Watch Your Step

HUNGOVER [ep. 6]

At the corner of the room, Tommy is weeping. The gum-colored blobs of flesh spilled out on the floor. Some came from my mouth and others from the widening hole across my abdomen. In exhaustion, I squeeze my eyes shut, then open them wide to stay awake. I was about to let my guard down again when I saw him lift his head, looking perplexed. Then out of nowhere, his cries change into a cackle, and menacingly to a fit of laughter.

"So..." He inhales deeply as if revving to shout. "WE'RE GOING TO DO THIS OPERATION ALL OVER AGAIN!"

"In your fucking dreams," I declare, no longer addressing his name.

Shivering, I raise my hand again holding the shattered glass bottle of vodka. Aiming at the pathetic creatures, like pain itself took form. As we sit on the floor facing each other, we could just be two kids laughing and playing or having fun amidst a blackout. With the candles perched in every corner of the room, like the duskiness of entering a cinema, I would have liked it. But how did it escalate to this?

Like a thunderbolt, I strike down one of the writhing flesh on the floor. It squirts a black gel-like liquid. Tommy's face contorted with pain and rage. Whatever this devilishness is, it's doing something to him. The sharp-pointed glass sunk on the wooden floor. At the same time, Tommy gets pinned down like the strike on the pink blobs is crushing him.

It's connected to him more than I do! I shatter another bottle, then hammer it to one of the vermin. The holes from where I stabbed Tommy before, his eye and shoulder, start oozing the same black liquid.

"STOP!" His voice is demonic. But I persist, breaking another bottle of Hennessy.

"DIE YOU MONSTER!" I blare it like a battle cry. His body began collapsing as I thrust another.

"Please, Amanda!" I can still feel a hint of pity as he begs for the unborn creatures more than his life. He crouches down, bowing his head to the ground to express his desperation. His hands clasp together above him as if he was praying. To whom?

"What about your parents? I ask, outstretching the fragmented glass bottle to the hanging bodies behind him, "They didn't have to die."

Tommy looks up at me and for a second, our eyes meet. His pupils glint like the golden buttons on his robes. Exhausted, I lower the sharp half of the bottle to my hips.

"I know," his tone changes, "and you don't have to." As he sweeps his hand in the air, the broken glass slashes through my fingers.

Cuts of flesh and slits of blood appear on my palm. It stung like frostbite. I let out a whimper between gasps. Without warning, as if everything happened in a second, he is on his feet again.

"How could you?" I snarl at him. That's the last time I'm falling for his deceit.

"My parents deserved it," Tommy says, with no remorse nor pain on his face. "For what they did to Poppy."

He raises himself triumphantly and trudges toward the pool of blood, "I traded everything for her."

"Well," my fury sprang to life as I squashed the biggest lump of flesh with my bare hands, "Too bad hell doesn't have refunds."

"NO!" his voice trembled as he dived quickly. But it is too late. TOO LATE FOR HIM!

Suppressing the pain, I clench harder. My scarlet blood combined with the blackened sap spurting out of the creatures.

Just as how Tommy towered with much vigor, he crumbles mystifyingly humdrum as if he is just taking a rest from a busy day.

His skin is tarnished from a bright orange tinge of ember. Then, as he lies down next to the remains of his atrocity, rough brown blotches spread all over his arms and onto his face. I recognize the peculiar shade of the stain that I saw when I first woke up this morning. Almost instantly like watching a time-lapse of rusting iron, Tommy's body corrodes to ashes. Shrinking, until what's left is a clove of his fingers. Infant-like holding a smirched dog collar with a name tag labeled, "Poppy."

Finally, I wipe my slimy hands on my shirt soaked with dried blood and alcohol. The hole in my stomach was reduced to a smaller empty spot like a huge pus had been removed from it.

Crippling down the stairs, I lurch to the kitchen and open the empty fridge. I was left with no choice. I take the apple on the table and bite on it. It's still crunchy, which made my salivary glands drivel. It is incredibly saccharine, like a flavor of candy. Past the front door, in a lopsided posture, I gag one more blob of pink flesh jutting with tiny arms. Soon after I stared at it, I stomped it with my foot and it oozed out the same black goo.

"It's over," I say, spitting a lasting taste of alcohol on it. Then, as I mopped my mouth with the back of my hand, I continued toiling through the pavement.

TRANQUIL. Not even crickets nor any vehicles make a sound. The darkness in the street is like falling into oblivion. In contrast, when I close my eyes, I can see dots of blinking lights. Scowling, as if an arrow was impaled through my head. I ask myself if I should go to the hospital in the middle of the night to get my belly stitch first or to the police station to inspect the two bodies which I presume they'll find out they're the owner of this house.

Shrugging, I take another bite of the apple. Maybe I'll just go to the church to confess what the hell I just came across. But, atop all that, one thing's for sure.

"If I survived," I say, placidly chewing,

"I'm never drinking again."