Breathing in, breathing out, breathing in, breathing out, breathing in, breathing out…
Air, warm. Soft. Sweet. Fills lungs, squeezes out. Kind of hurts, breathing this fast, but have to, have to or choke...
So hot. Hot and wet, sticky skin. Sweaty. Heart pounds in ears, in chest, right above stomach, stomach is heavy, full, satisfied… too much? Bloated? Not sure, maybe if I move…
Ah, sharp, hard, something on back… move, move to floor, oh, tired, tired arms and legs, body sticky and bare -- red? Red smears? Blood! Am I hurt?
...No, nothing hurts. Only smears. Can move rest of way. Ugh, sweat glues to floor, wet hair on neck, gross, uncomfortable.
Where am I?
It's blurry. Can't tell. Just grays, browns, blacks outside little lights scattered around.
Depth. Sharpen. See shapes. Recognize. Room of basement, the hidden room. My room, should be safe.
But it’s not clean. White floor has stains, red and orange. And there are shreds, lumps of something...
Human! Human shape to the left! Who?
...Not moving. Not a threat?
Lots of red on it. Glistening middle. Blotches of color. Matches the lumps, kind of. Behind the human, there’s a board. Wooden. Belts. I made that. I… put her on that.
Her. I remember. I brought her here, unconscious. Strapped her to the board. Lit the candles - the little lights are candles. Lit the candles like I always do. Always do when I… bring an offering for...
HIM.
Behind the fire. The rock on the altar. Its spiral. No longer speaking. HE has left - or was HE ever here?
HE was, right. I started the ritual, HE was there. HE approved of my offering. But then… I can't remember. How did I go from that moment to this? Who killed the woman? Was it me, or…
...could it be? Could it be that HE…
Yes.
Yes!
The corners of my mouth pull towards my ears. I can't help but laugh, even if it strains my lungs.
HE took over! HE took over my body! HE entered it, HE used it, used it to kill her. Accept the offering. Eat her flesh. Beautiful, wonderful, yes! This means the time is near. The time of ascension. Soon, very soon, HE will merge with me fully, and then everything’s gonna be --
Ah. Soon, but not yet. I shouldn’t get ahead of myself. I’m still mortal for now, and I have a mortal’s obligations. Like cleaning all this up before it starts reeking. So I should get up…
With tired limbs and the grace of a newborn fawn, I struggle to upright myself. I use the bookshelf - apparently the hard object I’d woken up leaning against - for support, though regret it soon after noticing the red stains left on the wood by my palms. There really is a lot of blood on my body… HE must have really enjoyed HIMSELF. Maybe part of this elation I’m feeling is a high HE got my body on. An absolutely welcome gift.
As my surroundings sharpen further, I can make out the details of the lumps on the floor. As one could have guessed, they’re parts of her. Muscle, skin, fat, all sorts of tissue. Wildly and savagely thrown about. Just like you’d expect from the god of predators. Oh, I have to take a closer look at her body now. Cleaning up can wait just a few minutes.
Careful not to step on anything slippery, I stagger over to the body. After five or so slaps of my soles against the floor tiles, I can grab the board's edge and lean on it. Now I can survey her.
Oh, what a sight she is.
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Red, pink, yellow, gray, purple, dark green. A flesh-tinted rainbow nested in her ventral cavity. Her organs - the ones that still remain - glisten in the fires’ light, eager to show off their beauty after two decades of darkness. Many of them, though, have large chunks of them missing, the lungs especially. They still leak blood and other fluids. It looks sad in a way, as if they were crying. But they're at rest now, just like all the others. Enslaved no more by the brain.
The digestive tract, though, took little to no damage. With the greater omentum mostly torn off, I can see the loops of the intestines, their surfaces smooth and unscathed. HE probably avoided them because of the smell. For that, I'm grateful.
The middle of the small intestine, though, seems oddly parted. Looking closer, there seems to be something pooled on the mesentery, something viscous… oh.
Moving on. I decide to inspect the intact parts of her for a change. Her skin is quite pale, understandably, though small, red crescents encircle the sections torn off, becoming sparser the further away they get. I check my fingernails to find bloody gunk underneath them. Matches up. Though I can't imagine these weak simian nails doing that much damage by themselves… HE must have brought some of HIS own strength along. That explains the missing anterior of the ribcage, too. I suppose HE just… ripped it off. Gods. Did HE even use the knife? Where is the knife, anyway?
Oh, there it is, on the floor near the altar. Clean. So HE hadn’t used it. Incredible power. And that’s what I’m going to have, too, now sooner than ever.
I catch myself scratching my forearms. The blood has started to harden. Is there even some in my hair?
A touch confirms my guess. Hm. Maybe I should take a quick shower first. I can't imagine dried blood coming off too easily.
For safety, I decide to turn on the light and extinguish the candles before leaving. One by one, blow by blow, the flames reduce to plumes of smoke.
Now to freshen up...
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Gods, did the room smell this bad the whole time? It's like something died in here. Oh, wait!
Now wearing a raincoat, rubber gloves and boots - even a shower cap in case of sudden squirts - I return to the crime scene. I grab myself a garbage bag and begin gathering the various pieces of the victim off the floor. To have something more to listen to than just the crinkling of my coat, I hum a directionless tune.
With the floor rid of the largest clumps of flesh, it's time for the body. I spread a tarp beneath the board and then, one by one, undo the belts that keep her body fastened to the board. Ankles, wrists, forehead - grab her neck for support - and finally, arms. She comes free, and I lower her onto the tarp.
Sure, having a tarp set up in advance for the whole ritual would make cleaning easier, but I'm just not a fan of how it looks. Brings down the atmosphere. And if the Helixians didn't need tarps all those millennia ago, neither do I.
Alright. I think I'll chop the head off first. I fetch my trusted axe from the wall it leans against, along with a plank of wood. I slip the plank under her neck to make sure I won’t accidentally shatter the floor and begin to hack away. Eventually, I cleave through the spine. I sever the remaining skin with the sharper knife, and so her head comes free. I grab it by the hair and, to humor myself, lift it up high like a Rancian revolutionary.
Her face now level with mine, I stare deep into her eyes. No life gazes back from the darkness. They resemble my own, really. Uncannily much. I choose to move on to the rest of her face.
Ignoring the missing flesh around the mouth, she's rather good-looking. Symmetrical, aesthetically pleasing proportions rather typical for a Hojoan female. Smoothly curved bridge of nose, deep-set eyes, widow’s peak. Pure and healthy skin, although discolored now by loss of blood. Thin, neatly shaped eyebrows. They feel silky to the touch. As much as I can tell with gloves on, anyway.
Odd that she didn't seem to have any company with features like these. Maybe she just wasn't interested in dating. Or maybe that friend she had was more than a friend. Fuck if I know what love is like. Not that I care. It's worthless.
Her teeth look healthy, with a regular shade of yellow-white - but also red stains from the blood, of course. Hard not to bleed on your teeth with your lips torn off. Why did HE go for those, anyway?
Oh! Speaking of her mouth, almost forgot…
I separate the head’s jaws. To my disappointment, the tongue is missing.
But I also didn’t come across it on the floor…?
The realization disturbs my gut. Oh, it’s in there then. Unwashed tongue, that’s a little disgusting… though I suppose regular people exchange spit voluntarily all the time. Would this count as first base, then?
Either way, this means I won't get to keep a trophy for this one. I suppose it makes sense, as I didn't get to be the one to kill her either…
No, don't think like that. You're overjoyed to have been taken over. It's way better than to have killed her yourself. This means ascension is near, after all, and once that happens, you'll get to kill to your heart's content. No fear of getting caught, no worries about disease. Only carnage. And you'll love it.
Anyway… even if I don't have a tongue to store, I'll still add a jar among the rest. It'll be empty, but a jar doesn't need to contain anything to mark a kill. That's what the label is for. A number and a name.
Name. Hm. What was hers, again?
I pause to take in her features once again. Her eyes, her nose, her mouth - or lack thereof…
Ah, now I remember.
Her name was Joanna.