#twas short but impactful no? hehe

[worldsfromhoney]

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cw: body horror, gore, psychological horror

You thought it was a one-off, but the next thing Cassie does makes you scream. You remember her squeezing something out of another bottle. She’s talking about its effects, but you’ve become complacent and decide it’s okay to zone out.

You find out what it is soon enough.

It’s a scrub.

And it hurts.

Cassie’s fingers and the product have both come to life this time. You feel each of those small granules and beads rolling against the pads of her fingers—and against your skin. It adds to the other sensations you’ve been feeling from her. From the fall of a stray strand on her face to the sweat running down her neck—you’ve been feeling all of it, more and more by the second.

You scream when Cassie, still all smiles, keeps scrubbing, scrubbing, hurting.

“—exfoliates all those dead skin and gives you a fresh layer!” She exclaims and laughs shrilly, the sound mixing with your sobs. It sounds like a song just for you. It is. “I don’t know the specific specifics about it, but I know it worked for me!”

It worked. It’s working. She’s working her way through your skin. Maybe even into your flesh because that’s what it feels like. She’s going at it harder this time to get all those dead skin out, out, out—

You wonder if she’s going harder now because she knows that you’re feeling it more at this moment.

Something rips. Something drips. You raise a trembling hand to your face and keep it there. Your face is wet.

You don’t have to check to know whatever on there’s red.

Despite everything, you held onto the tablet. Not even once have you let go. The tablet has done nothing to glue itself to you. It’s your skin that has physically morphed into hundreds of tiny hands reaching for the device with the hunger of something inhuman.

That is what you have never been. Human.

You yearn to feel and die if you don’t. There is too much of your kind and so someone made this device that makes and churns many imaginary people who you can leech from—who you can feel humanity from. It is supposed to help people like you. It is helping you.

Who is the human here? Is there a monster here?

An infernal question, you quietly answer.

The video is still playing and, even with a bleeding face, you struggle along the blood-streaked floor to keep watching. You have to. You want to.

You need to watch it to the end because only then you’ll be satisfied. Only this can bring about a true sigh of relief from within. You didn’t know you wanted this until you were covered in this beautiful shade of red.

Cassie is innocently smiling at you. She has washed her face of the scrub and her skin glows from whatever light is shining from behind the camera. Your own glows, too.

You smell iron and choke through a smile back.

She brings up a tub. The label, this time, you can read. Pore clay mask. There is no brand. It’s indecipherable, but something you can read which means you’ve connected again. You’ve empathised again. Deeper, deeper, more, more, more.

“Now, this—” Cassie says, all smiles (oh how you return them so so) and giggles. “—is the product of today, guys! I think I’ve shown this on my Tok multiple times, but this is the first I’m actually talking about it.”

She opens the tub. There’s powder inside and you cough when it goes straight into your nose. It smells of ashes and you aren’t surprised if it turns out to be ashes.

Is it the remains of the past you? Or of the past Cassie? Perhaps it is the innocence that this ceremony aims to break, steal, and burn.

It’s going well based on what’s happened so far.

Cassie places a bit of the ash-coloured powder in a bowl and brings out a bottle. Apple cider vinegar. You don’t need to see the label to know. You immediately smelt it the moment she cracked the top open. Rancid. Fangs sinking into your nose, digging in and out.

Something’s spurting. You think it’s a river, stream, or spring, but where did it come from? You’re lying on your side now, curled up with your arms out and trembling for the invisible ghost-touch to stop, stop, please!

It does. For a while. It leaves you moaning on the now red-white floors, shaking hands clutching at your nose that’s—it’s… it’s gone.

Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone.

…Gone.

It’s there. You see it. You blink away the mix of blood, tears, and sweat from your eyes and see the wrangled piece of flesh a foot from you. That’s what the river-stream-spring was. A strangled cry breaks through Cassie’s background tirade and shatters the ‘silence’ of this damned (curse, you are a curse—) room.

You made the sound not because of your missing nose. It is not because of the still bleeding wounds on your face nor due to the assaulting smells of ash and vinegar emanating from the tablet that you’re still clinging onto.

You cry because you’re feeling so, so much, and it is more than any empath should endure. It is much more than the feelings you’ve leeched from your family and far-off relatives. You thought that was it. You thought that was your world.

But you are coming of age, and it is time for the world to break you.

Cassie’s voice rings out from the tablet. You focus your gaze on her again.

Her face is covered with a paste—assumedly from the powder and vinegar—and she looks… straight at you for the first time. Right through the layers of code and magic that make her up and the screen separating you both, her eyes truly meet yours.

“Sorry, guys,” she breathes. You whimper. “This is gonna hurt.”

You get a second before you feel something thick—a liquid?—emerging from where your nose used to be. It is slow at first, tendrils reaching out to test the air. You only get a moment to wonder what it’s looking for. Then it explodes outward and you see nothing.

Darkness. A squirming dark that does not just cover your eyes but seeps into them, replacing the white sclera. You cannot see what colour it is now.

You’re aware it matches Cassie’s face paste.

At first you cry. You struggle. You flail about the floor, even attempting to stand up to—what? There is nowhere else but this room. Nothing but four corners where you are always seen and reachable. The door is gone. It’s as white as the walls and is now camouflaged among them.

How do those behind the cameras see you now? The thought is a welcome distraction.

It does not last.

The thick sludge reaches your mouth, and you don’t get to shout their names.

You think it hurt at first. Cassie’s words are still ringing in your head and it is the only thing that you hear; the truth that rings out above your tries to scream for help, help! She said it will hurt, so you are hurting.

It takes a while before you forget that. The sludge that’s covering your entire face, reaching down your throat, eyes, and even your ears has finally made you forget Cassie’s words. You forget the hurt. You are not hurting. What a silly thing to consider.

No hurt. No hurt. Doesn’t hurt. Nope. Nope. No.

It doesn’t hurt and you let the darkness cover you in its shushing embrace.

When the darkness ebbs and you see the room with its blood splattered walls and scratches on the floor again, you miss it. You look down at your hand—the tablet is still there, snug against your palm, with Cassie talking and moving like a person. Regret nags at you. The dark had been simple. It was muted and pulled from you every worry that you’ve ever had.

“Ah,” Cassie says, drying her face. Somewhere-some time in the darkness, she washed her face. “Feeling better? See, guys? Not that bad, was it?”

No, you say. Not bad at all.

Nothing is better for an empath than oblivion. Someone should make a device that does that instead. Maybe you could. You can. You will, once you finish this.

For the rest of the video, as Cassie layers on products on her face—toner, serum, eye cream, spot treatment, moisturiser—you zone out. It’s fine. You’re numb enough that even if you get caught unawares like the first time, it won’t surprise you as much. What does that say about you?

At present, you’re wondering about your appearance. Your eyes fixate on a distant corner of the room. You still can’t spot the cameras, so you imagine it’s right at that spot instead. Are they still watching you? Did they leave the monitor room for the bathroom or kitchen snacks?

That’s what you did when you watched. You even fell asleep sometimes, dozing off because nothing was happening and you didn’t like the room because why can’t I feel brother anymore, Dad?

Dad. You had your dad’s nose. You are proud of that, but now it lies a foot away from you as a wrangled mess of flesh. Can it be fixed? Will you get it back? You’ll have to ask (who, who, when—?) once the ceremony ends.

Cassie must’ve noticed that you aren’t paying attention because she suddenly stops talking and there’s a sharp sting on your scalp. You focus back on the video and she’s pulling at her own hair.

Cassie’s still smiling, a feral look in her kind eyes.

“Still with me, right guys?” She asks so, so sweetly, that you feel you can’t lie. You shake your head. She pouts. “No? Why? Is this topic too uninteresting? Ain’t you the ones who requested this from me?”

You want to say no. You want to explain to her she’s not real. Can she really see and hear you through the screen? How would she react? Would you feel the denial that would pump into her heart? Would you taste the existential crisis that will drip through her sweat?

You don’t answer because you’re just meant to be a bystander. A spectator. It’s taboo to interact with the ‘people’ on the screen. As an empath, you only take and don’t give.

It is another infernal question; you think.

Cassie seems disappointed that you don’t answer any further. You blink and she’s back to her bubbly self. Your scalp still stings a bit.

She’s at the end of her skincare routine. You feel gentle pats on your face and watch as Cassie does to same to her face. Is she done? She’s smiling at you. Is she done? She’s talking about something. Subscribing? The next video? Is she done? Are you done?

“—and that’s it for today and from me, your girl, Cassie!” She says, waving at the screen and even winking with her pretty eyes. “See you next time!”

The screen freezes on her face. It glitches for a moment and finally fizzes out. It’s black again and you feel the power go from the tablet.

Your hand lets go, and it clatters to the floor. How anticlimactic. Will there be a next time? You’ll miss her, you think.

You slump back down, too. You’re still at the centre of the room, so you wonder what you’re leaning against. Oh. There’s nothing. You don’t—can’t think too much about it.

You can hear someone speaking through the speakers in the room. You can’t hear them. There’s still some sludge in your ears. How were you hearing Cassie? She had such a sweet voice. Maybe that’s how.

Such a sweet, sweet voice is so much better than the calls for your name as the door (ah, just behind you) slams open.

So, so much better.

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@wildthingsandmagic @starbuds-and-rosedust @alexsidereus @adorable-bookworm

#bee writes some stuff #writeblr #writing #short story #twas short but impactful no? hehe #second person pov