Her Left Leg 

Alice could have pretty much avoided everything had she just chosen to continue sleeping. As it was, the banging sound was too loud to ignore, and then the bed also started to shake. Her immediate thought was that it was the neighbours partying upstairs, although why the commotion would cause her bed to shake was beyond her. She was too focused on the sound, honestly. Was it a gunshot? A party popper? The neighbours were rowdy as hell, so it wouldn’t really be that shocking to find out that they’d been popping party poppers at three a.m.

However, as consciousness started to pervade her sleep, Alice couldn’t help but start feeling a bit more nervous. Aliens was obviously her second explanation. With the movie she watched last night, it made sense how her mind jumped there. That freaky fuck with the gaunt face haunted her all throughout the night. AI or not, he was a disturbing sight. Now, all Alice could imagine was him peering through her window.

The next huge eruption had Alice shooting straight up to her feet. She scrambled, half-blind, to the living room, heart hammering in her throat. No way in hell that was a party popper.

Now, Alice was nowhere near close to religious, but the words that popped up to her lips would exorcise any evil. Especially when she found the living room entirely empty.

“Fucking hell.” Her heart dropped to the pits of her stomach.

She’d rather there have been someone there. Something, even. Hell, even a spider would be good enough. Anything to explain why the bed was shaking or what caused the eruption. Instead, everything was completely still.

It seemed natural to equip herself with something to fight with, so she grabbed the broom which had been slumbering against the wall to her right. Her other hand scrambled backwards for her phone that was lying on the side table.

DAAADD. She texted blindly, frantically. SOMETHING’S IN THE ARPATMENT

APRRATMNT

APEROL SPRITZ

APRIRMNT

APPRGJTGIGO

Evil dripped down the shadows on the wall. She waited for that adult-infant creature to come and eat her.

Ok. Her dad replied exactly a minute later. Do you see it? What is it?

Hello?

What is it?

Are you ok?

Alice.

Alice

Her phone began to buzz frantically. Not that Alice paid any mind to it. It slipped from her fingers and crashed to the ground where it vibrated in loud circles against the hardwood.

There wasn’t much to describe other than a sudden blast of wind and glass. Alice found herself pressed against the floor, breathing in the dust. Her nails dug into the wood; her feet found the edge of the wall. Little cuts formed on any exposed skin. She winced but kept her eyes scrunched tightly.

Then, it was silent.

Alice looked up slowly, trying to discern some kind of sound. Other than the faint whoosh of waves from inside her head, she couldn’t hear a thing.

Somewhere a fire must be burning because smoke quickly filled up her room. She got up on unsteady feet and grabbed her phone to find it blank and cold. A large, jagged crack ran through the screen. She traced her finger over the wound mindlessly. She barely felt when the glass sliced the pad of her finger.

In her haze, she didn’t think to put on shoes. She was still barefooted when she found the grass outside.

A hand grabbed her upper arm, making her yell out in pain.

“Are you alone?” A moustached face screamed at her. She tried to make out the words, but something was preventing her from processing anything. He shook her, “Is there anyone else inside?”

Alice’s teeth rattled from the movement. Her vision went in and out. He reminded her of her father.

“No,” she mouthed. Where was her voice?

“Is there anyone else inside?” Desperation filled his voice.

“I have to find my dad,” Alice looked at him wordlessly.

The man released her and Alice wandered forward, a little bit confused. If the man was worried about her, he was too busy grabbing other passersby to worry for long. Maybe he was looking for someone. Maybe he was the one who did this.

Did what?

Alice still couldn’t figure out what had happened. Only that the road was kind of slippery. It burned the soles of her feet.

She wished she had her bag. Or some slippers. She wished she’d swept the floors earlier because now her nose felt itchy from all the dust she’d inhaled.

It was in the hubbub of her regrets and wants that a little cat emerged from the trees. Alice stopped in her tracks. She wasn’t sure what compelled her to stop moving, but a sudden warmth coursed through her body at the sight of it. Alice relaxed slowly. She felt her knees bend before she decided to sit on the ground.

The cat purred and then sauntered around Alice. It rubbed itself against her back before climbing into Alice’s lap.

“I don’t know how to get home,” Alice confessed in a soft, hoarse voice. She gently ran her fingers through the cat’s midnight fur.

The cat leaned its head over Alice’s calf and closed its eyes. Alice bent down closer to its ear, suddenly unable to contain herself.

“I have to find my dad,” she whispered, “I need to tell him that I’m okay.”

Where Alice thought the cat would see into her soul and give her the answers, the cat placed its paw against her heart and then tore into her skin. Alice screamed, jumping away, but the damage had been done.

A loud pop exploded between her ears. Her eyes rolled back.

“You should’ve swept those floors, Alice,” the cat snickered from somewhere inside of her skull.

At this point, had Alice simply succumbed to the darkness, perhaps she would have awoken in her bed covered in sweat, but completely unscathed. The problem, as it was, was that Alice hadn’t really encountered a lesson to take home with her.

Out of sheer force of spite, her eyes rolled back and refocused on the wretched, grinning cat.

“I need to tell my dad,” Alice mumbled heavily through limp lips.

“Tell your dad what?” The cat seemed to say. It was in the tilt of its head, those prying, eager eyes.

Alice opened her mouth to tell it the reason but then found that she couldn’t recall why.

“I…” she stuttered, a little helplessly, “I don’t know.”

Panic rose like bile into her mouth. She clenched her teeth tightly, trying not to shake. She noticed then that her feet were bare and bleeding. She noticed then that her legs were all charred up.

“W-what happened to me?” She cried sluggishly for her lips refused to obey her, “W-what’s h-happening to me?”

The cat, of course, did not respond, did not behave in any manner to show that it understood Alice at all. Alice screamed in frustration and the cat flitted away, quick as it came, leaving her all alone on a path she could not recognize.

For some time, Alice could not move. Without anywhere to go, she couldn’t help but feel every wound marking her body. She’d definitely broken a bone or two in her arm. Her ribs ached. She might’ve sprained her ankle because it was swelling up to double its size. Then the cuts. She couldn’t even begin to describe the anguish crisscrossing over her skin. Glass was embedded in some places. If she bent her right elbow, glass slid further into muscle.

“I need to see my dad,” she sobbed to nobody, to the sky.

The sky did not listen. It was too busy combatting thick tendrils of smoke. Meanwhile, below, greyish white mushrooms bloomed between the grass and formed a path.

When the cat returned to chew on the soft flesh of the fungi, Alice quickly stood up.

“Go away,” Alice tried to shoo the feline away, but it remained unaffected. It watched Alice, supposedly challenging her, as it nibbled on yet another mushroom, disrupting the faint fungi path.

Alice lurched forward, desperate to know where it was leading. The cat immediately disappeared.

She walked silently for hours. The sun slid down the sky and then hovered precariously over the horizon as Alice reached the edge of a driveway.

She knew this place. In her heart, she knew it.

Except the windows were in the wrong places. And the rooms inside were mostly barren, which is not how she remembered it. Even the front door was painted a shade off from Alice’s memory. It was now a strange orangey red, instead of the deep, dark garnet her mother had adamantly chosen for the family.

Alice traced her hands through the small garden by the porch. Once they used to be roses and tulips. The freesias in their place seemed strange and off-putting, although the scent was delicious.

The door opened easily. Alice stepped inside without a sound and shut the door. She looked down to see that she was wearing shoes, old sneakers like the ones that she wore in high school. Except, the size and style were just slightly off. Her clothes, too, were different. Her skin flawless. She raised her arm, unsurprised to find it entirely healed.

“Mom! Dad!” She called into the hallways. Her voice was higher than normal, the intonation off.

Nobody replied. A light switched on in the kitchen.

Alice walked towards it. The lesson is… she thought to herself as she stepped through the threshold…

“Alice!” Her parents cried, standing up.

On the table, there was pot roast and mashed potatoes. On the table, there was Alice, tied down to an extraordinarily large plate.

Alice stared at herself, stunned to silence. Her parents grabbed her arms and led her to a chair. She was seated beside her own kicking calf. She could see that the burns on her leg had worsened because of the rope tearing through them.

“Is this normal?” She asked, even though she knew it was not. Alice turned to look at her parents and pointed at her thrashing leg, “Is this the lesson?”

Alice’s dad smiled nervously; her mom looked outraged at the accusation.

“No, honey, this is just dinner!” Mom clapped her hands together.

Alice blinked. The chandelier above glittered too brightly.

“I’m not really hungry,” Alice bided for time.

“Don’t be ridiculous, you haven’t eaten for days,” Mom chastised. She tilted her head towards the shiny knife and fork, “Eat. We want you healthy.”

Alice stared at her bound leg. She wondered, hysterically, whether she’d feel it when the blade sunk in. She didn’t feel the pain right now. Maybe this other her was a completely different her. It wasn’t her at all.

“Who is she?” Alice wondered out loud. Her parents ignored her. Dad grabbed the plate of mashed potatoes and started chowing it down.

Alice tried to reach for the pot roast, but Mom slapped her hand away.

I don’t want to, the complaint rose to her lips but Alice swallowed it down. Something about the room felt too familiar, too warm.

“Alice,” Mom warned, all niceties gone from her voice. Every hair on Alice’s body rose.

Alice quickly picked up the knife and fork. She dug in.

It was getting through bone which ended up being the trickiest part. By the time Alice reached the other side, bound up Alice was unconscious. Which was a good thing because at one point Alice couldn’t hear anything past her screaming.

“What’s the lesson?” Alice asked out loud as she speared a chunk of meat. She couldn’t hear herself properly. Bound up Alice must’ve destroyed her eardrums. It wasn’t that bad, really. The cutting and plating. If she didn’t think too much, Alice could pretend it was seal or something. Not that she’d ever eaten seal, but it was easier knowing it wasn’t human.

The hairs got to her, though. The hairs tickled her lips as she tried to take that first bite. She should’ve shaved.

“I was a good daughter, wasn’t I?” Alice asked through burning eyes.

Her parents didn’t try to acknowledge her. They merely chewed on their food.

“I had potential,” Alice continued, unable to put the meat past her lips, “I cleaned. I paid the bills. I was strong.”

This wasn’t what she wanted to tell her dad. She couldn’t remember what she wanted to tell him. He crumpled over his plate, covering his face so that Alice couldn’t recall what he looked like.

“I promised you I would come back, didn’t I?” Alice’s lips trembled. She dropped the fork so that it clattered against the bloody plate, “I promised I would come back, and I did. I’m here.”

“I called you first,” she cried when nobody said a word.

“I wasn’t running away, you know,” Alice continued to the unhearing room, “I wasn’t leaving you behind. This wasn’t about you.”

The lesson was…

The lesson was…

From bound Alice’s fingers, old mushrooms grew atop rotting ones. Alice wondered how long she’d been lying there on the table. Why her parents wouldn’t just eat the poor girl up.

Resentment grew steadfast and uncontrollable. She stormed to her mom and pulled her out of the chair. Only then did she notice that her mother was missing fingers. And a heart. Her anger immediately transformed to horror.

“Where are you? What happened to you?” Alice sobbed, shaking the poor, fragmented woman.

Mom collapsed to the ground. Alice didn’t bother to check whether she was okay; her eyes were on her dad who was missing his eyes. He chewed on the mashed potatoes with toothless gums. She glanced over to bound Alice. She saw the stitch marks. She saw it all over her.

She looked down at her own body. It didn’t fit right. It didn’t fit. Things were changing too fast.

The lesson was…

“N-no,” Alice stumbled back, breathless. She clutched her chest where the heartbeat at a slightly different pace, “No, I promised I’d come back to you. I’m home now. I’m home.”

“I know how to come back home,” she yelled to no one in particular for her parents were dust and the room was growing mushrooms, “I’m here. I’m the same.”

Bound Alice tore open one eye and nothing was the same.