I am not enough. I must be more. My bones splinter, brittle and dead as dry roots, forcing through muscle as they reshape. The joints go next, breaking apart with wet, hollow, pops. It is agony, necessary and absolute.


    My ribs wrench open and outward, like an ancient cage breaking a hundred year seal. The pain all but blanks me. My teeth shift, sharpen, pushing past the gums, hungry things. Their points digging into my tongue. The skin follows. Darkness bleeds through me, an inkblot unfurling beneath the surface, the pale porcelain succumbing to midnight oil.


    I am Her. She is me. We—


    We are free.


    The boy has made it so! We stand. Sweat-laden flesh, excrement, and something delicious fills our nostrils. Wonderful. We stretch the wall apart and land on the earth once more. It pleads beneath our feet.


    Movement draws our attention. They all scurry about in front of us. With a simple step, a flash to their eyes, we rip them open. Soft things spill out, still slick and steaming in our hands before we cast them into the muck. A wet slap. We laugh, a sound this world does not know, and we are pleased.


    The screaming begins in earnest.


    We bask in their warmth as we stride through the square.


    Shiny metals gather and point at us. We bend them into new shapes, better shapes. It is messy work, but only we can do it. There is a sting in our hand, it burns us, but then it is gone. Vermin in fancy robes come to chant words that fill us with joy. We kneel and share our own words as we examine their bones, oh, so closely.


    We are in the homes now.


    A plump little rat-man stands in our way, so we make him one with the stone. Next, we cradle three filthy little children in our teeth. They all coo for mother. But mother cannot hear them, she is in the rafters—twisted in half.


    This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.


    We take our time with them, making for the river.


    They do not take from the river. But, we take what we please. Our legs wade into the water. Icy hands tug at them. We have blasphemed their master. Yes, come. Come to us drowned ones. One by one, we pull them from the deep, limbs sloshing, water-bloated. We cast them into the streets, and they feast as we feast.


    Flames roar in our honor. Blood splatters to our glory.


    And then—


    ***


    I wake in the woods.


    A silence hangs in the trees, the kind of silence craved after nightmares, the kind that should chase the hauntings away—but it doesn’t. The scent of char and iron lingers in my nostrils. My head pulses, but the drumming is gone, She is gone. I exhale, and push myself upright, my hands sticking to the earth. The half-light of the moon illuminates my shredded nails—a blackened red.


    Something is in my teeth.


    My fingers tremble as I touch my mouth. My tongue find a scrap. I rip it free and fling it away in disgust. I see her. Izzy, slumped against a tree, her breath ragged, neck and ribs bleeding. She recoils as I awaken, and now she’s farther. She stares through me. Wide-eyed. Unblinking. Vacant.


    "It said—,” blood threads between her teeth. "It...fucking spoke to me."


    The words burrow into me, waking memories I don’t want and can’t handle. A taste now, I know it.


    Izzy’s.


    I wipe at my mouth with my sleeves, but they’re too soaked and crimson and they cling to my skin. My heart plummets and her glory shivers up my spine, images, faces, blood and death.


    Then, my lips curl into a wicked little smirk—Hers.


    Pleasure lingers upon my lips and I claw it off. A wretched sob bubbles from my chest as I convulse, vomiting into the dirt. I spit and spit and spit—but I can’t get the poison out, I can’t—


    “FUCK!” I shriek through a rasping breath, some of my bones still cracking into place.


    The visions are overwhelming. I want to dig my fingers into my brain and forget. But they are too deep. I will never be rid of them—never be rid of Her.