The Dark Somnium - There is Something Wrong with my Girlfriend | Scary Stories from The internet | Creepypasta

Episode Date: February 11, 2023

This creepypasta scary story is from the nosleep subreddit, written by Dopabeane, make sure to check out the original story and support the author: https://www.reddit.com/user/Dopabeane--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/darksomnium/message Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

I guess you could say I met Charlie at work. It was right before Christmas. The holidays are always bad for hospitals, but that night, I swear the city had lost its damn mind. Patients were arriving faster than we could treat them. Traffic collisions, gunshots, assaults, burn victims, and a string of suicide attempts, of which Charlie was the most memorable, with skin covered in long, inflamed cuts like tiger stripes, blue lips and bright rope burns around her neck. It was as if someone had tried to

repurpose a marble statue into a Halloween pinata. The full extent of her injuries became clear on the operating table. Without going into detail, it was apparent that she spent a lot of time hurting herself. The fresh wounds masked many scars, along with deeper, much older trauma. Long story short, she made it. I kept tabs on her over the next few days. No one came to visit her in the ICU, not family, not friends, no significant other. I'll be honest, I feel like I don't belong in nursing, not because I'm bad at my job. If anything, I'm closer to excellent than not, but because my patients haunt me. The ones who live, the ones who die, even their families, they all stay with me, no matter how hard I try to disconnect. Charlie wasn't any different.

If anything, she preoccupied me more than usual. The viciousness of her self-mutilation, coupled with the horror stories implied by her old injuries, struck a deep cord. So did her aloneness. After she'd been released from the ICU, I decided to go see her. I went on my next day off and had the foresight to bring my gym bag along in case I needed an excuse to duck out. I knocked on the doorframe. She looked at me listlessly. The hollows under her eyes were as pronounced as ever,

and she had a very particular look about her, something that made her seem simultaneously very old and very young that I associate with people that are waiting to die. I'm a nurse here at the hospital, I said awkwardly. I was at your surgery the night you came in. She gave a thin smile that didn't reach her eyes. Thank you. No need. I just wanted to see.

I took a deep breath, cursing myself for my stupidity, to ask how you're doing. Her face did soften, certainly didn't become warm, but something changed, a flicker of alertness, a shadow of interest. About as well as you'd expect. This was a mistake, I realized. My presence was pointless at best, detrimental at worst, and probably violated hospital policy to boot. I needed to leave. I don't want to bother you, but I'm glad you're here.

I mean, not here in the hospital, but here. I could hardly believe the words coming out of my mouth. I wanted to sink into the floor and disappear. I nervously swung my bag from one shoulder to another, but I lost my grip as it slid to the floor, sending a cascade of pens, receipts, and clothes across the floor. I watched with horror as an old perfume roller, something that belonged to an ex, something I'm not even supposed to bring into the hospital, skidded under her bed. I dropped to my knees and hurriedly scooped everything back into my bag.

Holy shit, I was stupid. Not only was this a ridiculous, potentially problematic situation to initiate, it was unprofessional as hell. I didn't notice that Charlie had gotten out of bed until she was in front of me, dropping my gym shorts back into my bag. Ma'am, you need to get back in bed. I will. She gave me a careful, appraising look. What's your name? A Theo.

A ghost of a smile touched her mouth. It still missed her eyes. I couldn't get out of there fast enough and didn't visit her again. But a few weeks later, I found a box in my mail tray. I didn't really think about it. It's not unusual to receive things like flash drives and magnets from pharmaceutical reps. I opened it up, and to my surprise, found a perfume roller ball. I thought it was the one I'd left in Charlie's room, but no.

While it was the same scent, it was a brand new bottle. Wrapped around it was a note. Just replacing what I stole, but we can trade back if you like. Charlie. Underneath was a phone number. Even though I knew better, I called her after my shift. It was obvious from the start that Charlie desperately needed company. She had nobody, no family, no friends, nobody but me.

It was difficult to be with her. Charlie was exceedingly frugal with her feelings and her time. She tended to dip into radio silence, often for. for days at a time, before slipping back into my life as though nothing had happened. I wouldn't have put up with it from anyone else, but Charlie wasn't like anyone else. I did call her out on it once, full of righteous anger and a solid measure of suspicion. Charlie's response was a bleak, uncertain smile that was disarming in its openness. Charlie was never open.

She guarded her feelings as though her life depended on it, so that smile, that sad, self-loathing, The brutally honest smile disarmed me entirely. I know it's wrong, but sometimes I get tired of inflicting myself on you. I could almost understand. In ways I couldn't quite identify, Charlie was always on the precipice. She needed so much, but I didn't know how to ask. More than once, I walked into her apartment and found her curled on her bed, crying. She never told me what was wrong.

Never told me what she was feeling or thinking. Sometimes being with her felt like being in a pitch black hangar. The door was there, and I knew the key was somewhere nearby, but it was so vast and so dark that there was no chance of finding either. But it wasn't always bad. She liked to go places, restaurants, national parks, beaches, amusement parks. Her favorite place was an isolated cliff, bounded by tall, rocky cliffs. On these excursions, she seemed alive.

I loved being with her on days like that. More importantly, I felt comfortable with her. I didn't feel like I'd known her my entire life. In fact, most of the time, it seemed like I didn't know her at all. But I sensed that we fit together, that we belonged. Sometimes I was positive she felt the same way. She was often gentle and warm, like she was proud to be with me. Sometimes she'd look at me, really look at me.

like she'd forgotten everything else existed. At times like this, she'd smile, and the smile would always reach her eyes. But just as often, it felt like she was rebelling against that sense of belonging. She was quiet to the point of not communicating, and maddeningly distant. Distant enough, in fact, that I frequently contemplated ending the relationship, but I never quite reached that point, because Charlie possessed an uncanny ability to close that distance before I could pull the metaphorical trigger. Like I said, it was hard, but I loved her, and I wanted to be with her.

Even when things started to slide, even when she got increasingly distant, and when she began to grow cruel, I told myself it was worth it. We had our first real fight on our second anniversary. I don't remember what it was about or who was at fault. I only remember the cold, almost inhuman contempt with which she regarded me. I'd never in my life been looked at the way she looked at me that night, and it crushed me. So I told her we were done and tore out of there as fast as my car would take me. I drove to the beach, huddling my car in the farthest corner of the parking lot, and cried over a girl for the first time in my life.

When I was done, I leaned back and took a deep breath. I let it out slowly in shifts like a train whistling. To my surprise, I felt calm, soothed, relaxed, cleansed. Hell, it felt good. That was the worst part of it all, realizing that I felt better with Charlie gone. She didn't stay gone, though. In fact, she came over to see me just two nights later. Her eyes were wide and almost blank, doll-like.

I let her in because I loved her and then ordered a pizza. We ate in silence on my patio as the brilliant coppers. and oranges of sunset darken to evening. Finally, she said. I'm so sorry. I know, Charlie. She ran her hands through her hair. It caught the dying light and seemed to glow.

I know something's wrong with me. I don't know how to fix it. I don't even think it can't be fixed. I waited silently, training my eyes on the sky's last ribbons of color. I don't feel human anymore. Maybe that's the problem. I'm not supposed to be human. Not supposed to be here at all.

And I know it. Her voice broke. You'd be better off. And she barely looked human in the falling dark, impossibly wide-eyed, smooth skin like gold-tinged porcelain, hair shimmering in the fading light. I shuddered and looked away. That's nonsense. I expected her to cry, but she didn't.

She folded her arms across her chest and refused. refused to look at me. So, instead, I looked at her, feeling bitter and helpless and above all, guilty, because I would be better off without her. The past two days had been like a vacation. I had felt free and light, like the sun had finally risen after a long nightmare. But at my own invitation, darkness had fallen, my porcelain doll, my marble statue, my endless night, sitting once again at my right hand. We sat in silence together for hours. Finally, I took her to bed and did everything I could to make her feel human again.

But nothing got better. It grew worse by leaps and bounds. It got to the point where Charlie expressed no emotion whatsoever unless we were fighting. She started picking fights every day. She said the worst things imaginable. Sometimes she'd simply leave afterwards and stay away for days. In a perverse way, I looked forward to this. Not because I didn't love her, I did, with everything in me, but because I always felt better

when she was gone. But she never stayed gone long. She'd come back and apologize, saying she didn't know why she did what she did, and I guess I even believed her for a while. The atrocious self-harm she inflicted after every altercation was convincing, as were her tears and her instinct to run away, to spare me. I wanted more than anything for Charlie to have some measure of peace. Maybe it was my ego talking, but I felt like I was the best chance she had at finding it.

After I made the mistake of telling her that, her desire to stop inflicting herself on me abruptly mutated into constant refusals to come home, endless because I always went to find her for fear that she would irrevocably harm herself. Usually she was curled up somewhere on her apartment floor or in her bathtub, singing lullabies or whispering long strings of nonsense. Please, God, watch the beans. The crow sings, angels, waves, all green face, the size of a mustard seed. God, please, please God, watch the beans.

Always, she was crying, and when the nonsense prayers ran out, she'd finally speak to me. Just leave. She'd say. Go. Stop trying to help me. Just go, all right. This isn't going to work. It was never going to work.

It won't work because I'm not human anymore. I want you to hurt. I need you to hurt. I remember our last fight with perfect clarity. For once, I started it. I laid down an ultimatum. Get help, real help, medication, and therapy, and every type of psychiatric treatment available to her or leave for good.

Understand what? I want you to hurt. Hurt who? You. I want you to hurt, and nothing will change it. Nothing will help. Everything is done. Everything is finished. Something has to change, Charlie.

It can't. It's done. I'm done. Then so am I. Tears stung my eyes. I glared at her and prayed they wouldn't fall. I can't do this anymore. She smirked miserably as tears streamed down her face.

What can't you do, Theo? She wiped her face. What can't you do? Time stood still for a terrible instant. Words vomited their way up my throat, crashed into each other and jammed. There were too many. I was choking on what I wanted to say, what I needed to say, and what I shouldn't say. Charlie's awful smile slid into a frown.

Time snapped back into place and somewhere inside me, a damn broke. I can't deal with you. I can't spend my life trying to fix you when you won't even try to fix yourself. You don't talk to me. I don't know anything about you. You won't tell me what you are or why you are what you are. You're stealing my time, Charlie, and sometimes I think it's not because you need it, but just because you can. She just stared at me, smooth-skinned and pallid like a porcelain doll, a marble-stained.

statue, utterly inhuman. Then she marched out and slammed the door with such force my walls rattled. My neighbor's front door creaked open. What would they think when they saw Charlie? I wondered. Would she look like a sculpture to them? Like something that wasn't even human anymore? Or would they see her as she really was?

A person who'd been in too much pain for too long to even dream that a life with less pain was possible? I sat alone, crying as the night darkened and the most. moon rose. My sorrow was bitter and painful, born mostly of guilt, but when I finished, I felt clean and empty again. I was at peace. I was all right. I was free. As it turned out, I really was better off without Charlie. I could breathe, I could think, and I could move. It was as if someone had excised an anvil from my guts or cut ropes that had been slowly crushing me like constrictors do with rats. Something inside me, something that had been trapped, was free. But freedom is lonely,

and loneliness is bitter. It took a week for me to start missing her, and another week for that sense of loss to grow intolerable, even painful. One morning, I woke up, clear-headed, and determined. I needed to talk to Charlie. I needed to see her, needed to apologize, needed to assure her that I would always be there for her. I went into work. feeling refreshed and excited. I was ready for this, ready to be whatever she needed to be, for good this time. When I arrived at the nurse's station, I saw something unexpected in the mail tray, a small white box, a sense of foreboding swept over me. I tore it open. Inside was a cheap wristwatch. Behind it was a note in Charlie's handwriting, just replacing what I stole.

The following shift was the longest of my life, when it was finally a little bit. over, I sped over to her apartment. She didn't come to the door when I rang the bell, so I called her phone. It went straight to voicemail. I called again and again and again. Fearing the worst, I kept banging at the door. I hadn't realized just how much noise I was making until the cops arrived. I was frantic. I explained who I was and why I was there, that Charlie struggled with suicidal ideation, that I'd broken up with her recently and was afraid she'd harmed herself and begged the officer for a welfare check right now. The police obliged, but Charlie wasn't in her apartment.

Her car wasn't in the garage either. The cop told me she'd probably taken a vacation, gone away to clear her head. I asked them to call her work, but it was closed for the day. The cop said they'd give it a try in the morning, but in the meantime, not to stress out. She's fine, they said. She's fine. I didn't buy it, so I got in my car and drove to her favorite beach. It was a cloudy, windy night that threatened rain.

The parking lot was empty except for one distressingly familiar car, Charlie's car. I peered through the driver window. She wasn't inside, but her phone was in the cup holder. More frightened than I'd ever been in my life, I ran up the beach to the cliffs. Wind rushed at me, stinging my eyes and whipping my face raw. The cold was brutal, but I didn't slow down or turn back, didn't even so much as think as I barreled up the narrow trail to the top of the bluffs, scanning the murky landscape. I had no idea what I was looking for, but I told myself I'd know it when I saw it.

And I did. Something fluttered in my periphery. I turned as a figure emerging from the shadows, wind-wipped hair, bright eyes, red coat flapping in the wind. But it wasn't Charlie, just a big jagged rock perched on the edge of the cliff. Tangled around it was her red coat. I drew closer. Each step seemed impossibly slow and heavy, but everything around me was clear and sharp.

I saw it all. The grass, the vines, the rocks, the cliffs, the coat. Even her sunglasses wedged into a crevice in the rock, glinting in the moonlight-like eyes. I approached the edge of the cliff and looked down. There was nothing, nothing but a sheer drop and crashing surf far, far below. I called the police again. They took me seriously this time, but didn't let me stay. When I resisted, they threatened to arrest me, so I left, screaming and cursing all the

way home, where I threw everything I could pick up at the walls, destroying everything in the process. Then sore, crying, and nearly delirious, I drank myself to sleep. I had a nightmare about Charlie. She was a child, but I recognized her. Clear, wide eyes and a wild tangle of sunrise-colored hair. She huddled in a dark corner in an even darker house, sobbing over her cupped hands. I approached timidly, sensing that something was terribly wrong.

I peered into her hands and saw a scattering of bloody teeth gleaming faintly. She looked up at me. I jumped back, startled. Her eye was black and swollen. She released a heart-wrenching sob and I saw that front teeth were gone. I woke up nauseous, remembering a particular habit of Charlie's I'd never really. considered before, the way she always reached up and covered her mouth whenever she smiled. A week passed, Charlie remained missing.

I couldn't work, couldn't sleep, couldn't eat, and after a few days, couldn't even drink. I existed in a twilight haze of pain, guilt, and slow panic. So when I started seeing things, I wasn't entirely surprised. At first, it was a toddler, Charlie, sitting in a filthy crib in the middle of my living room. Then, six-year-old Charlie, hands cupping her broken front teeth and crying in the corner of my bedroom. Little Charlie standing before a locked wardrobe and whispering to the doors. She always knocked so softly and whispered.

Paul? Teenage, Charlie, covering her bloody face with a towel. Charlie at 19 or so, sobbing so hard she was hiccuping as she turned a pistol to and fro in the lamplight. Charlie, as I'd known her, curled up in bed, screaming into her. her pillow as a boyish corpse watched over her. You'll feel better. He soothed. You'll be better after you hurt.

I came too in the middle of this vision and shot up with a yell and covered my eyes. When I opened them again, Charlie was still there, crying and bleeding beside me. Overjoyed that she'd come back, I got back onto the bed and lay down beside her. She didn't seem to see or hear me, but that wasn't unusual for her. Sometimes all she saw was her pain, but I could see her, feel her, touch her. I reached out and stroked her hair. Suddenly she looked up, terrified eyes fixed on a point over my shoulder and screamed. I whirled around and saw a tall woman with long, dark hair and darker eyes.

I turned back to Charlie, but she was gone. Every hair on my body stood up. I closed my eyes, forced myself to count to ten and slowly turned around again. The woman was still there, deathly pale, a marbled palette of cadaver white and pure darkness. Her mouth was enormous. So huge, it distorted her face. Looking at it made my mind twist and pull. She's better when she hurts.

The woman hissed. I shut my eyes and counted to ten. When I opened them, she was gone. Hard as it is to describe what it's like to fall in love. It's impossible to explain what it feels like to lose your mind. I didn't see Charlie all the time, but I saw her everywhere. My apartment, my job, the store, the street, it didn't matter where I went. Eventually she'd show up.

As sick as it is, these manifestations eventually became a sort of comfort. On night she lay on my bed or on my floor, I could sleep beside her. She was often broken or bleeding or limping, but it was her. It was Charlie. And even if she couldn't feel or see me, I felt like. I was keeping my promise. I was there for her. But as days turned into weeks, these phenomena grew increasingly bizarre and disturbing.

I came to believe that these hallucinations or visions weren't the product of my insanity or even communications from beyond the grave. They were hauntings. And it wasn't Charlie haunting me. I became more and more convinced that whatever had driven her to suicide, whatever had tortured her, whatever had broken her, whatever had haunted her. had haunted her was now haunting me. And God in heaven, it was horrific.

I only ever saw Charlie when she was hurt. Sometimes she was just a toddler. Other times I was painfully sure she was crying after one of our fights. She was often alone, but just as often with a tormentor. The black-eyed woman with the distorted mouth was the most frequent apparition. Sometimes she looked normal, hard-eyed and bitter, but human. Other times she looked like a demon, a marbled mosaic of corrupted light and shadow, with black eyes that somehow burned. Her awful mouth was constantly in motion, stretching and pulling and grinning, hitching itself up as if to keep it from sliding off her face.

I saw her wrenched Charlie's teeth out with pliers, watched her beat her, slap her, burn her, break her bones. When she looked normal, she didn't notice me any more than Charlie did, but when she was her monster form. She seemed aware of me, and she always said the same thing. She's better when she hurts. Charlie's father appeared less frequently. Like the mother, he sometimes looked normal, slim and mean-looking, with a pointed chin and blank eyes. Sometimes he looked like a monster, twisted and rotting, with bulbous eyes sprouting all

over his separating skin. Charlie's parents were painfully easy to identify for what they were, monsters and human skin, horrific as hell yet in their way, mundane as mud. One thing I didn't understand was the child Charlie's obsession with the wardrobe. These were the least violent of the visions. In fact, sometimes they weren't violent at all. Charlie would go to the wardrobe, knock nervously on the door, and speak to somebody named Paul who never answered.

But these I in the storm episodes were few and far between. The hauntings didn't stop, but I stopped paying it. attention. A huge part of me, the part stripped raw by Charlie's pain, began to scar over, to become calloused. After a while, I was able to eat, to bathe, to sleep, even work through the tableau of Charlie's suffering. It's disturbing how easily I was able to ignore the things I was seeing, the whores she'd gone through. I didn't like not caring. I didn't like feeling the callous spread over my heart. I wanted to care. I wanted to feel the outrage. The whore, the pain as acutely as I had those first weeks, but I couldn't.

I was too exhausted to try. As though sensing my growing discontent, the phenomena changed abruptly. For a while they became almost pleasant. Charlie and a slightly older boy with red hair playing games, telling secrets, cuddling and makeshift forts. Charlie spoke, but he didn't. I didn't think much of it. Maybe he was mute.

or maybe the hauntings were finally losing their power. I should have known better. One morning, I woke up early to the sounds of children giggling quietly. I looked up and saw Charlie dancing in the sunlight while whispering a nonsensical little song. Watch the beans, the crow sings, angel wings, apple green, faith the size of a mustard seed. As her brother performed a clumsy, exaggerated waltz, he swept by and pulled her in, into his arms. No.

He whispered. Like this. One, two, one, two. Charlie tripped over her feet and began to giggle hysterically. He tried to frown, but her glee was infectious. Soon they'd both covered their mouths with their hands and were straining with the effort of keeping their mirth under control. I watched, smiling, as spurts of laughter erupted from behind their hands.

Then shadows in one corner writhed and darkened. Then the mother materialized, marbled shadow, shining black eyes, hideous mouth. She grabbed the boy by the hair and wrenched him back. He shrieked. She shrieked back, calling him a vicious stream of the foulest names. Then she swung him around and hunched low, hiding him with her body. He whimpered and wept. And after a moment he screamed, the longest, ugliest, most heart-wrenching scream I'd ever heard.

I shot out of bed and launched myself for her, but it was no good. It was like hitting a stone wall. She spun around and threw the boy against the wardrobe. His head hit the edge with a loud, sickening crack, and he crumpled to the floor. Blood streamed from a deep gash in his head and flooded from his mouth. He was still alive, breathing shallowly. As I watched, his eyes rolled up into his head. Charlie's hands were still clasped over her mouth.

She shook wildly. Wide eyes were fixed on her brother. She watched mutely as her mother shoved the boy. to the wardrobe. It's better that he hurts now. Her mother said, reasonably, no longer looking like a monster. Hurting is what makes you remember. She patted Charlie's shoulder affectionately.

It's why you don't scream anymore. Then she stalked away, melting into the shadows. Charlie watched her go without a word. For the next week I saw her everywhere, tears streaming down her face as the rotted revenant of her brother flayed her skin to ribbons. Sometimes she whimpered. Occasionally she screamed, but mostly she lay passive, biting her lips so hard they bled as tears streamed silently down her face. It'll be better soon, Charlie.

Paul always whispered. It's always better after you hurt. There was something different about these incidents. Her brother often flickered in and out of reality like a bad TV signal, sometimes changing shape. More than once, I found myself looking not at the boy, but at the twisted, distorted form of Charlie's mother. Sometimes the boy would flick out of existence entirely, and I would see only Charlie harming herself while her mother chortled from the shadows. The torture at her brother's hand persisted all around me, every day. At home, on the streets,

in the car, even in the OR, where I do my best to ignore young Paul performing his awful surgeries, even as I assisted the doctors with theirs. At first I thought I'd go mad from the unrelenting horror of what Charlie had been through, but once again, the torment reached an unsustainable level and eventually killed part of me. The shock faded, and so did my empathy. Before long, that was calloused over too. Life didn't go back to normal, but it got to the point where I could pretend it had, because none of it affected me anymore.

I could see it, walk right past it, sit by it, even lay by it now. I was so damned up with scars that I could go. go on with my life as if none of it had ever happened, and that was all right. It was better that way. The thing about dams is they eventually break. Mine broke at work. The haunting around me that day was of Charlie and her big brother playing, tag, hide-and-seek, and a particularly weird permutation of duck-duck goose.

Halfway into my shift, I hurried into the cafeteria. The moment I entered, I noticed the wardrobe. The wardrobe in which Paul's mother had interred him. sitting in the middle as though it had always been there. The hair at the back of my neck rose. I turned around. Sure enough, it was Charlie, maybe nine years old, bounding into the room. She darted past me and knelt down in front of the wardrobe, then clasped her hands and began to pray.

I glanced around carefully. No one was paying attention, so I warily approached. About halfway across the room, the stench hit me, thick and heavy. a corrupted sweetness that crawled up my nose and down my throat. I could hear Charlie now. Please, God, watch the beans, the crow sings, angel wings, apple green, faith, the size of a mustard seed. God, please make him alive, please. I love him so much.

Please bring him back. I know you can do it. I know when I open the wardrobe, he'll be all right. I have faith. I know he'll be all right. I know you'll bring him back. I love you. Amen. Charlie stood up and took a deep breath. Tears continued to stream down her face. She closed her eyes, reached for the wardrobe, and pulled the doors open. The stench erupted like a jack in the box from hell. A figure tumbled out, knocking Charlie over. It was a horror show, swollen face, bulging eyes, stiff limbs, bloated torso, identifiable only by the long, tangled red hair.

Charlie kicked as she scrambled backwards, inadvertently popping the distended gut like a balloon. She screamed, and so did I. I wound up sedated and admitted to my own hospital. I had terrible dreams while I was under, scraps of hauntings, of Charlie, of her poor brother, Paul. She's better when she hurts. I thought feverishly. She's better when it hurts. And somewhere in the haze of drug-suppressed hysteria, I had an epiphany.

When I got home, teenage Charlie was waiting for me. My living room was a nightmare. She sat rocking in the middle of it, hunched over and weeping a lullaby to a tiny bundle in her arms. It was an abomination. Her mother's bored voice sounded from the corner. I looked up, startled. The woman leaned against the wall, arms closed. If you just done it yourself, I wouldn't have had to.

Tears streamed down Charlie's face. Her whispers grew more desperate as they grew louder. Only it wasn't a lullaby. It was her prayer. Please come. I came closer. It was like the night I had found her coat on the bluffs. Every step was heavy and slow.

Every detail sharp and bright and stark, clearer than ever at the very moment I wanted to be blind. My legs gave out. I tried to look away, but couldn't. Why didn't you tell me? I whispered. Charlie continued to cry. Watch the beat. Why?

Why didn't you say anything? Why didn't you let me help you? You wanted me to know. You must have, because you're showing me now. But why didn't you tell me when I could have helped you? Why didn't you tell me? I lunged for her, intending to do, I don't know what. Grab her, grab the baby, or simply hold them.

Hold them until my heart turned entirely to stone, and I wouldn't have to think of them or feel for them ever again. My arms closed on nothing. She was gone. I slid to the floor and lay there, curled up on myself. After a while, I saw the dead boy, Paul, with his blood-matted red hair and gaping hole of a mouth. He slithered forward and hunkered in front of me.

It feels better after you hurt. He rasped. His ragged stump of a tongue shifted in the cabin of his mouth. Always. I stood up and stumbled to the kitchen. I grabbed the first thing I found, a paring knife, and just stood there, holding it for what felt like a long time. Then I folded my other hand over the blade and cut.

I hurt myself until dawn, mimicking what I'd seen. Tiger stripes and ladders, burns and bruises, and blackened eyes. I hurt because I wanted to be better. Around ten in the morning, I heard a knock on the door. I lurched to it, ignoring the pain that nod to every part of my body, and opened the door. door crack. It was Charlie. Charlie, more beautiful than she'd ever been, waiting for me to let her in. I threw open the door. She looked at me uncertainly, eyes widening as she took in my injuries. Distress played across her face, but she didn't cry. And why would she? She hurt so much worse than me.

I ushered her in. She immediately guided me to the bathroom, sat me down in the tub, and climbed in. Then she bathed me with great care. Every gesture, every touch was exceedingly gentle. Then she helped me out and took me to bed. Between relief and exhaustion and blood loss, I was already mostly asleep, but I noticed something that troubled me deeply. When she first came in, she'd been lovely, healthy and glowing, with gold-tinged porcelain skin, bright eyes, golden sunrise hair, but now she looked withered, pale, dull, and gaunt,

like she'd been sick for weeks. My mind tried to put pieces together, but before I could finish, I fell into a deep, dreamless sleep. When I awoke, Charlie was sleeping. I just looked at her, basking in her presence until my wonderment over her return gave way to concern. Needing to talk to her, to know where she'd been, I stroked her shoulder, then nudged her, then shook her, but she didn't wake up.

I rolled her over, horrified disbelief avalanche down on me. She looked dead, papery skin, sunken eyes, cadaverous skull, prominent ribs and bones as if she'd lost half her body weight in the span of hours. I looked up, helpless and panic-stricken, and saw a dark presence lurking in the corner, gleaming black eyes, a gaping hole of a mouth recessed in an ashen face. And somehow I knew what I had to do. I went into the kitchen, found my knife, and reopened the wound in my left palm. When I returned to the bedroom, Charlie was sitting up.

She still looked terribly ill, but she looked 20 pounds heavier, and there was a hint of color in her face. Don't do this. It doesn't get better. How do you know? Blood trickled from my hand and dripped onto the rug. Because I tried. She straightened up. You saw my brother, Paul.

I didn't answer. I tried. Again and again, I tried. And that's all I got. A rotting shadow. It's not enough to hurt, Theo. It's never enough just to hurt. I loved her more than anything. I loved her in spite of herself. I loved her so much I nearly killed myself to give her another life. So I went to bed and sat down beside her. She watched me distrustfully as I raised my bleeding palm to her mouth. Her face twisted, but she drank. Charlie lived on pain. I had to hurt myself constantly. If I didn't, she'd sicken and with her. Two days without a fresh injury was enough to starve her into unconsciousness.

So I became my own torturer, knives, needles, rope, rocks, pliers, matches, and so much more. If it could inflict an injury, I used it. The only concession I made was to limit the injuries to sites that could be hidden under clothes. After all, I couldn't go on supporting Charlie unless I went back to work. She protested at first. She wept, she screamed, she fought, but in the end, she always relented, and after a while she changed. I'd always found Charlie beautiful, but this was different. This was so much more. She

became beyond beautiful, smooth and bright, firm and lineless, absolutely transcendently lovely. No one could quite believe that she'd come back to life. It felt like a miracle to them, so they flock to her. Her coworkers, my co-workers, my family and friends, everyone wanted to know her, everyone wanted to be her. And Charlie, my weird, quiet, anxious Charlie, who was so shy she could barely speak to people she knew, blossomed. It was like a switch had flipped. She suddenly loved everyone, and as a result, everyone loved her. It hurt me deeply, not because she was happy. All I wanted was for her to have a life that gave her joy, a life where she didn't have to hurt,

but because this wasn't Charlie, or at least it wasn't the Charlie I fell in love with. But that was for the best. The Charlie I loved had been in too much pain to live. She had once told me that she wasn't supposed to be alive, but that was only partly true. She wasn't supposed to live as she used to. This was how she was supposed to be, wildly beautiful and irresistible in every way. It wasn't my Charlie, but my Charlie didn't exist anymore. She didn't have to, because she was better.

I continued to hurt myself. It got to the point where she wept every night under my self-mutilation. You can't hold you. Pain is not enough. But I'd look at her, all bright and beautiful and healthy, and tell her, For me, it is. You'll be so much better without me. This was true, but not enough to stop me.

This went on for months. I became an expert at hiding my injuries from my friends and family, patients, and colleagues, from everyone except Charlie. To my relief, she finally stopped complaining. She even started to help me because she wanted to take responsibility, I guess. And because it made it so much easier for me, not having to do, not having to love. But mostly, I think because we discovered that the more directly she participated, the longer her rejuvenation lasted.

Sometimes, especially at night, with her beside me, the insanity of it all would overtake me, and I'd finally admit to myself that I couldn't live this way for another year, let alone fifty, but then I'd look at Charlie, inhumanly beautiful Charlie, sleeping peacefully for the first time since I'd known her. And that had to be enough. day, it really was enough. I'd hurt myself to the point where I could no longer work. It hurt to walk, to sit, to lie down.

Even with sedatives, my sleep was thin and restless and full of pain. Charlie barely noticed. She was so happy, so content that I'd become a bit of an afterthought. Something for her to take care of when she came home at night. I'd been thinking about it for days. It's always better after you hurt. She's better when she hurts. It isn't enough.

No amount of pain is ever enough. Pain sustained her. Pieces of me converted to pain for her to thrive upon. The question was, did this make me a golden goose? Was I only worth something as long as I still had a pound of flesh to give? Or was there a more permanent solution? I didn't want to live like this, in perpetual agony, but I didn't want Charlie to die. So what if I died?

wasn't enough, but what about death? One morning, I woke up and realized I hadn't seen Charlie in two days. My heart twinged and resentment flared briefly, but then it faded, replaced with dark resolve. I got up, wincing and hissing in pain. I found Charlie's painkillers, the one she gave me whenever I'd let her. And I took them all, one by one, until I passed out. The bottle was the last thing I saw, innocuous and orange with a half-peeled label, and then I was gone. Somewhere in the haze I was dimly aware of movement, of voices, of Charlie's cries, of tubes shove roughly down my throat, of horrific pain. Then it was dark again, dark and warm, but I wasn't alone. Charlie was with me in the darkness.

You'll be better soon. When I came to, my parents were in my room, which turned out. to be in the nearest hospital. They tried to be happy. They smiled. They gave hugs. They rejoiced. But there were shadows behind the smiles and their eyes.

Darkness, cold and hopeless. I knew before they said a word. My mother sobbed. I couldn't even breathe. I wasn't good enough or strong enough. I loved Charlie enough to bring her back to life, but not enough to keep her alive. Because in the end, at my core, I wanted to get better. Hours turned into days, which turned into weeks, which bled into long, bleak months.

The worst thing about it is, without her, I got better. I can breathe again. I can move. I'm free, but freedom eventually becomes loneliness. And loneliness is bitter. I'm better, but being better isn't enough. It's not even close to enough.