Hssss… hssss…
The pulsating hole in her wound opened and closed rhythmically, emitting that ungodly sound. Terror swallowed Ya Ting whole, her vision swam with black spots—then everything went dark.
————
When she opened her eyes again, she was lying in bed. The bed beneath her was warm.Familiar. Instinctively, she shot upright and yanked back the covers, her hand darting to the bandage on her knee.
Still wrapped.
But something wasn't right.
She ripped the gauze away.
Her knee was perfect. Flawless. Not even a scar.
Just smooth, unbroken skin.
"Where's my—?"
"You're looking for me?" a voice rasped—dry, throaty, ancient.
Ya Ting spun around.
No one.
The room was empty.
A ghost?
Her teeth chattered uncontrollably as she tried to form words. "Wh-where are you? Please… don't hurt me."
"I'm right here," the voice replied.
It came from her knee.
She stared.
The skin bulged—suddenly, grotesquely. The flesh writhed and shifted, forming a crude human face beneath the skin. A malformed eye. A twisted nose. A gaping mouth that peeled open.
"Eat… EAT!"
A slick tongue shot out, impossibly long, wrapping itself around her right hand and yanking it toward the mouth.
"No!" Ya Ting screamed, bolting upright in bed, drenched in sweat. She gasped for air, lungs burning.
A nightmare.
Just a nightmare.
"Eat…"
The voice came again—from her knee.
The swollen wound on her knee had formed the blurred outline of a human face. Its eyes were shut tight, and that previous gaping hole was now unmistakably a mouth.
"Eat... eat..." the mouth whispered, opening and closing slowly.
Ya Ting was wide awake. She knew, with terrifying clarity—this time, it wasn't a dream. It was real.
What is this?
Ya Ting was paralyzed with fear. Her thoughts splintered, logic drowned beneath rising panic. She began to cry—soft, stuttering sobs breaking the unnatural silence of the room. The only other sound was the faint, raspy murmur from the face on her knee.
Minutes passed. Slowly, the tears subsided.
She wiped her face with trembling hands and forced herself to think.
What the hell was happening to her?
Her mind spun, grasping at explanations—each more absurd than the last. A haunting? A curse? Some sick hallucination? She even thought of Marvel movies.
Am I… a mutant?
She imagined herself as a misunderstood X-Man, a new hero born from trauma.Then she glanced at the pulsing monstrosity on her knee and grimaced.
…Probably not a superhero.
This was a parasite.
Then she remembered Venom—the alien symbiote that latched onto its host.
Did something crawl into my wound when I crashed my bike?
Was it going to help me—or destroy me?
Strangely, the fear began to shift. Curiosity clawed its way in. She grabbed a pen from her desk and poked the face.
Nothing. No pain. No sensation.
She poked again.
Suddenly, the eyes snapped open.
They were pure white. No pupils. Just dead, milky orbs.
The face opened its mouth and uttered a few new words: "I... I want... to eat... something..."
Disgust flared in Ya Ting's gut.
I'm not sharing my body with this thing.
"Eat this!" She snarled, driving the pen into its eye.
The eye burst like a grape. Blood spurted—too much blood. She wasn't sure if it was her own blood, but she didn't feel a thing.
"You… dare…?"
"I'll do worse!"
She grabbed a utility knife from her desk and bolted to the bathroom.
"Get out of me!"
Ya Ting scraped at the grotesque, swollen face on her knee, the blade slicing through it again and again. Each cut was met with a muffled, agonized groan from the face, but she felt nothing—no pain, no resistance.
With each slash, pieces of flesh came away, soft and wet, falling into the toilet with a sickening splat. She lost count of the cuts, lost in the frenzy, until the face was finally gone, nothing but raw, torn flesh left behind.
Ya Ting washed her knee with clean water, but the wound, where the chunks of flesh had just been carved away, no longer bled.
Then, like a criminal covering her tracks, she cleaned every inch of the bathroom.
The toilet bowl swirled with grotesque remnants.
"Good riddance."
She flushed.