Jon Athan - Am I Beautiful?

Miki grabbed the backrest of the chair to stop Amber from falling over, then she thrust the shears into Amber’s lower abdomen. Adam had already turned to face the oven. He was two meters away from it. He rotated his neck left and right, watching in horror as his wife was stabbed and his daughter was cooked in the oven. He hesitated. Who am I supposed to save? —he thought. Who can I save? His daughter’s cries grew louder as the oven quickly heated up.

Riley was the most important person in his life. If the shoe were on the other foot, Amber would have chosen to save their daughter, too.

Adam kept bouncing and screaming, chair sliding towards the oven at a snail’s pace. It took him five minutes to move a meter. From that angle, he could see the extent of Amber’s injuries. Miki had carved an upside-down capital ‘T’ onto Amber’s abdomen. The sound of Amber’s abdominal muscles separating— ripping —was louder than her weak, raspy agonal breathing. She went into shock due to her massive loss of blood.

Adam recoiled and revulsion crossed his face as Miki drove her gloved hands and the shears into Amber’s abdominal cavity, pushing down towards her pelvis. She used the large scissors to snip away at the ligaments and fibrous tissue surrounding the uterus. The blades pierced her urinary bladder, too. Her pelvic cavity was flooded with blood and urine.

Adam looked at the oven. Riley coughed violently as hot air circulated inside, irritating her lungs with each breath. Her body was dark red like a newborn baby, sweat glimmering on her peeling skin. She rolled back and forth and flailed her arms and legs. The oven rack was so hot that it slashed her hands, forearms, and knees open.

Adam slid six inches closer before he heard Miki’s giggling. He saw Amber’s chair tipping over with Miki sitting on top of Amber. Miki cackled on their way down. As her captive went into cardiac arrest, Miki plucked Amber’s uterus out of her body. She struggled to her feet and crashed into the dining table behind her.

She examined the uterus. It was supposed to be pear-shaped, but it looked more like a big, crushed tomato in her fist. Blood dripped from the mutilated womb. She looked at Amber, then at Adam, and then back at the uterus, incapable of escaping her amazement. She planned out every detail, but she wasn’t expecting to succeed.

Adam couldn’t believe what he was seeing. One painful thought haunted him: Amber’s dead. Riley’s coughing snapped him out of his trance. He jumped towards the oven, moving as quickly as possible.

“You can’t run away from this, Adam,” Miki said, grinning as she lifted the sheared-off uterus over her shoulder. Adam’s chair wobbled as he jumped. Miki said, “You’re wasting your energy. You’ll need it to grieve, Adam. Believe me, I’ve been there.”

Fuck you! Adam tried to yell. He saw the buttons on the oven’s control pad. He thrust his head forward, hoping to press the TIMER ON/OFF button with his nose. The chair’s rear legs rose from the floor. He pushed himself back down before he could fall, then he thrust his head towards the control pad again. He was close— so close .

Standing on its front legs, the chair started swinging left and right. The numbers grew on the oven’s control pad, but he didn’t realize he was already falling. The right side of his head hit the edge of the counter, then he plummeted to the floor. His head bounced off the tiles. He slipped into the deepest slumber of his life.

Adam made an ‘O’ with his mouth and gagged before he could even open his eyes. His eyeballs swiveled under his twitching eyelids, as if he were in REM sleep—but he was conscious. He just couldn’t open his eyes. He gagged again. A vile stench hit his nostrils. He could taste it at the back of his mouth, but he couldn’t identify it. Perfume? Raw sewage? Rotten eggs? Expired beef and fatty pork? Raw sewage mixed with rotten eggs on top of expired beef and fatty pork on a grill with a hint of Amber’s sweetest perfume? —he thought.

He felt his warm blood trickling down the sides of his head from his swollen, sliced temples and beads of cold sweat crawling down his forehead. His eyes cracked open a bit more. He saw a blue light before he closed his eyes and groaned. His groan was interrupted by another gag. Goops of foamy saliva mixed with Alfredo sauce and chunks of chicken hung from his mouth. He hadn’t eaten much, so he could hardly vomit. He opened his eyes again.

He saw two figures on the sofa in the living room. The room was dark, only illuminated by the glow from the television, so his mind filled in the darkness. He convinced himself that Amber and Riley were sitting in front of him. They’re okay, he told himself. They’re just watching a movie before bed, and I dozed off on the recliner . But he couldn’t hide from the truth for long. Images of Amber’s torture flashed in his mind and echoes of Riley’s cries played in his head.

He squeezed his eyes shut and cried, “N–No, no, n–no, n—”

He retched and leaned forward, but he couldn’t move much. He stared down at his body. Through the darkness and his double vision, he could see he was naked and duct-taped to the recliner. His dick had shriveled up, hidden under the puke foaming on his curly bush of pubic hair. His torso was taped to the backrest ten times over, arms to the armrests at his wrists and forearms, and legs to the footrest at his ankles and shins. He was too weak to break free due to the blows to the head.

Adam heard someone snickering. He grimaced at the sofa. Miki sat in the middle. Amber sat to her right, her mutilated intestines hanging out from the cavernous wound on her abdomen. Riley’s body was propped up on the seat to Miki’s left. She was burnt to a dark crisp, charred flakes of flesh crumbling off her body. Her eyes had melted in their sockets, the gelatinous remains glistening on her black cheeks. Parts of her limbs were burned down to the bone.

From the edges of their lips to their ears, smiles were carved onto their faces, revealing their bloodied teeth.

Adam’s mouth widened, as if he were about to scream, but nothing came out. His head bounced like a balloon against a ceiling. Every vein on his body bulged while his skin reddened. After a few seconds, he started croaking and crying. He was devastated, physically and emotionally broken. He sobbed his heart out. He lost everything in one night. He had spent years running from his past, and it finally caught up to him.

Eyes filled with tears, Miki covered her mouth and sniffled. She looked and sounded like she was crying. Then she lowered her hand and revealed her shaky lips. Her cheeks inflated, then a loud giggle burst out of her mouth. She leaned back and waved at Adam while laughing, as if to say: I’m sorry, I’m sorry, it’s just too funny! She was amused by his pain— his suffering . She tortured his wife and daughter, killed them, and then mutilated their cheeks.

The woman had no soul.

Nothing could resurrect her empathy.

As she recomposed herself, Miki pointed at Adam and said, “I’ve been waiting for this moment—for that reaction—for years . I knew you were scared the moment you saw me, but you weren’t really… hurt. Traumatized. Broken . You didn’t feel what I felt after you attacked me. Fear—the flashbacks, the nightmares—was only a part of my torture. Now, you feel the depression, the devastation… the loneliness. That pain is deep, isn’t it? Your heart aches, right?” Adam continued sobbing. Miki said, “Don’t worry, you don’t have to answer that with a ‘yes’ or a ‘no.’ I can see it. You look like me, Adam. I cried just like you when I was recovering. I kept wishing I was dead, wishing you killed me, wishing I could work up the courage to kill myself . That’s how bad it hurt. And I can’t hear your thoughts, but I know you’re feeling the same way. You want to die, right?”