"As Whole as I'll Ever Be" - by Micah Castle

I open my eyes, and I’m no longer in the alleyway but in a drafty, dark place. After the haziness leaves my mind like a lifting fog, I blink, and the place—an attic—becomes clear. Cobwebs blanket the downward sloping rafters, and a pale light comes in through a small window behind me, illuminating the dust-covered floorboards.

“Take off your clothes,” a man demands, drunkenly, words slurred and slow. He comes out from behind the brick support beam in the center of the room.

I push myself up to a sitting position—a sharp pain shoots from my head down to my toes. I wince and touch the back of my skull to find my hair soaked in what I guess to be blood.

“No,” I mumble.

Dusty boxes are along the walls, knick-knacks and other garbage are strewn about on the ground, and a set of stairs, leading down to a closed door is beyond the brick pillar. 

I slowly stand. The room spins, and I grab a rafter until the vertigo passes.

“Do it,” he says, nearing. Floppy ginger hair covers his forehead, a patchy orangish-red beard splotches his pasty face; he wears an oversized flannel shirt and torn jeans and mud-caked boots. He holds a lead pipe. My black blood is dry on the end of it.

“No,” I repeat.

He raises the pipe, inspects it as if it were something he just found and looks at me. “You want this pipe again? You want to bleed some more? And, not just from your head, if you catch my drift.”

Too much is happening at once. I shake my head, clearing away the fog. “You don’t want me to do that… You don’t want to see me naked.”

“Don’t tell me what I do or don’t want. I’m letting you undress yourself as a courtesy. I could’ve stripped you when you were passed out,” he says.

“Fine.” There’s no other option.

I pull the long-sleeved sweater over my head, letting it fall to the ground. His eyes grow wide, and his lips part when the deep scars lining my body like fissures are revealed. They begin near my waist and slither up my stomach, weave around my breasts, curl over my shoulders, and stream down my arms and back. They splinter off like pleading branches, forming ancient, unknowable patterns.

“Wha—” he starts, swallows, starts again. “What happened? Those scars…”

“My father,” I say flatly, an image of my birth flashes across my mind.

“I'm so sorry, so… very sorry.” He said, tears streaming from bleary eyes, saliva dripping from an open mouth. “I shouldn't have, I shouldn't have trusted them, the Ancient Ones, shouldn't have… shouldn't have made the— the deal… ”

He knelt before me; a meat tenderizer held above his head. 

He looked down at me— 

“I mean, my real father,” I correct myself, unsure why. Another image burns into my mind.

The tenderizer came down fast, but as it neared my head, his wrist jerked, hitting the floor. His eyes widened, releasing it as if it were red hot.

Stumbling back, he fell onto his ass.

The ground shook.

A pressure-filled the air, tingling with palpable malevolence.

A deep gurgling resonated from everywhere, nowhere; inside and out. Spoke words he couldn’t understand, but I did.

A warning.

The pact granted life, not the destruction of life. No harm could come to me, an Ancient One’s offspring.

Suddenly, fiery pain shot through my veins, ignited bone and muscle, boiled flesh… Simmered, cooled, leaving scars…

He protected me then, but not since I've grown into myself.

“What?” he says, confused, becoming angry. “Fine, whatever…” He shakes his head. “I don’t care… Just, just take off your pants.”

I refuse.

“Just do it!” He slams the pipe against the rafter again.

I refuse again, wrapping my arms around my chest.

“I’ve had enough of your sass, girl, just do what I say!”

“No.”

“Then I’ll make you,” he says and grabs my arm, wrenching it from my body—stops when the room trembles, and the pale light coming through the window vanishes.

“What happened to the light?” he stutters.

“I said, no.”

Like smoldering embers, an undulating glow emits from beneath flesh, ascending the depths of the scars. In the faint, red-orange light, his jaw slackens. He stumbles back, dropping the pipe, clanging on the ground.

It becomes brighter, strengthening, radiating heat and tangible energy. Stifling warmth swells within the room. He perspires through his flannel, his hair drips with sweat.

“Stop,” he says, backing into the brick pillar.

Flesh peels back, hissing with steam, revealing what the scars truly hold…  

The world beyond, the shapes, sigils, the sounds of a place that’s only a needle prick away.

There’s no blood, no innards; there is nothing inside for a person to enjoy, to ravage—tar-filled valleys, steaming skies of pestilence; wavering monstrous aberrations, rising from umber soil, intertwined at the core of what shouldn’t be.

“No, please, stop!” He collapses onto his knees, covering his face with his hands.

“Isn’t this what you wanted?” I ask.

Black tendrils eject out from within, wrap around him. He turns, trying to grip the pillar, his nails scrape and claw but quickly rip from skin. He receives what he demanded. 

He's inside me.

The steaming flesh crawls its way back over the gaping hole, like a million insects over bark.
I wait as seams cauterize with scarred symbols, seal, cool… 

Then, it’s done, and I’m as whole as I’ll ever be once more.
​
I grab my sweatshirt, dust it off, and slip it back on. I walk to the door, find it unlocked, and leave the attic, the empty house, returning to the city, to the alleys.

About the Author: Micah Castle is a weird fiction and horror writer. His stories have appeared in various magazines, websites, and anthologies, and has three collections currently out.

While away from the keyboard, he enjoys spending time with his wife, spending hours hiking through the woods, playing with his animals, and can typically be found reading a book somewhere in his Pennsylvania home.

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