by Brian Hodge
It was that simple.
From that point on, I spiraled downward. I could not turn back.
I lost my fiancé later that semester. The way her eyes widened the first time she stuck her hand underneath my shirt to caress me and felt the jagged scars and drying scabs was both sad and comical at the same time. I could tell by the way that she gawked at me as I explained myself that she felt that I had gone mad. Although her face still dances painfully across my mind in the darkest hours of the night, I know that I am better off without her. Losing her only pushed me further into my world of self-mutilation.
As the year went on, every time I felt like I was about to lose control of my life, I would mutilate my body. As I study myself in the mirror, my fingers tracing over the hundreds of crisscrossing scar lines and fresh wounds, I smile and cock my head. It’s almost impossible to remember the college student that I once was, but if I try, I can almost see my formerly handsome face.
Many people would accuse me of being a sick freak, but they just don’t understand. To experience pain makes you more human. It lets you understand the human condition in ways that the normal person cannot do. It almost becomes like an exploration of the mind and soul, your body becoming the ultimate teacher. When I am mutilating myself, I get to journey to the furthest level of my psyche. After any particularly ferocious mutilation, I am often hit with an overwhelming and profound feeling of joy.
I had no idea that by exploring the limits of the human body, that I would bypass the line of reality and see beyond.
The pain began to creep insidiously into my sex life, taking me to yet another level of control. In fact, it soon became the only way that I was able to arouse myself. This divine agony allows me to give in to the desires that many people have not yet discovered. Pleasuring myself to my own slippery blood has given me orgasms that can only be described as spiritual. During a moment of intense pain, I feel so alive that I can almost weep.
I can no longer grow any hair on my body. I long ago burned any flesh away that would enable me to do so. My upper lip is missing, giving me a sort of permanent and ghoulish smile. I have to put constant drops of moisture into my left eye, as I have no eyelid. So that the eye will not dry out when I sleep, I am forced to place wet towels over my face. I have no toes on my feet, and I am also missing all the fingers on my right hand. My entire left ear is missing, as well as half of my right one. Most of my body is a mass of red and pink scar tissue.
As you can tell? by that description, I have the type of appearance that would make small children flee in terror.
Last week, my ex-fiancé called me up to see how I was doing. Hearing her voice for the first time in many months brought so many phantom memories up from my past that it overwhelmed me. For the briefest of moments, I felt like the old Will Parker—the one who was capable of loving without pain. A quick look into the mirror abruptly detonated those memories. I was actually crying as I hung up the phone. It was painful to realize that some part of me wanted to retreat back to my former self. Once you have reached the point that I have, there is no way to turn around.
I can tell by this point that I have lost you. You have already judged me as a pathetic man in profound need of help. What most people do not realize is that I am holding closed the door to all that is harmful in the universe. Once I let go of this door, or if I no longer have the strength to hold it closed, then it will explode open, sending violent chaos upon you.
Riley started helping me about two years ago. It became impossible to mutilate myself in the ways that I wanted. It got to a point that I would fall into unconsciousness just as I was beginning to see the Watchers. Although I know that Riley is a sick man, and gets off sexually when he mutilates me, I care deeply for him. Like me, he is a soldier in the battle against the violators of our world—against the Watchers. Together we try to learn more about why they are visiting us. We hope that once we learn enough, we will be able to destroy them.
I have a theory. It came to me one night as I ran my hands tenderly over glistening wounds that I could no longer feel. The pain that I had at first fallen in love with had almost become unattainable. Lately, it has been more difficult for me to see the Watchers. I am no longer able to feel the pain at the level of intensity that is necessary to view them, and thus, I have been blinded. My theory is that there is a way that I may be able to permanently see the Watchers. A way that if I survive will enable us to take this fight to its bitter and brutal end.
Riley pulled his dirty white t-shirt down over his protruding belly. “Are you sure that this won’t kill you, Will?”
“No. I am not sure,” I said as I lay back on the table. “But do we really have a choice? It’s getting harder for me to see them.”
Riley pulled the trigger on the drill and the bit twirled around with a steady hum. I could tell that he was excited by the way that his tongue ran lecherously around his thick lips. “Are you ready?”
I placed the stick in my mouth and said through my teeth, “Yes.”
Riley stuck the drill on the side of my head just above where my left ear used to be.
“Remember, as soon as you feel it puncture through my skull you need to stop. If you put that thing directly into my brain, it will be over for me.”
Riley nodded and gently pushed his finger on the trigger. At first I felt no pain at all, the nerves on my skin had long since died. When the drill bit began to dig deeper into my flesh, the pain was explosive. My skull shook and vibrated underneath my skin as the bit stabbed, jarring my teeth brutally, spittle flying my wailing mouth in thick streams. I could see my blood splattering onto the floor and onto Riley’s tan loafers. I began to moan in pleasure—feeling so elevated that I felt that I could touch God. It felt as if my whole body had become a sexual instrument, my blood squirting out of my wounds like an intense orgasm.
“Go slower,” I hissed through gritted teeth. “You’re almost through the skull.” I could feel myself close to passing out, and I fought the urge with all my energy.
There was a soft pop as the bit penetrated through. Riley pulled out cautiously, keeping the drill humming slowly as he went. I could feel the blood dripping off the side of my head, tickling my nearly numb flesh as it ran.
Riley had the bloody drill bit right in front of my face and I could see little flecks of my bone attached to its ridges.
My blood dripped from the edge and onto the floor.
When he pulled the drill out of my view, the Watcher was standing just behind him. I fought the urge to scream as it walked up to where I lay on the table and leaned over. Its skin was a demonic red, and I could see what looked to be snake-like parasites swimming just under its transparent flesh. Enormous eyes bulged out of its skull, almost giving me the feeling that they were about to pop out of its elongated head. As it studied me, it stretched its thin lips into a smile, exposing thorny, animal-like teeth.
“It’s standing right next to you, isn’t it?” Riley asked as he backed up, his eyes wide on his sweat-drenched face. “I thought I felt it.”
Although the pain in my head was throbbing like an earthquake, and I could feel the hot blood dripping from my skull, I managed to say through clenched teeth, “Yes, it’s right in front of me.”
The Watcher placed his protracted fingers on the side of my head, inspecting the wound.
“Oh my God! He touched me!” I shrieked.
In the past, I had been unable to interact with the Watchers. Although I could see them, I was powerless to hear or touch them. Our latest experiment had placed me into their realm. As odd as it sounded, I now stood betwixt worlds.
It leaned in close, studying my face. It seemed to be perplexed that I was able to see it, and was trying to figure out why. I felt its slender finger gliding smoothly over the torn flesh on the side of my head, and then, to my horror, its finger slipped into the drilled hole. It penetrated slowly, traveling through my flesh almost sexually until I felt him touch the surface of my brain. The most overwhelming
feeling of pain I had ever experienced caressed me like a lover—it was simply glorious.
The Watcher whispered something into my ear that I could not understand, sounding almost like a nest of bees had built a hive within the confines of my brain. I fell into unconsciousness before I could scream, half in pleasure, half in terror.
“Will, are you okay?” Riley asked as I came back into consciousness. My head still throbbed where the Watcher had penetrated me.
“It touched me, Riley,” I said. My left eye was dry and sore. “Can you please give me some drops of Visine, please?”
As he gave me the eyedrops, I struggled to think of what it meant to exist in the same world as the Watchers.
“Do you see it now?” Riley asked, staring around the room even though he had never seen one himself.
I looked around weakly. My left eye had never been as good since I cut the eyelid off, though. “We’re so close, Riley. I was standing in their world. I felt it touch me.”
“You know, Will. Do you ever consider the fact that you might be hallucinating?”
I felt my anger rise. “Get the fuck out of my apartment.”
Riley turned pale. “Listen—I go along with you, and I sort of believe in them too, but—”
“GET THE FUCK OUT!” I screamed, leaping up from the table. I held my hand over the hole in the side of my head to prevent blood from leaking out. I had taken some drugs to slow some of the leaking down, but it still ran thickly through my fingers.
“I’m not leaving,” Riley said. “I’m your friend and you need me.”
I glared at him, attempting to intimidate him, but he just returned my stare. “Riley, if you ever again go where you just took this conversation you can kiss our friendship goodbye and never speak to me again! The Watchers are real, godammit! Not only that, they threaten our very existence! We may be the only people on the whole planet that can stop them! Don’t you want to see through this fucking veil that God has placed over our faces?”
For a brief moment, I actually heard what I sounded like and let my words sink into my brain.
Admittedly, I did sound like a total madman. It’s just that, from the bottom of my soul, I feel they are real. That night, we sat around my kitchen table and discussed a way to get back into their world.
“We need to find a way that will allow me to stay there for a long period of time,” I said, watching Riley intently as he sipped his coffee.
The next day, I found myself sitting in a kitchen chair, my teeth biting down into a thick piece of wood. I was quite terrified, as I knew what we were about to do could easily kill me. Riley was standing just to my left, a hammer gripped powerfully in his fist. In his palm were seven three-inch nails—seven being the number of the Lord. By having the nails in my head, I would be able to control the level of intensity with a push or pull of my fingers.
“You want to close your eyes?” Riley asked, placing the first nail on the top of my skull hesitantly. “I can put a cloth over your bad eye.”
“I can’t,” I said, taking the wood out my mouth to speak. “I have to see the Watchers. In fact, if I pass out, you need to wake me up as soon as possible.”
Riley hit the head of the nail delicately at first, and it only penetrated the flesh slightly.
“You’re going to have to hit it a little harder,” I said, noticing the way my voice trembled.
I could almost see a blurry ghost-like form of a Watcher just ahead. Soon, it would come into focus. I stuck the wood back between my teeth and waited, my heart fluttering in anticipation.
Riley brought the hammer up and hit the nail a little harder this time.
Pain exploded into my skull as the nail penetrated my deeper nerve endings. A single teardrop fell from my left eye and across my cheek and I moaned with a mix of sensual pleasure and deep agony. Just ahead I could see the incorporeal form of the Watcher gradually coming into focus.
“More?” Riley asked, his chalky face glowing with arousal for what he was doing to me.
I nodded, the muscles on my face twitching spasmodically. Although it was tremendously painful, it also left me feeling more exhilarated than I had ever remembered. I felt like a traveler going into a new and unexplored world. “Get those fucking nails into my skull, my friend,” I moaned through my teeth. “Don’t be afraid. This is fantastic!”
Riley put the face of the hammer against the nail that jutted out of my skull and brought it back ever so slightly. He then began to tap painstakingly, letting the nail sink into my skull. Each tap was a new explosion of agony, accompanied only by the feeling of sweet elation that I felt. It was like a perverse symphony of pain and inspiration.
There was a soft pop as the nail breached through the skull. I know it’s impossible, but I could actually feel the head of the nail brushing up against my brain. It burned but in a good way.
Although the almost solid form of the Watcher was edged with lines of fuzziness, I could still see him quite well. He sat on the sofa, only feet away, as he watched us curiously. I don’t think he realized that I could see him.
I bit deep down into the wood, my teeth beginning to ache as Riley moved to the second nail, then on to the third. Dark motes swam before my eyes, threatening to drag me into unconsciousness. By the time the seventh nail perforated the final layer of my skull, I had reached a level of intensity that could only be described as Zen. The nail pierced a little too deep, entering into my brain like a sliver of ice. I felt little spasms of energy travel like electrified insects down the base of my spine, and the nerves in my legs began to twitch spastically.
Spitting the piece of wood to the floor, I exhaled heavily. The flesh around my skull was throbbing with every beat of my heart. To think I once thought that I was almost incapable of feeling such pain.
The Watcher was no longer on the sofa, in fact he was nowhere to be seen. With a pang of fear, I realized that the pain threshold might not have been strong enough to thrust me within their world as I had hoped.
I ran my hand gently across my head, feeling the metal nails that were deeply embedded into my skull. I stood up, and then paused as waves of vertigo slammed into me.
“Will?” Riley asked, his voice high with panic.
“Yeah?” I turned around, only to be shown a sight so surreal that at first my pain numbed brain could not comprehend it.
I was still sitting in the chair before me, even though I was now standing. Like a ghost, I watched as Riley put his head to my chest and listened for a heartbeat. Trails of blood fell from the nails that protruded from my skull—giving me an appearance not unlike Jesus Christ, our savior. I watched with rising dread, realizing that my heart must have finally failed.
Behind my corpse was the most surreal thing that I had ever seen. The floor underneath Riley’s blood splattered sneakers was nothing but black, star speckled space. What can only be described as a kaleidoscopic spider web hung in the air behind him, thousands of colors pulsing throughout the lines psychedelically. I could see the vague outlines of winged, bat-like men flying around the web, twirling around every time a new color would flash. I heard one howl mysteriously, and I felt my jaw drop open in awe.
“Oh my God,” Riley whispered, staring down at my body with a stunned expression on his ugly face.
Much to my aversion, his eyes narrowed, and he looked down upon my corpse lasciviously. He began to lick the blood around the nails—his tongue darting out like a snake as his hand rubbed the crotch of my blood drenched jeans.
I slapped at him angrily, but my hand only sliced through him as if he was an illusion. We had gone too far, I no longer stood betwixt worlds. I looked away from Riley and his filthy tongue with disgust. In the last glimpse that I caught, he was plunging his tongue deep into the hole where we had drilled into only yesterday, removing the hardened blood with his fingernails.
When I heard the faint hissing behind me, I realized that I had entered the world of the Watcher. I could feel its hot breath crashing into the back o
f my head. I turned around tentatively, my mind preparing itself for what I would see.
It was standing only a few feet away, dissecting me with its protruding eyes. It pulled back its moist lips so languidly it seemed like a dream, exposing its needle filled mouth. Its eyes spun around in their sockets as it opened its jaws, long trails of saliva dripping from the razor sharp edges of its teeth. It held out its slender, wiry arm and wiggled its knife-like fingers back and forth like a sluggish crab.
I took a deep breath and closed my eyes in anticipation. I grinned—giving myself to what I knew was inevitable.
It detonated into me, seeming to glide through my flesh and internal organs with millions of razors, diving around through my body like a graceful swimmer. I rode with the pain, enjoying the breathtaking sensory overload like an explosive blood-soaked orgasm. For the first time in my existence, I felt truly alive. The last thought that entered my screaming brain before I ceased to exist, was how truly delightful the agony was.
With Quiet Violence
Melissa had already begun to melt. A pool of water ran from her tiny feet onto the wooden floor. Her five-year-old body stood rigid before the fireplace, hands held to her side like a statue, fingers blue and caked with crystals of ice. She wore the same white dress she’d worn in her coffin.
Michael’s face looked haggard when he spoke, the face of a man hanging onto the edge of cliff by only his bloodied fingernails, eyes deadened with the resignation of his fate. “You aren’t going to believe this, but I demanded that God give her to me. My faith was nearly gone.”
I watched the water drop from Melissa onto the floor in soft plunks. A muffled ripping sound emitted from her body, a noise like her flesh was tearing apart under the ice. The firelight caused shadows to dance across her shiny face hypnotically.