The Flesh

Alice Newton didn't understand what was happening to her body. Sometimes she would wake up in extreme pain, her lower back mimicking a stranger dragging their nails across her pale skin. Or she would begin to bleed from her hands, nose, or eyes, and she would quickly excuse herself before it got worse. Her husband was concerned. 

He would keep pleading with her to go to the hospital, but she ignored him. Not because she didn't love him. It had to do with the voices inside her head. At first, she assumed it was her silly imagination, and whatever was happening to her had to do with nothing but stress. She was a new teacher in a new school after all. 

Then the voice started to tell her the strangest things. 

Informing her about where it came from. When it was born. 

Why it now existed. 

And what it had to do to survive. 

"Consume three souls, and you must pass on the flesh."

This same mantra would repeat in her head at any time of the day, but she didn't understand what it meant. She believed it had to do with stress, but something didn't feel right. This voice was too deep and different to belong to her. Whenever she would have a thought, it would be her voice echoing back to her. 

Not whatever the fuck this was. 

She responded to the voice without thinking one day while brushing her teeth, and something absolutely awful happened after her question was asked. The toothbrush dropped from her hand. Her hand had moved all by itself. Her fingers flexed again and again, and then her other hand started to do the same. 

Her heart was beating within her chest, and she found herself on the floor, a puddle of saliva slipping from her mouth. Pain slithered through her, like something was pushing from within her body. Threatening to get out. To rip her apart. She let out a silent scream, her eyes moving back and forth to the bathroom door. Her husband was downstairs, watching television. 

If only he could hear her. 

Her right hand lifted into the air, her open palm facing her. The skin split open like a curtain, revealing a pink flesh emerging through the hole. It lapped at her face like a dog. 

"Consume three souls, and you must pass on the flesh."

The pink flesh vanished back into the hole, and her skin slowly closed up. She felt her body suddenly deflate, and Alice let out a loud gasp. It was over. But the terror remained. 

"What do you mean? What the fuck do you want?," she asked.

No answer came. 

Alice gathered into a ball and let out a loud sob. 

She eventually found out what it was talking about. Nothing had happened for months after that terrifying encounter, she assumed it wouldn't come back. That perhaps it was all in her head. Until a cat crossed her path. It was a black cat. It looked up at her, and it hissed, it's tail standing straight up. Alice looked down at the cat, and then she awoke in a dark alleyway. 

She blinked her eyes, and felt something sticky on her body. She panicked, and ran to a random building she had no knowledge of, and found the bathroom. She became completely still when she saw her reflection. Blood was all over her mouth. Her throat. Her clothes. Her hands. 

She flinched when the voice came back into her head. 

"Consume two souls, and you must pass on the flesh."

She never told her husband about what happened that night. She knew what this thing wanted, but she refused to give in to these dark urges. She threw herself off a bridge the following day. She woke up, perfectly fine. 

This thing would not let her die. 

It was attached to her, and therefore, she would be kept alive. 

She quit her job. She stopped spending time with her friends. She refused to go grocery shopping or conduct any sort of outdoor activity in her life. She lied and told her husband she had cheated on him, so that he would leave her. It absolutely destroyed her when she saw the hurt in his eyes, but it was the only way. She was too scared she would hurt someone she loved, or a complete stranger. 

The voice continued to plague her for days, taunting her with the same line. 

consumefleshyoumustconsumefleshyoumustpassontheflesh

If only she could die. It would make everything so much easier. 

She thought this would work. That if she isolated herself, this thing would eventually fuck off. 

Then her husband came home. 

He found her in the bathroom, on the floor. He was pleading with her, telling her that he forgave her. That he loved her. She reached out to push him away, to tell him to run, and then she woke up. 

She knew what happened once she saw the red all over her body. She saw her husband on the bathroom floor, his body ripped in half, from down to his chin all the way to his stomach. He had been disemboweled. 

Alice threw up, pulled at her hair, attempted to rip off her skin, but the thing wouldn't let her die. 

If only she could die. 

She rocked her body back and forth like how you would a child. Her hands pressed against her ears, but nothing could block out that voice. 

It repeated its cold phrase in her head. 

"Consume one soul, and you must pass on the flesh."

This time she listened. It took her love. If she was set free, she could be with her husband soon. She allowed the hunger to take control. She left the house for the first time in days, and wandered the night until she needed to consume one soul. Alice found a stranger. She did not question who she was eating. It was the only way for her to be free. 

It kept its promise. 

"You must pass on the flesh."

She found a man walking in the dark, talking to someone on the phone. A bright smile was on his face. Alice knew he was talking to his own beloved, like what she used to have. Alice threw her body towards him. He gasped, the phone dropping out of his hand. She held him down with her body. He struggled against her, but he could not fight her off. 

The flesh within her would not allow him. 

She put her right hand towards his mouth, grasping his face, so that he would not scream. Alice could feel her hand opening up once again, and that same pink thing was emerging from her hand, into his open mouth. 

"You must pass on the flesh."

And so, she did. 

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Thank you for reading!

Emy Quinn