MicroHorror

Drip…
Shula can feel the life leaving her, one heartbeat at a time.

Drip…
“What’s he doing?”
“Just sitting there. Watching.”
“How long now?”
“About three minutes…”
“It’ll be soon, then.”

Drip…
The darkness is a physical thing, crowding my senses. I can feel my humanity snapping and fluttering off my bones in the gale of the thing I’ve done. How did it come to this, how did I get here? A flash of light and the sudden glare of the truth throws the dark stains into stark relief. I don’t know who the girl is, but she’s looking directly me, her eyes filled with accusation and fear. Why doesn’t she talk to me?

Drip…
It didn’t hurt, and that’s amazed Shula more than anything else. Even now, afterwards, there was no physical sensation. Only a deep well of regret. The sea of existence, long thought to be infinite, had proven to be a woefully inadequate puddle. This wasn’t fair–she hadn’t even had time to wet her feet on the shoreline before the horizon had descended on her in a fury of teeth. Slowly the sea was draining away before her eyes, potential experience transmuting into gut-wrenching mortality. The tide of her life was turning.

Drip…
“Shame, really…”
“Yeah–you want another coffee?”
“Uh. Sure.”
“Biscuit?”
“No–you want to wait? This should be good. You might not be back in time…”
“Ah, I’m not that bothered–the video’s getting everything, right? I can watch the rerun. Anyway, these things always turn out the same.”
“Yeah. You’re right.”

Drip…
A pale echo of anger builds in my chest, swelling and twisting, entangling itself around my ribs, around my heart. My still, dead heart. The stolen life courses through it, but it doesn’t beat. Only the anger and the hunger stir within me now. The girl’s eyes are losing vitality now; she is nothing more than meat, food to be used and discarded.

Drip…
Her life was draining away with a terrible gravity, her very soul being dragged down by forces beyond her understanding. Fragments of her past sparked feebly against the black wall bearing down on her, but they were crushed utterly.

Drip…
“You wanted a biscuit, right..?”
“Mm-hm, yeah. Seen this? Why do they always do that?”
“What…? Oh! That? No idea, they just do.”
“Proper goldmine of information you are. You think he’s still aware of what he’s doing?”
“Nope. I mean, I wouldn’t want to be, would you?”

Drip…
She’s staring at me, her stupid, dead eyes somehow still clinging to one final tiny human emotion. I suppress the urge to pound her pale face to a mushy pulp and let her dead weight slide away from me. Standing, I turn to face the false mirror, surprised to still see my reflection there. What surprises me even more is the fact I can see the two men sitting behind it, recording my rebirth for their masters’ pleasure. I snarl and step over the useless, drained carcass, barely giving it a second glance. It… she… is dead to me now. Her breath, low and fast, is becoming more and more erratic and the pathetic trickle of blood oozes slowly from her shredded throat. Her mouth works, almost soundlessly, but I hear it. One single word and for a second, only one second, the horror of what has been done to me crashes around me.

…
Shula know this is it, the final curtain. Her final word is a combination of question, pleading, longing and betrayal.

“Daddy…?” Her final heartbeat passed, she surrenders to the blackness, diving headlong into the oblivion, leaving all her cares behind her.