Vivisection

You’re naked, lying down on the cold basement floor. Plastic sheeting covers every inch of the ground, taped halfway up the walls just in case of any splashing. Beside you, a large carving knife – designed for the specific purpose of stripping the skin from animals. It should do the job. It has to.

You know what needs to be done. You’re hurting everyone around you. There is Rot inside you, spreading throughout your body, and it needs to be removed. All of it.

This is the only way.

Your hand closes around the handle of the knife, bringing the blade up to your face. You can see your eyes in the blade, reflecting the dim light from the single flickering bulb above you. They’re dark, rimmed with black, glistening with the tears of self-hatred. It’s not my fault, you tell yourself over and over, they made me this way. You’re never sure who they are; everyone who’s left you, the bullies, the whisperers, the liars. Deep down, you know it’s your fault. That’s why the rot needs to go.

Cut it out.

Destroy it.

Then, maybe, you can finally start living.

You point the knife down at your chest, right at the top of your sternum. You know this will hurt. Good. It should hurt. You deserve to hurt. Sweat glistens, hands shake, breath hitches and quickens. Just a quick push, straight through the epidermis, all the way down to the muscles and sinew beneath the skin. That’s all you need to do. Do it.

You push the knife into your chest, crying out in pain through gritted teeth. Blood pulses out, a hot pool quickly forming on your chest, crimson running in little rivulets down your sides. Now cut.

The knife slices through your pale skin easily, the blade fresh and sharp, flesh splitting apart as delicious pain sears through you. Nerves on fire as they’re exposed to the damp air. Muscle and sinew don’t stand a chance, blood spurting out as you split yourself open. The blade reaches your navel and you stop, letting the knife clatter to the ground. Steam rises from the gash in your body, the sounds of your insides now reaching your ears. The thump-thump-thump of your heart, the squelching of muscle, lungs expanding and compressing.

You slide your blood-soaked hands to the crevice, grunting as your fingers slide under the skin, vision blurred with tears and pain. You draw in as deep as a breath as you can manage before flexing your arms, pulling outwards as you shriek. There’s a wet tearing sound as the skin and muscles peel away, a burst of blood exploding from you. Your arms collapse, body completely numb now – your brain shutting out the pain – as you lay there, the light dimming. You expect the release, the relief, of death. But it doesn’t come.

Because we’re not done yet.

The Rot is still in there.

You lift your head, staring down at your desiccated body – ribcage exposed, intestines, liver, stomach…all pulsing, squelching, smeared with slick internal juices. Black tendrils creep over them, like a weed, wrapped around your insides. The Rot. Those bones are in the way, however, so they need to go.

You watch in horror as your sternum cracks, splitting in half, and begins to bend outwards, ribs somehow becoming pliant and folding over, like spider legs bursting from your chest. They become solid again, the remains of your broken sternum clacking against the ground as your body shifts and moves, the ever-growing pool of blood around you glinting in the light.

Reaching through your splayed ribs, you push your hand into your organs, feeling around for the strands of Rot twisted up inside you. You grab a handful and tug, feeling the resistance, but with enough force it tears free, black ichor spurting from where it was attached to your liver. Keep tearing it out. Yes, just like that. You grab a group of tendrils coiled up on your lungs and rip them away, the ichor mixing with your own blood. Turning the lake a darker shade.

You know where the source is.

Reach between the lungs, follow the pulse. Your fingers wrap around your heart, encased in Rot, the source of so much pain, the agony of heartbreak. You let out a raspy scream as you tear your own heart out, ichor and blood spurting as it continues to pulse in your hand, thump-thump-thump.

You crush it.

Is it over?

I’m afraid not. You know there’s still more.

I can’t…I’m so tired…

I don’t care. Grab the knife. Yes, that’s good.

…will this make it all stop?

I promise. You just need to dig it out of your brain.

Now

Cut

Out.