Objectively speaking, I understand this particular arrangement of flesh and bone is attractive, that the placement of my eyes and nose and mouth is both aesthetically pleasing and astronomically rare, but these truths are not what I’m mourning.
I’m saying goodbye to myself, but I’m also saying goodbye to Marlo, in a way. I can see her face in mine, note all the little things she inherited from me.
I’ve thought about her a lot tonight, a North Star I keep returning to as things grow more and more dire, but now something has changed. While Eddie goes through his transformation, I’m going through my own, circumstances forcing me into a state of emotional mutation. Before, I feared the thought of Marlo growing up how I did, a childhood of constant strife and survival. This was my worst nightmare, but it appears I wasn’t quite imaginative enough. There’s something much, much worse.
When Eddie takes over my body, I have no idea what’ll happen to Marlo—how he’ll treat her, what he’ll do to her. He already said that he doesn’t like kids around, so death is certainly on the table, but in all likelihood she’s probably in for something much more sinister.
Eventually, many years from now, she’ll end up in the exact same situation as mine, the vicious cycle of our rotten family tree repeating over and over again.
I willneverlet that happen.
It stops tonight, but not because I’ve somehow managed to overpower Eddie and prune his branch. It stops because I’ll prune my own. Despite his planning for this evening, there’s one very important thing Eddie didn’t count on. As self-obsessed as I am—and I’ll admit, I’m pretty fucking self-obsessed—there’s a little girl I care about even more.
I take the knife and bring it up to my cheek, resting the cold, jagged blade against my skin. My hand instinctively holds back, rebelling against this primally unnatural request, but with all the will I can muster I force the blade onward.
Sharp, stinging pain erupts through my nervous system as a sticky gush of liquid pours down my cheek. It hurts like hell, but I know this is only the beginning.
Eddie is ready for his fresh canvas, a perfect object of “traditional beauty,” and it won’t be enough to give his canvas a few shallow scratches. I need to destroy the whole thing.
I watch as the blood pours down my face, all those pricey exfoliating treatments gone straight to hell. I push even deeper, feeling the knife pull taut against the elastic flesh of my cheek as it threatens to poke through to the other side. Nausea bubbles up within me, but I somehow wrestle it down, soothing my mind with thoughts of Marlo.
There’s a strange, sickening pop as the blade juts through, glancing off my teeth on the other side of my mouth. The pain is so overwhelming that it loses any sense of locality, now just radiating through me like a strange,overwhelming hum. A sudden heaviness overtakes my body, eyelids flickering closed as I lean against the coffee table. I’ve never fainted before, but I imagine this is what it feels like.
“Fuck you,” I mumble, my molars clattering against the knife as I make this quiet proclamation. Half my ire is directed toward Eddie, but the other half is focused right back at myself.
In an effort to wake up I tug the knife toward me, slicing an even larger hole and sending yet another furious jolt of pain through my body. Fortunately, this seems to do the trick.
There’s a delicate balance here. I can’t let myself pass out or die before I finish the job. Eddie clearly has no problem inhabiting dead bodies, at least for a little while, but he would be absolutelymortifiedto exist in an “ugly” frame.
Of course, I’m versed enough in the social media landscape to know there are all kinds of influencers, people with massive scars who make incredible, beautiful—and most importantly, popular—content. Eddie, however, is not that kind of guy. He hasn’t progressed much in the last few decades, let alone centuries, and his definition of beauty speaks for itself.
More important than anyfuck youto my new corpse dad, however, is the practical warning I’m leaving behind. If Marlo ever sees my mangled face, regardless of who’s piloting it, she’ll be terrified.
She’ll know something’s wrong.
From the other room I hear a loud thump, Mary’s bodyfinally giving out and crashing to the floor. I lean over just enough to peer through the doorframe, catching a glimpse of Eddie as he crouches over the crimson-soaked woman with his pruning knife. He greedily peels off as much skin as he can, stuffing it down his gullet.
While Eddie might’ve been careful with his meals before, all bets are off now. He’s ravenous, tearing through the ragged flaps as blood and carnage drench the front of his sparkling suit.
A flamboyantly gaySaturn Devouring His Sonby Francisco Goya.
Influencers can’t know fine art? Fuck off, I think to myself, somehow chuckling through the blinding pain.
Once finished with my cheek, I yank my knife back and get to work on my forehead. My blade slices across the top in one deep, ragged cut, not quite sharp enough to make a clean incision. This is a recipe for scarring, which is a good thing.
Blood pours down my face as I cut deeper and deeper, obscuring my vision with a scarlet haze and spilling into my eyes. I’m working blind now, starting a new wound to cross with the original at a haphazard angle. Where these two slashes intersect, I somehow manage to extract a huge chunk of flesh, something that no amount of time and healing will fully repair.
From the other room, a loud, familiar retching begins. It’s the same sound I heard when Eddie made us pull over on the way here, but this time there’s a distinct wetness to the heaves.
Knowing my time is limited, I make a particularly bold move. I grab a huge chunk of hair at the side of my head, bending toward the coffee table so I can pull it up with my cuffed hand and use the other one to saw along my right hairline. The pain is so excruciating that it has essentially disappeared, a numb orb that surrounds my entire face. At first, I’m worried my fingers will slip due to all the blood, that my grip is sliding up the length of my hair, but it quickly becomes apparent this is not the case. The sensation is actually due to my scalp lifting away from my head, at least in this particular area.
I saw in a large circle, pulling away more and more until, finally, the entire section comes tearing off and leaves me with a giant circular wound. I can’t imagine any follicles surviving this kind of trauma.
Another gurgling heave erupts from the bedroom, this one more ferocious than the others and accompanied by two distinct, hollow cracks. It’s enough to make me wipe the blood from my eyes, then lean over and take another look, fighting to see through what remains of the sticky red liquid obscuring my vision.
Eddie is bent over now. He’s on his hands and knees, his mouth stretched open so wide that it’s reached nearsupernatural proportions. It seems those pops were the sound of Eddie’s cracking jawbone. This contortion of his face is both horrific and fascinating in a way that’s impossible to look away from. His neck has swelled up, stuffed with an object approximately the same width as a basketball, but oblong.
He retches again, the guttural sound accompanied by even more cracking bones as something emerges beyond the threshold of his lips.
