Watch Your Step

HUNGOVER [ep. 4]

"Cleanse your sins with pain," Tommy whispers as he continues to ram the bottle of Vodka in my mouth. "Flesh will be born with flesh...." His voice became more sinister. I made a single glance below, and from a fog brewing in my head, I didn't notice that my feet were already tied up.

"Tommy, what are you doing?" I ask, choking, as he's already tying another nylon rope on my left arm.

"An operation," he mouths, as he leaves me with only one arm free. I whip my head around with a sense of foreboding. Thus, a second look makes it clearer. In front of me are two half-naked bodies hanging on a hook by their mouth, like butchered pigs wearing pants. One is female and one is male. I anticipated a surge of bile rising from my stomach but Tommy pursued to make me drink copiously.

My gaze locks on the two bodies. The male body's stomach is slit open and its intestines dangle to the floor. The female body on the left had its stomach sewn, like a giant centipede. An instant later, my mouth is clogged with too much alcohol. Barb wires must have already entwined inside my throat. It seemed endless, without stopping I gasped for air. As if rejecting it, suffocating, I accidentally splash all the alcohol in my mouth on Tommy's face. He let out a groan and wiped his ruddy eyes. Then, I fight with my untethered hand to push Tommy away from me.

"Fine," he says, reaching for a scalpel on the cart. He wheels across the table and stands on my right side. With a force that is definitely not a child's, he grips my hand with his own, locking me spread-eagled on the table. Then, he plucks my shirt up to my chest and starts tracing a vertical line on my stomach.

No. NO, no. Time ticks slowly again as I struggle to move. Focusing on the ball of light heavenward, I can imagine my skin peeling, my belly tearing apart. Yet, flinching and expecting the pain, I almost felt nothing. I know he's doing something down there. I know something's impaling me: the icy metal of the scalpel. Pointing, piercing, penetrating. Notwithstanding, I feel extremely numb, thick-skinned, and reckless. Is the vodka starting to kick in? This damn bastard might have used it as an anesthetic.

Hastily, Tommy brushes through the room and takes a handful of the glutinous flesh dripping with black liquid. He motions as if putting it inside me. Wriggling hopelessly, my hand miraculously gets a hold of something. A long cold steel that fit right through the circle of my fingers. I look up, my eyesight starting to get fuzzy again, it is my hand jerking one of the standing candelabras! I had a sudden urge to topple it and strike Tommy right on his face still drenched with alcohol.

Slowly, with a flick of my fingers, it moves to where Tommy is standing...

Surely, aiming to hit his tiny head.

CLANG!

His head instantly went up in flames. He screams deafeningly as he raises his hands to his face. Perhaps it is a spur of desperate self-preservation that I immediately shove him with another standing candelabra. Similarly, a burst of sudden alertness, like fire flowed through my veins, I grabbed one of the tools on the cart next to the table. As fast as I can, I begin sawing the slithering ropes on my left wrist. However, it is too thick and slippery and the blade I'm holding is too blunt. Two of the candelabras are still standing near my feet. I extend my arm to get one and burn the rope on my left hand with the candles.

Come on, COME ON! Hurriedly, beads of sweat start to drip on my forehead. Even though my hands get singed I barely sense it. Instantly the ropes snap! I manage to sit upright and deal with the ropes on my feet. Even so, a surge of squeamishness punches me in the gut. Not even the hole in my stomach can compare to the shock I recapitalize. The adrenaline is starting to wear off at another sight of the two bodies suspended in the air. My eyes climb higher to their neck avoiding their midsection. Their mouth agape with the hooks protruding sharply. There was a flick of candlelight and I saw the resemblance of my nephew on their horrible appearances. As I burn the last of the ropes on my feet, I look down at Tommy still prostrated on the floor.

"A... man...da," he whimpers, and for a moment I hear Tommy's real voice. Reluctantly, I descend on the table and kneel next to Tommy. His face isn't badly incinerated yet a tinge of blisters is gravely noticeable. I begin calling his name, slapping him gently to make sense of what he's trying to do. My belly is starting to sting now. As I look at my right hand, the one putting pressure on the cut of my stomach, it's now coated with crimson blood.

I let down my guard. It's too late when I feel Tommy's hands strangling my neck. He's shrieking in a strained voice, "Kathariste... amartia... sarka... gennithei... sarka...."

The wind starts to whirl; candles flick into the darkness. The floor begins to shake. His grip on my neck is tightening, my eyes starting to roll back, and I'm steadily going out of breath. Desperate to find a way out, it turns out that I didn't have to. As if he is defying gravity, Tommy stands up so easily while still holding me by the neck. I don't know what's more appalling, either he looks taller than me now, or the fact that we are floating four feet above the ground!

My vision is starting to appear gray. I can no longer feel half of my body. However, with the strength of a gorilla, Tommy throws me violently against the wall. Landing between the two gibbeted bodies, I am coughing and wheezing to breathe. Why didn't I realize sooner, the familiarity of these two poor people? The answer to the question of who they are flashes before me. The parents of this wretched child. It was Auntie Carla and Uncle Bob!

Tommy is still suspended in the air. Books, candles, and furniture swirl around him. I got enough pain not to pitch myself and check if this was just some kind of nightmare. On the verge of collapsing, still, I heed a means of escape.

Battered to death. I still manage to dash through the stairs. My headache intensifies as the wound on my stomach screeches. The next thing I know I am rolling, stumbling, and aching all over my body. Ironically, I am thankful to put some distance to whatever's happening upstairs. My body stiffens, as though I am cemented on the stairs itself. I'm pretty sure I broke a rib or something. Should I just wait for him to end this?

In a moment's silence, blinking into the void, a picture of a child stepping down the stairs is the last thing I see.