Shiori Something

	Shiori left school as per normal. The wind blew through her monochrome hair, mixing the black and white into something similar to television static. Similar comments from her classmates reminded her of analog horror, which was nothing like the classics of Lovecraft, sure, but had its own charm. Shiori found it funny that most of those stories had something to do with anatomical horror. The blood and guts would have felt horrifying to most, but to her, it was simply a side product of being alive. At the end of the day, we’re all made up of those things, are we not? There was no point in fearing what was inside of you. She wondered how to be like other teenagers. Sure, Hot Topic was on the rise, and My Chemical Romance was picking up traction because of their last album, but that barely scratched the surface. There was a fundamental misunderstanding between them and herself. Was it the random splurges about whatever dominated her mind at the time? Maybe it was the alienation she felt when they talked about more normal topics. After all, when things like makeup or sports came up her mind would be dominated by the anatomy of insects and whatever critters she saw on her walk to her school, she was never able to truly hear what her classmates were saying.

	She walked alone on the path back home, which was evermore winding, but still completely regular to her. The way back home was winding, but every turn Shiori made she felt like a practised surgeon with a scalpel delicately going through a blood vessel, at least that’s what she thought surgeons did. Twisting through roads and tight alleyways, thoughts went through Shiori’s mind like freight trains. School was a drag, especially as physics was her longest and last lesson of the day. She just wanted to do biology for the entire day, dissecting and examining whatever came to mind under a microscope. She understood why she needed to do every other subject, since she needed to go to university to get to being an anatomist. At most, though, it was nothing but a necessary evil to her to finally be able to do whatever experiment she wanted on every creature she knew. As long as it was alright with the ethics board, of course. She knew that, even if there were things that she wanted to do in theory, there was an ethics board in place to make sure that everything had not reverted to the middle ages. She also had that pesky thing called a consciousness which also stopped her from performing less than savoury acts on whatever being that would have been forced to take the brunt of her cold, scientific wrath. Some days she wished that all of it would go away, whether it further alienated her from society or not. To her, all that mattered not if it meant she could experiment and test all she wanted. Maybe not on cats, though. Cats in her head were for petting and for knocking her stack of books off tables.

	A loud clang broke her train of thought. Looking down, she saw a metal pipe on the floor, along with a note stuck onto it. On the note someone wrote: To Miss Novella, we know of your particular talents, and would like to assist in letting them bloom. Please direct yourself to the address on the back of this note to know more. We will be waiting. This had to be it! In Shiori’s head, this was her Sherlock story, where she would investigate some form of mystery and end up triumphing over someone thanks to her superior intellect. It would be an adventure she could tell her parents, one that would finally convince them that she was strong and independent like everyone else! She turned the note around, and it was like fate. The address was conveniently on the way back home, and she knew exactly where it was! A small, derelict house that she passed by all the time, constantly wondering if she should explore it at some point. And this was the time! Everything was lined up perfectly, and there was no point resisting. With what felt like an infinite amount of confidence and motivation, she set off.

	Each step she took, it felt like she was being watched. People who passed her by looked at her with more frequency than usual. She swore that a man reading a newspaper was actually staring at her, their eyes met in her head. Another one wearing a long coat seemed to want to say something to her, but his mouth shut by the time she turned to look at him. One woman wore a distinctly large smile, Shiori instantly knew she would need to find a way to get information from her. All these people she noticed, they must be part of the mystery, right? Surely, their positioning, the way they all seemed to know who she was, what was going on. It all added up to being this gargantuan case, one that almost every adult she saw on the street knew about. It had to be that, right? All these people, all these signals. It was too obvious, even a child could figure this out. She had the how, the who, the where, but not the why and the what. When wasn’t important to her. What mattered was why and what people were so curious about her now more than ever. What had she done today, maybe? She stopped walking and simply stood in the middle of the sidewalk, mentally tracing each step of her day. She woke up, brushed her teeth, ate breakfast, which was toast with some jam, she set off for school, saw an interesting looking ant colony carrying a spider, sat through her classes, of which was biology, maths and physics, then here she was, along with the note. Was it maybe one of her classes? It couldn’t be. Her classmates had no way to make something this elaborate or this large in scale. One of the teachers? Same reasons applied. She settled on the idea that if she just reached the house, she would be able to find something that connected it all together.

	She had finally reached it. The old, tired house screamed mystery. It was begging for someone like her to step in and search through every creaking floorboard of the place. The wooden walls cried for someone to find whatever was behind them, and she was so sure that there would be a desk in a room that held a key to a secret door somewhere. If only she could find it.

	“Miss Novella, I presume?” The voice made her jump. Turning around, a bespectacled man faced her. He looked like he had just left work with his blazer and pants. “Sorry for startling you. I wrote the note, although I am sure you knew that.” Shiori scanned him for anything bulging out of his pockets. “Ah, I should clarify. I only have a knife in my pocket.” He pulled it out, brandishing its sharp edge and pristine quality. “Can’t be too safe in this city, right?” She simply nodded. “Anyways, I wanted to explore this house with you. I noticed that you always looked at it with me. I don’t think you ever noticed me standing next to you, though. You seemed entranced everytime.” She felt her heart start to beat faster, harder. It started to send signals to her brain to run as far as possible, that nothing this mastermind or this mystery would give could possibly be worth it. “So, shall we go in?” By the time he said that, it was too late for her. She walked in tandem with him.

	“So, Miss Novella.” Shiori braced for whatever he was going to say next. “Are you hungry?” She realised she did not eat lunch that day, and nodded quietly. “I’ll treat you after we comb this place.” His smile felt somewhat sinister, but she decided to focus more on the house to get over the nerves. She was right, each plank she stepped on creaked with an age that felt beyond time. At the same time, now that she was inside, she noticed that grass poked out of the planks, which meant that nothing could be under them. The walls now seemed to hold nothing, they were too thin for that, and every room in the house was empty. The man let out a large sigh. “I was really hoping there was something here, but I guess we were both chasing a dream.” The man’s voice brought her back to reality and out of the trance. She remembered that she was with a stranger. One that made her go into an abandoned house.

“Why did you go after me with all those people? If you knew about what I was doing, why use all those people to track my movements?” Shiori asked while starting to back away from the man

“What people? It’s only been me.”


“Don’t think I’m stupid.” She felt her patience thinning. “Those people while I was walking. The one with the newspaper, the man in the long coat, the woman. They’re all working with you, aren’t they?”

“If they were I wouldn’t be asking them to watch over you. I have been working on my own from the start.” Shiori clenched her fist unconsciously, but let it go. There was no point being frustrated at this person if he refused to tell the truth. She knew better anyway. “I guess this is the last room, let’s have a-” Shiori pushed him out of the way, standing in front of the door. All of a sudden that anxiety she felt flooded back as soon as she had her hand on the knob. Her breathing became heavy and her hands clammy. “I can go ahead. You really don’t need to force yourself.” This man wanted her to get out of the way, she knew it. He was hiding something. And she was not going to let that happen. She twisted the knob, and pushed the door just enough to see a crack of light come through the opening. She steeled her nerves, and put all her energy into a hefty swing of the door.

A person laid dead on the floor, middle of the room. They had to be dead at this point. Their eyes glassy, skin pale, body looked stiff. Why was this here? Who would do something like this? “Ah. I have a little secret for you, Miss Novella.” The man closed the door behind him, blocking it with his frame. “I know more about this house than I have been letting on.” He held his hands on the knob, leaning on the door. “Doesn’t she look beautiful? She died yesterday from a heart attack. I happened to find her, and wanted to do something interesting.” He took out his knife and threw it to Shiori, its clang reverberating in her ears.. “Cut off her hand.”

“I…I can’t. It’s too to-tough.” Shiori felt like she was on the verge of tears at this point. Who the hell was this psychopath?

“You can cut it off if you use enough strength. Perhaps simply cut off a bit of the flesh. You won’t leave until you do.” Shiori stared at the knife. With her body trembling, she picked it up. She slowly crawled to the body until she was right next to it. She could see each detail of it. Livor mortis had formed patches of discolouration on the torso. She poked it with the knife, it really was as stiff as people said it would be. She turned back to the man. His smile widened with anticipation. She made a small cut on the arm, squealed and kicked herself back on reflex. The cut barely made a dent, little droplets of blood seeped out like tree sap. She went back to it, making a deeper cut. It was messy with her hand shaking. Eventually, a small cut of flesh fell out of the arm. She turned to the man, his eyes wide open.

“Good good.” His voice calm as ever. “Eat it.” Shiori stared at the cut of flesh she made, its skin still on it. She wondered what sort of world would let a person like this exist, one so vile and perverse it went beyond her imagination. She stared at it further. The flesh seemed to pulse and vibrate with her heartbeat. Was it just her hands shaking? She had no clue. “We will both be stuck here if you hesitate.” The flesh in her blood started to seep blood, it felt like juice from a fruit. “If you need you can cut it into more palatable pieces.”

“I” She paused. “N-no. I can’t do it.” A step too far, she wanted to say. The words never left her mouth. Instead, it was tears. She started crying. Her lungs started hurting, the heaving of each breath started to weigh on her. She just wanted to go home, to some form of warmth. Instead of the coldness of this body, his eyes, the flesh she was holding in her hands. She thought of her mundane life before. She desired to sit in those boring classes, where her classmates would talk about nothing. She begged to learn about physics, or anything else she could think of.

“What’s with the laughter, Shiori?” She never noticed. Through the tears, something broke through them. This disgusting feeling of irony took over her. Why was she laughing? “The rotten feeling inside you, it must be growing.” She felt it. “Not disgust. Rather, morbid curiosity, isn’t it?” The man was right. It grew, but along with it was her humanity. She could not consume her fellow man. “At least take a bite, little Shiori~n.” She looked up at him, mad scientist he was. “You never know what could happen next.”

She bit into it. The red flesh dyed her teeth with sin. Something inside her body made her vomit. She barely chewed on it, yet the concept repulsed her instincts enough to reject it. She coughed and choked on her saliva. A disgusting sight to see, if anyone else except this degenerate of a man were a spectator. He sighed. A tinge of disappointment in it. “The least you could do is swallow her.” The man pushed more of his weight on the door. Shiori took it as a signal that she was not leaving. She plunged further into the cut of flesh, this time she was able to chew. She could barely taste it, but it was like pork. It was soft, she barely needed to chew before forcing a swallow. Another coughing fit ensued. This time psychological. She felt guilt, desecrating this poor person’s body just for her measly freedom. She looked up, the man’s grin this time going from ear to ear.

“W-why would you do this to me? What did I do to you?” She cried.

“Oh? I just thought it was interesting.”