Dream Girl Evil

Photo by Siobhan Flannery on Unsplash
Sondra Kaufmann – a name so rare it was destined for immortality, one way or another, bound for stardom.

We first crossed paths in middle school, when she had yet to reach her full potential and become the person she was now remembered as. Her auburn curls used to drape over her shoulders, and her crimson lips used to be plump and temptingly kissable.

I liked her. She was an outcast, a miserable spirit just like me. And, being a hot-blooded teenager, I was naturally drawn to her pretty face and sharp mind. She was my dream girl, only darker, more dangerous. My dream girl, evil.

Nothing happened between us, though. I don’t think Sondra was, you know, interested in other people in the same way we normal humans were. She kept a low profile until graduation and remained a mystery – not just in my teenage mind, but in the minds of every other boy in our year.

Everyone was in love; Sondra wasn’t. I don’t think she was capable of feeling those kinds of emotions.

Funny to think about it now, but on the day of our graduation, I actually planned to confess to her. A stupid idea, I know, but it didn’t seem so bad at the time. As I said, she was pretty – petite and classy – and I was into her edginess. I mean, I was a six-foot-tall metalhead. I blame the hormones.

Anyway, the point is, I never confessed, and Sondra, being the eccentric girl she was, didn’t even show up to her own graduation. And like that, ladies and gentlemen, that love story ended right then and there – as it should.

I studied mechanical engineering later in life and sold my baby, my Gibson Les Paul, to focus on my studies. That hurt like hell, honestly. I mourned its loss for weeks.

My girlfriend at the time, Lily, thought I was being overly dramatic for no good reason. But I’m telling you that guitar had been with me forever. It was like a child to me.

I broke things off with Lily after two years of dating, for unrelated reasons, of course, but honestly, I don’t think I ever really forgave her for saying those things back then.

Don’t get me wrong. Lily was a good girl – too good for me – but she could be a little… How do I put it? Borderline obsessive? It wasn’t that she wanted to be in my life; she wanted to be my life. Well, you get the gist of it…

Fast forward to my first real job – a paid internship at one of the largest corporations in the country. I didn’t earn much, but I got by pretty well compared to a lot of my classmates, most of whom were still unemployed.

I ran into Sondra again, purely by chance, at the tube. I never thought I’d see her again, but there she was, standing right in front of me. She looked exactly the same as the last time I saw her.

To say I felt nothing would’ve been a lie. She was beautiful, disturbingly unreal, and I was attracted to her all over again!

Just like a scene from a romantic film, it felt as though we were the only two people in the world, completely lost in the moment. I was the first to speak. I said her name without even realising why. She smiled, and I knew she remembered me.

We spent the night at a nearby motel. The walls echoed with our passionate whispers, creating a memory that would linger in our minds for a very long time. But as dawn broke, we parted ways, and the morning air erased every trace of our intimate encounter.

Two days later, a notification appeared on my phone. It was a friend request from her on Facebook. Do people still use that platform these days? Well, I suppose that’s beside the point.

We started dating.

Sondra moved in with me after just three weeks, and everything seemed perfect. We even adopted a Golden Retriever from a shelter and named her Golden – pun intended.

I had never felt such overwhelming happiness before. I wanted to show her how special she was to me, shower her with passionate love, and make plans for our future together.

That was… until I discovered her secret. Or should I say, ‘secrets’?

Sondra, though an intelligent woman by nature, had dropped out of university shortly after enrolling in medical school. When her patriarchal, narrow-minded parents found out, they cut off her monthly allowance and, in her words, ‘disowned’ her.

I couldn’t understand how any parents could just cut ties with their child like that, but I believed her – I wanted to believe her. But this wasn’t even remotely close to what actually ended our relationship.

Things took a turn for the worse on the evening of my birthday. We had just had sex when she received a message on her phone and abruptly jumped out of bed. That was the first time she had ever done that.

Though I had no reason to suspect she was cheating on me, this incident kept me on edge for a long time. So, when I got the chance to check her phone, I took it and risked everything.

I knew her password – she didn’t bother hiding it from me – but what I found was beyond disturbing: grainy images, taken from what seemed to be some kind of photo album. The images showed people in disturbing positions, some naked, some intoxicated, and others seemingly stiff, like corpses.

All her messages, sent and received, were deleted, and she didn’t have a single phone number saved in her contacts – not even mine.

The nature of the images, especially those I believed depicted real human cadavers, made my blood run cold. Why did she have those images, and who the hell was sending them to her?

What disturbed me most, however, was that all the victims were people of colour.

I confronted her the same night. Although I wasn’t sure how to approach it, since I couldn’t predict her behaviour, not after seeing those pictures, I hesitated for a solid two hours.

Her response – I can still hear it clearly in my fading mind – chilled me to the bone. She said it with such calmness too, in such a nonchalant and detached manner, that I struggled to process whether she was aware of the morbidity of her own words. But, boy, she sure was!

“My slaves,” she said. “They are our slaves, don’t you get it?”

Dumbfounded, I stood there, and it took me a moment to recover before she repeated herself. I couldn’t believe it. She was dead serious.

“W-What?”

“You don’t understand! We’re superior, Elijah! We come from a noble and pure race! We have to preserve it!”

Disgusted by those words I’d never expected to hear from someone this special to me, I instinctively stepped away.

“Are you… are you okay?”

Her features softened as she noticed the confusion in my voice, inched closer and let her finger run down my cheek. Even now, as she said those disturbing things, even as I saw those messed-up images, I couldn’t help but feel attracted to her.

“That’s why I chose you, Elijah…” I let her kiss me, even for a brief second, relishing in her wet kiss before I pushed her away. “Together, we’ll retain our race and make it pure again—”

You’re not well.” I paused, glancing away to gather my thoughts, muttering more to myself than to Sondra. “This… this is madness. You weren’t like this before. Just—what happened to you?”

“I opened my eyes to the truth, Elijah! Don’t you see? Those people don’t work, don’t pay taxes, don’t do anything! They’re rats! Filthy rats living off people like us.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

“Rats? They’re people, Sondra, just like you and me. Humans! Humans who deserve to live an honourable life just like anybody else!”

“You call those people our equals? Muslims, Indians, Asians – they’re not like us. They never will be!”

“You’ve lost your goddamn mind, Sondra!”

“Open your eyes and see the truth for what it is! There are mosques everywhere! Mosques, for crying out loud! And those stinking kebab shops on every corner, and-and—"

“What's your problem with people praying, working hard, and trying to make a living in a world where people like us have an advantage? You can’t just label the entire population as bad and others as good. That’s not how this works. There are good and bad people, not good and bad groups or races of people.”

“You call stealing our jobs, taking over neighbourhoods, breeding violence, and polluting our race people working hard? Babe, our vets are homeless and barely scraping by after serving this country, while those-those rats are taking our hard-earned money!”

“Polluting?” I couldn't help but crack up. “You sound like a 60-year-old bigot—or some 20-year-old online incel. What the actual fuck, Sondra? Since when did you start hanging around with people whose only experience of people of colour comes from the news?”

“You don’t get it, do you?”

“No, I fucking don’t! And I think you’re ill. This isn’t you, Sondra. We went to school in the ghetto together! In the bloody ghetto! You know those things you're saying aren't true! We both know.”

“That doesn’t change the fact that those people are threatening our existence!”

“Fine! Let’s pretend you’re right. Even if your twisted theory holds up, what do you actually lose if our ‘race’ becomes a minority? Think about it. Weren’t you going to be a doctor? Explain to me how this makes any sense to you.”

“I’m telling you, our race will disappear—”

“That bloody race talk again? Fuck! Okay. I'll let you believe in that bullshit this one time, but by the time you and I cease to exist, we'll both be long gone, don’t you think? Who knows? Maybe a better race will come out of mixing races? Isn't that what survival of the fittest is all about? The greater the complexity of our genetic makeup, the higher our intelligence and capacity to adapt will be. If we all get stuck trying to preserve an ancient noble race there’s no fucking evidence of, humanity itself will cease to exist!”

“I can't believe I actually considered marrying you! You’re a lost cause, Elijah! And you’re no better than those bloody rats living off of us!”

“And I can’t believe someone so intelligent turned out like this! It’s a pity. Really. I… I really liked you. I wanted this to work and… never mind. It doesn’t even matter now, does it?”

“No, it does, babe! I’ll give you one more chance to do the right thing.” She paused upon seeing the smirk on my face. “Don’t give me that face, babe, ‘cause I’m not fucking smiling right now.”

“One more chance? One more chance for what? You expect us to work out after coming out as a racist?”

“Is this your answer? Elijah, babe, look at me.”

She cradled my face in her hands, those deep-set eyes boring into mine. Her face card was strong – impossibly strong – and her kissable lips hovered just inches from mine.

“Is this really what you want?”

“It’s not about what I want,” I said, stepping back again, fighting to stay grounded, to resist the spell of her voice, her touch, her everything. “I can’t be with someone who sees people this way. I’m sorry. I really am.”

Her expression hardened. Cold. Unreadable. Something in her changed. Those seductive eyes of hers, warm and teasing, went dead. Hollow. Predatory. Then she said it. The line that twisted something inside me:

“I didn’t want to do this. Not to you, Elijah. But you leave me no other choice.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” My throat tightened. “Sondra? What the fuck is that supposed—”

Her eyes flicked past me. Quick. Too quick. Like she’d spotted something in the shadows. And then… she smiled. Not a grin. Not a smirk. A smile that made my skin crawl.

I whipped around.

Click.

A camera shutter. And just like that, with a single click, I was gone. Just another soul in that cursed roll of film.

My final memory? A saw. A clean cut. My head leaving my body.

Then – darkness.

Just... darkness. And nothing else.

No God.

No angels.

No demons.

Just the endless click of the shutter. Out of reach, just beyond the veil. There and not there. Real one second, smoke and mirrors the next.

The footage never stopped.

The saw never dulled.

My severed head never stopped rolling – thumping across the floorboards, trailing crimson like a signature.

And I watched her. I watched her keep going. Collecting more. Luring them in. Always the same setup. Same smile. Same bed. And those lips—

Still kissable.

Still killing.

Skin Deep

Photo by Camila Quintero Franco on Unsplash

Rule number one: never act on your feelings. Rule number two: always follow rule number one. Rule number three: breaking either rule means defeat.

During my nursing studies, I interned at the largest hospital in town, and two things happened: the student who was supposed to be supervised together with me dropped out of nursing school, and I was relocated from floor two to floor three in the infection ward after several nurses fell ill during a tuberculosis outbreak.

The dean of our faculty thus had to relocate everyone who was supposed to work on floor two; some were transferred to other wards but three of us were just sent a floor up. While the two nurses-in-training – my future colleagues – were supervised by the same mentor, I was, given the urgency of the situation, put in the care of one of the senior nurses who was supposed to retire the same year the epidemic broke out.

Needless to say, the old woman despised me and everything I represented. She was callous and bitter, and she took every opportunity she could to humiliate me in front of as many people as possible for the tiniest mistakes I made.

It was during this time of my life that I almost broke rule number one. It was pure coincidence that I was relocated one floor up and met the person I wasn’t supposed to meet. Like running into an old friend after many years, I knew I had to keep my distance to follow the rules I set for myself.

But the attraction between us was visible even from miles away, despite how distant and cold we appeared outwardly, and my supervisor wasn’t about to ignore it. The more she humiliated me, the closer the link between us became, like a deflated balloon that stretched endlessly and was difficult to rip with your bare hands.

I remember when she asked me to choose two or three patients to take care of for the day, and I picked one regular patient and one who wasn’t an ‘infection patient’ but was brought to our ward due to the epidemic. For her, this choice was yet another opportunity to mock me. As I was giving a brief of our regular patient’s well-being to the assistant doctor, he gave instructions on the kinds of medicine he was going to prescribe before I could give a brief of the other patient I chose.

When he was done and I had taken my notes, my supervisor stopped him and asked: “What about the other patient?” He looked at me, who was still clueless as to why he had skipped that particular patient in question and replied: “That’s not our patient. His own doctor will arrive later this evening.” I think he knew what my supervisor tried to do. And I think that was when it… when it became difficult to follow my rules.

The entire internship continued like this for a while and I was nearing the end of it. Despite strict regulations prohibiting it, my supervisor had already contacted my clinical supervisor at my nursing school and told her about how incompetent of a nurse I was. It was kind of comical when my clinical supervisor told me this, though. The patients, the other nurses and the orderlies all praised my knowledge and skills, yet there I was – a mere student whose words went against that of a senior nurse. I was bound to lose the battle.

Her demeaning behaviour affected me in ways no words could truly capture. When I learnt I failed my internship a week before my last day on the ward, I quit and dropped out of school. That woman broke me. She truly did. But it wasn’t just her – it was him too.

I hated the way I felt about him. We hardly spoke yet my walls seemed to have given in to him already. The day I quit, I went back home and decided to leave everything behind and survive this wicked world, no matter what. That was how my writing career started.

With the passing years, not only did I manage to close off my heart again, but also my mind to other people. Like a hermit living in the jagged mountains, I lived a life of enclosure and solitude. Living like this had its setbacks, of course.

There was increased pressure on my shoulders from all around, urging me to step into the spotlight and narrate my stories, my inspirations, and my aspirations in my own voice. I never accepted an award show invitation in my youth, never showed my face, and never took advantage of my position as a best-selling author, either.

That is, until I turned 54 and received an email from one of the leading magazines in the Western Hemisphere. I recognised the name of the sender, or rather, the surname I thought I had forgotten. How could I ever?

A photo of a young woman in her mid-twenties appeared in the search results as I typed her name. Goodwin. Lara Goodwin. An LGBTQ+ journalist who graduated from Harvard University with a law degree. Although the surname itself wasn’t uncommon, something in her face warmed my heart. Was it her emerald eyes, her rosy lips, or her straight, light brown hair? Or was it the shape of her face, the way her intelligent eyes seemed to seal all the secrets of the world or the way she talked?

Yet… deep down, I knew why.

Perhaps this insight, this resemblance, was what tore me apart as I noticed that she was raised by two men – her fathers. At that moment, when I realised the gravity of my belated discovery, a flood of memories washed over me.

How was this possible? As I sifted through distant memories, trying to make sense of my past and my present, all I could remember was a man in love with a woman. I knew this was the case even if I lacked the words to describe it. So how…? Had I been deceived, could my memories have been betraying me all this time—no, that couldn’t be the case!

But if that were truly the case, then how could I explain this newfound insight about the man I thought loved me? The answer came to me two years later one wintry evening when I least expected it.

The man who had almost broken me had transitioned. But it wasn’t just his body that changed – his face did too. It was like looking at a distorted mirror of my past self – of my youth – at a time when I was the most beautiful.

Then it dawned on me.

I wasn’t the one she was in love with. She was in love with my face, this feminine visage that was everything she ever wanted to see on her former face.

This happened during the 80s, mind you, when transitioning wasn’t as readily accepted at that age and time. I couldn’t help but wonder: had I given in to my feelings back then, would she have ripped my skin and put it on her own? Perhaps I knew this was the case, this was why I kept my distance all along. After all, I was so in love, so madly in love, that I’d offer not only my hollow heart but also my face to her.

The Cull - Still the Wheel Turns (Epilogue)

Photo by Nika lukava on Unsplash

I was discharged from the psychiatry ward three weeks after the police found us. In order to reintegrate into society, we promised to keep our silence about the pilot project and the fate that befell a great many.

They had no idea we caught it all on camera. I saved all the records on a USB drive, just in case history repeated itself – as it always does.

Three years later, I found myself standing in front of a classroom as a teacher. Things went back to normal. But not for long.

I thought it was all over. The project, the experiments, and my own part in all this. I was wrong. Deadly wrong.

“Is your anne taking a nap too? Just like mine?”

Ali’s voice broke the silence as I crouched in front of my mother’s grave. He stood behind me, watching as I tenderly ran my fingers through the parched soil, imagining it was her soft skin.

This was my first time visiting the place where she was put to rest. There was a time when I thought I didn’t deserve to see her. I thought she’d hate to see her murderer pay a visit. But Ali encouraged me to break this train of thought.

I glimpsed behind me and smiled. The cool breeze brushed against my face.

“I hope she is. Are you cold?”

Ali shook his head, carefully, and then mustered up the courage to ask me something that took me by surprise.

I stood there, at a loss for words, unable to find the right way to express myself. I could tell he knew I was having a hard time.

I wondered just how long he had been lost in this thought, contemplating this very question, and what had prevented him from voicing it sooner.

“What… happened to her?”

“It’s… it’s a long story. I don’t know where to begin…”

He squeezed my shoulder.

“It’s okay, Elin. You can tell me some other time.”

Standing up, a lopsided smile slowly appeared on my face. I wrapped my arm around him and kissed his head.

Don’t get me wrong, though. I didn’t take Ali under my wing. Instead of pursuing motherhood, I chose to be a solid pillar of support for both Ali and his brother. I wasn’t cut out for that kind of stuff, anyway.

A young couple reached out with open arms to embrace him and his baby sister. I was grateful towards them. Despite me being a stranger, they entrusted their son to my care.

I had the chance to visit them a few times too and see what kind of life Ali led.

The way they looked at the unfortunate siblings told me that he wasn’t just someone they adopted. He had become their flesh and bone. It was the same for Ali.

“Wanna grab a bite before we catch the train?” I asked to change the topic.

“No, I’m good.”

“I’ve got cash, you know,” I said, my voice trailing off as he shook his head. “How about some ice cream, then? You like ice cream.”

He shook his head again, his hair tousling with each movement. Every time I asked if we should eat something, he would do that.

Not that I was short on cash, but my earnings were just enough to make ends meet, and this little fellow seemed to know all about this. Since when did he grow up this much?

As the clock ticked closer to afternoon, we rushed to catch the train before it departed. It would take us a solid two hours to arrive at the capital, and then an additional half-hour bus ride to reach Ali’s two-storey house.

The train was packed with people, leaving little room to manoeuvre. It was a stroke of luck that we came across two empty seats, perfectly positioned to face each other in the aisle.

I plonked down next to an older man in his fifties, while Ali took a seat next to a girl of similar age. The man’s worn leather jacket emitted a faint scent of tobacco.

Since we had a long ride ahead, I plugged in my earphones and let the heavy metal music drown out the noise of the train, lulling me into a peaceful sleep.

I jolted awake roughly forty-five minutes later when the man lightly tapped me to get off the train. I moved to the window seat, taking in the breathtaking view outside, and then waved Ali over.

But he was engrossed in a conversation with the girl, so I drifted back to sleep. Once again, however, something stirred me awake. A loud, jarring noise shattered the silence.

Someone dropped a leather bag on the seat next to me. I looked around me, hoping to catch someone else’s attention, but everyone seemed too absorbed in their own affairs to pay me any mind.

There was no sign of the owner anywhere. I moved past the bag and scanned the aisle, catching snippets of hushed conversations that floated through the air.

Regardless of which direction I looked, there was no one searching for the bag. I eased back into my seat, my gaze locked on the mysterious leather bag, my thoughts racing with a thousand unanswered questions.

After waiting for nearly thirty minutes, I unzipped the bag to look for the owner’s contact information.

The weight of the bag was the first thing that immediately grabbed my attention. It was surprisingly heavy.

While trying to figure out what could be inside, something else caught me by surprise. The pungent smell.

I jumped back and moved away from the bag. There were several black trash bags inside.

Seeing my distorted expression, Ali asked if everything was all right. When his eyes landed on the leather bag, I zipped it up and excused myself.

I secured the WC door and unzipped the bag again. My hand rose to cover my nose from the pungent odour that hit me. The foul odour was one I knew all too well. So why couldn’t I bring myself to open the trash bags and check if I was right?

A chilling sensation ran through my veins, causing my blood to curdle. I drew a deep breath, my heart racing as I cautiously opened one of the trash bags, only to be overcome by a grotesque scene.

I moved away, my eyes shifting rapidly, consumed by a sense of terror. Every inch of my body shook and my mind became flooded with despairing thoughts.

Inside the black bag was a decapitated, boiled head. Its features were distorted and unrecognisable, but something told me I knew who it was.

With my thoughts scattered all over the place, I mustered the courage to reach inside the bag and place the boiled head in the sink.

 Rummaging through the black plastic bag, I found a blood-stained letter hidden inside it. My name was written on it.

The bag hadn’t been dropped by accident.

I read the letter, absorbing every word as I went through it. My hands were shaking like there was no tomorrow.

Images of the double-decker bus, the three men, and the carnage flooded my mind. The air felt heavy and thick, making it hard for me to take a full breath as my throat tightened.

My chest rose and fell with each laboured breath. My face lost colour as the tears I thought were long gone threatened to spill.

To Elin,

State Library, 1999. The Cryonics Lab.

Let’s finish what we started.

Sincerely, Mark.

The Cull - The Dawn of the Damned

Photo by aboodi vesakaran on Unsplash

As my eyes cleared, I noticed I was back in the cave. How did I manage to come back here? My last memory was a jumbled mess, like a puzzle with missing pieces. I couldn’t remember anything.

To make matters worse, my head throbbed with excruciating pain. How long had I gone without water? I shook my head vigorously, trying to clear the fog that clouded my thoughts.

Then I heard a chorus of voices breaking the silence and I sat upright. The others were huddled in one corner, their voices rising in a heated debate that filled the cave with tension.

Noor was among them. I heaved a sigh of relief as soon as I spotted her. She had made it. A weight lifted off my shoulder.

As I groaned and stumbled to my feet, I approached the others, panic rising in my chest the second I noticed the infant was missing.

The words escaped from my parched lips, slipping away like fleeting whispers in the wind, before I could hinder them. The survivors fell into silence, their eyes wide with fear, as they turned to face me.

But I was too preoccupied by what had happened to the infant to notice this at first. The old woman was the first to brush past me and return to her little corner, followed by Niclas, so that only me, Noor and her dad were the only ones standing up.

“Where is it?” I asked, frantic. “The baby.”

“Don’t worry. Yudes is taking care of it.” Noor said, pointing to the corner.

My frantic gaze scanned the cave until it settled on the old woman, clutching something concealed under a blood-stained fabric. Ali sat right beside her and was sound asleep.

“I found some milk powder while I was looking for you. It’ll keep it alive for now I guess. But it needs breastmilk and a warm place to stay.”

“I know,” I said, my voice trailing off as the pain in my head reached another height. “I know. I-I’ll figure something out.”

“Elin,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. I shifted my focus from my feet to her eyes laced with concern as she continued. “Don’t you have something to tell us?”

“What do you mean?”

She paused for a brief moment before posing another question. I could tell by the way her eyes kept flickering that she was nervous.

“I saw you. You were talking to one of them. I followed you back to the vehicle when you split up. Then you passed out.

“You followed me?”

“Why did he let you go? Elin? Elin, please…”

I scratched the back of my head. Were they literally thinking I was cooperating with those bastards or something? Then again, it did seem like that from the outside, didn’t it?

“Listen, there’s a misunderstanding—”

“You confess you talk them?”

“Not quite like that, Omar. I just… He talked to me. It’s not what you’re thinking. There’s something I can’t tell you, some kind of connection between me and this-this messed-up project, okay?

“But that’s not what matters right now. He told me there was a rat among us, okay? We need to find out who it is and—”

“How can we trust you?” Noor said, adding. “And what’s the connection between you and this project? Elin? You gotta tell us!”

“I-I can’t, all right? You’ll just have to trust me on this one! If we don’t act now—”

“Let’s pretend you’re right. Okay? Let’s just do that for a sec. But why would that murderer tell you something like this, then? Knowing he’ll put one of his own in danger.”

“He…or the person who’s responsible for putting us through this hell knows me. That’s what he said, okay? He was instructed to keep me safe. I- I don’t know why. Don’t look at me like that, Noor! I wouldn’t risk my life if I were one of them, would I?”

“How he know you?” Omar said.

“I’m-I’m not sure. I have an idea but that’s not what’s important right now. We need to find out which one of us is lying.”

“What about the bag?” Noor asked. “Did you find it?”

“I did, sort of. There were no weapons in it though, just gasoline to dispose of the bodies.”

“Dispose of the bodies? Why? Or rather, why now?” Noor said, adding. “You said some of the cadavers were at least a few weeks old. They didn’t dispose of them before, so why now?”

 “I think something didn’t go according to their plan.” I took a deliberate pause, making sure to look at them both in order. “I think the police are on their way.”

“A-are you sure? Elin? Are you—”

“I think so. I’m not sure but… it sounded like that to me. Just don’t say anything to the others for now.”

“Why no?” Omar said.

“We don’t know who the rat is. If that person finds out about the police, they might do something reckless.”

“So what do we do now, just wait or what? What if you’re wrong and the police never come?”

“I’ll go look for something we can use to defend ourselves with – just in case. I think they’re hiding weapons somewhere in the forest. I’ll see if I can find something to eat, too. If we’re lucky—”

“I’ll come with you.”

“No, stay here. Keep these people safe. We don’t know who the rat is yet, Noor. You’re the only person I can trust. Please…”

She nodded, albeit reluctant. “Then stay safe. No matter what. Do you hear me? Don’t do anything stupid and risk your life! We need you here.”

I didn’t reply. I wasn’t going to keep a promise I couldn’t keep. I was already dead on the inside. I was more comfortable with the idea of putting my life at risk than with the alternative.

When I returned to the double-decker bus, I noticed that everything inside the baggage compartment had been emptied this time.

Someone had gone to great lengths to ensure that we would be defenceless, leaving nothing for us to find.

As I nibbled on my dry lips, contemplating my next move, I turned around and gazed up at the looming bus.

It was rocking. Before I could react and make a break for it, the lawyer guy stepped out. The gun he held was steady, its barrel aimed directly at me. How did he know I would come here?

Conrad followed closely behind him, a sinister grin stretched across his face like the wicked thing he was. A living human animal, the first of its kind.

“I think we should start by gouging her eyes out and then shoot her. What’d you think Henrik?”

Conrad approached with outstretched hands. His eyes were wild with delirium. I clutched to the bus, feeling the rough texture of the metal against my fingers as I backed away.

The other guy seized his arm just inches from getting to me. “We don’t have time for that, you dickhead.”

“Come on, dude! You’re seriously gonna let her off that easily? Seriously, after everything we did, after all the fun we had, you’re just gonna shoot her?”

“All right. I’ll give you thirty seconds. But if you fail, we’ll do it my way. You got it?”

So, this was the fate that awaited me? A smirk spread across my face as I envisioned the macabre scene of my eyeless, hollow sockets and rigid corpse consumed by the roaring flames of the bonfire along with the rest of the passengers.

What a glorious end it would be to become a macabre toy in the hands of those, who deserved death more than any other species.

At that very moment, just as Conrad forced my eyes wide open, a surge of greed washed over me. I wanted to know why we were brought to this place and why we were subjected to such merciless treatment.

“Why are you doing this to us?”

Conrad broke off. His grin faded, perhaps annoyed, as if I had interrupted his playtime – his only means of entertainment.

But Henrik didn’t seem bothered by my question; instead, a faint smile appeared on his face as if he found my question entertaining.

“‘Cause you’re part of a project granted by the government. But we already told you that…”

“What government would kill its own people?”

“We don’t go after regular folks who pay their taxes. We’re after people like you who are just a burden to everyone else – people like you who are wasting our resources.”

Burden? It took me a while, but I eventually understood the intention behind his words. It was evident that most of the passengers were devoid of any life goals, their futures uncertain and undefined.

They were forever shunned by the society they lived in, their differences bringing upon condemnation. He was right, we were burdens, a constant source of frustration and resentment to the rest of society.

But we didn’t choose this path for ourselves – this world, this inhospitable planet filled with avarice, starvation, and malevolence caused our demise.

I couldn’t suppress the smirk that crept onto my lips upon hearing this.

“How do you plan on using those resources, then?” I already knew the answer. I was the one who came up with the project.

“It’s gonna be a whole new world after this and you people are the key to this big change.”

“Big change, huh? Sure, if that’s what you want to call this massacre.”

Henrik stepped closer. A wide grin stretched across his face, revealing the excitement brewing in his disturbed mind.

I knew what he was going to say even before he said it. Still, it took me a few seconds to process everything and come to terms with the reality I was now confronting.

 “Do you believe in cryonics, miss?”

A chilling sensation ran through my veins. This word was not unfamiliar to me. Of course, it was not. This place, the double-decker bus, the mayhem, the damn project…

They were all part of the research paper I wrote when I still had my whole life ahead of me. This carnage was my creation. But I never finished it.

Blood splashed onto my clothes, leaving behind a vivid crimson stain. Gasping, I looked up. The dirk knife stuck out right between the lawyer’s forehead, who, still conscious, lost his grip on the gun.

As he turned around to see his murderer, he collapsed sideways, his limbs splayed out in an awkward position. Despite being frozen in one spot, I saw my chance and acted swiftly, leaping forwards to pick up the dagger and plunging it right into the back of Conrad’s skull as he looked in the direction of the ominous forest.

When he fell to his death, I locked eyes with the one who threw the dagger and saved my wretched existence. He really went all out to make sure I stayed alive, huh?

Taking my chance, I snatched the gun and made a break for it, swearing under my breath as I wiped off the blood on my face with the back of my arm.

As I made it back to the cave, panting still and out of it, Noor and the others were yet again huddled together in one corner. I was about to break the news that two of the guys had been killed when Noor cut me off.

I could see a glint of doubt and suspicion in her gazelle eyes. Her voice carried a bitter tone as she accused me.

“You’re the one! You’re really—”

“What…? What’re you going on about? Look, I-I got this gun from one of the—”

“I saw you, Elin!”

“Saw what?”

“He helped you! That-that guy, he helped you!”

“Look, I already told you that there’s a connection between this programme and me! I can’t tell you what it is, okay? Just know that—I’m not what you think I am…”

I stopped mid-sentence as she made a face at me. I frowned, not sure what she was trying to do at first, but then it all dawned on me.

I glanced at Omar without really knowing why and he returned my gaze with a confirming nod. What was going on? It didn’t take me long to figure it out, though.

I scanned the hideout until my eyes landed on the old woman, who now stood upright and was ready to apprehend me. Now that I took a second to study her, she wasn’t as old as I thought she was all along.

Sure, she was at least in her mid-seventies, but not more than that. Wait… It was her? But how did Noor and her dad figure it out? In any case, this was for the better. The sooner we got rid of the mole, the better our chances of survival were.

I decided to play along.

“I’m really not lying. You gotta trust me.”

“You hide something in hand. I no lie. Allah big. Allah see me, how should I lie?”

Oh, that was it. They must’ve seen something under the quilt. A gun? Maybe a knife? But I couldn’t act recklessly. Both Ali and the infant were too close to her.

I took a deliberate step closer to Yudes without taking my eyes off Ali, whose desperate eyes told me he was the one who discovered the mole.

Without completely letting go of the dagger, I shifted my focus to the woman. Our eyes met. That was when Omar shouted something unintelligible but I could tell that he wanted me to take action.

I lunged forwards and felt the impact as the woman shoved me to the wall and tore my cheek open. A knife, it was…

As she went for Ali and the infant, I leapt forwards and shielded them both with my bare hands. The blade cut through my palms and fingers as I held her back just enough for Noor to carry the infant away.

Distracted momentarily by Niclas’s cries, Yudes pushed me against the wall. I shut my eyes, grimacing, as I waited for the fatal strike. Why was she so strong? But it never came.

When I regained back my senses, Omar was stooping over me, shouting at me, but I couldn’t hear what it was until a few seconds later. My mind was a hazy mess.

That’s when I realised what had happened. She took Ali. That darned piece of shit! I rose to my feet and stormed out of the cave and sprinted towards the vehicle down the slope.

I ran with all my might.

Although I was as unfeeling as a stone and as cold as ice, the thought of a little kid dying an unjust death was unbearable to me.

I promised his mum I would keep him safe, and I was determined to fulfil that promise. I had to.

I caught up with her. The distance between us grew shorter with each step until we reached the double-decker bus, where her accomplices were surrounded by a swarm of flies already and rotting. But she didn’t know that.

She came to a sudden halt and turned to face me, positioned on the opposite side of the bus, by the slope, and remained oblivious to the fact that her accomplishes had already met their demise.

She sneered at me, her upper lip curling upwards in a wolfish grin.

“Oh, we’re so gonna wipe you all out! You can bet on that, you little shit! None of you will make it out of here alive, do you hear me!? Human animals like you don’t deserve to live!”

“Ali’s just a kid. The only animal here is you!”

“He’s a Muslim terrorist! He’s going to murder us all! I have to get rid of him!” In a disturbed combination of laughter and delirium, she shouted at the top of her lungs. “He’s going to chop off the heads of forty babies! Forty babies! Forty babies! Forty babies!”

I stared at the poor kid upon hearing this. He trembled. A sharp pang of pain surged through my chest. I looked away. Although he couldn’t decipher her words at such an age, I could tell that he could feel the waves of hatred reverberating from her voice.

The thought of living in a world where the oppressors had control over the oppressed sickened me. If that wasn’t the portrayal of a heartless creature, what else could it be? Spreading lies and twisting the truth with such indifference, with such arrogance!

Forty babies, huh? What a bunch of derailed fuckers. Even a child could come up with a more plausible lie.

“He’s just a kid, whether you see him as one or not. He wasn’t born to be a terrorist, he was born to die at the hands of those who oppressed him!”

She grinned, her wicked eyes growing wider and more sinister.

“You know why I took this job?”

“Because you regretted not murdering more Arabs in order to take over their country for good? The illegal settlement wasn’t enough?”

“It’s not theirs! It was given to us! Yahwe chose my people to rule this land so the Messiah can come! We’re above these human animals!”

“Ah, the Messiah thing, huh?” I said. “So convenient to use religion as a shield, right?”

“That’s what Yahwe wants! We’re the chosen people! We’re above law and reason!”

“Sure. Whatever you say. But that doesn’t mean you can just go around and kill people or distort the truth to get what you want. I’m sure your Messiah would agree with me.”

“You don’t know anything about my people!” she said. “You think I don’t know who you are!? You’re the one who started all of this!”

“I didn’t start anything. You pieces of shit did! Just like you always do by distorting the truth in your own fucking favour!”

“This project was all you, Elin!” With a maniacal expression on her face, she surveyed the surrounding bloodshed and laughed. “Look! You’re just as guilty! You have blood on your hands, too!”

I observed her until she stopped laughing her head off. She was right. I had blood on my hands. I should’ve seen this coming when I first sat down to write that paper. But I didn’t.

I never considered that something I discarded would come back to haunt me. Then again, looking back, there was no way I could have predicted this outcome.

Someone finished my paper. Was it the person who so desperately wanted me to stay alive? Maybe it was. I would probably never know. I was going to die here.

But first, I had to save Ali. He wasn’t a terrorist. He wasn’t a human shield. He wasn’t a human animal. He… he was a child. Just a child.

“They’re all dead,” I began, pausing to see her reaction. “And the police are on their way.”

“The government is on our side! The world is on our side! There’s nothing you human animals can do!”

“This place, what you’ve done to us… It’s all over social media as we speak.” It wasn’t entirely false. We captured every moment on film, but we did not have the opportunity to share it with the world yet. “Even with the heavens on your side, you can’t hide the truth. It’s over. Let the kid go.”

“You think I’d fall for that?”

“Call your accomplishes and see for yourself, then.”

She had Ali in a chokehold as she reached for her phone. As the ringing reverberated from the other side of the bus, she made her way around, never taking her eyes off me.

Seeing them there, lifeless and bathed in their own blood, her eyes grew wide. The confusion etched on her hardened face was easy to read. I could almost hear her thoughts: ‘How in the world did you pull this off?’

“This is your last chance. Let the kid go or rot in prison.”

The faint croak of sirens soon reverberated in the vicinity, announcing that help had come at last. I thought it wouldn’t come. As the noise grew louder, I briefly glanced behind me, trying not to show my surprise.

Yudes released her grip on the kid and made a break for it. However, my heart couldn’t find any reason to celebrate as Ali leapt into my secure arms. He clung to me, his grip so tight that I could feel his fingers digging into my skin as he wept uncontrollably.

Peering into the dense forest ahead, a shiver ran down my spine, fully aware of the lurking presence of the man in the white shirt there.

I smirked. Why was it that, whenever I made up my mind to end my life, fate found a way to keep me alive? What a joke…

The last thing I anticipated was the arrival of the police. I thought I could deceive the woman, put Ali in Noor’s care and then off myself with the gun the lawyer left behind.

Worst-case scenario, I was going to use the bullets on that piece of shit and save one for myself. But she ran away like the coward she was. Fucking human animal.

When the police brought us to safety, they searched high and low, but Amina was nowhere to be found. I scoured every corner, but it was as if she had vanished without a trace.

In the ambulance, when I asked Noor about Amina, she told me something that left me in disbelief. Amina was never there. She was a mere creation of my thoughts and existed solely in my mind – a mirror image of my former self.

I created her as an escape from reality. The death of my mother was too difficult for me to cope with, so I created her as a comfort to my unsound and deteriorating mind.

The Cull - A Mother’s Dua, A Daughter’s Sin

Photo by fitra zulfy on Unsplash

“How work today? Yemek yedin mi?”

I was helping my crippled mother when she asked me if I had eaten at work. I couldn’t help but feel a heightened sense of wariness towards her, which she must have noticed as I peeked at her with a half-hearted smile.

She had laid on her own stool for an entire day, singed and humiliated, yet she still worried about me.

Feeling a deep sense of shame, I lowered my gaze and instinctively reached out for my punctured arm.

“Just another day. Her zamanki gibi.”

I carefully placed her diaper into a black plastic bag, intending to dispose of it with the rest of the trash after dinner.

Although she clearly wanted to inquire further, she stayed silent as I helped her put on her underpants.

Her sombre eyes followed me wherever I went as if trying to uncover my thoughts. I wiped away a tear, its saltiness lingering on my fingertips, as I was about to go to the kitchen.

“You must be starving, anne.”

She grabbed my hand, refusing to release it until I mustered up the courage to meet her gaze.

Her hair, once brown, now mirrored the colour of the snow outside. The passage of time had etched lines and wrinkles onto her once-youthful face. Her lively spirit had lost its spark, leaving behind a sense of defeat and exhaustion.

She was a mere shadow of her former self, a hollow imitation of the woman I once called anne.

“Remember, Allah is bigger than your worries. Always. Unutma kızım.”

I hesitated, feeling a knot in my throat. I dropped my eyes to the floorboards, averting her piercing gaze. I wanted to agree with her, to reassure her I already knew. But the words stuck in my throat.

I gently pushed her hand away, feeling the slight tremor in her fingers, and shambled to the kitchen.

After preparing her favourite soup, mercimek çorbası, I added two 300 mg Gabapentin pills and stirred it in.

My GP prescribed it for my sleeping disorder but I seldom took it. I wanted to be alert at all times, even while in a deep sleep in order to take care of my bedridden mum.

I took a deep breath and arranged everything neatly on a tray before returning to the living room. The authorities turned off the heat a month ago, so the entire place felt chilly.

I placed the tray on the table, the clinking of glasses echoing through the room. Before settling on a three-legged stool, I covered my mum with another layer of quilt.

As I held the spoon to her bluish lips, I noticed a flicker of hesitation in her guarded expression.

She knew, I thought, so why did she take a sip of the soup? As I felt a pang of ache in the depths of my heart, my breathing became laboured and I couldn’t bring myself to meet her gaze.

The touch of her fingers against my cheeks carried a weight of acceptance as if she had resigned herself to the idea of her life coming to an end by my hands.

I didn’t have to say anything. She knew that neither of us would live to see the daylight tonight.

I brushed her hand aside and stood upright. At that moment, the weight of my actions hit me like a ton of bricks. I couldn’t bring myself to look at her.

I fixed my gaze on the only window in our living room, watching my reflection twist and contort with anguish.

What had become of the person I once was? The reflection in the mirror seemed foreign and unfamiliar. My pale complexion, sunken eyes, hollow cheekbones, and stoic expression painted a picture of exhaustion.

I felt like a walking corpse, devoid of any semblance of life and devoid of emotions. I mused over the idea of having been human at some point in my existence.

How ironic, wasn’t it? Once a promising student with a great future ahead of her…

When my mum finally slept, I could hear the soft rhythm of her slowing breath and was lost in my own thoughts. Minutes turned into hours as I stood there, gazing blankly through the window.

The shimmering moon beckoned me to hurry, the twinkling stars pleaded with me to stop.

I shut my eyes. Tears streamed down my face. I turned around and opened my eyes, wiping away the never-ending tears.

I retrieved the stolen syringes and carefully rolled up her sleeve. With every gentle push of the syringe, I marvelled at how peaceful her face appeared.

Then I waited. I gently caressed and kissed her delicate hands, feeling the warmth slowly dissipate until they turned cold. I witnessed her soul depart from her body, leaving only an empty vessel behind.

But I didn’t cry. I didn’t have the right to shed tears for her, not when I was the one who had robbed her of life.

Only three syringes remained. I rolled up my sleeve and inserted one cannula into my arm, followed shortly by the other two. Only then did the tears return.

My cries shattered the tranquillity, reverberating like the desperate cries of a troubled child. I sobbed until there was nothing left but a deep, exhausted sigh. As I emptied the last syringe, my vision blurred and darkness consumed me.

The door swung open, and a voice screaming my name was the last thing I remembered before losing consciousness. The familiar face made me recall something I had long forgotten.

It was my birthday.

This was where my memories ended, like a broken film reel. I bore the guilt of my mum’s untimely demise. I tried to take my own life but fate had other plans.

Like the snowflakes, she melted away, while I stayed, alive despite everything. That day, I should’ve met the same fate and faced the consequences of my sins. But I didn’t.

Day after day, the same question plagued my mind: why? Why did I live? Why me?

I opened my eyes…