How To Dissect A Witch

vii. bedded in a long term memory

"satisfaction is satiation, survival. you and i know that. show me your sweet, little fear, i'm sure you've missed how it used to be between us."

( cw : stalking, intentional medical inaccuracy, medical torture )

.

Humans inherently possess the inexplicable sense, or rather, the ability to detect they're being watched. Many have had said it's a primal instinct dating from thousands of years ago that helped humans to protect themselves from predatory animals during hunting.

You think it's a foolish notion— there was a show about a man who has his whole life written and broadcasted as a television show since the very first day he was born. How come didn't he notice it? Then again, that was a work of fiction. Maybe the writers didn't think of that.

But this is no fiction, no show, nor just a mere story read by people around the world. It would seem perfectly alright to delve in the horrors of life when they're in the safety of their homes, far from harm. To lavish in relief and comfort. But not everyone has the same luxury. Millions suffer, grow disquiet, paranoid, lose sleep and be deprived of privacy; all just from the creeping sense of being watched.

You're being watched.

Thousands of eyes are lodged everywhere on the walls and the ceiling, the scleras a painfully bright white in constrast to the blinding darkness. Black irises follow you in every way you turn. Red veins contract and writhe. Pupils narrow at your form.

When you attempt to sit up, your ankle throbs in pain and screams in protest. And then you're falling again, falling, falling. The hands supporting all your dead weight slam against the squishy floor. The sound of squelching of flesh and blood reverberates around the sickening room.

Squelching?

You feel beneath you. Viscuous fluid pools below. A slimy, pungent mess. It seems to devour your hand in its goop, sticking in between your fingers. There are eyes on the floor, and they've . . . exploded beneath you. Red and white mush and veiny and fatty chunks; melting, oozing into the soil-hued ground.

Immediately, all the eyes turn to glare. Your heart beats much more unsteady.

No no no no no no. Don't stare like that. Don't glare. Don't hate me. Don't, don't, don't.

You whimper, and the pathetic sound bounces off the walls. "I—I'm sorry it's all my fault I did it I did it." you tell the eyes, as if it's anything beyond a hallucination. "I shouldn't have escaped, shouldn't have done anything. I'm sorry. Please don't glare at me. Please. Please . . . "

You keep murmuring under your breath, apologizing and promising repeatedly like a chant. As if the eyes could hear. As if you aren't alone. You don't care. Everything else blurs your sheer understanding of anything supposedly rational.

What to do if someone hates you? What to do if you're left alone again? What to do if there's no one else anymore? Beg, plead, cry. You do all those. They still hate you. Maybe they never liked you in the first place.

At least they're not leaving.

They're not leaving.

"Stay," you whisper, "stay. Glare at me all you want just . . . just please don't leave me." You can't move, not with your greatest liability, your ankle, practically twitching from immense pain. You lie on the floor. "I don't want to be alone." You shut your eyes close and try to seek comfort and warmth within yourself.

Instead, you feel cold. Of course. You're no living person. Your vessel was, but she's dead. You're supposed to be dead, too. Who'll even stay with someone like you? There's nobody.