Did you ever feel an itch so bad, you scratched yourself bloody to make it go away? If not, consider yourself lucky. Consider yourself damned lucky!

I don’t know when or where I exactly got it from, but I’m sure it was during this shitshow of a vacation in Thailand. My best friend and I had saved up part of our measly earnings from our student job, and decided it was time for a little break. In early January, before university kicked back in, we treated ourselves to a brief vacation. I left the booking to him. I don’t know how he did it, but he always found those insider tips, as he called them. The trip he’d booked promised an exclusive hotel on a beach in Thailand, surrounded by beautiful, unclaimed nature.

What we ended up with was nothing but a cheap room in the middle of nowhere in an area as underdeveloped as our hotel. Still, we made the best of it, and enjoyed the few days we spent there the best we could.

Once I stepped back into my cramped student apartment, winter raging outside, I had to admit I missed Thailand.

The itch started a few days later. I was looking through the pictures of our trip when I felt an itch on my chest. I shrugged it off at first. Nothing but a minor irritation. A few scratches and it was gone. When I looked more closely, though, I found a reddish rash spreading across my chest. I told myself it wasn’t too bad, just a few irritated spots that would be gone in a few days. Yet I couldn’t help but think back to my childhood. My skin had always been sensitive, and I’d often suffered from severe eczema. Memories of long nights scratching inflamed skin and relentless discomfort returned to me. For a moment, I felt lightheaded, but then I took a deep breath. No, it was probably just an irritation from those cheap, dirty beds in Thailand or that new laundry detergent I’d used. Still, the memories persisted, and I could only hope it would clear up soon enough.

A week later, my girlfriend, Susan, came over for a movie night. We’d just snuggled up on the couch when she noticed me scratching my chest repeatedly. By this point, the itch had gotten way worse, but I’d forced myself not to linger on it. At first, she ignored it, but after a while, she spoke up.

“What’s wrong with your chest?”

“Dunno, probably some skin irritation. I’m sure it’s gone in a few days,” I said, shrugging, trying my best to convince not only her but also myself.

“Are you sure?” she asked, looking at me with a worried expression.

“Yeah, it’s nothing,” I said, laughing.

Susan, however, didn’t laugh.

“Show me!”

With that, I lifted my shirt.

“See? Just a stupid allergic reaction.”

“I don’t know… that looks pretty serious. It might be a fungal infection or something.”

“Oh, come on, it’s just a rash!”

“Honestly? No, that doesn’t look right. What if it’s infectious?”

I watched her get up and slowly gather her things.

“Susan, what are you-?”

“Look, I don’t want to risk catching anything, okay? You really need to get this checked out,” she said heading for the door.

With that, I was left alone with what she’d called a fungal infection. As her words echoed in my mind, I found my hands unconsciously scratching over my chest again and again, trying to fight the annoying, spreading itch.

That night, I lay in bed tossing and unable to sleep. I felt hot, was covered in sweat, but tried my hardest not to scratch myself. The memories of my childhood crawled back into my mind yet again, and I almost felt like a little boy again; lying in bed, desperately scratching his inflamed, almost bloodied skin.

The next day, at university, I was a mess. Lectures became nothing but pure torture. I was fidgety, nervous, couldn’t focus at all, and every attempt to fight the urge to scratch my chest was met with failure. I could feel the eyes of my fellow students, their judgment a mixture of worry and disgust, as they inched away from me. Eventually, I couldn’t take it anymore and fled from the lecture hall. After I’d left, I went straight to the local pharmacy. I was embarrassed, but desperate, and explained to them I was suffering from a severe fungal infection. The pharmacist recommended a cream and suggested a visit to a dermatologist. I bought the cream, hoping it would do the trick, and told him I’d consider his advice.

Once I was home, I applied the cream, but it did a whole lot of nothing. If anything, it seemed to make the itch even stronger.

Before long, even scratching didn’t seem to help anymore. It almost felt as if this itch was coming from somewhere else, somewhere deeper. I shook my head. It’s an itch, you idiot, just a fungal infection, nothing else. Then I applied another layer of cream. It still didn’t help.

By that point, the itching had grown so intense it almost felt like it was spreading and moving all over my chest. It wasn’t painful, just irritating, seriously irritating, and however much I scratched, it didn’t go away. When I couldn’t take it anymore, I attempted to distract myself with a few drinks, but before long, the itch came back in full force. My hands scratched over my chest desperately, clawing at the fabric of my shirt, almost tearing it apart.

Eventually, I tore it off and wandered to the bathroom to check myself in front of the mirror. By now, the rash or fungal infection had spread to cover almost my entire chest. I saw long reddish marks all over it, a testament to my relentless, constant scratching. For a moment, I stared at it with a mixture of unease and anxiety, wondering if that was really all it was, but then the itch came back again. I could do nothing but scratch vigorously over my skin to fight it. My fingernails tore over my chest, upward, downward, leaving half-bloodied trails behind. As I did, I noticed that in certain areas, the rash appeared… swollen.

My mind filled with a mixture of disgust and fear as I scratched right over it. The itch intensified, and it almost felt like something was… there. I scratched it again, then once more before the skin tore open. Some blood and pus leaked from the wound, and then I saw a… hole. It wasn’t big, barely the size of a pinhead. An enlarged pore, I told myself, but I wondered if they could get that bit. Why was it so swollen? I went closer to the mirror to get a better look. It looked almost as if… something was moving in there.

“What the fuck?” I cursed as panic washed over me.

Then, slowly, carefully, I put my fingers against the skin around the hole and squeezed. First gently, then harder. I waited for pus to burst from the hole, but something else did. Something long and thin slithered from the hole. The moment I saw it, my hand jerked back, and I began shaking uncontrollably.

“What the fuck?! What the absolute fuck is that?!”

I stood there, shaking, panting, almost crying. With sweaty hands, I rummaged through the bathroom drawer. It took me minutes to find them, and another to pick up the small pair of squeezers I’d been looking for. I told myself to calm down, took a deep breath, but it seemed to take ages before my fingers had finally stopped shaking.

Once more, I squeezed the hole with the fingers of one hand while I held the tweezers in the other, ready to pull out whatever that thing was. I still tried to tell myself it was nothing but an enormous blackhead. Only moments later, however, I knew that wasn’t it, and the hole wasn’t an enlarged pore. When the whitish thing’s end slithered from my chest, I put the tweezers against it and pulled. There are no words to describe the sensation I felt when I pulled it from my skin and flesh. There was almost no pain. Instead, all I felt was an itch, a terrible burning itch that seemed to originate from deep inside my chest. I watched in utter horror and disgust as I pulled bit after bit of the thing out of me.

When I held a wiggling, bloody worm almost four inches in length between the tweezers, my vision grew blurry and I almost passed out. I staggered, hit my head against the bathroom wall, and had to grab onto the edge of the sink to steady myself. That’s when I saw them. For the first time, I saw the faint outlines of all the worms beneath the skin on my chest. My heart began pounding in my chest, my legs buckled, and I stumbled from the bathroom. I managed to put on a shirt, and thinking of only one word, hospital, I rushed from the apartment. Everything else was a blur: rushing down the street to the tram station, sitting in the car shaking, panting, and scratching my chest repeatedly.

When I arrived at the hospital, I was a mess. A nurse noticed me after a few moments, but all I could do was to ramble about parasites. After her initial shock and confusion, she immediately called for a doctor. As he led me into the examination room, I was still in a state of panic, barely registering his words. All I could understand were bits and pieces: serious, and need to be removed.

Hours later, when I awoke in a hospital bed, my chest bandaged, the doctor returned to me. When I asked him what exactly had been wrong with me, he explained. I’d indeed been infested by a rash, but that was only part of it. The rash hadn’t caused the itch.

No, the itch had been caused by a dozen hookworms that had buried themselves deep into my skin.

“God, Mathew, you don’t get it, do you? That’s not what real art is about.”

Those had been the words Abigail threw at me during our very first fight.

Sitting here now, writing this, I still wonder what real art is truly about.

The same uncertainty had been the very core of Abigail’s obsession. An obsession that spiraled out of control, and drove me from her apartment three days ago in a state of utter despair.

Ever since I first met Abigail, I knew there was something special about her.

It was about a year ago that a friend of mine dragged me to a concerto at his music school.

I never was a fan of the finer arts or classical music for that matter. As I sat next to him, listening to the performance, I had to fight the urge to take out my phone. Needless to say, I was bored to death.

This boredom evaporated when she started to play. She was a delicate, almost fragile thing, dwarfed by the harp she was playing on.

Her fingers moved over the strings, barely touching them, plucking at them with a subtlety almost too sensitive for the instrument. Yet, the sounds she created, the melody she played, it was so distinct it overshadowed every other instrument on the stage.

I leaned forward, staring at her with wide eyes. Never before had I cared about music performances. Still, in the presence of raw talent and absolute skill, even I was touched. I sat there, completely absorbed by her music.

My friend noticed my stares and smiled.

“That’s Abigail,” he whispered to me.

“She’s,” I started but didn’t find the words for this new feeling inside of me.

“Amazing? Unbelievable? Yeah, she’s by far the most talented student at our school.”

That’s when I first saw Abigail, and that was also the moment when I fell in love with her.

After pestering my friend for weeks, he finally introduced me to her. She was a timid, shy girl and somewhat plain to look at. When I asked her out, she was taken aback, but agreed.

We hit it off instantly, and it wasn’t long before we moved in together. I guess what they say is true: opposites attract. While Abigail was a musician, I was a businessman. Two occupations that couldn’t have been more different.

Abigail was, as I said, a taciturn person, never uttering more than a few words at a time. When she talked about music, though, she was a completely different person. Her eyes lit up, and her voice showed none of her usual timidity. She could go on about it for hours.

I guess it was due to her father’s influence. Abigail never got to know her mother and was brought up by her father. The man had been an eccentric yet vastly talented artist.

“True art is different,” she’d start. “It’s not what you see or hear, it’s about emotions, about feeling. Dad had always said he didn’t want people to simply see what was in his paintings. He wanted them to feel and experience. He wanted them to smell the flowers in his still life and to taste the wine that accompanied them. That’s what true art was like to him. It’s the same with music, Mathew. It’s not about what you hear, it’s about what it does to you.”

I always smiled when she went on like this. Her world was so different from mine, she was different. I guess that’s why I was so drawn to her.

Abigail’s music was beautiful, breathtaking even, yet for some reason, she was never satisfied with herself. She practiced for hours on end, frantically and half-mad at times. It wasn’t strange for me to wake up to her practicing, and often she continued long after I’d gotten home. When she finally stopped, in the late evening, her fingers were often blistered and sticky with sweat.

Our first real fight happened a month after she’d moved in. As I sat on the couch listening to her play, an idea came to my mind.

“Why don’t you start a YouTube channel, Abby? I bet lots of people would love to listen to you play. Maybe it could be your big break?”

Abigail’s fingers froze, and she gave me a look of sheer frustration.

“God, Mathew, you don’t get it, do you? That’s not what real art, real music, is about. That’s not how it works! You need to be there to truly experience it!” she said, her voice cracking.

“Can you feel this?” she asked, plucking at a string. “The vibrations? The change in the air? Oh, I can tell, you don’t. I mean, how could you?” she laughed at that, shaking her head.

“It’s all part of the music, all part of true art, but someone like you-“

“Someone like me?” I demanded. “You know what, Abby, I’m sorry. I’m really sorry I don’t get what real art is about!”

With that, I got up and left the room. I loved this girl, but at times her pretentiousness was hard for me to take. Before long, it had started to take a strain on our relationship.

It wasn’t the only thing it influenced, though. Abigail herself started to spiral out of control as well, and her passion slowly transformed into an obsession.

A few weeks later, I returned from work and found her in a state of utter despair. Tears were streaming from her face as she stared at the shattered remains of a harp.

“Abby! What’s going on!?”

I rushed to her side and put my arms around her. When she stared at me, I almost cringed back. Her eyes were filled with nothing but pure, hard rage.

“Why? Why can’t I do it?!”

“What are you talking about?”

“This!” she screamed and pointed at the broken harp. “This THING, it’s nothing garbage! It’s not real music, none of it is! It’s nothing but a charade, all because of this damned thing!”

With that, she picked up one of the pieces of the harp and hurled it across the room.

“But, you’re amazing!” I said, taking hold of her shaking hand.

She shot me another glare before she freed herself from my embrace.

“You still don’t get it,” she mumbled to herself as she left the room.

Yeah, I don’t, I thought to myself but didn’t dare say the words out loud.

It should only be the first of many similar outbursts, but before long, her obsession took a different nature.

In the weeks to come, Abigail transformed our living room into nothing short of a workshop. Abigail spent her father’s inheritance money lavishly. She purchased stacks of books about musical theory, harps, and their construction. Soon after, she started to buy instruments, exquisite wood, strings, and various tools. It all covered the floor in a chaotic mess. And in the middle of it all sat Abigail, feverishly working.

By that time, we hadn’t talked in days. She’d completely ignored me, too obsessed with her work.

“Abby, babe, what’s all this?” I finally asked one day, when I couldn’t take her behavior anymore.

“An instrument is not just a tool; it’s supposed to be an extension, no, a part of yourself. That’s where I was wrong all along. Of course, I couldn’t play anything worthwhile. I was so stupid.”

“What do you mean?”

She laughed at my question.

“Dad always said the same thing. The brush needs to be an extension of yourself. He always made his own brushes, you know? He picked the materials, bound the bristle. He did it all by himself. Only that way, he said, could he truly create art.”

“So, you’re trying to build your own harp?”

For the first time in a long while, she smiled at me, her eyes alight by the same fire I’d so come to love.

“Yes, Mathew, yes! I need to do it, you see? It’s impossible otherwise! Come here, I show you! You see this? That’s mahogany wood, and this here, its cedar.”

She went on and on, rambling about the different materials, showing me books and sketches.

I didn’t know what to say.

“Aren’t you taking this a bit too far? Building your own instrument? Do you even know how to do it? Why are you going to such extremes just for-?”

“Just for WHAT!?” she screamed at me. She threw the sketches she’d been holding to the ground and glared at me with such intensity that I took a step back. For a moment I was afraid she’d jump me.

“You, you imbecile! How could I’ve thought you’d get it? Oh, how stupid you are, Abigail, of course, he wouldn’t. Right, Mathew? You don’t understand a damned thing of what I’m trying to do!”

I stood there, listened to her outburst, and finally shook my head. This wasn’t the woman I’d fallen in love with. The person who stood in front of me now, who threw these vile words at me, I didn’t know who it was anymore.

“Abby, I don’t think this is working anymore. I can’t deal with this, with the way you’re acting. I’m sorry, but maybe we should take a break.”

She looked at me, and for a moment, a sad smile showed on her face. Then she shrugged and started to gather her things.

“Fine.” One simple word uttered more to herself than to me.

The next day, when I returned from work, I was greeted by an empty living room. There was no trace of Abigail or any of the various things she’d purchased.

The end of a relationship is never smooth. Even after Abigail had changed so much, I still loved her. Yet, however much I tried to contact her or find out where she lived, it seemed futile. For all I knew, she’d completely vanished and cut herself off from society.

That was until three days ago. My phone started ringing, showing me an unknown number. When I answered, I heard a weak, timid voice. It was Abigail.

“I finally figured it out, Mathew,” she said, “what it means to create true art.”

“Abby, my god, we haven’t talked in so long. Are you alright?”

She didn’t answer. Instead, I heard a sound that might very well have been scoffing.

“There’s no time Mathew. I have to show it to someone, please, you’re the only one I can think of! You need to come here!” there was a sudden determination, a sudden urgency to her words that made my skin crawl.

“Where’s here? Where are you?”

After she’d given me her new address, I went on my way to the outskirts of town. Out there, she’d moved into an old, long-abandoned building.

As much as I tried to deny it, I still had feelings for her, even after all that time. Maybe, just maybe we could make this work again…

I rang the doorbell once, twice, and then a third time, but no one answered. When I finally called her on the phone, she told me the location of a spare key she’d hidden outside.

The moment I opened the door to her apartment, I gagged. A disgusting, putrid smell hung heavy in the air. It was a mixture of rotten food, sweat, and something strangely metallic.

“Mathew, come in,” I heard her from inside.

The light in the apartment was dim, but I could tell that it was in an utter mess. Dirty clothes and rotten food covered the floor. Various tools and materials were scattered all over the place. It was almost impossible to breathe in this damp hell, and I had to cover my mouth as I made my way inside.

“Abby, what the hell’s all this?”

Her answer was nothing but a weak smile, and with a shaking hand, she bode me to come closer to her.

Even in the half-dark, I could tell how sick she looked. Her skin was pale, almost ashen, and she seemed to be covered in sweat. She was sitting in a lonely chair, her legs covered by a heavy, stained blanket.

My eyes grew wide when I saw her like this.

“Holy shit, Abby, are you okay? You look terrible!”

I took a few steps towards, but when I saw the instrument by her side, I stopped.

It was a ghastly, bleak harp, different from any instrument I’d ever seen before. It looked raw and unrefined, and no more than half a dozen strings lined it.

“What’s that thing?”

Instead of answering, she smiled at me, and her delicate fingers reached out for the instrument.

She winced, as she plucked one of the strings, and a deep, unnatural sound rose from it. It lingered in the room much longer than it should’ve, and I could almost feel it reverberating inside of me.

My eyes grew wide at the sensation, but before I could say anything, Abigail began to play.

Her eyes were wide, her face twisted in a pained expression, and I could hear her moan as she plucked the strings.

There are no words to describe the music she created with that thing. Notes and tones I’d never heard before, never thought possible with a harp. She combined them into a cacophony, a melody that was as disturbing as it was beautiful.

I couldn’t move. This music, this melody, it was out of this world. Each note reverberated inside of my body, stabbing at my heart, no, my very soul. I felt tears streaming from my eyes as I listened to her otherworldly performance.

And then I saw it. Abigail had been right; I never understood what she’d been talking about. It was her music. I could see it wafting through the air, moving towards me and surrounding me. I felt the sound crawling into my ears, lingering inside of my head. For the first time, I truly experienced her music, and for the first time, I was truly afraid of her.

When Abigail stopped, I felt weak, tired, and exhausted. For a moment, I almost lost my balance and had to lean against the wall, breathing heavily.

“Do you see it now?” she asked in a low voice as she withdrew her fingers from the instrument.

At a loss for words, I could only nod. Once I’d found my voice again, I could only ask a single question.

“How are you able to play like this? How is something like that even possible?”

As an answer, she pulled the dirty blanket away. I screamed when I saw the bloodied, festering stumps of her legs.

“Oh my god, Abby, what did you do!? What the hell did you do?!”

I stared at the ghastly, bleak harp again, and I realized what it was made of. Bones. The bones of Abigail’s legs. Then those strings, sinews, they had to be her… Dear god. My eyes grew wide, and I took a step back in disgust when I saw that they didn’t end at the bottom of the instrument. No, they continued on and vanished inside of the festering flesh of the stumps of her legs.

“Why?” I mumbled as I stumbled backward due to the sheer insanity at play in front of me.

Her face distorted into a wide, manic grin.

“I told you, I finally understood it. You see Mathew, true art has a price. It always has a price.”

I’m a little lost and not sure what’s going on here anymore. Things got a bit out of hand. I’m tired, anxious, but I just want to finish writing this all down.

This whole mess started only a few days ago, with a damned spider, as always.

You see, I suffer from a severe case of arachnophobia. I can’t even look at pictures of spiders without despairing and panicking. Even when I’m talking about them, there’s this lurking fear in the back of my mind.

One of my friends once thought it was hilarious to scare me with a plastic spider. It freaked me out so bad that I jumped up, rushed off and hit my head against the closet. I ended up needing three stitches and had to spend half the night at the hospital. Good going, Steve, you really outdid yourself there.

Now, where was I? Right, Saturday. I had planned to spend the weekend relaxing and unwinding, after a long and stressful week. This idea evaporated the moment I found a spider web. It was right next to a tiny hole in the door frame that led into the kitchen. I vacuumed it away and sealed the hole as best as I could.

I told myself, this was all that was necessary. My mind, of course, wouldn’t have it. Paranoia crept back into my mind like the imaginary spiders it told me had invaded my apartment. It wasn’t long before I started hearing the sounds of small, skittering spider legs.

It wasn’t half an hour later that I started to check the whole place. After that, I ended up vacuuming and cleaning the entire apartment, twice. My friends think I’m suffering from OCD, but that’s not it. I just can’t help but go through the place meticulously.

This time, like so many before, I found nothing, no webs, no spiders.

When I went to bed, I was still somewhat anxious. Finding nothing could mean there were no spiders around, but it could very well mean that I’d simply not found them.

Soon enough, my thoughts went in a different direction. What about that hole in the wall? Did it mean there were spiders inside?

I lay in bed, telling myself I was plain silly. There was no way spiders could dig, especially not through walls. Still, I felt the familiar rush of anxiety. My heart rate went up, and I started to feel dizzy like so many times before.

I must have laid in bed for at least an hour, occasionally shaking before I drifted off into an uneasy sleep.

I was woken up by noise all around me. As I lay in bed, it felt as if the walls around me had become alive. They were shaking and breathing. While I still tried to understand what was going on, I heard the sound of millions of tiny skittering legs. Then the walls burst open, and I was drowned under a wave of eight-legged horrors.

The moment I woke up I jumped off the bed, swatting and beating at my body before I realized it had all been a dream. I fell to the floor sobbing, hugging my body and cursing at my brain for conjuring up this nightmare.

I don’t remember how long it took me to calm down. Most of Sunday was a blur that I spend huddled up into blankets in the center of the living room. I was a shaking and shivering mess. One minute I told myself there were no spiders in the walls. The next I was listening for the tiniest sounds around me. I’m not sure if I even ate anything that day.

In the end, I must have passed out from sheer exhaustion on Sunday evening. When I woke up on Monday morning, I was mostly myself again.

I was still somewhat wary of the walls, but my panic attack had subsided. I guess my brain realized how silly it was to be afraid of them.

Somewhat tired and still scatterbrained I dropped my keys. They vanished behind a small cupboard in my hallway. Cursing at myself I crouched down to find them.

I reached out with my hand and felt around. Right at that moment, I felt something brush over it. I yelled up in surprise and pulled my arm back. Shock turned into absolute panic when I saw a spider sitting on my right arm.

I screamed, shook the arm and then started beating down at the spider with my left hand. I was out of it, hitting the arm over and over again, swatting to get rid of the spider. The moment it finally fell to the ground I stumped on it over and over again.

Only when nothing but a disgusting mush remained, did I rush to the bathroom. I let warm water run over my arm while scrubbing it desperately with a washcloth.

It was at this moment that I saw a tiny wound on my arm. At first, I told myself I was wrong. It had to be a mistake. I had scrubbed my arm too hard, nothing else.

After a while I couldn’t betray my mind anymore. There was absolutely no doubt:

It was a spider bite.

The moment I started attacking the spider, it must have bitten me.

My mind was running at lightning speed. What if it had been a poisonous spider? Was there poison pumping through my veins right at this moment?

I felt weird almost instantly. My heartbeat sped up, and I felt short of breath. The moment I stepped out of the bathroom I felt dizzy, so much that I had to lean against the wall for a moment.

In the hallway, I pushed the damned cupboard over, picked up the keys and rushed outside.

I needed fresh air, but most importantly there was a doctor’s office nearby. My body was shaking, and it felt as if my mind was slowing down. For a moment my vision seemed to go blurry.

I told myself it was my anxiety, a panic attack and that I had to calm down. There was this creeping voice in the back of my mind though, asking me “What if it’s poison? What if that spider was dangerous? What if you are dying right now? What then, Sandra?”

The first thing I remember after that is pacing back and forth at the doctor’s office. A nurse had hurried over to me, asking me what was wrong and telling me to calm down. I couldn’t stand still though. The moment I stopped, my heart rate went up, breathing became harder, and my arms and legs started to feel all tingly. No, I had to keep moving. Only after a while was I able to yell at her that I was bitten by a spider.

It took her a few moments to understand what was going on. Then she came back and gave me a small shot. She explained in a slow and soft voice that everything was going to be alright. Nothing bad was going to happen to me.

She sat me down and asked me if I remembered anything about the spider, like a mark on her. I told her I didn’t think so.

It was a few minutes later that the doctor came to see me. He assured me that there was no such thing as poisonous spiders here in Germany, at least not the lethal type. He even told me that the ones who actually were poisonous were rarely sighted in our area, if at all.

He took only a short look at my arm, smiled and told me nothing was wrong with it. The wound was small, and it looked like I’d only scratched it open myself. No sign of any poison. He prescribed me a sort of ointment that would help treat the wound and keep it free from infection.

What he was more concerned about was my mental state. He asked me if I was seeing a psychiatrist and if I was often suffering from episodes like this one. It wasn’t normal at all, not even when considering my arachnophobia.

I hated this type of talk ever since I was a little girl when my mom had dragged me from one psychiatrist to the next. I made a few excuses, ripped the recipe for the ointment from his hands and made my way out.

Once I’d gotten the ointment from a nearby apothecary I made my way back home.

When I opened the apartment door, it didn’t feel like home at all. It felt as if the place had been invaded by an invisible enemy that was lurking in the shadows.

I strode towards my bathroom, scanned each surface and then locked the door behind me. Once I felt safe, I started to administer the ointment. I know I used too much of it and bandaging up the arm was ridiculous. Still, it helped to calm me down, at least a bit.

When I still hadn’t been able to calm down by noon I gave my friend Lisa a call. I was pacing through my apartment as I waited for her to pick up. Lisa and I go back forever. We became friends back in middle school and have been hanging out ever since. We are even going to university together.

She and I couldn’t be more different. Lisa is the fun, outgoing type, while I’m an anxious introvert. The only thing we had in common was that we both smoked weed.

The moment she picked up I asked her if she had anything that could help me calm down. Maybe weed or maybe something else, something a bit stronger. I knew Lisa had a way of getting things. At first, she laughed at my freak-out over a mere spider bite. When I told her about my reaction though Lisa became serious. She said she’d come over later today and bring something that she was sure would help.

I stayed in the bathroom for a while longer, but then I finally risked making my way back to the living room and my laptop. At first, I went on YouTube, put on some music and watched a few random videos. Soon enough curiosity overcame me, and I looked up information about spider bites.

Oh god, the images I found. I was never one of those people who could look at gore, but what I saw there… I’m not sure what it was. It might have been an infected wound or something?

There was one thing I read that made me close the lid of the laptop in an instant. I read that spiders could lay eggs under human skin.

“That’s bullshit!” I said out loud.
“It’s an urban legend and nothing else. There’s no such thing. And even if, I’m in Germany, there’s no way we have anything like that here.”

When Lisa rang the doorbell, I almost jumped up.

“Jesus, what’s the matter with you?” she asked the moment I opened the door and she saw me.

“Can spiders lay eggs under human skin?”

“What the hell Sandra? What did you do, watch some shitty horror movie or something?”

“No, I read things on the internet, and-“

“Oh god,” she cut me off raising her hand, “that’s even worse. Don’t. Read. About. Things. On. The. Internet. Okay?”

“Yeah, but what if-“

“No buts! You’ll always find the worst cases online. I’m dead serious. A bump on the arm? You need an amputation. A slight headache? Dizziness? Brain tumor. It’s always the same. Rule number one, Sandra, especially for you, never google any symptoms online.”

“I know Lisa…”

“You’re fine silly girl, calm down, will you? Jesus, you’re a mess today.”

Lisa stayed over for almost two hours. She tried her hardest to tell me a couple of funny stories to take my mind off things. It helped, at least for a bit.

In the end, she’d brought me an unmarked container of pills. She told me they were anxiety pills that a friend of hers had given her.

“They’ll pretty much knock you out instantly, so be careful with them,” she’d said with a smile.

I told myself I’d wait till evening. If they’d really knock me out, it was a chance to get a good night’s sleep for once.

I put on a random Netflix show and tried to relax. While I watched a pretty cast of high school students talk about teenage woes, my mind started to wander.

Those things I’d read. Could they be real?

I pulled the bandages off my arm to have a look. I was scared of what I’d find and shivered before I removed the last layer. For a moment one of the gruesome images I’d seen popped up in my mind again.

What I saw was the complete opposite. It was a tiny, almost invisible swelling. There was nothing terrible about it at all. I almost laughed when I saw it.

When I pressed it for a bit some blood came out, and it stung a bit, but there was nothing weird about it. I started to tear at the corner of the skin for a bit. All it did was to make it sting more and increase the bleeding. After a while, I had to force myself to stop. I looked at what used to be a small wound and was now almost twice the size.

“Stop toying with it, you idiot,” I told myself.

While I put the bandages back on, I decided to take one of Lisa’s pills. Otherwise, I might start toying around with it yet again. I took out one, swallowed it and put the container back into my pocket. So much about waiting till evening, I thought.

It took about half an hour but I started to calm down, and soon I felt quiet, almost tired. I remember that I’d not eaten anything due to all my anxiety, but all I could think about was to lay down and rest. I told myself that I’d take a nap and eat something once I was awake again.

I’m not sure when exactly I’d fallen asleep, but it was already night time when I woke up again. I was all sweaty and suffering from a terrible headache. The moment I moved around in bed I felt exhausted and hot, almost as if I was burning up.

I made my way to the medicine cabinet in the bathroom and took some Ibuprofen to fight the headache.

The moment I was about to go back to my bedroom, I noticed something strange. At first, I thought I imagined things, but then I saw something odd on my arm. It looked as if there was a bump below the bandages, all swollen up.

As I stared at it, the memory of a dream crept back into my mind. In the dream I had… no there had been something wrong with me. The moment I saw the bump on my arm again, memory flooded my mind.

I’d dreamed about spiders in my arms and legs, and being eaten alive by them. I clung to the sink, almost throwing up. I took another one of Lisa’s pills and told myself I should go back to bed, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t help it. I ripped the bandages off my arm and found a bump below. It was almost a sort of giant, pulsating blister. I gagged, and when I had a closer look, I saw something moving inside of it, below the skin.

I screamed up. It couldn’t be. It couldn’t be. I almost bumped into the door frame on my way towards the kitchen. I had dark spots in front of my eyes as I ran down the hallway and the moment I made it to the kitchen I slumped down on the floor. I felt dizzy, and my whole body seemed to be pulsating now.

The moment I could move again, I grabbed hold of a knife from the counter. It almost slipped from my hand twice while I stared at the disgusting bump on my arm. Something was definitely moving inside of it.

I didn’t hesitate another moment before I cut into it.

The pain was much worse than I’d thought. As the blood ran down my arm in warm gushes, I saw something else, something much, much worse.

First, it was tiny white things that came flooding forward with the blood. Then I saw the small spiders that came crawling out of my body.

The knife clattered from my hand, and I could only stare at it in horror and disbelief. The blood, the eggs and of course the small spiders that vanished below the skin and dug into my flesh again.

I fought myself up, put the arm into the sink and poured hot water over it. I clenched my teeth, but soon enough I could only scream in pain as the hot water scalded my arm. I hoped, no I prayed that it would wash out or burn up all those tiny spiders.

After a long minute of almost unendurable pain, I stopped and looked at the arm again. There was still movement, and I could make out tiny tunnels inside of my flesh.

I used the knife once more, this time to cut deeper. After a while, I didn’t even feel the pain anymore. I was all dedication. Dedication to finding the spiders inside of my arm. The more I cut, the more tunnels I seemed to discover. I carefully carved away the infected flesh. Tiny junks of flesh and piece of skin fell from my arm and onto the ground. I saw the eggs, the spiders, the tunnels. Only once I was sure none of it was left, did I stop.

By now I was shaking from a mixture of pain and exhaustion. My whole body felt cold, sweaty and tingly.

Putting the bandages back on was nothing short of torture. My right arm was now nothing but a hot, pulsating mass of pain. I blacked out at least once while I put the bandages back on. Around and around I put them. Once done, I noticed the deep gush I’d left in my own arm.

I felt sick, anxious and scared when I realized what I’d done. I was still bleeding, but had scalding my own flesh somehow lessened the bleeding? I had no idea.

I fought my way back to the bedroom. My arm was hurting so much it was unreal. Each step, hell even the slightest shift sent waves of pain through me.

Once back in my bedroom I couldn’t help but think about spiders again. What if they were still inside of me? Could it be? What if they were crawling through my arm right now, digging their tunnels deeper inside of my body?

That moment I felt another surge of anxiety and panic coming to me and took another one of Lisa’s pills. After that, I lay in bed for at least an hour, but I couldn’t sleep. There was the pain, but there was another thought.

What if that spider really came from inside of the wall? What if that spider had dug through the wall to get here? It would be so easy for its young to dig through flesh, right? Oh god, what if I’m actually right?

Still lying in bed with the low light of the lamp next to me, I started to take the bandages off once more. They were wet and sticky with half-dried blood and almost glued to my flesh. Would there be spiders again? Oh please let there be none, please, I prayed.

What I revealed was nothing but a gruesome mess of bloody flesh and whitish, scalded snippets of skin. There were no tunnels, no eggs, and no spiders. There was nothing.

I sat there shivering. Had I imagined things? Had I just seen something that wasn’t there and then done all… this? I didn’t know anymore.

I lay down again, but I’d barely closed my eyes when I felt an itch on my leg. My heart skipped a beat, and I was wide awake.

Had I brushed against it just now or was it something else? I turned on the night lamp and scanned my leg. There it was, on the side of my thigh, another bump.

Don’t tell me… oh god. What the hell, what the hell, what the hell! There’s no way! The moment I touched it though, I could feel the movement below.

It took me long, painful minutes to get back to the kitchen.

This time I cut without any second thought. I brought the knife down, and the moment the skin ripped open spiders started to spill out of me. I tried to hit them and swat them away before they were able to dig into my flesh again, but they just… vanished?

Had there ever been any? What if there are no spiders inside my leg? I have a fever, right? What if this is a dream? Is any of this even real at all?

But what if? I’m so sweaty and itchy all over. My body is trembling, and I am starting to feel numb. Are they going for my nerves? What if they do it so I can’t feel them anymore? So I think that I am okay?

Has it always been so cold in here?

Why’s there no pain anymore?

I’ve been typing this for a while now. I still have the knife, and I’m still digging. There’s sweat, wait no, blood, all around me?

I still see the spiders from time to time. Whenever I do, I cut. I feel like I’m slowly getting them. Most of them are in my right leg. So I’ve been busy. Digging and typing.

I feel like there’s few of them left anymore. That tingly sensation in my leg is almost gone now. By now I’m almost searching for them blindly. I’ve cut here and there, at random. My vision has gone too blurry to see them clearly.

I’ve cut so much. So much work. So tired. The skin is all tangled up and in stripes.

The blood still brings them forward. There’s so much of it now, but that’s good isn’t it? It means that a lot of them aren’t in my body anymore, right?

I can’t think all too clearly anymore. I’m a bit confused and exhausted, tired.

I think I’m going to rest for a bit.

Mornings after are the worst.

I decided to start this one off with a cool beer from the fridge. It really helps to calm down, keep the hangover at bay and it gets me going in the morning. Take from this whatever you want.

I made my way through the living room, and I can see that John’s still out cold on the couch.

“Guess you had a bit too much, buddy,” I joke to myself.

Janet is sleeping on the floor. Poor girl didn’t even make it to her bed.

I was halfway through the beer when I went to the kitchen and put up some coffee. It always helped Janet to wake up.

I took sips from the beer while grinding up some fresh coffee and a few minutes later I made my way back to the living room.

I held the freshly brewed cup in my hands and try to wake her up.

“Hey there, baby girl, I made you some coffee.”

She is still somewhat dizzy and only half awake. Her tired eyes don’t focus on anything yet.

“Time to freshen up. We got lots of cleaning up to do after last night,” I say and give her a wink.

Man, she’s so cute with her big wide, eyes as she finally focuses on me.

Only moments later she stumbles into the bathroom. I put the cup aside, and as I can hear her retch and vomit, I sigh.

“You alright? Shouldn’t you be used to it by now?”

No answer.

“Need some help? Want me to hold up your hair?”

I find her huddled over the toilet bowl. In an instant I am right behind her, stroking her back, holding up her hair and whispering in her ear.

“It’s alright, baby girl, don’t worry about it.”

She retches again as I say this.

“Come on now, not like you had that much to drink.”

At first, she turns away from me, almost struggles against my help. She only keeps it up for a moment though before she lets me wash off her face.

“See, that’s not so bad after all. I know it’s not easy for you, believe me. I’ve been there before,” I comfort her, “at least kind of.”

A little laugh escapes me as I say this. I take her hand and lead her back to the living room.

“You doing better? It’s time to clean up this whole mess.”

I leave her sitting in the living room as I get the things we need the most now: the trash bags and the hacksaw.

When she sees me holding the saw her eyes grow wide again, her lips quiver, but she’s not able to say a thing.

“Come on now, not like John’s gonna resist anyway.”

“N-no, I can’t,” she starts, but I cut her off right away.

“We’ve done this whole thing before, baby girl. You really should be used to it by now.”

“Oh god now, don’t make me do it, I can’t!”

“Now, now, it’s so easy,” I say and forcefully take her hand into mine. Moments later, our hands close around the handle of the saw.

Together the two of us start the first cut. The blade slowly sinks into John’s flesh. I can feel Janet struggling against me. It’s futile though. I won’t let her go. As we move the saw back and forth she starts to cry and mumbling to herself.

“We all have to do our part. I took care of him last night, and now you have to do your part and get rid of the body. It’s only fair.”

I hug her tenderly and kiss her neck before I get up.

“No goddammit, not again!” she screams the moment I turn my back on her.

She’s having another of her angry fits, I think.

“You crazy freak!”

She tries to come after me with the saw, but I am already a few steps away. The chains between her arms and legs make it impossible for her to be fast enough to close the distance between us. She has no chance of actually hitting me.

The moment her futile attack is over, I hit her square in the face, hard.

She falls backward and curls up into a sobbing and trembling ball.

“Okay bitch, I tried to play nice, I really did,” I yell at her.

I pull her up so that her face is right in front of my own.

“You better get going with this shit right, fucking, now. And maybe, if you do a good enough job, I might not have to do THIS to you again tonight.”

I can see her eyes, I can hear the sharp inhale of breath, and I can almost smell her fear. In an instant, she turns away from me and picks up the saw with shaking hands.

“Good girl,” I praise her.

I watch for a moment as she drives the saw deep into the flesh and finally bone. For a moment I listen to the sound of metal grinding against bone. Then I go back to the computer.

“Now let’s see who’s next,” I wonder out loud as I scroll through her Facebook profile.

“Can’t believe you had something going on with all those guys on here, you little whore. We’ll have to get rid of all them before I can ever truly love you.”

For a few moments, I click through her pictures before I focus on one specific album.

‘Summer Vacation 2016’

I look at the people in the pictures. I find the one I was searching for right away. There’s this blond beach boy, standing next to Janet, his arm around her shoulder in two pictures. I mouseover his face to find out his name. As I read it, I grin.

“Guess Andrew’s next.”

As I say it, I see her cringe.

“Oh did I struck a nerve there? Well, guess I better drop him a message. I am sure he wants to see you again.”

As I work my way through is profile I send him a happy, bouncy message via Janet’s account.

I can’t help but sigh. As Janet’s busying herself with the saw, I go to the fridge to get another beer.

The morning after is really hard, because every time I realize just how much work there’s still to do.

“The first few times always hurt,” mama said, “it’s terrible, I know, but you have to endure. It will get easier.”

That’s what she said once it was over.

I’d turned eighteen in August. There was no big celebration, no party, no friends and no presents. Instead, mama told me, that it was time for me to learn how to provide for myself.

I was terribly afraid.

“Please mama, don’t make me do it, I can’t!” I clung to her pleading as the tears streamed down my cheeks.

“It’s wrong,” I told her over and over again.

Mama ignored it all.

“There is no other way, dear,” she said in her soft and caring voice.

With that, she led me over to the bedroom in which a young man was already waiting for me. He looked nice enough, but I could smell the alcohol on his breath. The moment he saw me, his glassy eyes turned hungry as he measured me up and down. He smiled a bit when he saw me, but it wasn’t friendly. Instead, it was ripe with anticipation of what was to come. It looked almost like a grin of a predator before he devours his prey.

Mama told me it was about time. I started crying again and said there was no way I could do it, but yet again my plea fell on deaf ears.

“You don’t have to worry about a thing my dear. Everything is going to be fine, it will be over quickly. It only hurts the first few times…”

Oh, how right she was. It did hurt. I don’t want to think back at all the screaming, the pain, the way he beat me and hit me. Worst of all though, was the blood. There was so much. I had no idea that so much could come from such a small, little spot.

Once it was all over, I was a shivering, shaking mess. I lay on the bloodied, soiled bed curled up into a ball, crying. I was so ashamed of myself for what had happened. I felt dirty and worthless. I didn’t want to think about it, didn’t want to feel any of it and just wanted to forget.

It must have been hours that I lay there, maybe even days.

Finally, mama came into the room and sat down on the bed next to me. She hugged me whispered into my ear to calm me down.

After a few more minutes, when the tears stopped, she helped me up and led me to the bathroom to clean myself up.

She said nothing about the blood or the state the room was in. There was nothing to worry about, she said.

Mama waited for me to get out of the bath. I was still wearing my bathrobe when she motioned for me to sit down next to her.

“You know, I’ve gotten a bit too old for this,” she started explaining.

“With an old body such as mine, it is hard to find anyone willing to come with me.”

“But mama, you are still pretty and-“

“Not as pretty as you, dear,” she cut me off smiling.

“It’s time for you to learn our trade. You’re in your prime. A young, pretty thing like you. You are even more beautiful than I was in my days.”

That was about a month ago.

By now mama had brought over three young men for me. I hated it every single time. It still hurt. I was still ashamed of myself and disgusted by what I’d become. How could anyone get used to… to this!?

Today though, things were different. I’d been anticipating mama bringing someone over all day, but that didn’t happen. Instead, she told me it was now my turn to go out into the streets.

We picked out an outfit together. I guess this is what prom feels like to other young girls. At least if prom took place out on the streets and every girl dressed like a slut.

Oh, but it wasn’t so bad. It was even kind of fun to dress up and put on all that make-up. Once we were done, I felt pretty, no beautiful. Mama said I was all sex and temptation.

Out on the street, I realized how right she was. I noticed the glances people gave me. The eyes of the man lit up when they saw me. The lust on their faces as their eyes wandered over my body, undressing me with their eyes. I could almost feel their blood boiling.

It wasn’t only the men who eyed me. Some women seemed to lust after me as much as the men. Others didn’t bother to mask their disdain and jealousy. It wasn’t just once that I heard words like whore or slut.

The worst ones were those out on the street with me. I could see their rage and hatred.

I was young and pretty, while most of them looked worse than mama. Old, shriveled up things, with sagging skin and empty eyes, packed tightly into fancy second-rate clothes.

Thankfully, I didn’t have to wait long before a young man approached me. He was quite a bit older than me. I saw the first signs of a receding hairline, the growing gut and the tiny wrinkles on his face. He was shy and awkward, but friendly enough. Before he could even ask me, I walked up to him and whispered those sweet dreams mama had taught me into his ears.

I led him back along the street. On the outside, I was strong and confident, but inside I was as afraid and awkward as he seemed.

It took no more than five minutes before we reached the alleyway that led to the small apartment mama and I lived in. I could hear him inhale and see his smile when I opened the door. He looked almost ecstatic.

The moment we entered, mama looked up from the living room and smiled at the man and me.

“You are back so quickly, dear.”

I smiled at her and nodded.

“It’s fine, don’t worry about it,” I said to our guest.

For a few moments, he looked over towards mama, most likely wondering what was going on. Once his eyes had wandered back to my body, he already seemed to have forgotten about her.

I took his hand and led him to my room. Mama had filled it with flower petals and candles. It was beautiful.

The two of us stepped inside and he sat down on the bed, looking at me.

“So, how are you,” he started but I put a finger on his mouth.

“I am going to freshen up a bit, you wait right here,” I said in my most sensual voice.

I noticed how red his face was as he looked at me. I saw the sweat on his hands, the quivering of his lips and the bulge in his pants. Then he nodded.

In the bathroom, I took off my cloth and carefully put them aside. Then I washed off the smell and dirt of the city outside.

He honestly seemed to be a nice and shy guy, I thought to myself. I knew they were all beasts though. They all changed. They all got wild and angry. All of them scream, hit and beat me.

Once I’d dried off, I stepped back into the room.

The moment he saw my naked body his mouth fell open.

“You are absolutely perfect,” he finally pressed out.

“Take your cloth off,” I commanded him.

Without his clothes, I could see how flabby and hairy he was. I saw his huge gut, his pudgy skin and of course his erection.

For a moment I shuddered before I looked back into his eyes.

I stepped forward, pressing my body against his and putting my arms around him.

“Relax,” I whispered.

Then I drove my fangs into his neck.

I was right. He was the same as all the rest. He started screaming like all the others. He beat me and hit me, trying to get free, but it was futile.

With each passing second, I sucked more of the lifeblood out of his body. After no more than a minute all that remained of him was a withered husk.

He was my fourth victim, my fourth meal.

Mama was right. It only hurt the first few times. By now, I’d gotten used to it. I didn’t feel anything for them anymore, nor did I pity them.

Now I saw them as what they truly were: Nothing but prey.

The miracle of birth never ceases to amaze me. I guess that’s why I ended up becoming a midwife.

There aren’t many independent midwives anymore, and a decade ago, I’d have called it a dying profession. It’s only because of the popularity of alternate lifestyles, and new age believes that home birth have become somewhat popular again.

I’d worked as a midwife for more than three decades when I met Jana and Christian Meyer. They were a young couple in their mid-twenties. Both of them had been born into wealthy families, something that showed markedly in their lifestyle. They were the picture-perfect depiction of a new age couple: organic diets, meditation retreats, and the avoidance of hospitals and modern medicine. That’s why they’d contacted me about a home birth. I was never a fan of this type of reasoning, and, frankly, I considered them quite weird. But who was I to judge them?

As with many other clients, I met up with Jana Meyer a few times to discuss the particulars of a home birth. Many people had their own ideas about them, and wanted them to be unique; their perfect vision of childbirth. When Jana told me she wanted her birth to be as simple as possible, I was surprised. I’d have thought she’d be precisely the type who’d go for some sort of spiritual water birth or whatever was popular at the moment.

What made things even stranger was that whenever I visited her to discuss the details of the birth, she’d soon change the topic to her lifestyle. She’d go on about special diets, morning rituals, ginseng paste, and many other, similar topics. She even urged me on to try them out myself. I sat through those episodes awkwardly. The day Jana got out her books to give me a more detailed overview, I finally told her I wasn’t interested, and was only here to talk about the birth of her child. She was taken aback, but eventually nodded.

When the day of the birth arrived, I was still somewhat worried. You could never tell what would happen with these types of people. As it turned out, there was no reason for worry. The Meyers followed my instructions to the point, the birth went exceptionally well, and soon the mother could hold her child. The two of them smiled at each other, and were ecstatic at the sight of their daughter. The prejudice I’d held for them instantly melted away. In the end, we were all the same. We all loved our children the moment they are born.

What was a bit weird, was that the two of them told me they’d handle the rest by themselves. I protested, of course, but after a quick examination of mother and child, I yielded.

A week later, I visited the Meyers again. It’s common procedure. Once a week has passed, I check up on my clients to see if everything was all right. If there were any complications or problems, I could usually give them advice on what to do. If necessary, I could transfer them to a doctor I used to work with. The Meyers, however, were doing great. There was no doubt, they’d prepared themselves, and must’ve consulted a variety of books. Christian had even taken a vacation to take care of his wife and their newborn daughter. Jana was still a bit exhausted, but seemed fine otherwise. The two of them even invited me to a dinner party the planned to hold in a month, and I promised I’d be there.

When the day of the party arrived, I was a bit reluctant to follow through. I could tell that this would be a party for hip, young people like the Meyers, and I wasn’t interested in organic diets or alternate lifestyles either. In the end, it was professional reasons that made me go. Maybe Jana had a few female friends who considered a home birth themselves. It wasn’t the first time I’d met new clients that way.

The moment I arrived, the other guests were already there. I’d brought a little toy for the baby, which I thought would be a nice gesture. When Jana opened it, a puzzled expression washed over her face before it was replaced by a smile.

“Oh, for the baby, of course, thank you so much,” she said, hugging me briefly.

Then she led me to the dinner table. As I’d expected, all the guests were the same age as the Meyers. Awkwardly, and in a few short words, I introduced myself as the midwife who’d helped to deliver Jana and Christian’s baby. People smiled and introduced themselves in turn. They were all either academics or wealthy upstarts, making me feel even more out of place.

I was surprised, and somewhat confused when I learned that the theme of the party wasn’t a baby shower, but a special diet. At that moment, I realized the baby wasn’t even in the room. Jana was busy preparing the food in the kitchen, while Christian was chatting with two of his guests. I reasoned the baby was probably asleep in the bedroom.

Finally, after another half hour of sitting in my chair quietly, half-listening to the ongoing conversations, Jana joined the table. She brought a steaming pot of stew, and put it down in the center of the table. It was a creamy meat stew, Jana began to explain. As she served it, carefully filling each guest’s bowls, she rambled on about how healthy it was supposed to be. It was a new recipe she’d prepared just for this special occasion.

The moment, I saw the bowl of stew in front of me, I was a bit unnerved. The smell was weird, the consistency looked almost slimy, and the meat didn’t look like any I’d seen before. I looked up, and whispered to Jana that I wasn’t supposed to eat anything too creamy because it was bad for my stomach. When she heard this, Jana, just smiled at me and urged me on to try it anyway.

“Who knows,” she said. “It might actually be good for your stomach.”

I sat at the table sipping from a glass of water, while the other guests began eating. After the first mouthfuls they were almost devouring the stew. Soon people were asking for second and even third servings. Yet I could only look down at the bowl in front of me. I sank the spoon into the slimy liquid, careful to avoid the meat pieces, and brought it toward my mouth. It tasted weird, a bit too sweat, but also strangely sour. The consistency was as slimy as I’d expected, and I had to fight not to spit it out in disgust. After that, I didn’t eat any more of it. The rest of the guests, however, seemed utterly pleased by the meal, and quite a few of them asked Jana to share the recipe with them.

At this point, Jana mentioned the placenta. She claimed it was one of the most nutritious organs in nature, and that many exotic cultures used it in cleansing rituals. Animals even ate it after giving birth to restore lost energy. As I listened, my eyes darted to the pot still resting on the table. Those strange meat pieces… Don’t tell me…?

I got my answer from Christian. Once the two of them heard about the supposed health benefits of the placenta, they had to give it a try. But they couldn’t use someone else’s; it had to be Jana’s own. Thus, the two of them, he said, needed to have a baby. Unfortunately, a woman’s placenta wasn’t every large. It wouldn’t be enough to sustain more than a few people. That’s why he and Jana had done something else.

With that, he led everyone to a different room; a strange mixture of an office and a laboratory. Before I could react, Christian revealed a giant glass. I gasped, and took a step back. It was filled with a strange liquid, and in it swam a chunk of tissue, one way, way too large. I almost gagged, but all the lunatics around me stared at it with wide, glowing eyes.

Christian explained the process to the exhilarated crowd. He talked about cultivation, but also one particular ingredient, but I didn’t listen, I couldn’t. This… this insanity was why they’d wanted a baby? Was that why they didn’t care about the type of the birth? I thought back to their beaming expressions, their blissful smiles. It had all been in anticipation of this. It had never been about the child!

The baby, I suddenly thought. I’d not seen or heard her this entire evening. Where was she? The word’s particular ingredient reverberated inside my mind.

“Where’s the child?” I asked in a shaken voice.

“It’s only natural, Claudia,” Jana started. “The child was nourished by it for so long… it had to give back.”

In that instant, I rushed to the bedroom. There was no child, no crib, and no toys. I could see none of the things I remembered from the check-up!

“She’s not here anymore,” Jana said, standing in the door.

My eyes grew wide.

“Don’t tell me you-“

“Oh, believe me, we loved her Claudia, we loved her so much, but there was no other way.”

“You’re insane,” I mumbled, and pushed myself past her.

I made my way to the dining room, but I could hear Jana following me.

“What are you planning to do, Claudia?”

“I won’t let you get away with-“

“With what? What are you going to tell people? Do you think anyone even knows about the child? Don’t you think we planned this entire thing?”

I stared at her as she said this. Then she burst out laughing.

“Oh, Claudia, who do you think the authorities will believe? A young, educated couple, or an old midwife? Do you think anyone’s going to believe an insane story about child murders and placentas? Really?”

She gave me the most malicious, condescending smile I’d ever seen. For a few more seconds, we stared at each other. Then I grabbed my purse and jacket.

“You won’t get away with this, I swear!” I spat at her before I stormed out of the apartment.

Once I was on the stairs, I heard new bouts of laughter from behind the closed door.

The moment I was out of the building, I went straight to the police and told them everything. I’d thought they’d storm their apartment, and they would lock them up for the rest of their lives. But, of course, Jana had been right. There was no proof of the child. All the documents they’d provided must’ve been faked.

In the end, the whole thing was turned around, and I almost got charged with false accusations. It was only because of Jana and her husband not pressing charges that the entire thing was dropped.

After this experience, I couldn’t work as a midwife anymore. For months, I couldn’t think about anything but what must’ve happened to that poor baby girl. Eventually, I found a new job at a grocery store, and I was slowly able to forget about what had happened.

That was until a week ago. As I walked down the street on my way home, I recognized a young couple walking towards me. I recognized them instantly. The moment they reached me, Jana Meier smiled at me.

“I hope it’s a boy this time,” I heard her say to her husband as the two of them walked away.

Most people know about sleep paralysis. Only a Few know that it can last for up to an hour. Not being able to move for a few minutes is scary. Not being able to move for an hour is the most terrifying thing in the world. I read online that writing about your problems can help to resolve them, so here goes nothing!

I have suffered from sleep paralysis ever since I was a little girl. It all started during third grade.

I remember it like it was yesterday. We were supposed to go on a class trip the next day. Shy and awkward little me was the prime target of our class’ bullies. That same day I had lost one of my baby teeth, an incisor. I knew those bullies would give me hell on the trip. I cried and pleaded with my parents, but as always they didn’t budge.

“It is going to be fine sweetie.”

“Nothing bad is going to happen Claire, the trip will be fun!”

Yeah right, they didn’t know how bad Mark and Lisa could be.

That night bad dreams plagued my sleep. I woke up again and again, seeing their laughing and teasing faces right in front of me. Then, as I woke up once more, I couldn’t move any of my limbs. I didn’t know what was going on. I freaked out and wanted to call for mom and dad, but words didn’t come out either.

When it was finally over, I screamed for them at the top of my lungs. My mom was by my bed in an instant.

Under tears, I told her what had happened. In her kindest voice, my mom explained to nine-year-old me what sleep paralysis was.

“It’s rare sweetie, but sometimes your body is really, really tired. When that happens, it can take your arms and legs a bit longer to wake up. It is not scary at all, it just means you used them a bit too much.”

It was the first of many, similar nights. Looking back now, it was most likely due to Mark and Lisa and their constant bullying. Oh, how I hated them.

Throughout middle school, things got worse. These episodes happened more often, at least once or twice a month. It was always scary. Somehow I couldn’t get used to them.

I went to the doctors with my parents multiple times, but there was nothing wrong with me.

During my first year of high school, things changed for the worst. After not getting along for years, my parent’s relationship finally fell apart. They went through a nasty divorce, which left me living with Mom. Soon after we moved to a different town, where she hoped to start a new life. She didn’t tell me what Dad had done, but she’d made it clear that he was not part of our life anymore.

A month or so later, I learned that sleep paralysis can last much, much longer.

In my mind, it felt like I wasn’t able to move for eternity. Seconds turned to minutes, minutes to hours.

I started to freak out, and soon I noticed something else in the room. At first, I only felt a presence near me, but then I saw a dark shade at the bottom of my bed. For a long time it just watched me, but then it inched closer.

I didn’t know what was going on. I grew more and more agitated and scared as the thing climbed onto my bed. The only thing I could make out was a pair of cold eyes. As the dark shade was hunched over my body, I felt a pressure on my chest. I almost couldn’t breathe!

I had gotten used to the shorter episodes, but this one was entirely different. I was frozen, barely able to breathe. A thought came up in my mind: I was dying. This shade was death, and it had come to take me away.

In panic and utter fear, I kept my eyes shut. I told myself that there was nothing else in the room. I imagined things, there was no one else here, and I’d not die. I recited this over and over again.

I didn’t know how much time had passed when I was finally able to move again. I was a crying and shivering mess. In an instant, I turned the lights on, but I was all alone in my room. No sign of any intruders. For the rest of the night, I sat on my bed, huddled in a blanket, waiting for morning to come.

After that, I went to the doctors once more. Again they told me there was nothing wrong with me.

I learned that while it was rare, sleep paralysis could indeed last for quite some time. In extreme cases, an hour wasn’t unheard of. Lucky me, I guess. Having trouble breathing or hallucinations weren’t uncommon, the doctor said. That explained the dark shade I’d seen. In the end it was attributed to the stress of the divorce and moving to a new town. It would pass in time.

Well spoiler alert: It did not. And guess what, I never got used to these episodes either. I mean how could I? I am pretty sure no one would be able to.

Each night, I am scared that it will happen again.

By now I am not sure what to do anymore. I tried meditation, hypnosis, sleeping pills and now I am trying to write about it. Who knows, it might actually help.

---

With this, I closed my baby girl’s diary. Reading these pages was hard. She was suffering so much. It must be so tough for her to go through all that.

I looked at her as she was sleeping in her bed. I smiled. It almost brought tears to my eyes as I thought back to the very first night I’d visited her here. She’d described it in such vivid detail and remembered as much about it as I did. It made me so happy.

As she was lying there, right in front of me, I could see her alabaster skin. Her beautiful legs. They look almost like her mother’s only so much prettier. I touched them only for a moment, but I could feel how soft they were.

“Oh, Lauren, you thought you could take her from me, didn’t you? First the divorce and then the move to this small town.” “You thought you could hide our little girl from me? You were never that smart. And those windows? They are so easy to open. What would you do if someone bad were coming for our pretty little girl?”

Oh yes, our little Claire was so pretty. I went forward to her bed and caressed her leg with my hand. It was in that instant that she woke up. Her eyelids flashed open like so many times before. Her eyes darted around the room, but the rest of her body stayed frozen.

Sleep paralysis can last for up to an hour. It was quite hard to get the dosage of the anesthesia right, but it was worth it for my baby girl.

Tonight though, I couldn’t feel happy. Like so many times I’d read her diary, and this time I could feel my little girl’s pain. She was suffering so much.

It wasn’t supposed to be like that. This was supposed to be a time we shared. After the restraining order, there was no other way for me to spend some time with my beautiful baby girl. I wanted this time to be pleasant, for the both of us.

But I know what it was. It was this fear. The terror of not being able to move her arms and legs. It was her limbs. My baby girl’s limbs were causing all this. They were the reason for all this pain, all this suffering.

Then a thought appeared in my mind. It was one of such sweet, fatherly love. If those nasty limbs were gone, she’d not have to worry about them anymore, would she? All those fears would be gone and be washed away.

As her eyes focused on me, I smiled. I nodded and whispered to her that everything would be fine soon. I leaned over to her and brought my face close to hers. I knew she didn’t recognize me, she couldn’t in this darkness. I gave her a soft kiss on the forehead before I increased the dosage of the anesthesia. She drifted off back to sleep in an instant.

My little Claire was a strong girl. She’d suffered so much already, and I knew she’d be able to bear with it for a little more.

It didn’t take me more than a few more minutes to find a hacksaw in the shack of the next door neighbor. I’d been here so many times already.

Then I snuck back into Claire’s room.

With the first cut, the alabaster color of her skin changed to a rosy red. Oh how beautiful she was.

Don’t worry my dear, little Claire. It won’t take long. It will all be over in an hour.

These days there’s an almost endless supply of two things: information and porn.

It’s all thanks to new technology and the emergence of the internet. There are thousands of porn sites and millions of pornographic videos out there, and each day the number is growing.

While most people consume porn occasionally, some grow obsessed with it, addicted even. My cousin Lester was a prime example.

Growing up, the two of us were close, almost like brothers. Even as a child I noticed that Lester was different. He was a typical nobody. There was nothing interesting about him, and he was overlooked wherever he was. He was a nobody at school, a nobody at home, and once he’d graduated a nobody at work.

He’d been a tiny and unremarkable child and grew into a short, chubby man. His entire demeanor, his gait and his slumped down shoulders gave you the impression of a small animal trying not to be noticed. It wasn’t uncommon for people to forget that Lester was even present.

Now don’t get me wrong, Lester was strange, but he wasn’t sad or depressed. He even liked things the way they were, and his life was alright. A few years after he graduated high school, he started dating Lisa. Soon after, the two of them got married. They were made for each other. Lisa was a typical wallflower and as unremarkable as Lester himself.

While the two of them were an odd couple, I could tell they were happy.

About a year ago Lester lost his job at the literary archives. Budget cuts, his employer said. After working alone in a dusty room for more than a decade, what little social skills Lester had before were now gone. Combine this with an average high school diploma and limited qualifications and you knew finding a new job would be tough for him.

It was me who suggested he should search for work online. Lester admitted he didn’t know a thing about the internet. He and Lisa were old-fashioned and had ignored most technological advances.

One afternoon I invited him over to my place and took it upon myself to introduce Lester to the wonders of the online world. He was hooked, and about a week later he bought his first computer and connected it to the internet.

At first, there was no day without Lester asking for my help. How could you search for a job online, how did the job exchange sites work, how could he send an email, and so on. To be honest, it was quite tiring, but before long he got a hang of things and explored the internet on his own.

He tried to introduce the internet to Lisa, but she didn’t show much interest in it. She was a practical person, and her prime concern was for Lester to find a new job.

It didn’t take long before Lester stumbled upon internet porn.

I found out by accident when I visited him one evening. His browser had been acting up, and he needed me to fix it. While I deleted some malware, I also caught a glimpse of his browser history. There I saw that he’d found his way to a porn site.

At first, he denied it. When I pressed him on the matter though, he admitted he’d clicked on an ad that took him to the page. He knew this content existed, but not that there was so much of it.

I thought it was hilarious. His expression when I caught him was priceless. Lester had never been much of a sexual person and was never comfortable talking about those things.

One time, during a party at my place, Lester got drunk, and we talked about these more private issues. Of course, he and Lisa had sex before, but Lester said it was always an awkward affair. After their marriage, it turned into a once-a-month type of thing before they eventually gave up on it. By the time he found internet porn, I knew it had been years since he’d last had sex. I couldn’t blame him for finding it interesting.

To be honest, I was even a little relieved. For the past year, I’d thought Lester had given up on sex and it had become another thing he thought was for other people.

At first, Lester would only watch the occasional video. He talked to me about how it felt wrong or even immoral to watch those types of videos. I assured him, though, that there was nothing wrong about it and almost everyone watched porn. Considering his sexless marriage, I was sure he could use the release.

Still, Lester didn’t want Lisa to find out about it. So he did what he’d done as a teenager who still lived with his parents. He waited for her to fall asleep, snuck up to the computer, and watched a video or two in secret.

As the weeks passed, Lester grew more and more frustrated with the job hunt. One day, when we hung out together, the poor guy broke into a bit of a rant. It felt useless and like a waste of time. Why did he even search for job offers and send out applications if no one read them, anyway? What use did it all have?

By now, he said, he’d found a few YouTubers he liked, and he enjoyed posting on Reddit. He said he needed to take a break for a bit. To be honest, I understood how he felt.

The problem was, Lisa didn’t, and it was only a matter of time till she caught on to some other things he did online.

One day she got home from work early and didn’t find Lester searching for a job. Instead, she found her husband in front of his computer, masturbating to a video of an orgy.

At first, Lisa didn’t understand what Lester was doing. When it finally clicked she screamed at him, calling him disgusting. The resulting, almost one-sided argument didn’t last long and ended with her leaving.

A few days later Lester told me about the entire thing. Truth be told, I thought Lisa’s reaction was ridiculous, and I assured him she’d be back, eventually. In the meantime, Laster could focus on finding a new job and getting his life back on track.

The problem was, Lester had given up looking for work. I didn’t know it of course and he kept reassuring me he was busy sending out applications every day. In reality, though, he was busy doing other… things.

The next time I came over, he didn’t even bother to hide it anymore. The moment I stepped into the living room, I was greeted by a hardcore fetish video that played on his computer.

Lester told me he’d only read about it on Reddit and clicked on it when the doorbell rang. He didn’t even have the time to look at it, much less close it. He was never good at lying.

As time went on, things got worse. Lester didn’t talk about job hunting anymore. Instead, all he talked about was porn and different pornstars. Whenever I visited him, he seemed fidgety and nervous as if he couldn’t wait for me to leave again.

I finally told Lisa how ridiculous her reaction had been and that she should talk to him again. I was about to tell her what state he was in when she cut me off. She’d been back many times already. At first, she’d tried to reason with Lester, then she’d confronted him, but soon she gave up. All he did was to nod in agreement without even listening to her. An hour later, he’d be back in front of his porn videos.

Lisa said Lester didn’t even look up when she packed her things and moved back in with her mother.

As much as I tried to talk to Lester and to reason with him, nothing happened. As with Lisa, he’d nod and pretend to listen, but he wasn’t there the entire time. I wouldn’t have it though, but even when I got angry, it was the same thing. He’d not listen, shrug, and wait for me to leave.

After my outburst, I didn’t bother with him for a while.

I only saw him again when his computer broke. He called me over and over, apologizing and pleading with me to help him fix it. In the end, I went, if only to bring an end to his constant calls.

When I arrived his house looked different. His usual well-cared-for lawn was overgrown and almost wild. The windows were stained and the curtains dirty and closed off. When I looked at his car, I could’ve sworn it hadn’t been moved since I was there the last time, more than a month ago.

I didn’t even need to ring the doorbell. As soon as I reached the door Lester ripped it open, telling me how happy he was to see me. I could tell he must’ve been waiting for me all day.

As I stepped inside after him the smell was the first thing that hit me. It was a mixture of sweat and the sweet moldy odor of rotten food. I had to cover my mouth, but Lester didn’t seem to be bothered by it at all. All he cared for was his computer, and he almost rushed back to it. Every once in a while he looked over his shoulder to make sure I was still there.

He was slimmer than I remembered him, but also much more unkempt. What few clothes he wore were dirty, unwashed, and stuck to his greasy body. His hair and beard had grown out. I’d never seen Lester with a beard, and now I knew why. He looked ridiculous and not only a bit creepy.

While the rest of the house was dirty, the worst was his desk. More than a dozen empty delivery boxes were stacked on top of it, and used tissues littered the floor. I had to fight the urge to gag.

Lester didn’t even notice how disgusted I was. He rambled on about what was wrong with his computer, cursing every other sentence. As I looked up at him I saw how tired he looked and how bloodshot his eyes were. I joked about how he should spend more time outside and was about to invite him out, but he didn’t even react to it.

I wondered what had happened to my cousin, my friend. Sure, he’d always been an oddball, but now I didn’t even recognize him anymore.

As I watched him now, nervous, fidgety, dirty, he looked like a different person. Where once had been an ordinary member of society was now nothing but a crazy street person, or hell, a wild animal.

Finally, I got the computer working again. Lester thanked me with a quick nod and a few mumbled words before he pushed me off the seat. For a while, he browsed the web and opened a few threads on Reddit at random. I could feel how nervous he was and how desperately he waited for me to leave again.

The moment I was out of the house, I told myself I had to do something. Lester was family, after all.

To be honest, I’d thought this little obsession with porn was a phase that would be over quickly. I’d never thought things would get this bad, but who could’ve known that it would spiral out of control like that.

I went straight to Lisa and told her Lester needed help. At first, she said she wanted nothing to do with him anymore and closed the door in front of me. When I rang again though, her feelings betrayed her. She started crying and told me Lester had never been much of a man, but he’d been her man. She wanted him back!

Since it was almost evening, we arranged to meet again in a few days to talk about what we could do about him.

When the police showed up at my front door, the next morning I didn’t understand what brought them there. Only after I’d answered a few questions did they tell me the full story.

Lisa had gone over to Lester on her own right after we talked. Inside the house, Lester must have attacked her and knocked her unconscious with a blunt object. After that, they concluded he’d dragged her to the bedroom, ripped her clothes off, and bound her to the bed frame. Then he’d raped her.

It was Lisa’s mother who’d called the police when her daughter hadn’t returned home all night.

When the police arrived at Lester’s house the scene they found was surreal. Stacks of half-rotten delivery food were everywhere. The only source of light was the computer in the living room on which an endless stream of porn videos was playing.

They found the worst in the bedroom. The air was damp and heavy with the odor of sweat and body fluids. Sex toys of all sorts littered the floor and the bed.

Lisa’s body was gagged and hung lifeless between the ropes that bound her. Lester was still on top of her, going at without even noticing the police. It took the combined effort of three police officers to tear him off his wife’s body. He was in a frenzied state of almost feral lust.

A later examination showed that Lisa had been dead for hours and must’ve died because of excessive strangulation.

Lester himself had taken a variety of potency enhancers and other pills.

When the police checked his computer and internet history, they found nothing but porn. For weeks or even months, Lester had consumed nothing but porn.

The trial was quick and simple, and Lester was convicted for sexual assault and manslaughter.

I only visited him once. The moment he entered the visitation area, I could tell he wasn’t the same person anymore.

We exchanged greetings and talked for a bit. He didn’t say a word about Lisa, but within minutes he turned the conversation to porn. It was terrible here, and he wasn’t allowed to use a computer or to watch any of it.

When he smiled at me awkwardly and begged me to bring him some adult magazines, I left.

It was the last time I ever talked to him.

I have always been a bit of a weirdo, even as a kid. It was the macabre and the disturbing that fascinated me. I grew up reading about serial killers and watching violent movies.

When I hit puberty, I found an entirely new set of interests. Sure, I was as horny as any other teenage boy, but once more I was drawn to weirder fetishes. What I liked was BDSM, bondage, choking, and even fake rape scenarios. There was something exciting about these things. Before long I was always looking for weirder and more disturbing things.

Yet, I set myself some boundaries pretty quickly. I told myself to stay clear of the extreme stuff. No real rape, no torture, no gore. It was a self-imposed line I didn’t dare cross.

It wasn’t too hard to satisfy my needs though, even without relying on the above things. There was more than enough material out for any fetish or kink.

As I said, I was always a weirdo, but I guess the internet made me into one sick fuck. You couldn’t imagine half the shit I’ve got stored on my hard disk.

Most people have no idea what sorts of things you can find out there. Many people might think that fake rape and violent gang-bang are as bad as things get in the porn business. Believe me, there’s much worse shit out there. Let me give you one word: amputee porn.

I guess you can imagine what sort of things I search for on the internet on a daily basis. You’ve got no idea how many Trojans, viruses, and other malware I’ve gotten my computer infected with over the years. It’s bound to happen if you explore some lesser-known corners of the internet and I’m right at home there.

Again, none of the stuff I’d collected crossed the line. No real rape, no torture, no gore, everything else was fair game.

I’ve been on the internet since the nineties. When I started to explore the worldwide Web, I was looking for controversial or shocking content. If you’ve heard about rotten.com, you can imagine what other places I frequented. I’ve seen pretty much all the so-called ‘shock sites’ out there and none of those faze me anymore.

I guess this weird attraction of mine started with nothing but morbid curiosity. You find something that’s fucked up, you feel sick, you close your browser, and that’s it. But then, a day later, there’s this nagging feeling in the back of your mind. Was it really that bad? Did it look that terrible? And then you come back for more.

At first, I only did it to shock myself or my friends. Soon enough though, it wasn’t shock or disgust anymore. No, it fascinated me. Before long though, a different feeling crawled into my mind and clawed at my brain: arousal.

And so it changed from an interest to a fetish.

Over the years the internet has changed a lot. Nowadays there’s much more content on the internet. However, the truly horrendous stuff is also much better hidden. You don’t stumble upon it on Facebook, Twitter, or a random forum. No, nowadays you have to put in some actual work to discover those hidden little corners.

Sure, there are some secret subreddits, but those are never around for too long. Forums aren’t worth it either. They often charge you with a subscription or a VIP membership and all you get are some old shock videos.

There are sites like eFukt.com where you can find the occasional hidden gem, but again, it takes a lot of time.

Needless to say, I’d gotten bored. Whenever people were talking about some new shock video, I’d most likely seen it already, a long time ago. Most modern shock sites are nothing but a means of monetizing old videos or trying to get them to go viral again.

I’d grown tired of all that shit.

Earlier this year I vented about my dilemma to a friend of mine from the better days. He told me I should give webcam sites a try. He sent a link to some hardcore BDSM site, and it held my interest for a while.

The best part was that you weren’t watching a video. No, here I could interact with the model and ask her to do the weird, fucked up things I had on my mind. Sure, it cost me a bit of money, but it was so worth it.

I’d always avoided webcam sites. They all seemed boring as hell. This stuff here though wasn’t too bad. Sure, it was vanilla, nothing but BDSM but it was enough to kill my boredom.

It wasn’t long before I talked to my friend again and asked him what other pages he frequented. He sent me a few of his favorites, but they were all too tame. I wanted something more, something weird and fucked up.

The images that came to my mind when I thought about the potential of webcam shows, got me hard. I’d finally found something worth looking into.

I explored the normal internet for a while, but I knew I’d not stumble upon the stuff I was looking for by accident. No, I most likely had to talk to the right people. And I knew where to find them.

Believe me, using IRC in this day and age can be a total bitch. I soon discovered that many of the old channels I used to frequent weren’t around anymore. Even worse, many of the regulars I’d been in contact with had all but vanished.

Again, I went on a wild goose chase. I visited channel after channel, hit up mods and admins, but the few people who replied all sent me normal webcam sites.

I groaned when I got yet another link to a model’s Chaturbate. Shit, that’s not what I’m looking for you retards!

Eventually though, after hours of searching, a guy I’d never talked to before hit me up. He said he’d seen me ask around and realized that I was looking for something more special. He’d exactly what I was looking for and sent me a text file.

I was skeptical at first. God knows this guy might be fucking with me and was sending me some sort of virus. Still, desperation won over all my worries and I downloaded it.

When none of my anti-virus programs got a hit, I opened the file. I prepared myself for my PC to go up in flames, but to my surprise the text file was genuine. It contained a list of instructions to find ‘the page’.

There was no information about what ‘the page’ was, but my interest was piqued.

The entire thing was cryptic and over-complicated. I was sent from one page to the next. Then I had to send emails to at least three different auto-responders. Finally, I had to download even more text documents with further instructions.

After a while, I wondered if it all was an elaborate troll that sent me on some never-ending treasure hunt.

Then I discovered a picture from one of the webcam shows on the page. I stared at with a mixture of wondrous bliss and disgust.

If this was a troll, then he’d know his shit. I’d been on the internet long enough to spot cheap Photoshop edits. This one here had either taken a lot of work or… it was genuine.

The picture showed a simple, almost rudimentary webcam show interface. It was nothing more than an enormous video box and a small chat next to it. The woman in the picture was on the floor. Where her legs should be were only stumps that ended above her knees. She was sitting spread-legged and was playing with herself. The hand she used was disfigured and had an almost claw-like shape. There was no hint of her having another hand or arm for that matter.

The longer I stared at the picture the harder I felt myself getting. This was it. This was what I’d been looking for!

I continued to follow the instructions with newfound vigor. With each new step, I got another picture and then finally a small video clip. The last instruction told me to send a few hundred dollars to a specified bitcoin wallet. For a while I sat there, unsure what to do before I cursed and sent the money. I was already cursing at myself for falling for a trick like that when a link appeared in my inbox.

I forced myself to hold back my excitement. It might still be an elaborate fake to send all sorts of malware my way. Then I took a deep breath and clicked the link. It was so worth the risk.

My face was sweaty with anticipation and I felt a tingling sensation in my fingertips as I waited for the page to load.

“Dammit, load already,” I screamed at my browser.

Finally, I was greeted with a poorly made website. There was no name, no banner, it only showed the different models online at the moment.

The names and especially the pictures would’ve made any normal, sane person nope the fuck out. To me, it was nothing short of exhilarating. This was my Promised Land. I’d finally found it.

It wasn’t long before I found the legless girl whose picture I’d seen before. I thought about entering her show, but then I decided to have a look around to see what else I could find.

The first thing that caught my interest was the picture of a Lolita girl. It was called ‘The Innocent’. Now, I’m not a pedophile, but there’s a certain delicacy to the adolescent and the corruption of something pure.

I couldn’t wait to see what she’d do in her show. Yet, when I connected to it, all I saw was a simple room and a dirty, stained bed. The girl was sitting in the corner behind the bed, crying and hugging herself. For a moment she looked at the camera, a pleading look on her face and I could see her red, teary eyes. She was shaking and seemed to be terrified. I continued watching, but nothing else happened. Maybe her ‘show’ was already over? Or hell, what if this act here was her show? Shit, I cursed at myself for wasting precious time.

Then I found one called ‘The Mermaid’. The picture showed a beautiful, young girl that smiled at the camera while biting her lower lip. It wasn’t her smile that intrigued me, it was her lower half. It looked like the tail of a mermaid, but it didn’t look like a costume, it looked like it was made from flesh.

I’d been fascinated with body dysmorphia and body modifications for a while now. One of my favorite movies of all time was Freaks and you’ve no idea what I’d give to see an actual real-life freak show. This here was probably the closest I’d ever get to that.

I entered her show in an instant.

What I saw was entirely different from the picture. The girl was sitting in the water basin from the picture, but the water was dirty and discolored. The girl herself seemed almost delirious. She wasn’t there at all, barely conscious and her glassy eyes stared at nothing in particular. What the hell was that shit? I hadn’t been looking for some girl that was sick, I was here to see her lower half! In that dark, disgusting water I couldn’t make out anything.

The three other people in the chat were as annoyed as I was. For a while, we all shared our annoyance at we saw before we resorted to using the report button at the bottom of the chat.

After a few minutes of sending one report after another, I heard the door being pushed open. I could hear someone cursing in a language I didn’t understand before a man entered the room.

He stepped up to the girl and put his hand against her forehead before he cursed to himself. Then he heaved the girl from the basin. For a moment I gasped in anticipation, ready to see her lower half.

What I got to see was far worse than anything I could’ve imagined. It looked almost as if she had legs, but were discolored and looked as if they were fused.

One of the other guys in chat complained that the camera was too damn far away, and he’d paid good money for this. He demanded to see every last detail of what was happening.

The guy spat on the ground before he got a hold of the webcam and moved it closer.

Now I could finally see what was wrong with her legs. They weren’t fused. No, they were sewn together with wires or strings to remodel the tail of a mermaid. Something must’ve gone wrong because the legs were swollen, bloated even. They had to be inflamed or infected, I thought when I saw the thick liquid that was leaking from them.

The guy touched them for a moment before he cut the wires. Right at this moment, the girl woke up from her trance-like state. She started screaming, flailing around, and was about to throw herself at the guy next to her. The only reaction she got from the man was a hit to the head with a blunt object I couldn’t identify. She started twitching and convulsing before she lay still again.

I could see the hint of a smile on the man’s face before he went back to her legs.

I was frozen in sheer shock and disgust. After the wires were cut, the man moved her legs apart from one another. Wet, rotten skin and flesh tore apart and enormous amounts of the greenish, yellow puss leaked out from huge sores between them.

At this moment I rushed from my desk to the bathroom and vomited. What the hell had I just watched? I’d seen a lot of shit, but this here was by far the worst!

When I’d finally calmed down and returned ‘The Mermaid’ was offline. For a moment I had a look at the other models that were still online. I saw the legless girl again, some humongous fat girl, a midget show and something resembling Siamese twins. Instead of clicking on any of them, I closed the page.

For a while I sat there, in my chair, still trying to fathom what I’d seen. Then another thought crawled into my mind. If they’d ‘made’ the mermaid by fusing her legs then had they created all those other models as well?

What kind of page had I found there? Were they kidnapping or buying those girls and mutilating them for… dear god? I’d been looking for sick shit, but not something like that! Holy shit!

I knew, for the first time, I’d voluntarily crossed the line.

After this experience, I took a break from the internet. I turned off my computer and went out for a lengthy walk to calm myself down and forget what I’d seen. Yet, I couldn’t shake off the image of those bloated, half-rotten legs and the puss leaking from them.

As I said before, it’s only a matter of time before shock and disgust transform into something different.

It was only days later that I opened up that last email again and clicked the link once more. This time though, I was redirected to a normal fetish site. I cursed, tried to reload the page multiple times, but nothing changed.

When I hit up the guy who’d sent me the text file, I got no reply at all.

I’ve searched for this page for weeks now. Yet, no one I talked to has seen the page or even heard about it. It’s most likely one of those hidden, nomadic types that change their address or domain every couple weeks or even days.

I’d have given up long ago, written it off as another internet curiosity. Yet, I can’t stop thinking about it. There’s something about those bloated, sewn together legs and the puss leaking from them. God, I get hard thinking about it. I’ve been getting off to the memory of them so, so many times now, it’s unreal.

I wish I’d recorded it so I could see it one more time. Oh, I know, I’ve finally crossed the line with this new obsession. I guess it was inevitable to happen one day. To be honest, it’s quite liberating.

Even now I can’t stop thinking about ‘The Mermaid’. Yet, the more I think about her, the more another thought creeps into my mind. If I can’t find the page anymore and if I can’t see HER again, then I have to take things into my own hands.

All I need is a small basin, some wire, and a woman willing to take part in it. And if I shouldn’t find one willing to, then I guess, it’s not so bad that I already crossed the line.