something beautiful
w/o April 15th 2024
write a piece that uses all or most of this pool of words– glisten, slow, starlight, fruit, molten, calm.
CW: strong language and imagery, graphic descriptions of gore (no violence), surreal horror? - strongly advise against reading if you are under 18 or are very susceptible to any of the above!
“They say something beautiful happens if you stand in the starlight.”
The words had come seemingly from nowhere, Em’s hazel strands flailing about as she turned towards the source, before gracefully settling on her shoulders once again.
She had seen Them before, Em thought - perhaps in the hallways out of the corner of her eye, perhaps in the reflection of her floor-to-ceiling classroom windows, peeking just behind her shoulders; it wasn’t the first time she felt sick seeing Their smile, either. But Mother taught her she ought not to act unkind, so she swallowed the bile coating her oesophagus and offered a smile of her own - she wondered for a moment if They were sickened by it too.
“Excuse me?”
The corners of Their mouth stretched once again, a sight she hoped would soon cease because Mother taught her it was rude to scratch one’s own eyes out in the presence of guests.
“What I said.”
“What do you mean?”
"What I said.”
“What happens, exactly?”
“Something beautiful."
Em stood for a moment, her lips drawing into a thin line - her only solace the wondrous sight in her mind’s eye of Their smile stretching so far it tore Their face apart. This did not happen, much to her dismay.
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
Em would like to say that the rage subsided once They turned around, disappearing down the hallway and further into the building - but then again, she would have liked to say so 12 years, 3 months and 16 days ago, too. Rage welcomed Em Sterling into this world, and rage would escort her out of it.
“I’m going out.”
Em murmured, hoping Mother would not enquire further, as often she did not - too often, perhaps to the point of negligence. But if rage was Em’s trade, then negligence was Mother’s - they revelled in its sin, and marvelled at those who lacked it.
“Be kind.”
‘Be kind’.
‘Be kind’ Mother told her, when she first opened her eyes, when she didn’t yet have a name.
‘Be kind’ Mother told her, when she returned home from her first day of middle school - her bruises now a dull ochre and the blood dripping from her chin glistening under the sickly yellow light of the dining room.
And ‘be kind’ Mother told her, when their last words were to be exchanged.
Em offered none.
Perhaps there is a world where Em stays home and wakes up the next day.
Perhaps there is a world where she wakes up to Mother’s smile, Father’s cooking and Brother’s embrace.
Perhaps there is a world void of rage.
But as Em waded through the rotting vegetation at her feet, expertly avoiding the cobwebs long devoid of spiders, no such world was in sight.
She ignored the feeling of dread, slow to creep in and slower still to leave, and she took no note of the desolation of her surroundings; these were only some of the lingering effects of The Incident which the locals - those who were either unable to move out or wilfully ignorant of the threat It posed - had eventually acclimatised to.
The area had since been wiped of any semblance of life, and Em thought that without trees or buildings to conceal the sky this was the perfect spot to bathe in the starlight. Perhaps whatever was about to happen could make up for the years being currently shaved off of her lifespan, as her feet anchored into the infertile ground.
She stood, and she stood. Nothing happened.
Until it did.
She restlessly clawed at her leg for a moment, feeling as though ants were slowly creeping up her thighs and under her skirt, up her belly and into her hair. She could smell something in the air - much more pungent than the usual funk that had permeated the town for the last 7 years; it reminded her of when Mother first took her to the market, and the texture of decaying fruit in her mouth. Em didn’t remember when this happened, exactly. Maybe she made it up.
She could no longer distract herself with idle memories when she looked down at her feet and saw the molten skin peeling off of her body and falling onto her sneakers.
For a moment she felt sorry about the shoes - they were brand-new, after all. Then she screamed.
Her mouth drawn open and her lips barely hanging onto the rest of her face, she screamed like she had never done in her life, for she could not remember ever screaming at all. She felt her diaphragm pushing down, her lungs filling with scalding-hot air - releasing into her trachea and out into the night.
Push, fill, in and out.
She did it until her vocal cords snapped, and she did it still after that. She did it until she no longer had a mouth to open and legs to stand on.
Calm only settled in her mind in the split-second before what remained of her mangled body met with the unforgiving ground: her eyes now hanging from their sockets seemingly by sheer will alone, she saw her own reflection in the puddle of organic matter that once made up her mid-section.
Em Sterling was, in her final moments, witnessing the total annihilation of her very own existence.
They were right: this was truly something beautiful.
this is my first time writing something like this, I hope it wasn’t too upsetting - or rather, I hope it didn't feel gratuitous. I felt like this was what the prompt called me to make. thank you for reading all the way through!