Piece Continuations
Red Ink Report (CONT'D), by Devin Caguioa (9)
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[...] I forced myself to stay awake. I couldn’t close my eyes just yet, not until I cure myself from this ridiculous sickness. Originally, I laughed when I first laid my eyes upon that lovesick disease in a textbook. I couldn’t bring myself to believe it was real. Flowers growing out of one’s lungs, seriously? It’s quite ironic now that I’m dying from it. The same time I realized my pen was out of ink, I coughed harshly onto my desk. I could make out a few blood splatters on the left corner of the yellow-brown page, but I couldn’t differentiate the ink and blood I hacked into my desk. I dip my pen in the red liquid and continue to pour my heart out. I might as well have done it in a literal sense given I was writing with my own blood. The air in my chest compressed as the cherry blossom petals covered in my own bodily fluids came out of my mouth. I continue to write to the one I considered “my true love” about everything I wish I could’ve said to their face. That I wish I could’ve given a proper confession about every little thing that made them up and made me fall head over heels for them. My vision was completely fogged up with tears that were triggered in my eyes from the force of my blows. I put in whatever energy I had left in me to write to the one I desired to be with most.
Rather than my sweater that was as thin as paper, attempting to provide some source of warmth, I wanted their arms around me. Rather than focusing on the time I’m wasting away writing a love confession on paper, I focus on the memory of their voice and how they’d respond to my love confession if we didn’t live on opposite sides of the village. Rather than reminiscing back to my childhood, I was looking back on every interaction with the person I was infatuated with. |
I wanted it all, yet my own actions have resulted in consequences. They always had, so why was I so surprised? I suppose it was because I wasn’t expecting death to come at my door at such a young age. I spew out apologies on paper, apologizing for appearing so standoffish. I try to write down and elaborate my thoughts on everything about them. The way their hand's positioned as they write, the way their irises light a warmer brown in the sunlight, the way they can conjure up snarky responses to teasing comments – every small thing about them, it meant so much to me.
The sound of the clock ticking faded out of my ears, more blood continued to splat out in larger clumps on the once prim page, my vision was weakening by the second – it was impossible to untangle the spider web I created for myself. As I sign off my name on the paper, the stems of the flowers block my trachea and my mouth gapes open with fully bloomed cherry blossoms. I finally got rid of these feelings out on paper. |
The prettiest girl I've ever seen (CONT'D), by Naz Alomgir (10)
[...] The hot wax melted on her body, burning her. Colourful drips from swirled candles stayed frozen still on her skin, and so did her limbs.
Why did she let him pull her apart with his hands? His filthy hands. Letting them graze her rosy cheeks, brush over her lips, run his fingers through her hair; the same hands used to caress other bodies, other faces, other lips.
Why. She asked herself as she pulled apart her tainted body, or what was left of it. Her hands, her filthy hands, covered in dripping red, smearing them over the empty, hollow, missing pieces of her limbs and stomach. Pieces he had consumed.
She was coated in crimson hand prints. She tried washing them off her body, scrubbing harder and harder until she was scraping her skin red. Soap seeped into the jagged cuts and scratches. The sharp sting silently screamed through her tears as it burned and tore away at the raw edges of her flesh. Her throat tightened. Sound blocked from escaping her mouth. She couldn’t breathe. She felt trapped in her own skin. No, she didn’t own that anymore. It was now his. Her skin was now impure, unworthy; unloved.
Holding the blade to her legs, she starts peeling her skin. The serrated cuts, uneven and raw, makes the pain unbearable, but she has to do it. Sharply tearing and pulling at her flesh, wanting it to end. Wanting to die. But it will be over soon. Shedded leather lay on the floor. Pale, thin sheets of meat finally gone, exposing every pulsing muscle, nerve, and tissue that sat underneath her cocoon of lipstick and mascara. It’s not enough. She begins breaking the fragile bones of her fingers. “You have the softest hands,” he had said.
One by one, shattering every bone that constructed the frame of her ribcage, the protector of her fragile heart.
“Your legs are perfectly smooth,” he had said. She twists her knees inside out, pushing her ankle out of place, tendons rubbing against one another.
Working herself to the bone, she slowly, but surely, breaks every last part of her feeble, useless body. She can barely move now. It doesn’t feel that different from when she could. She looks up at the mirror from the cold floor. Looking at the monstrosity that’s become of her. She was no longer pretty. Shutting her eyelids tight, her needle poked through the thin draped curtains of the eyes. Pulling the thread to seal the ends. Now she won’t ever have to see the body he possessed, but neither will he.
Why did she let him pull her apart with his hands? His filthy hands. Letting them graze her rosy cheeks, brush over her lips, run his fingers through her hair; the same hands used to caress other bodies, other faces, other lips.
Why. She asked herself as she pulled apart her tainted body, or what was left of it. Her hands, her filthy hands, covered in dripping red, smearing them over the empty, hollow, missing pieces of her limbs and stomach. Pieces he had consumed.
She was coated in crimson hand prints. She tried washing them off her body, scrubbing harder and harder until she was scraping her skin red. Soap seeped into the jagged cuts and scratches. The sharp sting silently screamed through her tears as it burned and tore away at the raw edges of her flesh. Her throat tightened. Sound blocked from escaping her mouth. She couldn’t breathe. She felt trapped in her own skin. No, she didn’t own that anymore. It was now his. Her skin was now impure, unworthy; unloved.
Holding the blade to her legs, she starts peeling her skin. The serrated cuts, uneven and raw, makes the pain unbearable, but she has to do it. Sharply tearing and pulling at her flesh, wanting it to end. Wanting to die. But it will be over soon. Shedded leather lay on the floor. Pale, thin sheets of meat finally gone, exposing every pulsing muscle, nerve, and tissue that sat underneath her cocoon of lipstick and mascara. It’s not enough. She begins breaking the fragile bones of her fingers. “You have the softest hands,” he had said.
One by one, shattering every bone that constructed the frame of her ribcage, the protector of her fragile heart.
“Your legs are perfectly smooth,” he had said. She twists her knees inside out, pushing her ankle out of place, tendons rubbing against one another.
Working herself to the bone, she slowly, but surely, breaks every last part of her feeble, useless body. She can barely move now. It doesn’t feel that different from when she could. She looks up at the mirror from the cold floor. Looking at the monstrosity that’s become of her. She was no longer pretty. Shutting her eyelids tight, her needle poked through the thin draped curtains of the eyes. Pulling the thread to seal the ends. Now she won’t ever have to see the body he possessed, but neither will he.
Sanguessuga (CONT'D), by Zack Atchison (9)
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[...] She got to work only a handful of minutes later.
“Luis!” she called her supervisor’s name, pinching her nose to spare herself the unpleasant scent in the air. She swore it hadn’t been there just seconds before; that the vegetables in front of her had been greener than they were right then. “The chives are bad!” “No they aren’t!” the chef replied from across the kitchen, speaking over the sizzle of oil in a hot pan. “We just got those yesterday. They’re fresh from the market.” “Just– just come here! They reek.” Luis grumbled something that may or may not have been vaguely misogynistic, storming away from the stove and wiping his sweaty hands off with a tea towel. The stench immediately intruded on his senses once he stepped into the food prep area, however, which gave him pause. He was sure he’d put them in the fridge just an hour after he’d purchased them; how could they have spoiled so fast? “You took them out of the fridge, yes?” He walked over to Catrina, inspecting the yellowish-brown colour that infected not just the ends of the stalks, but instead completely replaced any prior green. “Oh, what the… you could leave chives out for a hundred years and they’d still be fresher than these!” The man grabbed the cutting board and tapped the chives into the trash, tossing the board into the sink afterwards. “Wash that off. We’ll make do with scallions.” But the scallions were also bad. And the tomatoes, and the onions, and the meat. With just a touch of Catrina’s hand, every product in that fridge was robbed of its food-safe quality, turning to rancid-smelling mush within her palm. She grew increasingly desperate to find something that wouldn’t decompose between her fingers, something that wouldn’t affirm the working theory of her being a plague on the living. Her typically pristine white coat stained with mold, her hair soaked with sweat beneath her hairnet, and her eyes brimming with tears, she looked more like a madwoman than an unfortunate victim of the world’s first case. “What the hell is going on in here!?” A hand, grasping her wrist, pulled her away from the fridge and its contents. A fatal mistake. |
Quite literally, seeing as Luis Camacho dropped to the tile as a corpse long before he got the chance to take his last breath.
She screamed. The sound of it reverberated throughout the restaurant, cracking windows and rotting wooden floorboards. Commotion kicked up in the dining area, patrons rushing to exit the building as a couple of brave line cooks tried to investigate the calamity going on in the food prep area; only to be crushed by the ceiling collapsing down on both of them, their bodies buried under the rubble. That was how it was for a few days more; the decay, and nothing else. Though the decay itself no longer subscribed to the passage of time, having lost hold of such human concepts in the pandemonium of her condition. Decay was the only word that could describe her, now, as the heart of an ugly sore the size of seven football fields; ooze mingling with blood from the wounds left on her back, her tears, like acid, having burned their trails into her face. It was nothing short of a miracle authorities were able to evacuate even half the populus from the city before the infection took them. But there were of course still casualties, those unlucky few who’d had the vitality leeched from their bodies to give back to a woman who would’ve--should’ve—died, under normal circumstances. And wishing for death was about all she could do at this point. Ironically enough, it was Thursday, January 19th, when she ceased to spread. Maybe that last bit of Catrina still lingered somewhere beneath the putrescence, latching on only to the delusion that Dr. Silva may have had some way to save her. Or it may have been a cruel trick of fate; either way, news helicopters and military aircraft alike swarmed the sky above her and her consequence. Clarity returned to her for that final, fleeting moment, just before her body succumbed to sepsis. The clouds pelted her with a light drizzle of rain, but the water did nothing to wash away the filth burrowing into every part of her body. Dying didn’t cause her as much pain as she thought it would; it could’ve had something to do with the extensive damage done to her cerebral cortex, but rational conclusions such as the one aforementioned hardly occurred to a person in Catrina’s position. It was unusual, but fitting, that the end to such a disaster proved nothing but peaceful. Lastly, there was a mosquito. It landed on her stilled hand; and exploded. |
Bad Omen (CONT'D), by Rachel Kilgour (9)
[...] If I hadn’t had hope, I would never have believed in myself, ended up on that campus, or spoken to you. You, hopes physical embodiment. Someone from a low class upbringing at an Ivy League school, someone who got lucky, got a good job, made good money. You had a good family, and, of course, a good lover. Life didn’t favour you, but the universe did. Your eyes shone in starlight and your face beamed in the sunlight.
So, of course, with the force of creation itself on your side, you could never help but win. Everything always turned out for you. Every game of poker we ever played, a royal flush always ended up in your hand. Every game of trivia, the answers seemed to bend to your will.
So when you finally decided you were done with me, who were the gods to defy your will?
You cast me aside, tossed me away like a piece of gum stuck to the bottom of your shoe. I held onto you, tried to hold you close, tried to stop the pull.
Hope's clutches never released me, but they had eased up ever so slightly. I thought it would leave me peacefully, the way birds fly from their perch. I did not expect it to destroy my soul. It crushed me, squeezing my heart until it exploded. My heart was thin as a balloon, made of plastic and flimsy in its resolve. Your existence in and of itself, hope incarnate, was the pin.
So yes, while hope is infectious, it is not to provide relief from the hardships of day to day life. It can be someone or something. A friend, a lover; an object, an art. Introduced to lull you into a false sense of security before it breaks you apart and steals your passion. It’s a curse, a sickness.
It’s infectious.
So, of course, with the force of creation itself on your side, you could never help but win. Everything always turned out for you. Every game of poker we ever played, a royal flush always ended up in your hand. Every game of trivia, the answers seemed to bend to your will.
So when you finally decided you were done with me, who were the gods to defy your will?
You cast me aside, tossed me away like a piece of gum stuck to the bottom of your shoe. I held onto you, tried to hold you close, tried to stop the pull.
Hope's clutches never released me, but they had eased up ever so slightly. I thought it would leave me peacefully, the way birds fly from their perch. I did not expect it to destroy my soul. It crushed me, squeezing my heart until it exploded. My heart was thin as a balloon, made of plastic and flimsy in its resolve. Your existence in and of itself, hope incarnate, was the pin.
So yes, while hope is infectious, it is not to provide relief from the hardships of day to day life. It can be someone or something. A friend, a lover; an object, an art. Introduced to lull you into a false sense of security before it breaks you apart and steals your passion. It’s a curse, a sickness.
It’s infectious.
Sharing Season (CONT'D), by Kim Soroka (10)
[...] “No, it’s alright I didn't want any anyway.” Adam sighed as he slackly made his way to grab himself the cup of coffee that was left by the machine, very likely that it was forgotten and left there since morning. Although Adam seemingly didn't care, the excruciatingly hard eye contact with the food said otherwise, some might even speculate that it was an intimate moment, which is really weird to imagine…
“Anyway, I'm probably gonna go work on something at the lab. I'll see you in a bit, alright?”
“Okay, see you later,” Isaac said as he watched his roommate not move an inch. Isaac acknowledged Adam’s hankering for his lunch and gradually, slowly, mournfully pushed his box of untouched fries over, prioritizing his friendship over delicious food. Without a second of hesitation, Adam seized the box and began to devour its contents .
“I thought you said you weren't hungry?” Isaac said sarcastically.
“First off, I never explicitly said that I wasn't hungry, I just said I didn't want this. I changed my mind, okay? And secondly, have you ever heard of a thing called infectious hunger? It’s a real thing you know,” Adam retaliated.
“Okay smart-ass whatever you say! Even though there's no such thing as -”
“Oh yes there is! You know when you aren't hungry- oh this food is so good - and then someone else gets hella good food you begin to feel hungry- oh I love you so much I could almost kiss you!” Adam mumbled at his food, as he let chewed up crumbs spill from his mouth.
“Ok, yeah I got it now. Don't ever talk with food in your mouth, that’s disgusting”
“Ok, love you bro.”
“Whatever.”
Moral of the story is that, the gloomy Canadian months will undoubtedly settle, the branches will begin to snap, fruits begin to rot, even colourful red, yellow, and orange trees will perish to make room for the cold. However bromance, bromance will never breathe its last breath.
“Anyway, I'm probably gonna go work on something at the lab. I'll see you in a bit, alright?”
“Okay, see you later,” Isaac said as he watched his roommate not move an inch. Isaac acknowledged Adam’s hankering for his lunch and gradually, slowly, mournfully pushed his box of untouched fries over, prioritizing his friendship over delicious food. Without a second of hesitation, Adam seized the box and began to devour its contents .
“I thought you said you weren't hungry?” Isaac said sarcastically.
“First off, I never explicitly said that I wasn't hungry, I just said I didn't want this. I changed my mind, okay? And secondly, have you ever heard of a thing called infectious hunger? It’s a real thing you know,” Adam retaliated.
“Okay smart-ass whatever you say! Even though there's no such thing as -”
“Oh yes there is! You know when you aren't hungry- oh this food is so good - and then someone else gets hella good food you begin to feel hungry- oh I love you so much I could almost kiss you!” Adam mumbled at his food, as he let chewed up crumbs spill from his mouth.
“Ok, yeah I got it now. Don't ever talk with food in your mouth, that’s disgusting”
“Ok, love you bro.”
“Whatever.”
Moral of the story is that, the gloomy Canadian months will undoubtedly settle, the branches will begin to snap, fruits begin to rot, even colourful red, yellow, and orange trees will perish to make room for the cold. However bromance, bromance will never breathe its last breath.