Warning: This is an extremely disturbing story that may offend some readers with its vivid, explicit imagery and content. Please don't read if you're squeamish. Thanks! 1
Part One: Nightmare
It was only a nightmare—that’s all—just an optical illusion, like seeing the black sky and pistol gray clouds and greasy crows trapped in the reflection of a lake.
Nettle used to count the crows, singing and playing leap-frog all by herself in the dry, cracked earth, her bare legs white as wishbones.
I promised to protect her; this strange, delusional little girl with the unruly orange hair and mud-splattered overalls. She was fearless, like a black cat that always crossed your path, its eyes wide and haunted.
Sometimes I’d call her firefly because her hair was so red, but then she’d get sad after seeing all those dead fireflies bobbing up and down in the lake. So we just sat together, holding hands and singing the Sunshine in My Pocket song.
Memories...they could gnaw at your bones if you weren’t careful, turn you into that man who lived in the Machine Room; his naked body a sac of shriveled flesh held by meat hooks, wire, and rusty metal clamps used for Mr. Blackworth’s experiments.
No, no, you never wanted to go there...not to the Machine Room. That’s where they cut you open and removed your internal organs like pieces of a clock. 2
“Pan disappeared yesterday”, Nettle said, her skinny, freckled arms wrapped around the bony pinpoints of her knees. 3
“She was my best friend, Sylvia. Now they took her to that awful place and there’s nothing I can do about it. I’ll never see her again...”4
“It’s just a game, remember?” I whispered. “Pan’s moving on to the next round. She’s going to win!”5
“You really think so?”6
“I know so.” 7
Smiling, I drew her close, secretly relieved that it was Pan and not my little firefly. 8
“There’s nothing to worry about, kiddo...nothing at all.”9
The crows--screaming above us—watched with tar-black eyes; their huge, horrible wings blotting out the cold white sun. 10
X11
It never rained anymore.
The Soldiers were collapsing like the old, wrinkled yellow horses whose bones creaked as they trotted, forced to drink their own urine out of rust-covered pails.
We lived in a dust bowl...just red, blistered earth and dead grass for miles, the dried-up skeletons of plants and animals littered here and there like morbid afterthoughts.
Everywhere you could smell charred bones, blood, and smoke that hung in the air thick as dying horse sweat, making you all lost and sleepy as if walking through a snowdrift. The smells grew on you like a tumour until it did weird things to your head. 12
Everyone’s visions were different. 13
Nettle saw the crows and buried her head in my chest when they swooped upon her, talons black as oils spills and sometimes carrying severed heads or the limbs of dead children. 14
I saw wheels: giant, bloody iron wheels that were always being turned by a man with this hooded face.
Whenever the cranking of the wheels got loud my womanly parts twitched and I could feel something wet flapping between them like a fish, cold and leathery as it swam into my uterus.
The nightmares came less often, fading like wisps of smoke, but even then I’d wake up with my stomach muscles all bunched up, tears in my eyes as I tried to recount the images of cloaked men and rusty wheels.15
“Don’t even look at their faces”, I warned Nettle. 16
I firmly gripped her thin shoulders as we hurried through the crowds of children and deformed men with their lumpy, stitched-up foreheads. General Payne, his pink, bulldog jowls quivering, pulled out a sleek gun and marched towards the line of Soldiers who were all on their knees against the blood-stained brick wall, black bags on their heads. 17
"Welcome to hell, enjoy your stay", he snarled, and put a bullet in each skull.18
“Keep walking...faster”, I said, swallowing vomit. The chunk of concrete that was Sunshine Garden Orphanage grinned at us; its doors wide open in greeting, bearing colourful posters that read God is Dead, The Weak are Left Behind, and The Divine Truth Believes in you, but do you believe in it? 19
Hot, it was so hot in there, the heat like a tick that buried deep into your skin. Father Aiden—dressed in his black military jacket with the big, shiny gold buttons—was puffing on a cigarette and glaring at us, his smoky blue eyes lingering on my breasts as I brushed past him; disgusted. He flashed me a wide, toothy grin and uncapped his pen, licking his lips suggestively as he flipped open the little notepad to record how many kids there were, how many Bad Seeds that needed to be shipped off to the Machine Room or left in a Bone Box for the crows. 20
Nettle shifted uncomfortably in her seat, the desk like a toadstool is was so tiny, and folded her hands in her lap like I told her to, green eyes transfixed on the chalkboard, smiling nervously.
Mimicking her actions, I trained my own gaze on the chalkboard, trying my best to ignore Father Aiden’s tongue; that pink, wet snake gliding across his moist full lips, plumping them up. The fish from my nightmares was back, thrashing between my legs, sending a dark, shivering heat up my spine; a thrilling heat that traced languid circles around my nipples. I covered them.21
“Look at all these pretty faces!” Mrs. Rot exclaimed in her sickly-sweet voice, waving the pus-filled stumps that used to be her arms before Dr. Blackworth took them.
Mrs. Rot, I remembered, used to be a beautiful woman. 22
She stood before us, her deformed, sweat-glazed face beaming. From where I was sitting you could see the fat purple growth sprouting like a mushroom from behind one ear. Usually Mrs. Rot let her hair down to cover it, but today she was unusually happy, unusually carefree with her animated pus-stumps and crooked smile. 23
“Now, before we kick off today’s lesson, let’s give a big warm welcome to Father Aiden! Class; say hello!” 24
“Hello, Father Aiden”, everyone boomed. 25
“Hello, Mrs. Rot’s class”, the young priest replied in a smooth, throaty purr.26
I winced as he unglued himself from the wall, the notepad still in his gloved hand, and sashayed into the centre of the room next to Mrs. Rot. His slender hips teased me as they rocked back and forth, the muscles rippling underneath that perfect alabaster skin, thick hair black and polished as his big leather boots.27
“As you know, The Divine Truth cares about each and every one of you, but there are some things that must be done for the good of the academy. Here, on this notepad, I have all the names of the Bad Seeds: those fork-tongued children who have been disloyal or have questioned anything about the Divine Truth. Like an infection, we are trying to suck out all the poison so that the wound can heal. Have any of you ever scraped your knee before?”28
“Yes, Father Aiden”, the class said enthusiastically.29
“Ah, then you must know what it’s like to get an infection.” He chuckled, blue eyes twinkling. “Anyways, I’m not here for that; I’m here for a more important reason—something that concerns you all.”30
My hand slid inside the desk, fingers outstretched like the legs of a ghostly spider, and brushed against something small and stiff; an eraser maybe? I closed my fingers around the object, pulled it gently out into the light.
It was a severed thumb. 31
“There is a virus—it’s called the Fleshmoth—and it’s extremely contagious. At first it started off as the common cold, but it mutated. It has adapted to this dry climate where it now thrives like a fungus in moist, dark places. Do you guys know anything about Fleshmoth? Come on, don’t be shy!” 32
Father Aiden rapped his large knuckles against the desk, his beautiful lips curled upwards in a cold, porcelain smile that took my breath away.
I stuck my hand in the desk again, this time pulling out two more thumbs, then an index finger encrusted in blood. It seemed like all the desks were full of random body parts—a reminder of what happened to the Bad Seeds; those non-believers of the Divine Truth, of a world gone mad. 33
Nettle, her dirty face intrigued, sat ramrod-straight in her chair, legs swinging daintily as the priest blabbered on about how polite our class was, how cooperative. His deep, masculine voice was clearly the desire of every female’s burning heart.
In the back row, a little boy with angry red scars all over his cheeks slowly raised his hand. 34
“Yes, number 94?” Father Aiden brushed a lock of satiny hair from his blue eyes, unmindful of Mrs. Rot’s flirtatious body language, the way she kept undressing him from head to toe...(most likely fantasizing about sucking him off in that shiny black leather, his luscious mouth a wide, perfect “O” of ecstasy).35
“You can get it from moths”, the scarred boy said, and everyone burst into laughter. 36
Father Aiden smiled. 37
“That is correct, but something a little less obvious.” He pointed to Nettle, who was waving her long, sinewy arm all over the place. “Ah, the redhead for once...number 102, what do you think?”38
“Well...” Nettle drawled, puffing out her chest to look tough, her green eyes dancing in the light. “We're s'posed to rub the special jelly all over our skins to protect it from the moths ‘cause they feed at night, but if you don’t put that jelly on your skins then the moths will dig a little tunnel inside it that leads to your vital organs.
I heard that they grow in your intestines, like tapeworms, only much bigger, and their wings cover both lungs whereas the abdomen stretches all the way down to your bowels, forming a perfect Y-shape.
If you don’t catch ‘em fast enough that sucker will burst out, tearing your body apart in the process, and you’ll be deader than a doornail before it can even flap its wings.”39
“My, what an impressive student”, Father Aiden cooed. He pointed to Mrs. Rot. “But you forgot one thing, number 102: the symptoms.”40
Sucking in a deep, shaky breath, I shoved the fingers back into my desk and pretended that they were something else, something normal, like old potato chips. 41
“On the first day your eyes will get black, blacker than tar, and the pupils will dilate.
On the second day you’ll be vomiting up blood, intestines, and bits of kidney or whatever else the moth has gorged itself on to fatten up for its metamorphosis stage. You see, the moth will create a cocoon out of your lungs, eat the liver, small intestinal tract, and flesh surrounding it, but it takes days before it can reach full maturation.
On the third day growths, usually dark purple in color, will appear, like your teacher’s. At that stage the victim must be killed before the moth can break free—otherwise it will be too large and will infect others. This is serious business, children.
The Divine Truth believes that the moth is a symbol of Satan’s hatred for all of us. We have served him well; but the Bad Seeds have tainted this perfect circle. He has created Mothflesh to punish us, to make us afraid, so that the Holy Order may be restored. Does that make sense?”42
“Yes, Father Aiden”, the classroom echoed. 43
“I apologize for taking up so much time.” 44
The priest wiped a film of sweat from his high, smooth forehead and waltzed back towards the door. “Now, I’ll let Mrs. Rot continue on with her lesson. Goodbye.”45
He locked the door behind him.46
X47
I had that nightmare again, the one where I was lying on the examination table with my long, lily white legs spread open, flesh cool as lizard scales and speckled with tiny dots of dark, crimson blood. Doctors, nurses, and other shadowy figures were dressed in black robes, their faces hidden behind animal masks.
They talked, laughed, and probed my body with cruel gloved hands, not caring that I could feel every rough finger jabbing into my cervix, pinching my clit with scalpels, scissors, and clean silver knives. 48
"Where am I?"49
"You're in the Machine Room, Patient 103." 50
"My name is Sylvia, Sylvia Morris. Why are you doing this?"51
"The question isn't why, but why not, Patient 103."52
"What the hell are you talking about?"53
"Machines now, that's all they are, that's all they ever will be..."54
Red and blue wires, blood-filled tubes, and electrodes were fastened, plugged, and screwed into my flesh.55
“There’s no point in hiding from us, Number 103”, purred a British man dressed entirely in white. Hovering above me, he looked like an angel, like he got lost and was searching for his halo or something. 56
I knew that voice...it was Dr. Blackworth.57
“We know she’s in there”, he said, smirking.58
“Who?!” I shrieked in frustration. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, doctor! Can someone please tell me what’s going on?”59
“We are doing this to protect you, not to hurt you, number 103. Soon you will understand our purpose. This is a standard procedure.”60
I tried to scream but they got to work; gloves snapping against wrists, needles spurting, lips smiling behind the carved ivory faces of wolves, pigs, rabbits, and goats. 61
“Please let me go!” I begged; gagging on vomit and blood and tears. They didn’t listen. It was as if I was being buried alive, the dirt thrown on top of my face, snuffing out my screams like a cigarette butt.
Dr. Blackworth pressed the scalpel into my stomach and drew the blade upwards, separating the flesh into two thick halves. He drew a perfect Y-shape that branched open at my collarbone, like wings, the blood seeping out of the thin, precise line to pool around the crisp sheets.62
“She’s coming out now, whether she likes it or not!” 63
Dr. Blackworth peeled back the two flaps of skin, throwing my breasts against the blood-soaked table like hunks of meat, and reached inside me, the reflection of my agonized face caught in the midnight glare of his sunglasses. 64
“Little rascal”, he chuckled, rummaging around as if in a sock drawer. His fingers squeezed my ribcage, busted it open to remove my heart. He handed the heart to a nurse, who dropped it in this large metal trough beneath the table. It was overflowing with blood. 65
“I can already see the damage”, The doctor observed. He plunged his hand deeper, tearing out a fistful of long, ropey white intestines like telephone cables, some of them greasy and black as crow wings. When he found what he was looking for--he laughed. Actually threw back his head and laughed, like he was on a gameshow or something. 66
“Do you understand now, Number 103? This is what we were looking for...”67
There, thrashing in his bloody hands, was a giant white moth.68
I woke up. 69
X70
Silver trophy winner
Bronze trophy winner
Gold trophy winner
Honorable mention
Adding your comment:
So... I liked the end parts, though. I was expecting him to kill the teacher when he mentioned her growths ("On the third day growths appear...like your teacher's"), but was surprised that he didn't. It was crazy and takes a little patience reading this, but I don't think it's because of your skill, but rather the content. I enjoyed the part where Sylvia's being operated on. Morbid, yeah, but that last section was my favorite, I think. It just... I don't know, catches and holds my attention. 
Joann 
I love creepy and disturbing 
