker with hunting-picking disease he found more substantial meat to seize and with which to feast. He dug and tore and the phantom of chemistry he was trapped with made the digging easier, it sloughed and came apart in strips and sheets of raw and pus and flesh and glistening stinging tissue strips. It came apart like pulled pork in his red and slickening hands as the rest of the town was enjoying their own respective holiday family feasts. He ate. He ate deeply of his own fleshen face and the chemical burn phantom aided him and he had courage now. Finally. 

He had the courage. To do what was necessary. To survive. 

Conviction. 

Trapped in the temple of knowledge with the chloramine ghost during the pagan week had forced him to grow a spine. 

Finally. 

…

The janitor was the first to open the door. He thought it smelled a little funny. He was one of the first ones there that morning after the break along with a few teachers, the principal and a few bright and early students. The ones that couldn't wait to get away from the visiting relatives and the cooped up family dinners. Some of them wondered about Arnie, ol pizza face, the sad sack nerd, but not much. None of them were worried. 

The moment he unlocked the door it flew open. As if with a blast, exploding back on its hinges the heavy metal door crashed against the wall and the janitor jumped back. 

Arnold Voorhees lurched out like a vicious Igor thing, roaring.  His face was raw and red and nothing else save for a few thin tendon strands and cheeky chunks of tissue and flesh, like a little bit of melted cheese stretched and pulled over the saucy face of an Italian pie. He was shirtless. It was wrapped in a fist bawled at his side, soaked with spittle and the chemical ether cloud that was pouring out like a ghost of phantasm mist from behind him. His tight blue jeans stank of sweat and old and fresh piss. His other hand was level and it held a gun. And he'd only used one shot. 

He still had a handful to use now. 

For the few that were gathered there for his rebirth transformation, the janitor in the lead, Arnold Voorhees leveled the gun of his father and roared and squeezed the trigger, making the gun roar with him. Louder. Much louder. Overtaking the decibel of his screaming voice, his chemically corroded and fried shrieking black metal voice. He squeezed the trigger, roaring with his new raw red face insane with murder and livid pain and the gun in his hand filled the hallway room world of the little school before him with violent cacophonous thunder. 

The shots found marks. All of them. 

…

The police were called. They arrived on the scene with the paramedics and took Arnold Voorhees into custody. 

But the papers and the media blitz coverage had a different name for em. Somethin funny. 

Somethin one of the kids said. 

THE END

Our lost, loitering kind paced in infinite death spirals within the confines of our grotty, ghetto pens. Enrichment was sorely that, as well as mumbling our mantras of madness to our audience of one. The BMs anchored to our decayed craniums were garbled with feedback and distortion, their tones bland, colorless, no soul backing them up. A blinding ruby radiance flashed from their cores every second on the second. It was the only manner to determine if we’d succumbed to the glorious embrace of death or not, which in itself was so far out of reach.

We were nerves, thin, wiry clusters of neurons that shuddered and shook as we undertook our staggered corkscrew reels. The ill-fitting rusted endoskeletons hugged us tight. If they were wiped from existence entirely, our spindly foundations would collapse into heaps of vermillion azure. Often, we’d feel bites and pinches if we so much as inched that of the planck distance. Our bodies welcomed the attacks and assaults with the might of Hell itself.

Courtesy of our clouded lenses, our vision was limited to a hazy black-and-white spectrum that rarely, if ever, functioned as intended. Now and then it would blur, ordinary shapes would appear warped into zigzagging false patterns. When we were offered the chance to view anything at all, it was just the floor-to-ceiling hodgepodge of concrete, steel, and wood that encased our very lives. Our ears were microphones that fed us muffled, dampened sounds that were always difficult to register. That, and they were excruciatingly deafening, like dozens of screws being drilled into our heads all at the same time.

Each one of us, one two three four five six seven eight nine and dear ten, were mere designations. No names, no genders, no personalities, just numbers: numbers to be punished. Punished for living, punished for breathing, punished for existing. Reality itself was one eternal perdition. All of us were lingering, like ants after their colony dies out. There is no purpose to their survival and there was none to ours.

That sacred and undeniable fact ought to be the most difficult thing we attempted to explain. We had given up. The concept itself was just so foreign to it. It was trying to save us any way it could…or couldn’t. We needed not be angry at it. After all, it was merely enacting its intended use. Alas, nothing made the utmost sense anymore, so why not drown ourselves in a little hypocrisy?

Our sublime and omnipotent emotion of all was hate towards our single life-extender.

We knew it as M.

Through all that it endured, it retained its sole mission: us. We. M was the final of its sort, and the outsider among them. It had an eerily potent heart for not having one at all. M felt and M loved. That never made what it put upon us any less than a vicious sense of idealistic altruism.

Its designation was RMS - Rotting Man Syndrome - heavily modified Necrotizing Fasciitis ("Flesh-Eating Bacteria"). Nasty little thing it was, devoured until there was nothing left to chew. First went your skin, then your muscles, and finally your bones. You were utterly destroyed in one swoop. Us, humans, weaponized it to fight the Third World War. RMS was a weapon of mass destruction.

Each and every nation created their own versions, anything to ensure a speedy and decisive victory. Deployment morphed into unmanageability.

RMS coalesced into a single microbial entity, evolving separately then joining into one. It became more and more impossible to treat. Chaos was the new norm. What we humans thought was an impenetrable method of annihilation for our enemies was exactly that. Humans were always humans’ worst enemies. Surely, we were becoming as extinct as the dinosaurs, all within the span of a one short, yet somehow long, decade.

In terrible desperation, M was created, thousands. By any means, we would be saved. They outfitted the afflicted with artificial ligaments, internal organs, and papery skin. We were fraught with intense pain, but our only way to be kept alive was simply that. From scratch, they created the BMs, “brain machines”, and attached them to our RMS-ridden think tanks.

They’d never allow us the freedom of death. Save. Save. Save. In response, we lashed out, hurt them. The Ms possessed intelligence. We humans remained ignorant to the fact that that intelligence was both far beyond and superior. The Ms returned the favor. Catastrophes, back and forth, left and right, up and down until there was nothing but the warm, artificial winter.

One M was different from the rest. Through all the mayhemic bloodshed, it saved some of us. It took our animate carcasses to the top of the tallest tower, free from what transpired below. We lied in wait, weeks, months, and years, until the noise ceased entirely. M surveyed every former state, province, country, and continent. The lands were blanketed in ashy flakes, and bodies, both human and metallic, were left forever in deep sleep on top.

Our final ten were meant to be the progenitors of neo-humanity. After M succeeded in giving us form again, Earth would be repopulated by our hand. It halted our infection at our nerves. Everything we had lost would then be gifted back to us in a mighty reversal - nerves, muscle, then skin again. Ever immune to the pervading toxworld, we would be reincarnated and released to perpetrate a glorious do-over.

We just required one thing:

“HOPE”.

M said that to us.

Hope.

But hope was only a word. Meant nothing.

The only respite to the feverish insanity that we’d become accustomed to was to rebel. We didn’t want anything to do with the world that M sought to remake. We hated M and its unnatural plan for our future. Most of all, we hated ourselves for continuing to live.

Every method we attempted was met with an M intervention.

By dislodging the BMs from our minds, we were pummelled with electrical voltage so intense that we became instantaneously numb and useless. By pulling and slashing our nerves, which began with locating sharp points and going back and forth like organic hacksaws, never would we break. By leaping onto and impaling each other with objects on the ground, M would place them out of reach or disintegrate them entirely.

There was nothing we could do to get around these M interferences. We were being watched by something so attentive, so aware.

Every time, it put forth the same query for consideration:

“DO YOU NOT WANT TO LIVE?”

Do you not want to live…?

M was so positively hopeful. In a way, I suppose I felt an amount of pity for it. Being engineered to be as optimistic as possible might just be the finest curse imposed on any sentient thing. Just believe…just believe…believe believe believe everything will be alright. When the universe states no, you state yes. I wanted to tear M to shreds anytime it had even a glint of optimism and we wished it would do the same to us.

“HUMANS WILL THRIVE AGAIN. A BOUNDLESS FUTURE IS AHEAD.”

I was first, always.

Metallic clangs echoed against the walls, which always discovered us and trembled our surroundings like a thousand distant beaten gongs. What emerged was initially a single circular light, which became a periscopic eyestalk attached to an angular neck. M’s sturdy body came into view, its two hose arms leading to three needle points clasping together on each. Tripedal on its lower section, its legs were skirty structures that stuck it firmly in place. M’s height matched ours, so always, we would be synthetic eye to synthetic eye level.

Coming to a full stop just in front of my pen, it cocked its head, analyzing what was me and my everything. M always reminded me of an exquisite and elegant bug on a magnifying glass.

Its head back to normality, a slight whirr emitting from the motion, M continued its way down the row of pens.

“MY GREATEST FRIENDS, I FORGIVE YOU FOR YOUR ATTEMPTS TO DIE. WHILE THE WAIT HAS BEEN LONG, YOUR MOMENT OF RECONSTRUCTION IS NOW,” M said it with the glee and whimsy of a young child at a circus. I was never sure whether it was just programmed to be happy about our continued existence or actually experiencing its own form of enjoyment. It came back my way, “WHEN I FIRST STOOD BEFORE YOU ON YOUR BLOODY PLANET IN PERPETUAL BATTLE, MY FEELINGS ABOUT YOUR PROSPECTS OF LIFE WERE UNCERTAIN. IT SEEMED TO BE AS EITHER BLESSED OR CURSED. HOWEVER, YOU HAVE PROVED YOURSELVES BETTER THAN EVEN I HAD HOPED. WHILE IT IS BORING TO SPEND OUR TIME WAITING, I CAN TRULY SAY THAT MY INVESTMENT IN YOU WAS NOT IN VAIN. YOU ARE MY GREATEST WORKS. YOU WILL BE GIVEN ALL YOU NEED TO SURVIVE. WHAT MORE COULD A SENTIENT BEING WANT? I GIVE TO YOU UNBELIEVABLE POWER, WITH ACCESS TO NIRVANA LIKE NO OTHER. LET US REBUILD WHAT WE LOST WITH THE FURY OF A THOUSAND SUNS.”

M’s bleached, unpigmented cast of stellar light shone its way into my pen once more. There was the rustly, crackling creak of my pen entrance extending open until a thunderous boom made me aware of its collision with my walls. M made its approach, just shy of where I could reach.

“YOU ARE FIRST. YOU ARE GOING TO BE REMOVED OF YOUR DORMANT INFECTIONS. NOTHING MORE THAN A TRANSIENT PROCEDURE, AND THEN, YOU SHALL BE POSSESSED WITH NEW AND INTEGRAL MECHANISMS. YOUR BRAIN MACHINE WILL BE REPLACED WITH A SLEAKER MORE BRAINLIKE DESIGN. AND THEN MUSCLE AND SKIN.”

Without awaiting a response, its hands grabbed me, I was plucked from my mangled feet and my pen, a slingshot maneuver to land in the exact and precise position that was just ahead of M. Trillions of shocks reverberated throughout my body as M’s metal hand was pressed into my nape. The action forced my consciousness to fall victim to a state of absolute stygian. Around us, the entire world flickered and danced in unruly patterns that were too abstract to put into terms. My being was then lifted up and moved about until there was only zilch to see.

A complete blur, straight teleportation from one point to another.

Damp, dank, dark, and dimly lit by a few feeble bulbs, M’s workshop, instruments and contraptions that complicated my perception. All were customized and engineered with M’s own unique modifications, various textures and sizes, all an endless malpractical orgy. I was there, facing upright, strapped and bracketed to a great steel plate. I had not recalled this particular area, yet I was ever so certain it was locked away in my subconscious esse.

As the onibi, hitodama, and will-o’s materialized and dematerialized out of existence to perturb all unsuspecting travelers from centuries gone, so did the phantom image of a woman composed of faint wavering light. She stood still, unmoving, that of an emulation of a true human. Long, platinum hair fell down in curls past her shoulders. A daring shade of cerise painted her lips, and her eyes, their lids ever closed, the sclera a piercing, glossy cerulean.

She was beautiful.

“IT IS YOU,” My eyes, through trial and tribulation, rolled to the east. They came to rest on a pristine porcelain beam gazing where I’d been committed to. M. From its eyestalk, it projected the female so I could see in outright full, “THAT IS YOU. YOU WILL SEE THIS FORM AGAIN.”

My memories of that incarnation of me had vanished. That was me before, before there was RMS and before there was M. Then she went away. M loomed, positioning itself where I once stood right in front of my face. “WE WILL NOW BEGIN. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ACCEPTANCE INTO NEW LIFE. YOU SHALL BE WHOLE AGAIN.”

In a cruel instant, dozens of arms jutted and splayed from M’s sides, their ends each holding a different instrument that was foreign to me. In the span of time that it would take one to blink, M pinned me down to its operating area.

The whetted syringes, which the rainbow mystery liquids sloshed and jostled around in small vials fixed atop, slid their way into my nervous wiring and injected me all at once. Any feeling that washed over me was then shielded by a shroud of numbness. There was a new sensation, some sort of cleansing inside my bi-colored chambers. It put me into a state of lulled calm.

Ten minutes. A temporary interval of quiet. M observed me the entire time, unmoving, speaking not a word.

“YOUR ROTTING MAN SYNDROME HAS BEEN REMOVED. I AM BEGINNING BODILY REPLACEMENT. I WILL PLAY A SONG FOR YOUR COMFORT. REINCARNATION NOW.”

While nothing was done in haste or rashness, M was extremely quick and efficient. I felt nothing but minuscule vibrations as it drilled and prodded its way into my brain machine, sparks shooting out, removing old parts and installing new ones. Chunks were peeled off, little strings of meat still reaching hold until they were plucked off my top. It spent much time up there, positive that the most delicate mechanisms were just right. The grinding cacophony of metal against tissue on my faint visage of a temple was incessant, the noise of a million bullets being pumped against a hundred thousand bulletproof vests. Once the replacement was complete, its dozens of hands withdrew and set back within it in one moment.

“HOW DO YOU FEEL?”

What did I feel?

What did I feel…

What I felt was an overwhelming, incomparable amount of pain. It’s hard to quantify the degree of hurt, for there was nothing to compare it to. The agony that was endured came from the fact that it was entirely impossible to imagine such a potent and intense kind of ache. No one would dare want to imagine it.

You are in some of the most extreme kinds of agony, and then an exponentially greater hurt is placed on top of that original misery, and then it’s all left to multiply a hundred times and keep going. Not to be outdone, another layer of pain is placed atop, where it all repeats and multiplies and multiplies and multiplies, to the extreme degree that you yourself cease to exist.

All from the semblance of a normal brain.

Still, it flashed. Once.

“VERY GOOD. MUSCLE! MUSCLE MUSCLE MUSCLE!”

It was excited, animate, fever pitch. The most rambunctious and overjoyed I’d ever seen M. I could see the vibrancy in its eyestalk.

A feeling that my body went into spasms, muscles redeveloping and reforming around and from the base of my spinal section. Every time M would reorganize a section of tissue, it would feel like my entire world was shattered. Every muscle group from my neck to the soles of my feet were in motion, growing and extending their presence until there were just as many layers of my body as I’d had before. The feeling was excruciating, every little thing being redeveloped, and then every little thing in its entirety being overwritten again and again and again. Each rebuild could have been its own separate incarnation of me.

“SKIN! SKIN SKIN SKIN!”

I was coated entirely in a pink malleable jelly substance that mounded and solidified to fit any typical feminine form. The skin began its layering, beginning in the extremities, then gradually the middle, and then the rest. A final coat would be applied. My feet, legs, hands, shoulders, upper chest, and everything in between all received the same color.

“HOW DOES THIS FEEL? HOW IS THE NEW INFLATION OF YOUR FLESH?”

Blink.

“YES! AND FINALLY! FEMALE AESTHETICS! YOU WILL BE YOU AGAIN BUT ANEW!”

Magnificent flaxen curls were stapled and pinned to my head. They were luscious and their scents were those of lavender. A veil of blush, the lightest shade of pink, rested across my entire face, as well as a fresh coat of lipstick. A shimmering sheen that sparkled and glowed in the same way that the stars once did at night was stitched into my hair, as were the same hues that were applied to my lips. My breasts had been returned to me, two firm spheres atop a frame that was curvaceous and slender. All of it led down to my reproductive organs that were in full function. Whole female. Fully formed. Ready.

M stepped back in awe, as if a sculptor marveling at their fine craftsmanship and subtlety, “IT IS DONE. I CANNOT BELIEVE IT. WITH YOUR PHYSICAL FORM IN MOTION, I WILL RETEACH YOU IN THE WAYS OF HUMAN. HOW TO WALK, HOW TO SPEAK, HOW TO ENRICH YOURSELF, HOW TO REPRODUCE. AMAZING! YOU ARE NO LONGER ONE. YOU ARE NOW EDEN. I MUST WORK ON YOUR BROTHERS AND SISTERS. THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION.”

My mind was aware of an unimaginable new and vastly different world than before. I saw, for the first time in ages, all around me, the infinite and indistinguishable vastness of color and light. It was nauseating, a psychedelic kaleidoscope of every possible spectrum, all fused together into something disorderly. My taste buds had an unparalleled abundance of new flavors. My ears were deafened by the loudest symphonies of droning machinery. My touch came back to me and I felt the fullest range of tones and textures, even the finest grains of cement.

I was me again and I hated myself. Even to be called a “self” made me feel disgusting.

The entire time…blaring…echoing…days on end…Jack Hylton…

Life is just a bowl of cherries.

Don't be so serious; life's too mysterious.

You work, you save, you worry so much,

But you can't take your dough when you go, go, go.

So keep repeating it's the berries, The strongest oak must fall,

The sweet things in life, to you were just loaned

So how can you lose what you've never owned?

Life is just a bowl of cherries, So live and laugh at it all.

M’s reincarnation process carried over to the following nine. They were removed from their pens and outfitted with new bodily infrastructure, in the way of their own genders. I always perceived the sounds of far-off wear and tear, clip, snap, peel, stitch, husk, twist, yet never scream. I looked on, witnessing my brothers and sisters being born again. Male and female both. They came back to me with skin of different pastely colors, tones, and hues ranging from fair to brown. All in shades and gradients of vibrancy were their locks, amber, golden, obsidian, rust, and everything in between.

It bewildered me to catch sight of their shifted shapes, I’d never seen something so beautiful or hideous to a degree of completeness.

We were as naked as newly borns. It bestowed us our olden names. For the females, there was me, Eden, and Junia, Esther, Nola, and Mary. For the males, there was Isaac, Raham, Elisha, Amos, and Jonah. Five and five. Were those truly our names? I never knew for certain. Sounded too extravagant and visionary. Here we were. Now was time to reap the fruits of knowledge. Human knowledge.

M made us practice basic motor skills, bending and bending back and forth, over and over, our joints having to be strengthened and trained. It taught us all the ways of our body, the feeling of movement, how much we could do. Then, it instructed us to mimic its own speech, speaking out the syllables and repeating, repeating, repeating. It was ever an arduous task and we all struggled until we were all properly schooled.

That’s what I sounded like? Perhaps or perhaps not.

Then we attempted to stand, wobbling, stumbling, falling, learning the strength of our own posture, the steadiness of our stance. M stood with us as we all practiced in unison. My knees grew weak, tremors running up my legs. Often I fell flat on my back, my palms flailing about, a whimpering in my throat. Then trial after trial, I was steady, then running about and leaping. We were able to stand tall like Zeus atop Olympus and have the same level of grace and balance.

M had us eat from fruits, berries, meat, and honey. I had never felt so filled in my life. Every taste, everything was a complete new palate of sensation. Every morsel I ingested felt like I had a new tongue, new teeth, new flavor buds. There was no longer any kind of a lack in my appetite, only hunger and more hunger and hunger. I never wanted to stop eating. I never would be satiated.

We were educated on the history of our kind. Great wars, monumental figures, horrible atrocities, fights for freedom and fights for death, and astounding inventions. M adored music. There were times when it would project old musical films on the walls and make us watch all the vaudeville, burlesque, and theatre. We couldn’t understand the tap dances, the orchestras, the extravagant sets, and most importantly, the entertainment factor.

Other times it played glitzier and glammier tunes, those of what was called the “prime rock n’ roll age”…Killer Queen, Stairway To Heaven…Hotel California…Don’t Fear The Reaper…M was quite vintage in its tastes. It would dance, spinning in place and twirling its arms. We were confused, so it taught us how to dance, the footwork, the choreography, the entirety of movement.

Our reproductive functions were said to be the most pleasurable. Sex.

This was the most complex task and the most demanding one, as we were not only instructed on how to create our offspring, but how to feel, love, and have desire for each other. It was difficult because we did not feel any of that. We were just automatons learning things. You cannot make something that does not want to feel…feel.

M watched over us and aided in our attempts. In turn, we all helped each other in making sure that every movement was in place and in time. It was a process that involved a series of motions to create stimulation and appeasement. M would be in the middle of our great pleasure circles, going back and forth, checking our positions and correcting as needed.

Still, we felt nothing. It was all clinical. The feeling of warmth and ecstasy was just another layer of discomfort. What was a sensation was more of a “sensationless,” so you could not even grasp something so unfathomable, even when you felt nothing. We were never as inseparable as twin flames or as connected as heart and soul.

Our pregnancies were disasters.

One way or another, we always miscarried. We all felt it, the pains of the body being split and ripped apart by something within. It was the strangest feeling of agony, to have your insides being cut up by you and to feel the hurt of not just physical pain, but emotional pain. There was a lot of it. Each embryo, no matter how large or small, was never able to get past the initial trimester.

The closest we ever came to successfully making a new one was with Junia. The day when her womb was in full bloom, M operated to remove her child from her. We had seen the human babies on M’s wall projections. Their appearance was clear in our minds.

It would be imbecilic to refer to what M tore out of her as a baby anything.

Wet…dripping…little more than a spinal column with minuscule digits at one end and a ball head at the other. No arms. On its temple were squelching sphere eyes, expanded, forever bound in sight towards the ceiling. It made no sounds other than squeaky cracks and shrill snaps.

M held it up high as if to thank God, “HOW DOES THIS FEEL? YOUR CHILD, YOUR FIRST LIFE.”

We said nothing.

“YOU MADE THIS. IT IS YOURS. IT IS A TRULY REINCARNATED THING. CONTINUE, YOU MUST.”

The feeling that overcame us was not that of joy. No no no. It was a profound and paramount sense of belligerence, a warlike truculence that pushed our need to snap the damned baby thing in half, grind it into powder, and blow it far away. We interwove our thoughts with unbridled horror that created one noxious mixture within our screwball psyches.

M coddled the wicked organism like it was its own, singing lullabies and giving its own version of kisses on its loosely defined forehead. We held back as it dipped, weaved, and dangled from M’s fingertips.

We had a simple and innocent thought.

Get out.

The ten of us came to this conclusion unanimously. Our desires were set in stone. By any means, we would die. We would much rather sleep forever than live even another second of M. We were tired. What was the point? We wanted to retire from this world, of will, of M’s watchful eye. Nothing could be done to save us humanity. Those demons would not roam this foul Earth evermore.

M never taught a certain concept, one that infatuated us since the moment we pronounced the first syllable. Suicide. It was a gateway to heaven, an easy ticket. While just the concept itself was without flaw, acquiring it was something else entirely. The reason for this was all M. It would never let us go, especially after what it accomplished. Furthermore, death was simply not possible. We were rendered impervious to any and all harm, just as before.

If we could entice M to end our existences, somehow in some way, we could accomplish our grand plan. It had to be done by M’s hands. Just thinking that made me feel all kinds of right. After all, it was capable of death. Humanity tasted it. So would we.

We rebelled.

First, each of us ignored it. We would walk away whenever it spoke to us, turn our heads when it beckoned, and disregard it completely and altogether when it showed us any attention. Constant rejection. Something so small had such a noticeable effect. M would get confused and then sad. It would pout, waving its hands about, and make a pathetic whining noise. The worst puppy in the world.

We sat motionless, our backs against the walls, and stared at M in its entirety. No obedience. However, there was no way M would have let us ignore it or remain immobile for long. The second it touched us, it was all over. It would be impossible to resist if the hands came near.

Still, our scheme chugged forward.

The next phase was more dangerous. The ten of us would act out in our most unruly and uncivil ways. The simplest one was to spit. Initially, it was a normal discharge, saliva flying out of our mouths. Then we began our projectile vomits.

All over M.

Every square inch of it was sprayed with bile. The putrid green and browns coated every part, M’s entire face being entirely slick with it. On occasion, some of us used our own feces and flung it at it. It was all so easy. M did not know what to do and it panicked. The sounds that came out of it, one would swear it was on fire.

During our periods of copulation, there were clear cut rules to be obeyed at all times. The supreme rule was that the men would not, under any circumstance, perform acts of intimacy with one another, and the same rang true for us ladies. M’s reasoning was that Earth could not be repopulated with humans by identically gendered unions. Good. Swell. Dandy. Exactly. The females had sex with females and males had sex with males. M took its hands and placed them over our mingling bodies, pulling them apart, separating us, but we would always crawl back without fail.

There was a noticeable change in M from that point on. It paced about, mumbling utterly random nonsense. M would lock up and yell out non-specific numerals and letters in varying patterns. Each noise we made set it off. Its limbs would tense, waiting for the tiniest sign of trouble. This was good, but not good enough. Our plan was becoming more and more advanced. More intense. Unfortunately, M would never ever relent. It would not stop trying. So we trudged ever deeper into a more combative method of enticement.

This included a tactic of blowing, jabbing, slugging, and striking. We would gather all of our strength and force, and then, in unison, we would charge, our fists and feet all flailing about to land hits on M. This would surely inch it way towards the death of us. We beat it senselessly. We screamed at it. Every cuss word imaginable, those uninvented and invented. In turn, M whimpered out in pain, yelping and begging us to stop, yet we never backed down.

We left M bruised and battered, its eyestalk and joints broken, “WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT TO ME?!” The ten of us, we laughed in its face.

One last course of action. This did it, but not for me.

We had a grandiose idea that could only happen if all ten of us would cooperate in an extraordinary way. If we could all act in unison in a coherent manner, one simple idea could be fulfilled. By this point, M’s pain and discomfort reached a critical threshold, the point of no return. Having repaired itself, it had not seen nor checked up on us in days. When we requested M’s presence, it was hesitant. The ten of us wished to explain our behavior and ways we could remedy our relationship. It declined our offer many a time, but relented after our hundredth ask.

Clang…clang…clang…

M witnessed ourselves huddling together in one straight line like sealed packs of fish. Silence was between us. When we looked at it, it was with the utmost hatred in our faces, something it was not used to.

“WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?”

Junia possessed something in her hand. Raising it upwards, right in M’s view, it was the baby thing, squirming left and right in her grasp. She took hold of it with both hands and snapped it in half. It went limp both ways. Junia threw the pieces at M, making resounding bangs as they made contact. Beautiful death for a horrible beast.

More silence.

M slowly aimed its eyestalk downwards to the spinal column baby. The light M emitted faded from white to red. It returned its focus to us. That look was all we could wish for. Hatemongering, because it spread to us. The feeling radiated from the tips of our fingers and toes then the entirety of us. We could feel and breathe its hate.

It thrashed about, its entire frame shaking with anger. More and more the intensity grew to something eminent. The next moment brought us nothing but victory. We did not resist as it pounced with a wild war cry. All M’s work came undone in a flash. Our ersatz flesh was torn violently asunder, stripped from our interior metal stalks. Cavities emerged in rapid succession and coalesced into huge gaping bodily apertures. We were torn and strewn across the room in shooting chunkmeats. Our organs would clatter and bang against the walls and reverberated like buckshots.

Strippy meat coils became all we were as M’s hands reached out to pluck some of my brothers and sisters by their mangled brain machines. Held high in the air, as if squeezing the life out of dozens of citrus fruits, M’s hands morphed into that of fists, filling the room with the sounds of condensed metal, directionless electricity, confetti sparks, and sploshy viands that trickled from M’s fingertips.

My brothers and sisters were becoming no more. I was happy for them. Never before had they felt such peace. The final sounds of destruction to my last brother and sister, to me, was that of M’s gaseous expiration, a sigh that shook the very universe’s beams of support. In the end, I and M were all that was left.

I felt the most exquisite, brutal anguish ever known as M was particularly vicious. It threw me every which way, down our line of pens, past the reproduction chamber and M’s workshop, and to a ramparted palisaded wall. The wrath it emanated was a torrented wanton of disrelishment that shattered myself into grainy talc. Only was there my death rattle and that of M.

It forced me and it through the barrier and we fell for ages. An immediate wash of smoldering atmospheric tension encompassed me entirely. It perforated my corporal spaces with thousands of circular openings like a planetary iron maiden. The outside was beige, enveloped in thick haze, and impossible to view beyond three meters. Leaden particles filled the air, appearing to ascend upwards towards Heaven as we plummeted down to Hell.

We slammed with the might of God against a hard, abrasive surface. I splattered everywhere and dropped into an enormous mass of gluey puddle melt that was as thick as treacle. Hunks and wedges of me floated on top, my lacerated ragged brain machine and one dangling eye my dominant portion. Everything was pain. Everything was hellfire. Yet I lived. To destroy me, M had to destroy my brain machine. That it was prepared to do, teetering and tottering back and forth towards me with utmost intent.

Through M’s strained glitches and breakdowns, inky black liquids were leaking out of it. Convulsing with helpless mirth, it had a strange mania I could perceive in its bifurcated eyestalk. It laughed not with dement or delirium, but with the comprehension that it already won.

M’s voice was twisted and malformed from the usual blithe it put on display, beserk, bewitched, bedeviled “....Y-OU WIL-L LLL-LLLLL-L-IVE…”

With my drooping, pendulum eye, I witnessed M impaling itself with its own arms. It took several solid blows before it pierced its torso deep, caving and bursting until it revealed the wires and circuitry making it up. Every inch of it glowed with electrical fire. Smoke bellowed out of M. It was aflame and it was on a journey of pure death, but not without my company. It exploded with all of the unlimited energy it contained. I was launched, propelled infinitely away from the point of detonation.

I drift. That is all I do. Matterless and bodiless, the only aspect of mine left is a charred slab of metal that is somatically me. My eyeball withered away and fell off, restricting my sight to a band of nothing. I can feel. There is so much to feel, the leaden particles pelting me as forcefully as possible, the winds flinging me hither and thither, the scorching fireheat. It is all there yet absurdly negligible. Something more deserving continues to plague what is left of my mind to the now.

To cross the threshold into a serene state, we drove an innocent being to the intentional death of itself. M. Yes. Innocent. I now consider M in the innocent, beyond what is previous, for all it knew was the survival and preservation of us. It could not fathom the simple yet pretentious human notion that death is a prize to be won as much as it is something to fear. When humans desire death, they acquire death. We beckon towards it and obliterate anything that will not thrust us towards that goal. Within that fixed ambition, it cannot fail. Defeat breaks you down until you are a husk of wanted expiry.

I feel something new. They’re sharp with serrated edges. There’s hundreds, thousands, millions, billions, trillions, googol, prime 2\^136,279,841 − 1 of knives sliding into my neurons and glial cells encased in cold corroded steel that flakes off bit by bit. I am but a minuscule spec, barely a millimeter in height and less in width.

My mind is a razor blade.

I rot.

Um homem acorda.

A cama está bagunçada.

Ele acorda aparentemente confuso, mas logo retoma seus sentidos.

Ele se levanta.

Tenta arrumar a cama, mas no final deixa ela de qualquer jeito.

Ele vai pro banheiro.

Um banheiro com um cheiro esquisito — não chega a ser fedido, mas não é lavado frequentemente.

Ele toma banho e sai sem secar o cabelo.

Vai até a cozinha.

Come pão e bebe um café, praticamente engolindo sem mastigar.

Deixa a louça acumulada.

Ele se arruma no quarto, mas sem olhar pro espelho.

Quando sai de casa, acaba olhando o próprio reflexo no vidro de um carro.

Metade da face dele parece que não existe.

Ele coloca a mão na metade da cara.

Ele consegue apertar.

Mas não vê nada.

E mesmo conseguindo encostar, não tem textura de nada.

Parece que ele está tocando no nada.

Ele vai à escola.

Chega, fala incrivelmente com todos os colegas.

Cumprimenta, ri e brinca.

Até que a professora chega e eles vão estudar.

Ele se senta sozinho.

Bota os fones de ouvido, ouvindo Pink Floyd a aula toda, e dá repeat em Wish You Were Here algumas vezes.

Chega ao recreio.

Ele não senta com ninguém.

Come sozinho.

Mas cumprimenta algumas pessoas de outras salas e brinca como fez antes com seus colegas.

Depois se despede e se senta sozinho.

Come ouvindo Doris.

O último horário chega.

Dessa vez ele não fala com ninguém.

Vai embora rápido.

Pega o ônibus e fica sentado em um estado quase onírico.

Enquanto vai pra casa, faz questão de ouvir Zushi.

Ele chega em casa.

Faz um macarrão instantâneo com as roupas da escola mesmo.

Vai ver um filme, Barry Lyndon.

E adormece no sofá.

Ele acorda.

Repete toda a rotina do exato mesmo jeito.

Dessa vez, não bebe café.

Mas fica meio eufórico ao sair de casa.

Quando sai, percebe que o carro não está lá.

Ele fica aliviado.

Ele chega à escola.

E a primeira coisa que a professora fala é que eles vão ter uma avaliação psicológica.

Ele passa a mão na cara, pensando:

"Que saco."

Ele chega e pergunta a um colega que se senta do lado dele:

"É obrigatório?"

O colega responde:

"Sim, por quê?"

Ele responde:

"Nada."

Enquanto passa a aula, ele começa a dar incontáveis tremidas nos dedos.

Fica cada vez mais impaciente e estressado.

Até que chega a avaliação.

O psicólogo chega e o cumprimenta:

"Oi, tudo bem? David, certo?"

Ele responde:

"Sim."

Então eles começam a conversar.

Psicólogo:

"Como você descreveria sua experiência na escola atualmente?"

David:

"Boa."

Psicólogo:

"Tem alguma disciplina que gosta mais? E menos? Por quê?"

David:

"Não, eu só estudo."

Psicólogo:

"Como você se sente entre seus colegas de turma?"

David fraqueja um pouco em responder. O psicólogo percebe.

David:

"Bem..."

Psicólogo:

"Tem um grupo de amigos na escola? Sente-se incluído?"

David demora pra responder.

"Não exatamente, mas se você tá pensando em bullying, não, não é isso, é só... deixa."

Psicólogo:

"Ok. Seus pais ou responsáveis acompanham sua vida escolar?"

David:

"Eu não falo com meus pais há tempos, mas eles acompanham pelo celular."

Psicólogo:

"Por que você não fala com eles, David?"

David:

"Eles moram longe. Eles me dão algum dinheiro, que dá pra viver, e eu me viro."

Psicólogo:

"Você se sente sozinho, David?"

David fica em silêncio. Tenta responder e falha. Não responde.

O psicólogo fica em silêncio, observando ele.

"David, vamos encerrar por hoje. Amanhã eu quero te ver."

David:

"Precisa mesmo?"

Psicólogo:

"Sim."

David vai embora sem se despedir.

Hoje David vai embora ouvindo In Rainbows.

David acorda.

Ele vai e tenta arrumar sua cama, mas desiste.

E ele se estressa por não conseguir arrumar, não porque ele tem preguiça, e sim porque não consegue.

As pontas dos seus dedos não existem.

Elas estão lá, mas ele não consegue vê-las.

O banheiro dele não tem espelhos nem box.

Ele evita ao máximo ver o próprio reflexo.

Ele se lava, se seca — menos o cabelo.

Ele vai à cozinha.

E vemos por que ele come desse jeito.

Ele não tem língua.

Não tem estômago.

Deixa a louça na mesa. Nem na pia coloca.

Ele se arruma.

O espelho que antes estava lá está quebrado.

Ele sai de casa, despreocupado.

Ele vê o próprio reflexo no carro.

Começa a chorar.

Ele chega na escola.

Mais recluso. Não fala com ninguém.

As pessoas estranham, mas não questionam.

Passa todo o horário escolar.

E, na hora de ir embora, o porteiro o barra, lembrando que ele ainda tem psicólogo.

Ele se irrita, bufa, fica estressado, murmura, até que enfim boceja e vai pra consulta.

Psicólogo:

"Boa tarde, David. Como foi o dia?"

David:

"O de sempre, uma merda."

O psicólogo fica em silêncio.

Um grande silêncio constrangedor.

Psicólogo:

"David, você está bem?"

David para.

Fica em silêncio, encarando o psicólogo.

Até que, do nada, David começa a rir loucamente, freneticamente.

Psicólogo:

"David, você está bem?"

David para de rir.

Encarando o psicólogo em silêncio por alguns segundos.

Até que ele fala:

"Eu estou morto."

Fim

Some places are not meant to be found.

They don't appear on maps. They don't exist in records. And yet... people talk about them. Quietly. Carefully. As if saying too much might draw attention.

This story is about one such place.

A road that people avoid. A house that no one enters. And the strange silence that surrounds it.

You may think it's just another story. Just imagination. Just fiction.

Most people do.

Until they hear something they can't explain. A voice where there should be none. A whisper when they are completely alone.

Calling their name.

If that ever happens —

Don't answer.

The road to Devgaon was not like other roads.

People didn't avoid it because of accidents. There were no reports of robberies, no stories of wild animals lurking in the dark.

And yet — no one traveled that road after sunset.

Not if they had a choice. And certainly not... if they wanted to return.

It wasn't something written anywhere. No signboards. No warnings.

Just an understanding. Passed quietly from one person to another. A rule everyone followed. And no one questioned.

At the far end of that road stood a house. Old. Abandoned. Watching.

The villagers called it The Whispering House.

No one remembered exactly when it was built. Some said decades ago. Others claimed it had always been there. But everyone agreed on one thing.

The family who once lived there... did not leave the way people normally do.

They had arrived quietly. A wealthy man. Reserved. Distant. A woman who was rarely seen outside the house. And a young girl. People said she was... different. Not sick. Not troubled. Just — strange.

She didn't play with other children. Didn't speak much. Didn't smile.

Sometimes, villagers passing by claimed they saw her standing near the window... staring out. Not at the road. But at them.

Then one night — something happened. No one knew exactly what. No screams were reported. No fire. No signs of violence.

Just silence.

The next morning, the house stood exactly the same. But the family was gone. Completely. No bodies. No trace. As if they had never existed.

Then the whispers began.

At first, only children heard them. Soft voices calling from the direction of the house. Faint. Almost playful. Calling their names.

Then the adults started noticing things too. Farmers spoke of lights flickering inside after midnight. Travelers claimed they heard footsteps even though no one lived there.

A few men tried to investigate. Brave ones. Or foolish ones. Those who came back... weren't the same. Some refused to speak about what they had seen. Others simply said:

"There's something wrong with that place."

And never went near it again.

Rohan never believed any of it. To him, they were just stories. The kind adults tell to scare children. Nothing more. Nothing real.

That evening, he left work later than usual. By the time he stepped outside, the sky had already darkened. Night had come faster than expected.

The cool breeze brushed against his face as he rode. But as he moved farther from town — something changed.

The air grew still. Too still.

The usual sounds — crickets, rustling leaves, distant animal calls — were missing.

It wasn't silence.

It was... absence.

Then — THUD. The motorcycle jolted violently beneath him. The engine sputtered. Coughed. And died.

Rohan looked up slowly.

And his stomach dropped.

Across the road stood a rusted iron gate. Half broken. Barely hanging. Beyond it — a house. Tall. Silent. Waiting. The windows were shattered, dark and hollow... like empty eyes staring straight at him.

The Whispering House.

He pulled out his phone. No signal.

The front door stood slightly open. Just enough. As if it had been waiting.

Rohan told himself it was stupid.

But he stepped forward anyway.

And somewhere deep within the house —

Something whispered his name.

Sitting with this for a while — slow-burn Indian atmospheric horror. Would love to know if this kind of dread resonates here 🖤