Hatching

A story

Image from Pixabay

Every time I peered into the mirror, I was struck by the terrifying sensation that my own boundaries were dissolving.

The skin sagging slovenly beneath my jaw, the damp, suffocating heat of my inner thighs chafing with every step — all of it felt like alien flesh, an intrusive horror pressing in from the outside to crush my true, inner self.

I wanted to scrape it all away. I starved to become a sacred sculpture, crafted of nothing but pure bone and skin.

“Harbor this in your belly,” the old crone purred, opening her palm inside her shack in the deep woods, where the reek of rotting compost hung heavy. “And no matter how ravenously you devour, your flesh will never swell.”

There, resting in her hand, was a single worm — translucent, so thin its internal organs were visible. It was exquisite, as if my own starvation had finally taken physical form.

Beauty demands agony.

Perhaps I should have accepted it reverently from her hands. Instead, a hideous, feral jealousy flared up within me. This creature belongs to me — and me alone.

I grabbed a jagged stone resting by my feet and slammed it with all my might into the side of her skull. Dark, thick blood defiled the moss. I frantically tore the worm from her dying fingers and bolted into the night.

I ran through the forest like a hunted beast, where not even moonlight could penetrate. Tangled briars ripped mercilessly at my skin, carving through my greasy flesh. My lungs wheezed to the point of bursting, and warm blood trickled down my legs, but I watched it all with a strange detachment.

Only the faint, pulsing coldness of the worm locked in my palm was my undeniable reality.

Covered in blood and mud, I slipped into my room, locked the door, and with ragged breath, choked the worm down.

The creature offered no resistance. Like a shard of ice, it slid effortlessly through my throat, down my esophagus, and settled into the pit of my stomach.

In that exact moment, a freezing silence washed over me from the inside out, and my thoughts rapidly melted away.

The next morning, when I awoke, the room was blindingly bright.

Attempting to sit up, I searched for my hands. Yet, those loathsome, thick, muddy arms that should have been at the edge of my vision were gone. I felt no thickness in my chest, no weight in my feet that should have gripped the floor.

There was only my “consciousness,” stranded and absolute.

My physical body — the heavy vessel of “me” — had vanished overnight, leaving behind not a single drop of blood.

In the morning light filtering through the gap in the curtains, I merely drifted. A weightless essence, suspended in the air, writhing softly, waiting to hatch amid the shimmering particles of dust and light.

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