Broken (Formerly Known As Irreparable)

Mike didn’t remember too much after it happened. Screaming and lots of things being thrown. Tears. More things being thrown. Furniture being boxed up and moved, probably into his father’s bedroom like it was moved when she died.  The sound was distinctive- a crinkling sound as shrinkwrap enveloped its target, and a sucking vacuum as tape hit cardboard. Then the quiet squeaks of the cart’s wheels turning.  His life was on fast-forward and as it all blurred by, he eventually stopped feeling anything. As he slept, these things found their way into his dreams; crept into the crevices of his subconscious sanctum and poisoned it with their influence. His mind had scabbed over since the incident, but was continually pierced and met with the horrid situation.

Sometimes, Mike would roll over and wake up to see his brother, floating just a few feet or so beneath the ceiling, his neck bent forward. Billy’s legs would kick with panic for a second as his head was forced up nearer and nearer the invisible thing’s maw, and they would writhe with a jolt for a brief second the way the legs wiggled when it happened. Billy’s head would crumple from an invisible force; the bite marks appearing on his face for a split second before  his screaming silenced itself as grey matter expelled itself. It would float in the air for a scant few seconds before it was sucked back inside Billy’s head, and Billy’s head returned to normal as his legs wiggled for a second as he floated down to the ground. It was here that Mike would roll over and face his pillow again, as he had only such a precious amount of time before his hell began again.

Mike saw strange things in his sleep, indeed. He would sometimes see a red figure in the left corner of his room, leaning on the doorway. It stood tall, indescribably so and took up the most space in the room with its imposing appearance of red and charcoal-burnt skin interspersed on its form. As moonlight illuminated its sharp teeth, which were frozen in a maniacal grin, Mike always swore that the thing’s horns perked slightly, but could never confirm this himself.. It never left the shadows, or did anything aggressive but raise a gleaming metal hook. When its orange eyes turned towards him and made eye contact, they would wink and its head would nod a little. With this acknowledgement, Mike would wake up in the middle of the night, and find it impossible to get back to sleep. Not that he would want to.

Mike heard even stranger things, though. He sometimes heard his father toiling in his den downstairs, talking to somebody. He would slam his box shut, and the sound of his footsteps would echo down the hallway. Mike had never dared enter his study, but the mystery of what was in that box never left his thoughts completely. While his memory may have fogged, the box remained.

Mike had been asleep when he heard his father’s voice.

“Do it!” his father shouted.

“If you don’t, I’ll do it myself!” he shouted again. Mike heard footsteps, which became louder and harsher. They stomped to the side of his bed.

Mike heard his father grab at something near his bed, swearing under his breath. His head was lifted off his bed, and as it fell down, Mike noticed that he was missing a pillow. He felt a warm sensation across his face. He wanted to stop it, but couldn’t.  An overpowering sensation, a sensation that stopped the world, came over him. Time seemed to come to a standstill as Mike stopped feeling anything, and the warm feeling dissipated.


Michael felt himself drift away from his bed and into something more malleable. Something more abstract. It still had texture and sensations; He could feel himself lay down on something in this oblivion, but he couldn’t see what. He had been asleep, not blinded. And yet, his world was pitch black. As if someone had wrote on his eyes in permanent marker. His eyes still worked; spots formed in his vision from the change in colors. But there was nothing there. He couldn’t even see his body. Was this how the afterlife was? No light at the end of the tunnel; just floating aimlessly through nothingness?

As if to answer his question, a voice spoke. Michael couldn’t pinpoint where exactly it came from, but it sounded like it was from inside his head. Not the voice you would use to read or talk to yourself, but a different one. Michael’s new voice told him that this wasn’t the afterlife, and to prepare to be brought back. Michael wasn’t sure what this meant until he felt pressure on his eye sockets and began to feel a thunderous pain in his head.

He wondered why his legs couldn’t move until he looked at where he guessed they would be. The first thing he saw in this abyss was a yellow mist enveloping his legs and dissipating them like a noxious gas. A white, moon-like face appeared before him, out of the darkness.  Its lips shone a bright shade of crimson, with beady eyes embedded  in the recesses of its face. A purple stream besmirched both eyes; viscous in consistency. The waxy texture of the face was marred by craters that pulsated and undulated.

Michael heard a phrase in that same voice, as he felt himself drawn into the thing’s form, more and more of his body being assimilated by the yellow stuff.

He heard something say GIVING LIFE.

Passing out of them, he found himself at what seemed to be a Freddy’s location. The tile flooring, dim lighting, and wall decorations signified this, as well as the man in the Freddy mask about ten feet in front of him. He sat behind a desk, and wore a purple shirt like Dad did, but something felt off about him. Although he had just materialized in front of him, the man made no acknowledgement of his presence. He lifted his head up and looked straight in Michael’s direction, only to turn his head further to the left.

The man pointed a lit flashlight into a vent, and when it yielded nothingness his head returned to the original position he had been discovered in. Michael attempted to move, to walk, to yell; to do anything to feel like he existed, all to no avail. The man’s ignorance was becoming enraging.

Michael kept trying to yell.

He felt himself gravitate down the hall and towards the man’s left, his form moving towards the west vent.

At last, the man noticed him, and the man screamed.
The voice in his head came back.

Prepare to be brought back, it said again.

Michael woke up instantly, his head facing up. His father’s face slid into view on his left, bending over. The man was drenched in blood. A bloodied saw descended forth.

PREPARE FOR A NEW PERSPECTIVE, it told him.



I felt myself disconnect again when the buzzsaw tore through my neck. I hoped it would end quickly, but after an agonizing five seconds the saw struck the metal’s table, having sprayed blood and gore in every direction imaginable. Some of it went into my eyes, and painted the vision red. They did not blink. I did not feel any sort of pain whatsoever. I was a bystander in my own body.

He lifted my head from the table by the hair, allowing me a glimpse of my own body It was in a hospital gown, drenched with. The blood pooled in the table, enveloping me like an organism in a petri dish.

I could see my brother’s clothes adorning a body on the table next to it. The flesh was pale, highlighted by the harsh, yellow light from above. The grey and blue shorts were what he was wearing when it happened. The head was nowhere to be seen, but he had a new accessory. Several drips were inserted to the body, and pumping a strange liquid; its color tinted by the green tubes.

I was placed on a different table, and watched as my father grabbed a metal, snake-like object. It buckled and undulated with bone-like segments. There were two “feelers” on one end of it. They too moved, but slower, akin to a creature’s antennae. He lifted me, and  plugged this end into my stump, watching it burrow its way inside. I felt a sharp pain under my cranium, as the antennae dug into my skull. Past my skull. They were forming a brain stem, as I would later find out.

I was soon moved to my brother’s corpse,and placed onto the same table. I could hear my labored, mechanical breathing. And as the other end of the spine came into view, I could hear its clicking and the gnashing of its metal features. It had a sharp blade on one side, and an excavator. Between them were two worm-like antennae, just like what was inside me. Father placed my head a foot away from my brother’s stump, the instruments pointed towards the gore. At the snap of my father’s fingers, the spine extended and scooped out most of the flesh in my brother’s upper body. I felt something cold and hard dig into something warm and spongy, and I could feel a body again.

As I tried to comprehend what had happened, I heard knocking. Father heard it too. I could hear police sirens.

“Michael,” he said. His eyes darted towards the ceiling. “I’m going away for a while. These are instructions,” father said as he dropped a cassette tape onto the table my corpse was on. "Follow them when you're up."

I couldn’t move my legs to run after him when he reached a conspicuously clean wall. I could curl my toes, and move my eyeballs. He pushed on the wall, and a loud click resonated throughout the chamber. A staircase was revealed.

“Goodbye”, he said, before turning away to walk up the stairs.

The wall closed behind him, and that was the last I ever saw of him.