Tales and Stories, Memento Mori

Holes

Holes. So many holes. Too many for the human body to have but she did. Dark and endless holes covering her body, I could hear the squishing and wriggling of whatever was inside her shell. I knew it wasn't her, the woman I loved was gone and replaced this...thing. Her-it's limbs were bent at odd angles, the cracking of bones filled the air as it slowly lumbered forward. I couldn't escape, it's squelching body blocked all exists and I was stuck to the wall, my adrenaline pumping but for what? To help me? How could it help me relieve myself of this rotting corpse? Maggots came from those wretched holes, so many holes. No, not maggots. Whatever they were they weren't bugs, they filled her shell and made her breath, made her move as her skin collapsed on the floor. I heard sirens in the distance but I didn't care, those things were in my wife, or whatever she had become, she writhed and wriggled on the floor as I crept closer. Her smell was so sweet, unlike the rot that came before. Oh how I loved the sweet smell, like candy it lured me closer, closer than I was comfortable as I stepped on the disgusting things that wiggled and wormed their way into the floorboards beneath my feet. I kneeled down to her, my sweet love, and was compelled to listen. Her body moved as if she was only asleep, breathing beneath me but those eyeless sockets told me otherwise. I placed my head on her chest, sobbing into the shell of what was once my darling girl. The sound I hear in return was not what I expected; no I didn't expect a heart beat nor did I wish for one. What I heard was...nothing. No squirming of those things, no movement, not even the sound of my own heart. I raised my head in anger as the holes were gone, and so were those things, all that lay there was my wife, still breathing and bleeding on my nice clothes. She reached out for me with her dirty hand, her eyeless sockets pleading for death. I grabbed the chain that bound her ankles and pulled, and pulled, and pulled until her skin, that beautiful skin was taught. I felt it, feeling for worms or holes until I felt something. A movement, a squirm. I raise my knife, I would not let those worms take over her beautiful image again. She cried out as I plunged the blade deep into her stomach. I cooed and hushed her, I told her she'd be clean of those wretched things soon but all she cried about was her "poor baby". I cared not about that, whatever child she spoke of was clearly a demon. I had to purge it from her, cleanse her. I dug into her, my fingers pulling at entrails and meat, sweet smelling meat until I found the squirming thing, that parasite that inhabited her shell. I ripped it from her as he cries ceased. I held the thing as it kicked and cried, it's body so sticky and soft. I had to kill it, it was the only way to cleanse her now. It killed my wife, it was this thing's fault, not mine! I raised my blade but was stopped by a knock at the door. I looked at it and then back at the dirty thing. It wasn't dirty anymore, it has morphed I'm sure of it, it can't look like her, no. It had to be a trick. I decided the person who knocked could wait. I had to get rid of this thing once and for all. I ripped into it, tearing at it's flesh as it screeched and wailed. It now mirrored her, although not as beautiful a mess. The knocking grew louder as I lay next to her, kicking the dead creature away from my beloved's torn frame. As the door came off it's hinges I held her close, no longer care about my sullied clothes. As I fell into a deep and endless slumber I whispered, "It's alright Alice, I'll be with u soon."