Dr. Creepen's Dungeon - S1 Ep25: Episode 25: Terrifying Body Horror Stories

Episode Date: April 15, 2021

Tonight’s first epic tale of the horrific is ‘I Found A Lump on My Arm, Now We're All Going to Die’, an original story Richard Saxon, kindly shared with me for the express purpose of having me narrate it here for you all: https://www.reddit.com/user/RichardSaxon/   Today’s second classic in the making is ‘Since When Do Mannequins Bleed’, a story by Bloody Spaghetti, shared with me via the Creepypasta Wiki and recorded here under the conditions of the CC-BY-SA license: https://creepypasta.fandom.com/wiki/User:BloodySpghetti   Today’s third phenomenally terrifying story is ‘Seizures Are Supposed to Only Last a Few Minutes: My Wife's Continued For 5 Straight Days’, an original work by the fabulous T.J. Lea, kindly shared with me via NoSleep and narrated here for you all with the author’s express permission. https://www.reddit.com/user/tjaylea/ https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/e1vblw/seizures_are_supposed_to_only_last_a_few/   Fourth up, we have the incredible ‘It Breathes, It Bleeds, It Breeds’ by Travis Kuhlman, AKA EmpyrealInvective, again shared with me via the Creepypasta Wiki and recorded here under the conditions of the CC-BY-SA license: https://creepypasta.fandom.com/wiki/User:EmpyrealInvective https://creepypasta.fandom.com/wiki/It_Breathes,_It_Bleeds,_It_Breeds   Tonight’s final, deliciously evil short story is ‘The Gaze’, an original work by Killahawke1, kindly shared directly with me for the express purpose of having me exclusively narrate it here for you all. http://creepypasta.wikia.com/wiki/Gaze

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please contact Connix Ontario at 1866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. Welcome to Dr. Creepin's Dungeon. We all have the disease, you know. The disease of being finite. And death is the paces of all horror. Five terrifying tales of body horror for you this evening. Later on, we have, since when do mannequins bleed by bloody spaghetti?

Followed by, seizures are only supposed to last a few minutes, and my wives continue to have five straight days by T.J. Lee, Then we have, it breathes, it bleeds, it breeds by Travis Coolman. We round off with The Gays by Derek Hawke. But starting tonight's extravaganza is, I found a lump on my arm. Now we're all going to die by Richard Saxon. Now as ever before we begin, a word of caution. Tonight's stories may contain strong language, as well as descriptions of violence and horrific imagery.

If that sounds like your kind of thing, then let's begin. Mortality is a weird thing. It hits you like a bag of bricks once you make it to your late 20s or early 30s. It's about the time when your family starts getting diagnosed with all kinds of disease. Heart attack, strokes, cancer, well, for me, facing mortality meant something as innocuous as finding an odd lump on my arm while showering. It might not sound like a big deal. but it's important to note that my younger brother died from osteosarcoma

fairly aggressive bone cancer and for him it was nothing more than a small, tender, unmoving lump he found on his leg even then it was too late he died a year later at the age of seven which meant I was absolutely horrified to discover a similar lump on myself over the course of a few days as I awaited my doctor's appointment the lump grew ever so slightly. He had a strange shape, like a column of bone that hurt to touch.

During the examination, the doctor looked at me with concern in his eyes. He pretty much confirmed what I'd already suspected, that the growth was bone, and it would probably turn out to be cancer. He didn't hesitate in referring me to a radiologist and told me to return once the imaging had been done. A few days later, I returned, and as I sat in the office on the brink of tears, a thousand thoughts ran through my head.

What to tell my sister? How to spend the remaining time left on earth? Would it hurt as much as it did with my brother? At the very least, they'd certainly have to amputate my arm, which would severely compromise my gaming abilities. Oh, can you even drive with one arm? Well, then the doctor called me in. He didn't seem concerned, rather baffled, as if he hadn't the faintest clue what was wrong with me.

After some consideration, he finally started speaking, unleashing a jumbled mess of medical terms and incomprehensible sentences. He took a deep breath before finally stammering out. It's not cancer. Despite the presumably good news, he didn't seem relieved. There was something he was holding back. Then, what's wrong? I asked. It's a... It's a tooth.

He couldn't explain it any further, so he just showed me the x-ray. Even with my limited anatomical knowledge, I could see it clear as day. The tooth was growing straight out of my ulna, its roots firmly cemented in the bone, while the crown pushed on the surrounding tissue. On the one hand, it wasn't cancer. On the other, I had an impossible, bizarre growth extruding from the wrong part of my own skeleton. The doctor sat down with me and explained the concept of teratomas, a type of benign tumour that frequently grows, hair, skin and, well, partially developed organs. Despite its unusual presentation, we settled on that idea and scheduled me for surgery.

It was a quick and simple procedure. A couple of days later, they discharged me and told me to rest a bit before returning to work. I was content, though admittedly a little bit disturbed by the whole ordeal. Life went on, and my arm healed up nicely. The scar almost completely covered up by the inappropriate amount of hair I'd started growing during my teenage years. A couple of weeks passed, and the surgery was all but a difference. distant memory. After a morning of increasing back pain, I found blood in my uri. Doctors will typically tell you not to get all riled up just because you found blood in your piss, because,

well, it could be caused by pretty much anything. It might not be blood at all. However, I did worry, and with a sense of panic, I rushed to the emergency clinic where they quickly tested my urine to confirm the presence of hemoglobin. that alongside my back pain made them feel confident I was suffering from nothing more than an innocent little kidney stunt one of the interns performed an ultrasound scan just to rule out cysts and what not but her casual demeanour quickly turned to an expression of fear as she put the sensor against my skin she excused herself and left the room only to return after ten minutes dragging with her and older presumably more experience doctor. He seemed annoyed to have been called in for something so simple as an ultrasound. He grabbed the device without introducing himself and tried looking for a kidney. Just as with the intern, his annoyed confidence quickly turned to one of worry, and he too left

without explaining what the hell was going on. By then, my discomfort had turned to excruciating agony. It already put me on an overabundance of painkillers, but it barely was. put a dent in the suffering I'd had to endure. I stood up to grab a hold of the doctor, ready to demand answers. But once I got to my feet, my vision started fading and I clapsed to the ground. From there, my memory was hazy. A combination of pain and drugs put me in a trance-like state. I vaguely remember being taken for some sort of scan and a tube being shoved down my throat. and then finally everything turned black. It would take me two days to awaken once more,

at which point I was greeted by a team of specialists, all looking way out of their depth. They explained as best they could, that I'd fallen into a coma following severe internal bleeding, and then I was an inch away from death when I was brought into the operating theatre. My had almost died, and if not for an insane stroke of life, luck, I wouldn't even have realised. Despite the success of the surgery, they still seemed nervous.

I could tell there was more to this story. After a lot of talking around the point, and even more bizarre medical terms I couldn't possibly comprehend, I got mad. Just tell me what the fuck is happening to me. The oldest of the bunch finally stepped up and started explaining himself. "'Mr. Woodcombe, to be brutally honest, we haven't the faintest clue what kind of affliction you've come down with. "'It's, quite frankly, beyond anything we've dealt with in the past.' "'What does that mean? "'Am I going to die?' I asked. "'He took a deep breath.

"'We can't know how the disease will progress. "'But what is happening to me?' I yelled as I tried to sit up, still too groggy from the drugs, unable to feel the presence of my own body. He explained what had happened to me, but my stomach had started migrating towards my left flank, where it hit, it enveloped itself around my kidney, slowly but certainly absorbing and digesting it. The process obviously severed its blood supply, which caused the bleed that almost killed me. They'd fix the tooth, and they'd stop the bleeding. but a part of me knew it wasn't over.

I'm still not fixed, am I? I asked. He shook his head. I am so sorry, Mr. Wuchamp, but this disease, we don't know how to stop it. At this point, we're just treating the symptoms. By then I'd woken up enough to coordinate my movements, but I still couldn't feel my right arm.

I turned my head to check on it, and saw that the vast majority of my lower and half my upper arm had turned almost completely white. I tried to lift it, but my muscles simply wouldn't budge. The skin looked so smooth, like perfect silk covering an almost shapeless blob. I'd always been skinny, albeit a tone person, so my veins were fairly prominent, except that now it all seemingly vanished from my forearm. leaving nothing but a stump of a vessel I could see actively retract away under my skin it happened just before you woke up there was no time we could what the fuck is happening to me I asked once more we don't know he said I looked at him in despair these were the people that were supposed to help me even the professionals were baffled and

I was screwed. Mr. Woodcombe, your arm has absolutely no blood supply. I'm sorry, but we need to amputate it as quickly as possible. You shouldn't even be awake right now. They made me sign a consent form before proceeding. Just the act of writing my own name with my one remaining functioning arm was an excruciating ordeal. Another few hours went by, and my right arm was a part of the past. Once I woke up from my third surgery, the doctors informed me that I was

to be transferred to a more specialized health facility. They didn't even have the courtesy to call it a hospital. They airlifted me, wrapped in a containment box of sorts, to prevent the spread of a disease that could potentially be contagious. While flying, I was strapped down with no view of my surroundings. wherever they were taking me they wouldn't tell and based on the few glimpses I got of the world beneath us I wouldn't have known anyway on the ground I was met by a team of doctors dressed in hazmat suits the health facility but more like a warehouse than anything else and didn't ease the growing fear within me they rolled me through an airlock ensuring nothing infectious could get in or out Inside of the facility was a massive isolated room with hundreds of patients lined up next to each other.

No rooms for privacy, no drapes to keep them apart, which meant they all probably suffered from the same condition as myself. One of the patients stared at me. He panted slow, shallow breaths, as his chest had transformed into a thick wall of bone, each rib fused together, making breathing an almost impossible task. Another younger woman had skin that seemed to be shrunken, a few sizes too small, stretching to the point where it had become a pathetic cover of epithelium, allowing her muscles to be clearly visible. But the worst was the patient in the bed next to mine.

All his limbs had been amputated, and the entirety of his skin was covered in thick, bright red arteries, some of them actively bleeding, while others had been. burned in a futile attempt at cauterizing him. He groaned in agony, almost inaudible, strained sounds coming from his toothless, tongueless mouth.

His eyes and nose were missing, replaced by seemingly healthy skin, simply grown over most of his orifices, including his ears and scalp. He was trapped in pain, unable to hear, see, or communicate with the world around him.

But if he could, I'm certain he, would have begged for death. After a couple of hours of staring at the horrifically mangled people around me, a doctor approached me. He was a tired-looking old man that had been broken by the afflictions of others. I'm Dr. Foreman. Your name is Eric Woodcombe, correct?

I nodded. I'm going to administer a drug. He'll slow down the progression of the disease. Will it help? Can you please have? help me, I asked frantically. He looked around, seeming to check if anyone could hear her speak. It'll slow it down, but it won't cure it. We're not even sure what causes this disease, but antimitotic drugs seem to put it into a sort of stasis. What is it exactly? I asked,

with a trembling voice. It is an infection, Mr. Wickham, though it's not bacterial, viral, fungal, parasitic or prion in origin. All I know is that it affects anyone that touches it and that we're not going to be able to contain it for long. I then asked a question, I already knew the answer to. Am I going to die? He just nodded, his emotionless face never changing. How long do I?

I said before he interrupted me. A week, maybe two. Once the disease has converted all of your organs to an incomprehensible mess, and when even the most experienced forensics teams will be unable to recognize your corpse as that of a human being, that's when you will die. His bedside manner left a lot to be desired, but it was obvious that he'd gone through that speech a hundred times before. He was detached, desensitized from the nightmare that surrounded him.

As he turned around to leave, I noticed his eyes. arm had bone spikes, skeletal spikes protruding through his skin. Doctor, your arm? You look down at it and sighed. I told you it was infectious. Everyone in this room. Staff, patients, even the dogs that lurked around the sight. The guys outside wearing hazmat suits have been hunting them down, but it's too late for that.

Not that their fancy protection gear will help them, but I'm not going to break that news to them. I was speechless. And he could tell his words hadn't comforted me in the least. He just didn't care. I'm sorry, but you should make peace with your family, friends, whatever you have in this world. Because if we don't find a viable cure within the next week, they're torching this place. As the days progressed, they kept bringing in more and more patients. Some looked mostly normal, healthy even, while others were unrecognizable.

Their faces replaced by a solid mesh of flesh, and their organs relocated to the surface of their skin. One of them had his heart placed outside his chest, beating as if nothing had happened, with thousands of additional arteries extending from it, like a red spider web covering most of his torso. The pain must have been too much, because as he walked past my bed, he grabbed his own heart, attempting to rip it off. A few of the arteries tore open, spurred in crimson blood all around him, but the heart itself wouldn't budge. He groaned, and with one final pull, he fell dead to the ground, clutching a clump of meat he'd managed to pull from the now, dead heart. As he lifted his lifeless body onto a stretcher, I got a better view of his face.

I realized that I recognized him. He'd been the doctor that examined my lump, the tooth stuck in my bone. He had died because of me. On the fifth day of my containment, I started to lose vision in one of my eyes. I could feel it pulsating, growing within its socket. but I didn't dare look at myself in the mirror. A few hours passed, and suddenly I just felt a pop,

followed by the sensation of a viscous liquid trickling down my face. My eye had exploded, and I still didn't have the guts to put myself in front of a mirror, or to call out for help. In a couple of days, they'll burn this place to the ground in an attempt at preventing the spread of whatever diseases

has infected us. The doctors aren't hopeful about a cure, but fire seems the safest option, just turning us all to ash. A price worth paying to save the world, I suppose. At least they're giving us a chance to call our

loved ones, but I don't have much family left, so to speak. The thing bothering me the most, though I'll most likely die without knowing what had killed me, where the disease had come, from and how I could have avoided it altogether. Hindsight is 20-20 and all that.

Not that it matters to me. I'm already dead. But whatever finally got me, it's still out there. Think about your health for a second. Are your eyes the first thing that come to mind? Probably not. But our eyes go through a lot. From squinting at screens to driving at night.

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Oh, that bastard manny, woke me up again in the same. the middle of the night. I absolutely hate it when he does this. This time I guess he had a good reason to wake me up like that. I just wish he hadn't been an asshole about it. Maddie and I we have a strange relationship, I'd say. Even our meeting was weird. He just appeared at my place one day. He was there sitting on my couch, reading my copy of Dan Browns, angels and demons. Well, I'll admit this much, his appearance at my place was. wasn't random at all. I can swear I'd seen him looking at me as if admiring me from a distance for weeks before our meeting. It's hard to miss the guy. He sticks out like a thorn in a crowd

side, given his odd-looking head. Mani's appearance is mostly unremarkable, other than what appears to be a pale white smiling mask permanently fused to the skin of his head. Well, it looks like he has a purposefully deformed mannequin head stuck on his body. Hence the name, Manny. Somehow no one else has ever noticed him. Usually people write me off as mental whenever I mention him, which is why I avoid talking about him to others. When I saw him sitting on my couch like he owned the damn thing,

my instinctive reaction was to get mad. I yelled something obscene and pounced on the couch with the intent to maul him with my hands. What came next scared the living hell out of me. I hit the couch and flipped it over, but the bastard was gone. He disappeared on me before reappearing behind me and letting out that distinctive high-pitched chuckle of his.

He said that he was going to play me like a marionette, and then vanished again. I just sat there, flat on my ass, scared out of my wits. I had no clue what the hell had just happened to me. I'm still not entirely sure. It's been years now and many comes and goes. Whenever he shows up, I know it'll be one heck of a ride. He pops up and does his best to make my life hell, not letting me sleep by being an incredibly loud, unwanted roommate,

or by driving me nuts with his mostly moronic rants just before I go to sleep. Other times he shows up and just makes me feel like shit by giving me vivid accounts of horrible, horrible things about me in the world. His recollections feel as if he's feeding the inn. imagery directly into my brain. I can quite see the horrors he's speaking of. Needless to say, that makes me feel terrible. I think he couldn't even influence my dreams at this point.

I swear, whenever I have a nightmare, I wake up to him standing at the edge of my bed, staring straight into my soul. Usually these nightmares, I think he gives me events from my past, amplified and perverted into haunting scenes straight out of some horror flick. Other times these nightmares are just

distressingly weird things you'd not expect to see in your sleep. Like that one time he made me dream of me viewing black and white footage of what appears the main street of some city devoid of people with this dramatic music playing in the background. The atmosphere

of this whole thing felt incredibly off but then came the truly horrifying part. Singing quite a cheerful singing came to flubble singing came to flood my ears forcing me to look around for the source of the sound my dream self looked up and above it

above me hung women dressed in 20s outfits singing from the streetlights lifeless swaying softly in the wind and yet singing cheerfully I woke up in a cold sweat to be greeted by the pallid mug of that bastard

it. Over the years he'd pull some nasty trick where he'd stand there in the distance, making sure I see him before pulling out a long black rod and stabbing himself somehow as with some voodoo magic. I'd feel it wherever he stabbed himself. Usually the leg, God, it hurts so bad whenever he does this. He seems to have this gleeful expression on his face, like he's enjoying the pain while I want to scream as a result of the sentiment. sensation of a boiling hot metal rod slicing through my nerves. The first time was as shocking as hell. I'd bitten so hard through my lip due to the pain,

I now have a scar there as a reminder of that day. But unfortunately, I've come to accept it as part of my experience with Manny. That's not even the worst of it. The worst part about Manny isn't this sort of stuff, no. The worst part is when he puts it. hops out of nowhere and lets out a thunderous roar straight into my ear before vanishing again. Whenever he does this, I tense up like crazy. It's akin to having a cannon shot going off right next to you.

Sometimes I stay tensed up for hours. Others, it goes away within minutes. After each encounter with Manny, regardless of what he does, I end up being stressed, vigilant and aggressive and above all else, exhausted. sometimes at the point of wanting to just throw myself off somewhere high. It's definitely affected me in more ways than one, hence why I mostly isolate myself from others. He is trying to ruin my life, I'm sure. I don't know why me, I didn't do anything wrong, I've always loved helping people.

I didn't put on the uniform for the pay. I only ever wanted to do some good, you know. the closest I could be to being a superhero, I guess. I was sure he was trying to mess me up, well, until tonight. This time it was different. He worked me up by shaking my body awake. Seeing his ugly mug before even fully waking up gave me that adrenal kick. I punched him square in the head. Although my fist never connected, it just went straight through his head.

Hey, hold up, dog. He yelled as I pulled my hand backward, cursing under my breath. I'm here to help you, he continued. I didn't believe him. He was just trying to mess with me again, I reasoned. So I tried ignoring him going back to sleep. I shrugged him off and pulled the blanket tightly over my head. He shook me again.

O'ie, darling, get up. This time I'm here to help. Pinky Promise. I barked, trying to drown his presence out of my head with some pleasant memories. Shhh, they'll hear you. He shushed me. Well, something was wrong with that statement. Usually there were no others involved in his cruel jokes.

I poured the blanket from my head and looked him dead into his empty eye marks. What are you talking about? He mouthed, Quiet down your tone. "'What?' I questioned. "'Confused and genuinely pissed off at this point. "'There's three mannequins in your house. "'They don't mean no good, Dolly,' he whispered.

"'Bullshit!' I bought back with a whisper. "'I didn't even know why I was whispering, really. "'Listen for yourself, Dolly.' "'Manny hissed, pointing at where his ears should have been. "'I did as he said. dead silent. I was going to throw another fit at the creature that's been haunting me for the last few years, but then my thought process was cut short by the sound of footsteps. Two, four, six. My heartbeats sped up, I slowly got out of my bed, walked towards the bedroom door. I always kept it lock,

even though I live alone. It's an OCD thing. I stood by the door and listened. Someone was definitely walking around in my house. Three people, in fact. They were saying things I couldn't understand. They were too quiet. My breathing was becoming shallow and my body was getting hot. I could feel my own temperature slightly rising. Mani whispered,

I told you. I just stared at him and he took a step back. That had never happened before. Some switch inside me flipped. and the bastard smiled at me. I just kept listening to what was happening outside the room. The pallid bastard opened up a closet and pulled out my two baseball bats before telling me to pick one. He knew what was going through my head.

He knew exactly what I was going to do. I took one of the bats, the black one. It felt nice in my hand. Manly vanished. I cranked my neck and the door handle twisted. The door to my room swung open, and before me stood a literal mannequin. I could almost hear something snap inside. It didn't expect me to be awake.

I moved swiftly, expertly, nearly took its head off with the bat. The sound of cracking thick plastic boomed in my ears, and the mannequin collapsed to the floor. I went out to the hall. Another mannequin stood with his back to me. This one white. I think there was something attached to its plastic hand. I took a swing to its back and it bent in half before collapsing on all fours. The second hit to the back of the head.

It wasn't moving anymore. The third one saw me, a brown one, and it ran towards the front door. I followed. I wasn't going to get out just like that. I caught up to it. It started making pleading movements with its arms. Ugly piece of shit. I slammed the bat on top of it.

I swung once, twice. Thrice, I swung over and over again. Then it was crumpled on the floor, with many parts collapsed in on themselves. Once I was done with a third mannequin, Mani popped up again. He spat his poison in my ear once more. Tie him up and dumping me in the garage for now. I did just that. I wasn't even thinking on my own.

I was on an autopilot. Good thing the front door was unlocked. The adrenaline wore off quickly and I was exhausted once more, completely worn out man. I headed back up to my bed, almost as if nothing had happened. I was pretty docile and relatively calm after that. I passed out on the spot pretty much Mani was nowhere in sight

Thank God I slept like a baby waking up this morning I remembered what had happened the night before and my mind raced again forcing me to feel like the world would collapse on top of me if I didn't check the garage The moment I got out of bed Cortisol filled my system up once more

I noticed a massive blood stain on the floor Since when do mannequins bleed? Today's third story is Seizures are supposed to only last a few minutes My wife's continued for five straight days If you've ever seen someone endure a seizure before Or being the unfortunate sufferer of one I don't need to tell you how horrific it is to be a part of

And if you haven't Count yourself lucky There are a few things in this world more mentally scarring than seeing another human being convulsing on the floor as their eyes roll into the back of their heads. Their jaw clenched and their joints rigid as they shake, oh, if you're very unfortunate, writhing around and even dislocating joints as they search for new ways to bend and snap. All of us have seen it in the movie, sure, but it peels in comparison to the real thing. To actually stand there as someone's brain is stuck on repeat and their body is a slave to the

misfiring signals as you woefully stumble around. Unsure if you're supposed to put something in their mouth to stop them biting their tongue. Spoiler hurts. No, never. Call an ambulance immediately or just leave them to it. Imagine that feeling of helplessness in front of a stranger and then compound the grief by tenfold when it's your entire world. And you've just gotten home from work to find them writhing on the ground for the seventh time this year. Your first thought isn't ambulance, medication or anything like that.

No, it's to check that she hasn't smashed her skull on the coffee table, that she's not choking on her own vomit, and then to make an educated guess at how long she's been seizing for. No epileptic wants an ambulance called every time this occurs, so you have the unenviable task of timing their suffering before calling one, usually about three to five minutes. This is my reality, and one that I will willingly bear if it means that I can save her as much as she saved me over the years. Lucille is a bright, vibrant and unbelievably creative soul. She is capable of painting the most incredible pieces of landscape portraiture, while telling a crass story that would make even a dominatrix blush, a voice that bounced in your skull long after it had finished its journey into your ears. and she has a zest for life that had me head over heels from the moment we met.

What she first saw in a geeky kid who loved family and nights staying in more than extravagant parties is beyond me, but I never stopped being my true self from the first conversation, and I guess it just stuck, which is why now is so fucking hard for me to deal with, why I'm coming to you all here to talk about this. I'm telling you all this, because... I want you to understand that Lucille was special. To me, she was my everything, someone I would move heaven and earth thought. People say that all the time, but so few meanings.

I would do things that I'd let haunt me with a smile for the rest of my life if it meant hearing her say she loved me one last time. Understand, I'm just a man doing right by his wife, or at least trying to. Coming here helps. Maybe it's part therapeutic and part guilty conscience. I hope by the end of this you'll understand where I'm coming from. Lucille was first diagnosed with a tumour in the fall of 2017. We'd been married for three years and she'd been steadily suffering absences in her memory

for around six months leading up to the first seizure. To begin with, it was the usual tip of my tongue moments we all get. then it progressed to forgetting her keys and being locked out for an hour after finishing work it grew into more concerning things like nearly setting fire to our kitchen and she would go and take a bath with the stove on before the final straw came along and she neglected to stop at a red light after forgetting to hit the brakes and careened into an electrical pole when the police found her she was gripping the steering wheel so tight with her jaw clenched so hard

they worried she was suffering a psychotic episode. The adjustment to her condition was, well, tough. Doctors rarely have great bedside manner at the best of times, and when our physician advised to either go on a $145,000 treatment plan with 25% success or working to hospice care ASAP, and that the Swiss are nice people if we'd ever thought about dignitous. Well, suffice to say, my wife stormed out and resolved to use her artwork to ensure she never forgot the game.

Her determination was anything but dampened. I dare say it pissed her off. So, like any good husband, I supported her and ensured that, at the very least, she got her medication while she tried her own art therapy. She would start painting small, innocuous icons on sticky notes around the house. Things like a yellow sticky note next to the front door, the slew of creative iconography reminding her to get her keys and a doodle of her standing under a stormy cloud outside, if she forgot.

Or a picture of her pill-bottle with overly happy faces on a blue note by her bedside cabinet and in the bathroom to ensure she got her daily dosage of anti-convulsants. For a time, he's actually helped, and I'd get used to finding small notes around the house, even for me, little reminders of her love in the form of short messages like I love how much you laughed with me today Or

I appreciate you giving me a neck massage After the last seizure And it never stopped being a welcome sign Those first couple of months Convinced me that she was going to beat this She would overcome it And sell her story to Time magazine And become a therapist of the century

For her groundbreaking discoveries on memory retention I'm sure you all know however That we rarely ever get what we want It was the late summer, and I'd been working away a lot more than I wanted. As an architect, I took whatever contracts I needed. Medical bills are seldom ever totally affordable in this freaking country, even with insurance, and our deductible was still high. So the contract I ended up taking was nearby, if anything went wrong,

but far longer hours than I was used to. I've been working a particularly lengthy afternoon. when I came back to the sounds of grunting and snapping, finding Lucille's fragile form on the ground, and next to the coffee table where her head had made contact with the corner before landing on the ground and nestled in a pool of her blood. You have to understand. We took every precaution,

and sharp edges or areas she was likely to hit if she seized were always far away from her. The table was in my personal study room on the second floor, and the rubber corner protectors were taken off of it. I rolled her over and soothed her as I'd done many times before, calling 911 the moment I spied blood. Thankfully, they were over within minutes and took her into the ambulance, but unlike so many other times,

she was not coming out of this one. Now, as the title suggests, she continued to seize as they strapped her down, her joints flailing and smashing against the EMT, the metallic walls of the ambulance and anything they could find until she was mercifully sedated. You should get her things. It's not likely she'll be coming home tonight. One of the EMTs caught back to me, sweat dripping off their brow after finally putting her down. I knew the drill by this point, but it was still painful to hear.

I nodded and told her I'd follow on as soon as I gathered everything. Heading back into the house, I realised I hadn't noticed some of the extra sticky notes dotted around the living room, leading to the edge of our stairs. They weren't placed on the walls, but instead hung by a thin black thread that Lucille must have pinned from end to end in strategic places on the house. Wondering if she'd documented how she felt and if it was potentially relevant to her physician, I grabbed the nearest one and read it. don't forget you'll be making contact at 4.42 p.m. sharp. Wear loose clothing and do not take your meds. A small stop sign with a blind eye in the centre peering back at me. Why the hell would she tell herself not to take a medication?

Confused, I went to the next one a few feet away and felt her hair's on my neck stand on end as I did so. He's offered me a deal. I can explore more of his world if I give up one month of my lifespan each time I enter it. Seems fair to me. He called it the decadent plane. Must remember that next time. Oh, and to call him the fringe god.

He didn't like being called a black mass. Next to this one were two small drawings, one of Lucille's body floating around pillars of steel and light with a huge mass. at the centre. The other, simply writing the words, fringe God, over and over, progressively getting more scratchy with each consecutive entry. Hands shaking. I frantically ran through the living room and up the stairs to our bedroom, grabbing as many notes as I could in the process. Concern for how far her mental state had deteriorated was building within me as I scanned each entry. Today I had a seizure. In the process I got to dive deeper into the amorphous golden shroud

and see the beauty that dwelt within. I want to remember it but I'm too nervous to even write it down. I've got to stop taking my meds, too much interference. Maybe I could paint some of it. Tried painting the visage of the nocturn one. His crown too beautiful for me to even put onto campus. I tried to speak his name aloud and I ended up with a migraine. Pitchering him in my head just made me cry. It hurts so much but I cannot wait to get back there. Today was special. The Fringe God gave me a better offer than before and I swear the nocturne one wept from beneath his flesh mask as the offer was made. If I did exactly as he said, I'd be able to explore the inner sanctums of the decadent planes and gain knowledge I could bring back with me.

I have to remember these plans when I get back. I looked at the final drawing and I felt sick. She drawn steps for how to cause bleeding in her brain and a seizure so strong that it would effectively kill her if I hadn't come home when I did. More drawings were strewn across her canvas, but I had no time to peruse as my cell phone rang I realized how much time I'd wasted in the apartment.

Mr. Loomis, it's Dr. Mitesh. If you aren't already on your way down, you need to get here immediately. Your wife, she... Arriving at the hospital and apologising profusely for my terrible parking on the curb, I rushed in and headed straight for the neurology ward. Notes tucked into my pocket as I tried my best not to bump into other visitors. My mind focused on one thing. Blue Seal.

I turned the last corner and I heard the screaming before I saw the staff. It was filled with pain and terror and it absolutely belonged to my wife. Spotting a nurse leaning against the window, I approached him and tried my best to keep my composure. My wife, Mrs. Loomis, is she? I breathed my eyes darting to the foreboding double doors, back to the obviously shaken up nurse. He tried to be professional, but whatever was going on was far beyond his experience level. She's not stopped seizing since we got here.

We've tried sedating her several times, but it's not doing her any good. I'm sorry. The screaming got too much, and I had to take a breather. The doctor should be out for you soon. Excuse me. He rushed past me, and I chalked it up to nerves in a new environment. waiting around for half an hour and staring at the notes did nothing to calm my notes nor did dr mitesh when he finally came out and ushered me to a waiting room he explained to me that she wasn't just having

one continuous seizure or at least he didn't think so but was instead having consecutive seizures one after the other without any rest i've honestly not seen anything like it he began hands rubbing each other as he spoke. I've tried to get a scan of her brain, but... Well... Not safe, right. I chimed in. Fully aware that any person mid-s seizure is a liability.

My wife may be small, but she packed a punch at the best of times. Right. We've up the dosage to bring her to a calm state, but it seems to wear off quickly. I've requested our head of neurology, and hopefully she can shed some light on this. In the meantime, you're welcome to sit with her, but I must apologize in advance for the straps. He saw my eyebrows raise and clarified.

This is a precaution, I assure you. We've just managed to fully put her under, but we don't want to take chances or have her cause more harm to herself. He leaned forward. We will get to the bottom of this. I promise you. He led me back into her room, and for the first time in what felt like weeks, I looked upon my poor, broken wife. Her face was bruised up from the knock she'd taken as she fell,

head bandaged up with gauze, and her face scrunched up in a permanent grimace. Never ceased to horrify or hurt me to see her body after it's been through an ordeal such as this. Tears ran down my face as I sat next to her and resisted the urge to hold her hand. Instead, just electing to sit and try to talk to her. Hey Lulu, it's Arthur.

Yeah, I'll come back once again to help pick up your goofy hands. I giggled, sniffing hard at our own lame attempts to downplay her debilitating illness. You know, you really scared me today. I thought I was going to lose you. I poured out some of the notes in my pocket and figured it would make good conversation while I waited for the neurologist. Found these notes while I was getting your thing. I wish I'd known just how bad things had gotten. But I was so busy working, I didn't see the signs.

I'm so sorry, Lucy. I felt the lump in my throat as I fought back tears. Never be sorry when a deal can be made, Vessel. Words failed to truly encapsulate what happened next. But I'll make a meager attempt. I saw it slinking around, on all fours from beneath her bed at first, a hulking dark mass of shifting substances, jagged, thick limbs ending in hooves, carefully planted, and the mass tensing as it began to rise

from the other side of the bed. A humanoid torso rose, and I swear that had anyone else seen what I'd seen, madness and death would have permeated that hospital. It defied logic and reasoning, but I couldn't look away. A hairy male torso with the spine protruding towards me and two amorphous arms jutting out of their sockets and pressing on the back as the head. Oh God, the head. Snap forward to look at me.

The skull was a creature resembling a deer with flecks of black flesh hanging off the bone. White orb is beaming in the sockets and antlers made from the arms of a human. protruding from either edge of it, muscle and sinews showing through, as if it was in the process of shedding. I went to wrench, to scream, to throw my body over Lucille's, but I was transfixed. Your bondmaid made a choice with the grains of sand she had left in her hourglass. She elected to boost her limited understanding. The voice was smooth and almost disarming in nature.

I was terrified to my core, but enraptured by every syllable. You may still save her, vessel. But is that what she wants? It cocked its head to the side and stared at us both. A question ringing out in my head for a few moments afterwards, as flashes of Lucille and I, in better days, went through my mind. Her knack for exploration, love of art and her laughter, or jostling for position in my head before I snap back.

why wouldn't she want to be here with me what kind of question is that terror gripped me but grief is a powerful motivator can you save her or not what do i need to do it dug its claws into one of the antlers as if thinking before replying slowly i can but suffering awaits the response rang out and he gave no one of the answer further elaboration, save for pointing at her and saying, She must wear the crowd. And then pointing to me, adding, You must bear the guilt. A small lamprey-like creature appeared from the neck of this fringe god, and he pulled it off, the shrill cry ripping into my ears,

as many eyes and teeth felt immediately locked onto me. She will be saved. but your guilt will be eternal vessel, he reiterated, holding out this parasite that was pulling at his emaciated digits to get to me. Do you accept the gift? Do you pleasure yourself to the fringe? I swallowed and nodded, reaching out to take whatever the fuck is in his hand. But the antlers grabbed me first, pulling me over the bed and deep into this monstrosity's eyes. Show me solidarity first, Vessel. Earn your seat at my table.

And in that moment, it was as if he was never there, like I had snapped awake from some unexpected nap. Groggy, I looked around and cast my eyes towards my wife. She was staring right at me, horror stricken across her face, as she began to open her mouth wider and wider. unblinking as she did so her eyes rolled into the back of her head as a cacophony of screams erupted from her and her body began to jerk violently it was on a different scale than any seizure i had ever witnessed from her previously and before i even had a chance to react her nurses ushered me out and took over she carried on seizing for the next ninety hours

No matter what anyone did, she would persist. The body was riddled with bruises and her vocal cords by this point were long since ruptured. A whispering yelp all she was able to muster. Her body began to fail her on the fifth day, and while she was contorting into horrific positions for her body to attempt to support, her strength was fading rapidly, and the doctors were able to restrain her with greater ease. The neurologists were stumped

Experts across the US had no concrete idea And the sole consensus they could come to Was that the tumour was now pressing more into her brain And the seizures would not cease without risky surgery They gave me time to think it over of course Letting me sit with her again now that she was in a more sedated state Though I was terrified to do some Before going in

I resolved to try to try to try to be in I resolved to try and sleep in the adjacent waiting room, having not received any proper news or resolution since this began, I now felt a degree of weight had been lifted that if I was going to see my wife potentially the last time, it would do me good to do so with a clear mind. I don't know if you call it a dream or a nightmare, but what I saw in that space was more vivid and tangible than anything that had come before it. I was your typical dreamer, barely remembered my experiences unless they were emotionally driven or traumatic. But this was on a whole new level, and I can still remember the way it looked, smelled, and even felt on my skin as I floated. I dare not go into detail here. I fear that may break the pact I now have with the fringe gods. I will say that my wife was right in her notes.

she did not do it any justice i only had glimpses of the gate she stood in front of both were shut to me and lumbering goliath stood on either side bearing down on me as i floated aimlessly unsure of how to proceed Once again, the fringe god appeared in front of me, leaning forward as he spoke. Your pact is about to be complete, vessel. Are you prepared for the hardships ahead? Are you ready to worship? As he finished, the gate opened up just enough for me to see my wife behind it. Her smile broke through the fog in my mind and put me at ease in a way I never thought I'd experience again. Without thinking, I nodded.

Whatever it takes to Freya, I'm ready, I replied, resolutes. Then the pact is sealed. I would allow you to say goodbye before the traversals begin on the next lunar cycle. He extended an antler, and I begrudgingly gritted. Why would I need to say goodbye here? I asked. The fringe God shook his head. Not here. Your guilt begins now. I lied to her. I lied to myself. I lied to you. I'm sat in the waiting room and I can feel the sheer weight of my sins bearing down on me like a freaking lead weight in my shoulder or a leech attached to my net, growing fat and engorged on every black mark for my life.

The hardest part of watching someone you love die slowly. is never knowing when to let go. Living in a perpetual state of agony and wondering if this is your last day eating breakfast, your last ever, I love you, or your last ever kiss. Everything mundane becomes ecstasy. You savour those quiet moments when you're not stressing over medication, palliative care,

or what your life will be like in the lack long after. Lucille loves her art. She loved creativity. creating fantastical monsters she could immerse herself in, and I adore creating and building those worlds as an architect and designer. We bonded over that love of the weird and unusual so many years ago, and it was what kept us strong through those darker days. Even now, its influence can be felt through every word you see upon this recount of events.

I didn't just time her seizure because I knew it could be a mild one. I did it because I was determined to make sure if she died it was in her home and in my arms. With dignity, I must deal with that blame for the rest of my life. And every time I look in the mirror, I see the fringe god staring over my shoulder and reminding me of what I did, reminding me of my sins. Lucille is on life support in the next room. and as soon as I finish this documentation, this confession, I'll do the merciful thing and let her go.

I will hold her hand, kiss her forehead and hold those post-it notes tightly as she slips away and falls into the realm she was so desperate to stay in. It is the right thing, no matter the cost of my sins. Maybe I'm at peace with it because I know that this was. inevitability, that blaming myself is exactly what any widower of a terminally ill loved one would do, that my timing was at its core just standard practice, regardless of my selfishness. Maybe it's because I know she was a passionate believer in dying with dignity, and she fought tooth and freaking nail to stay alive as long as she could. Or maybe it's because

when I slept last night after I'd said my goodbyes, I saw my goodbyes. I saw my same. saw her in that indescribable realm, smiling at a distance with the nocturnal one's arm protectively draped over her shoulder. The obelisk of Sonder was my sole means of emotional communication between us, as I sat in the Stigian void between the dream world and the realm she now inhabits. Maybe I know that good days, when I catch her smile shining off the horizon, are worth every ensuing night terror that springs full. unspeakable creatures that threaten to tear me from my fringe god to tempt me to their realms with promises of forbidden desires as they torture every corner of my mind all that i know is that i'll go to

sleep tonight and i will once again see her whether it's real or not doesn't matter my fringe god fulfilled his end of the pact now it's my turn to do the same Tonight's fourth tale of terror is, it breathes, it bleeds, it breathes. I've always been a sick child. It was never bad enough to warrant a trip to the hospital, but it was always something that was hanging over me. I was smaller and less energetic than most kids my age. While they preferred to run around and play outside, I chose to stay inside and read.

The slightest bit of activity was enough to exhaust me for days on end. It wasn't a bad life, but I can certainly see how it made me into the introverted person I am today. I took comfort in books, and I experienced the world through them. It wasn't until I turned 23 that I began to question myself. everyone around me seemed to be getting married and settling down, but I wasn't. I had a few friends at work, but no one I really hung out with in my free time. My family was gone. I lost my father at a very young age to a heart attack, brought on by a

lifetime of high cholesterol, and my mother passed away shortly after I graduated college from an extremely malignant form of pancreatic adenocarsinoma. My mother clung onto life for a few weeks before her body shut down. I remember my last memory of her in the hospital. She was so thin that it looked like the slightest breeze would take her from me. Her eyes were bright and feverish, and her skin was yellowed like the pages of an old book. The palliative, Demerol, that they were giving her to ease her into a final moment, robbed her of any coherent last words.

She just stared at me with her glassy eyes as the end came for her. I clutched her hand in mine, but it was like she wasn't even there. I told her I loved her. She didn't respond. She just closed her eyes and let everything go. I decided that it was time for me to do the same. I had no close family nearby or any real friends. I was alone in the world.

I put in my two weeks notice at the small company that was gracious enough to hire me, fresh-eyed out of college, and left town shortly after my mother's funeral. In all honesty, I didn't want to stay there any longer. Everything reminded me of what was gone and what I was missing out on. After selling our house and settling the matter of her will, I had enough left to get far away. I chose the countryside. I wanted to be alone with my thoughts for a while.

I felt like I needed some time to work through everything and decide on my next country. course of action. My inheritance afforded me that privilege. In hindsight, I realized that this was the worst possible choice in my life. Living alone with only my thoughts to keep me company, a mile away from my closest neighbor, only served to deepen my sense of isolation. I was alone with my thoughts and I quickly realized that none of them were good. I think my mental state only quickened my descent into sickness. It began when I noticed a small mass on my left upper arm, just underneath the skin. It was about the size of a pea and I could move it around under my skin, about a quarter of an inch or so in each direction. At first I told myself it was a fatty deposit and nothing to be

concerned about. Under palpitation, I experienced a slight discomfort, but no more than that, when manipulating any other section of my body. It wasn't until I noticed that it was slowly growing, that I began to get concerned. I eventually broke down and went to see a doctor, who assured me that it was likely a lipoma or xanthoma, and was nothing to be concerned about. He reassured me that it was more likely a symptom of high cholesterol rather than a sign of cancer. He explained that while family history and genetics had given me a bad hand, that didn't necessarily mean I couldn't live a long, healthy life. I was still unsure about the lump, which led me to asking if we could biopsy it.

He reasoned that there was no real need to do so, that they were harmless. Since the mass was movable under my skin, it meant that it was encapsulated and was likely benign. He said that getting a sample would only confirm what we already knew, and would cost me about $400. He advised me to cut back on my red meats and come back if I noticed any change in the lipoma. I thanked him and left the hospital feeling comforted. That reassurance lasted about a month. For the first days, I was constantly poking and prodding the small lump.

After about a week, when I was confident that the mass hadn't grown any, I went back to my usual life of solitude. I woke up late every morning and read. I did some minor chores around the house and thought about what direction I wanted my life to go in and what field I wanted to work in. Sometimes I would go days without talking to anyone. Looking back, I now realized how unhealthy it was to isolate myself after my mother's unexpected death.

I was stagnating, and I didn't even realize it. About a month after getting my lipoma checked out, I began to experience a stinging pain in my upper left arm. discomfort brought back the memory of my visit to the doctor. The mass on my arm was now dime-sized. I could still move it, but now the slightest touch felt like I was being poked with a needle. I left it alone for a few days, hoping against hope that it was all in my imagination. But the pain continued. I think some sad part of me thought that it would go away if I just ignored it long.

enough. To be honest, I was afraid of going back to the hospital. That was partly due to the fact that I was afraid of what the diagnosis would be. A growth can be a symptom of cancer. My mother's experience in the hospital also kept me from going. I lived with the slowly growing mass for about a week before I realized how dire the situation was. It wasn't a very much. It wasn't It wasn't until I woke up one night with a stinging pain in my arm that I decided to go back to the doctor. I rolled out of bed, I went to the bathroom to look at my arm. I figured that I'd slept on it wrong, or possibly struck it against something, and that was what was causing me pain. I realized how wrong I was when I flipped on the light switch and saw a small bit of caked blood around the area on my upper.

arm. I hopped into the shower to wash away the silver dollar-sized splotch of blood and had a startling realization. There was a fingernail sticking out of my arm. At first I thought that I'd inadvertently rolled over and accidentally jabbed a clipped toenail into my skin. But as I went to pull it, I experienced a sudden tearing pain that actually made me gar. It felt like I had grabbed a nerve ending and pulled on it. I rinsed off the area and examined it. The nail appeared to be sticking out of my skin rather than piercing it. When I painfully shifted the lipona, the nail wiggled and receded further into my skin,

as if it was part of the mass itself. I made up my mind there and then to go to the doctor first. thing in the morning. At first the doctor tried to rationalise it the same way that I did. He said that it was likely a lipoma and my constant worrying was just making it more pronounced. It wasn't until after I showed him the area that he began to take me seriously. He concluded that the skin ruptured outward instead of inwards, which meant that it had come from under my skin and poked out. I asked if he would excise the lump so we could examine it,

and he agreed, due to possible risks of infection, and to identify the cause for the growth. I turned down his offer of a general anesthetic. He tried to convince me that it would be easier with one, but I asked for a local anesthetic instead. I remembered my mother's final moments. even if it was going to be a simple procedure I didn't want to experience anything like that

ever in my life a part of me realized that it was my fear of being in the same situation as her that made me so stubborn about the anesthetics after he explained the procedure to me and its risks I followed him into the operating room laid down on the table and waited for him to begin

I did my best to look away while he worked. I imagined turning my head to see what was happening, only to sneeze into the open wound, or faint from the mere sight of the surgery. I did gather up enough courage to look towards the end, though. I looked up into the mirror to see about an inch of skin peeled away, with a slightly red mass beneath it. It didn't look nearly as grotesque or as sickening

as I thought. Instead, it looked clinical and clean. He set an object in the tray and proclaimed, I think I got it. Now, let's just see what we have. I heard him drop the heavy tweezers on the ground, as if something had shocked him. I went to look, but he told me I needed to stay still until he could suture up the area. He reassured me that the utensil had just slipped out of his hands and it was nothing to be worried about. I waited for ten agonising minutes of uncertainty as he sutured the area and swabbed it down again with Betadine. When he finished I sat up and looked of what he'd set down in the tray. It was a greyish mass that was a about the size of a misshapen marble.

Through the antiseptic scent of the hospital, I smelled something like spoiled meat. I felt my stomach turn as the realization that this had been inside me and had just begun to rot. One end terminated in what looked like a fingernail that had broken through my skin. It wasn't until he asked me if I knew what the term fetus in fetu meant, that I connected all the macabre pieces of the jigsaw. Fetous in fetu, a parasitic twin. We went into the examination room where the doctor explained what he thought was happening

is he gave me a complete look over. He posited that I'd started off with a twin, but somewhere along the way, I'd absorbed my twin into my body. It had likely siphoned off nutrients, which explained my lethargic activity and smaller stature when I was younger. He assumed that the mass had been reabsorbed by my body over the years, and there was likely nothing left except that small piece we had just removed. As he palpitated my back and his face turned cold, I knew that that was not. not what had happened. The doctor said he felt something just above my right kidney and that

exploratory surgery was necessary. He told me that the sooner they performed the surgery, the better. I agreed and he asserted that I would need to be completely anesthetized for the operation. It was then that I was forced to accept my worst fear. I would have to be sedated like my mother was. I tried to talk my way out of the situation, but my doctor explained that this was a life threatening issue that needed to be resolved. I eventually relented and consented to the surgery. I spent a sleepless night in the hospital with my stomach growling at me the entire time. I prayed it was my stomach growling at not having eaten all day, rather than the partially formed fetus of my twin inside me. The anesthetist arrived about an hour after I woke up and taught me through

the process step by step. She put the catheter in my arm and connected it to an IV back. She asked me if I was ready and I nodded, terrified about what was happening and horrified by my prognosis. She told me everything was going to be all right and then hung the IV. bag filled with saline, ativan and an anesthetic. My last coherent memory before going under was of my mother and her final moments. What happened next was the worst five hours of my life. I remember hearing music in my days. At first I thought the surgery was over until I heard the surgeon talking over the music, asking for a retractor to hold the surgical area open. I had two horrifying thoughts in that moment. The first being that Nikki Minarge's Anaconda

was one of the most discomforting songs to hear playing in an operating room. The second was that I was going to be conscious for the entire surgery. They had taped my eyelids so I couldn't see anything, but I heard everything. As I laid there, unable to move during the gruff course of X gonna give it to you by DMX. The head surgeon asked if what he was seeing was really what made up the mass.

I heard one of the assisting nurses gag as she excised the material into a pan. She excused herself and someone joked that she wasn't good when situations got hairy. The people around him groaned at the pun that I wouldn't understand until they showed me what they had extracted. I was in surgery for five hours, conscious and paralyzed for the entire experience. Luckily, I felt nothing. Well, I heard every joke, jab and bit of gossip. I heard the

sizzle as the bovi. I looked it up later. Cut and cauterize my wound at the same time. Those 300 minutes were the most excruciating moments of my life. It felt like I was on the table for an eternity, listening to music, puns, and the sound of my own operation. The worst part of it was the realization that I couldn't see what they were doing. And I had to imagine. I had to imagine. what was happening to me. My faculties returned a while after surgery. I didn't say anything to the attending nurse. I wanted to believe that what had happened hadn't actually occurred.

The nurse was hesitant to show me what they removed, but I explained that I needed the closure. She told me the surgeon would show me when he gave me an update. I waited for 30 minutes, imagining the horror that they had removed from me before he arrived. He took me to a backroom where he showed me the mass floating in formaldehyde. It was the size of a baseball and covered with hair, tiny teeth and greying flesh. It looked like something pulled straight from John. carpenter's the thing. He told me the surgery had been a success and they'd removed most of the growth.

He reassured me when he noticed my concern by explaining that a small mass had fused to my spinal column in utero and that it would be dangerous to attempt to remove it. He explained that my body had walled it off and encapsulated it and there was no danger. To attempt to remove it could have left me paralyzed from the waist down. I thanked him and recuperated in the hospital for a few days until I was able to go home. As soon as I got home, I looked into the mirror. There was a small line of stitches on my stomach and a divot on my back where they'd removed my parasitic twin. I just wanted to put everything behind me and forget about what I had growing and rotting inside me. I wanted to forget about what I'd remembered from the surgery.

I failed on both of those fronts. I spent the next month in a chemical day's. The doctors had prescribed me oxycontin for. the pain. At first I was hesitant to take it, given my history, but the pain soon forced my hand. To be honest, it was pleasant. It felt like a ball of warmth at the center of my core that spread out throughout my body 30 minutes after I took a dose. Those four weeks drifted by as a fuzzy and warm memory without anything interesting happening. It was so pleasant that I even pestered the doctor for another regimen of oxycontin under the pretense of pain.

It was about two weeks after I finished the bottle that odd things began to happen. At first, I assumed my increased appetite was just me, getting back to a normal diet after surgery and a month of opioids suppressing my hunger. However, I was eating more than usual. Usually I would cook myself something to eat and sit down with a book. As I got lost in the book, I would eat. Sometimes I would finish a couple of chapters before I realized I'd eaten multiple plates of food. I didn't think anything of it.

I just assumed that the excise mass had cleared up some space in my stomach. The stomach pains were harder to explain away. I eventually broke down after the pain continued and went to see the doctor. He felt the area and we talked for a while before he explained that it was likely a side effect of repeated opioid usage. He said it was common for prolonged usage to cause feelings of nausea, discomfort and sometimes even anedonia. He looked at me in a way that implied I was going to ask for another prescription. I wasn't, to be honest, but the implication was enough to keep me from pressing the issue. I agreed with this explanation and left without discussing my discomfort any further.

The discomfort continued for a few weeks before the breaking point. I woke up in the middle of the night screaming in agony. There was a sharp pain in my sight and in my confusion I came to a sleep addled conclusion. I had been stabbed. I looked frantically around my room for any sign of an intruder, but there was nothing. I made my way to the bathroom to look at the area. Oh, I wish that I had been stabbed. Instead, there was a quarter-sized chunk of skin missing from my back.

I had been... biten. There was no mistake in the wound for anything else. I could see the area where teeth had scraped and cut into my skin, as if it had been pinched and torn into a ragged hole from the inside. I tried to block out the memory of what the mass that was removed from me looked like. It was that amalgamation of hair, greying flesh and teeth. I won't lie. I had a complete mental breakdown when I connected all of the dots. I curled up in a fetal position and began to weep uncontrollably. It was too much. A recurring thought bounced around in my head like butterflies in the stomach.

Why me? I started to have a panic attack on the cold tile of the floor. Why? Me. I began hyperventilating and couldn't catch my breath. Me? I think I went crazy at that point because the next thing I heard was

It's okay. We're going to be okay. I looked around half expecting someone to be in the bathroom with me but no one was there. It wasn't until the voice repeated those words that I realized where it was coming from. It was coming from the hole in my back. Whatever was inside me was talking to me. I got up. I had to go to the hospital. I was having a psychotic episode and likely suffering from another mass. As I headed towards the door,

it spoke again. It is voice no louder than the wheezing of a respirator. Don't go. They hurt me. I don't know why I responded. If I had to guess, I would blame it on the ridiculousness of the situation and my complete mental breakdown moments earlier. Something was growing inside me like a creature from alien that could talk. I should have sprinted to the nearest hospital screaming. But instead, I spoke in a shaky, unshaping.

certain voice. I have to. You're hurting me. If I don't, you might even kill me. What if I didn't? I can shift while I grow. I can make it so it doesn't hurt until I'm ready and then we can work together to make it as painless as possible so we can both live. Ready for what? Until I'm strong enough to leave your body. Right now I'm not strong enough to survive outside of you. I just need you to sustain me for a few months. Please, they'll kill me at the hospital. Brother, I can be your friend.

I want to be with you. I don't want you to be lonely. Please don't kill me. To be completely truthful, I don't know what made me agree. I can only try to explain my mindset at the time. I just had the worst experience of my life in a surgery room. If I had it my way, I would never return to a hospital ever again. I didn't want another repeat of what happened to me the first time occurring again. I also didn't want to relive the memories of my mother's glassy stare as I held her hand and waited for her to die.

The thing growing inside me had promised it wouldn't hurt them. Oh, I don't know, but listening to that quiet tone was reassuring. It spoke in a way that reminded me of dogs whimpering and babies crying. The voice sounded weak and scared. I promised that I wouldn't go to the doctors. I think those were the reasons that made me agree to the stupidest decision I have ever made in my life. The first few days were the most awkward moments I have ever experienced in my life. Every now and then I would feel it shifting inside me and apologising when it moved away that brought me discomfort.

It explained that the surgery had only mangled it. It would need some time to heal and regrow, as it was still in the fetal stage, and could produce fetal stem cells to regenerate. It held up its promise, and the pain I'd been experiencing for weeks went away. Now, a large part of me was still driven to go to the doctor, and have my parasitic twin removed. I think the only thing preventing me from doing that was how frightened the voice sounded, and the realization that I would be murdering a living, breathing person. It wasn't until dinner one night that I thought any real sense of connection with it. I just sat down to have a cheap

microwave dinner when the voice spoke. What are you doing? I was to be a cheap microwave dinner. I was taken aback, as it had previously only spoken when it was apologising for shifting. I responded that I was eating and reading a short story. We can remember it for you wholesale from an anthology. He asked me to read the story to him, and I did. I would read a paragraph to him, in between each bite of food. When I finished both the meal and the story, he asked if I could read him another story. We spent the entire night reading and discussing various stories. As I enjoy multiple genres, I read a wide range of stories to the voice as it quietly listened. It wasn't until the sun crept in through the blinds that I realized how much time

had passed. I had lost track of time while talking to my twin. We'd read dozens of short stories and spent hours talking about the ones we like best. I went to bed after I promised my companion that we would continue this later. It became a daily fixture of our lives. Sometimes the voice would talk to me as I did chores or cooked a meal. I would always sit down for the meal with a book

and I would read it aloud while I ate. Sometimes I would have to stop and explain an event to them but most times they just listen quietly and patiently. Afterwards we would discuss our feelings on the book or what we thought was going to happen. A sad part of me realized that this was the closest thing I had to a friend in almost a decade. I found myself looking forward to the discussions we would have after each meal.

One night, a few weeks after their discovery, I heard the voice talking to me. I can only assume that it thought I was sleeping when it spoke those words. I had been asleep until I felt them shift inside me. What had once unnerved me, now reminded me of a baby turning in their mother's womb. The voice twisted in my stomach and began talking. Soon I'll be with you.

Soon I'll be able to touch you. with my own hand. Soon, you'll love me. I was so lonely all these years. No one to talk to. I experienced the world through you. Now I want to experience the world with you. I want to feel the sun on my skin and the wind in my hair. I want to be by your side. I kept those words to my words to my myself. A sad part of me realized that I now wanted the same thing. I wanted to be able to look at them while we talked. I wanted to take them outside and show them the world. I wanted a friend. Those words filled me with a warmth similar to Oxycontin and made me realize how lonely and depressed I had actually been up to that point.

I had no one I could talk to, no one I could relate to. Now I had a friend. Those words were lies, subterfuge, to convince me that it actually cared about me and made me suffer through the growing pains. The veneer of fraternity and friendships sloughed off to reveal the decay underneath. I woke up early one morning to find that the owner of the voice had gone still inside me. It was asleep. I quietly made my way into the bathroom to do my morning duties, when a macabre whim drove me to look at my back.

The small hole in my back had almost quadrupled in size since it first spoke to me. I'd treated and disinfected the fistula in the hope. that I could slide them out of the canal when they were strong enough to survive outside me. Through the fistula, I caught my first glimpse of my twin as it slept inside me. It is not my twin. It's not even human. It has multiple eyes on its face that look more like a fly than a human. It is still in the process of development and in the third

to your so holes that pocked his face. Only a dozen were filled with actual eyes. Its skin is cracked, mottled and gray, like maggoty pork with tiny hair-like cilia breaking through its body. The thing's mouth looks like a lamprey eel, a concentric circle of needle-sharp teeth with a grotesque, sucking appendage in the center. I stared in horror for a few minutes before I realized that it was starting to stir. I moved away from the mirror and did my business before it could fully wake up. I left the bathroom knowing that this thing was not to be trusted. It had grown faster than any organism should.

In a few weeks it went from the size of a solaceous. softball to the size of a watermelon. It has swollen like a cancer inside of me, and only now do I realize how thin I've actually become, due to it siphoning off my nutrients. I don't know where I contracted this thing, but it isn't an absorbed fetal twin. It is a parasitic entity growing within me, looking to be birthed into this world so it can infect others and perpetuate the cycle. It'll find the weak world, the weary, the wretched, and it will take advantage of them. It'll promise them false friendship and hollow hope as it incubates inside them. It is not human, it is a nightmare incarnate. How else could it regrow so quickly after being

torn out of me by the doctors? The growth they removed was a bud, likely ejected to seed another part of my body. I can now feel dozens of other lumps on my arms, legs and groin. Embryos in development. I am a hive. Now it's every movement sends waves of agony through me. It is strong enough to survive. on its own and it doesn't need its wretched host anymore.

I tried to hide the pain for fear that it'll realize how much of an advantage it actually has now. I know that the time of parturition is soon upon us and there is only one choice left. It will likely kill me on its way out to prevent me from trying to stop it. It is too late to go to the hospital. I am beyond help. The creature will realize what I am trying to do and stop me. It will either twist and constrict my spine,

leaving me as a paralyzed nest for it, or simply debilitate me with pain until I can't move. Both are less than pleasant options. even if I could make it to the hospital to remove them whilst to stop the host from casting off more migrating buds to grow into those fiendish things it wants out and I can't allow that

I have my own option the thing likely won't see it coming until it is too late so on to why I'm writing this. I always wanted to write. I spent so much of my left reading that it seemed like a logical progression.

I don't know if it's irony, or if it's just the fumes from the gasoline I poured around the house that have now soaked into the rug, coated the walls, and furniture, and getting to me. But it seems comical and the only piece I write is basically my suicide note.

I have to share this story before I strike the match. I can feel it stirring inside me as the fumes permeate the house, unaware of what I'm planning. This thing. It breathes. It bleeds. It breathes. and soon

it'll burn we'll burn I know what will happen when the end comes and it tries to break free and wriggle out of my shredded body I'll hold it to me in my final moments it will likely snap my spinal cord like a dead branch and paralyze me from the waist down my legs won't matter though

as I have no intent on escaping. It'll scream, seethe, and shriek as the flames crackle and snarl around us. I will look into its horrifying visage and I will smile, even if its maliciousness made flesh. It is still my only friend left in this world. as the flames lap at us.

I'll press it against me and whisper platitudes into its malformed ear. I'll tell it about how lonely I'd been since my mother died. I'll tell it how glad I was to finally have a true friend that understood me. As we burn together, I'll tell them how much I'll tell them how much I'd. love them. Now we round off proceedings for this evening with the gaze. Watching. I have something. I must confess. I've been watching you. Yes. Right this second. Unaware of my proximity. I've been watching you for the past several days. You have such a lovely home. full of space and dark call like the dark all that time I've been in your home just watching you

well not just watching but we'll come to that later I watch you I watch you perform your nightly routines before slipping into your bed under your warm blankets I watch you until you fall asleep. I'm there to see you awaken in the morning. Today breaks new light. I am so still. My stare remains unbroken and undisturbed for hours and hours. You are so beautiful when you sleep.

I wish you could see yourself as I am. see you, your body is a sensual furnace of heat that radiates endless plumes of vibrant red, orange and yellow flames as you slumber. I bask in your warmth and light. Your rhythmic rising and falling of your chest is the source of a breath that can ignite the very air around you. announcing to the universe that you are here and you are alive. The beauty of the spectacle can hold me in a trance the entire night until the morning light forces me to retreat to my dark haven. Other nights, I come to you.

You don't even feel my touch. Up and down your arms and thud. I touch you with the utmost. I would never want to disturb you while you sleep. Your skin is so soft and delicate, so unlike mine. Your body is a landscape of ecstasy, with a new wonder just waiting to be discovered and explored. Your aroma is intoxicating and invokes an insatiable hunger that I surrender to and gorge upon. I then, quiet, make my way back to my hiding place.

I am hidden well before the first rays of morning peek through the windows. I am so quiet. You never realize I was there. You awake and go about your life as you would any other day. While I sleep, content, but still filled with anticipation for what the following night will hold for us. I see that you have noticed the marks I left behind. Marks on your thighs and arms and throughout your body. I know they hurt and I am truly sorry for that, but things like that are unavoidable when it comes to matters such as these. I am always so

careful that my kisses are soft and delicate. I kiss your body ever so lightly and cautiously. I would not dare spill a single drop of your blood. It saddens me that soon I will have to share you with others. However, I know that you will be just as beautiful to them as you are to me. I know their touch will be equally as delicate as my touches have been. I know their kisses will show as much tenderness as mine have always had. My eggs will hatch any day now. The little ones will most likely hide within the mattress and frame of your bed, a trade for which we earned our namesake.

I much prefer the nightstand next to your bed. A tiny crevice on its side allows me to look upon your face for as long as I desire. It is from here that I simply gaze and wait for our next encounter. Well, my sincerest thanks, as always, for taking the time to listen to tonight's podcast. If you like what you heard, then do me a little favor. Leave a five-star review. write a few nice words wherever you get your podcast from because it really makes a huge difference to me if you do well that's it for one week but of course i'll be back again same time same place next week

so until then very very sweet dream so bye bye