day i. accustomed to the rot

There is this rot within me. It is consuming me, bit by bit—eating at my bones, my flesh, my skin—as does the mattress I reside on. Body flat, no movement, no twitch of a finger; it is then when the blood in my veins goes spoiled, complexion pale, withered, and I exude this putrid stench as I melt. It emanates within me, within the hollow husk I now am, metastasising, slowly, painfully, as I decay by my lonesome.

Terrifying. How terrifying, this pathetic soul I see rotting in front of me, no will to assuage, no will to relieve the blinding pain thriving off this husk of a man. I reach out with tendrils made from my dwindling psyche and, in my mind, the mirror placed in front of me shatters. Shards of glass fly through the air, dancing, reflecting a sweet, brightened light. Just for a moment, I wish this thought to last a lifetime. I am mesmerised, and a jagged edge cuts deep through my jugular. The light is red, the devil chants, and in my mind, I am silent.

The rot devours my brain.

day ii. survival in confinement, or rather, futile attempts at it

The plague, with a cruel inevitability to it, takes its repute as a horror infesting my body and my soul. The plague wishes to reach out its claws and crawl out into the world. The men will not allow it to escape the confinements of my body; I am no temple, and my body is certainly no place to seek refuge.

Solitary confinement, I learn, is punishment of the highest form. In this chamber, I can count every visible object with one hand. The walls, white, pristine, and certainly not tainted with flakes of dried blood. No impurities fill this space, aside from me. I wish to be cleansed, for the walls to cave in and swallow me whole; grant me the honour to be white, pristine, and never tainted. Here, there is a mattress, there is a mirror, there is a door in the wall, and there is me. Perhaps, it is one of us I can dispose of.

day iii. return of the suits

Men in hazmat suits march their way into my lonely territory, their stance mirroring what I can only imagine as hostile, and bodies not-so discreetly armed. There was once a time I would have perceived it as odd, though it is undoubtedly seductive how time lets one habituate. Consistency is one word I shall use to describe the events that are about to occur. I spot a shorter, more distinct individual, nodding their head. Routinely, my body begins to shiver uncontrollably, and I am a rabid animal. An involuntary, guttural noise rips from my throat and in a spur of manic horror, my eyes bulge out of their sockets. The reverberating noise is enough to leave the men fairly perturbed; they flinch back like meagre prey, and maybe this time isn’t quite like all the others.

Lucidness is not a privilege I have at any given point, nor has it been for a concerningly copious amount of time. It pains me to say that acumen is one of the many gifts I have lost in the process.

I lunge at six men, and I do not look back.

day iv. land of the supernova

The blood in my mouth sours—acidulous. Poison is all I can spit out: tongue laced, teeth black, words acrimonious; I do not find it in myself to regret a single one of them. My eyes glaze over after I cease glaring and hissing profanities at the men behind that barred door. In retrospect, it would have been prudent to look back, if only to have prevented the pounding in my head.

I attempt to push myself off the floor and lean on the door, though it takes me multiple tries to succeed. I ache, and I come to the realisation I am soon to collapse in on myself. When I do so, I shall do so like a star; I shall do so with a supernova.

Admittedly, I feel myself drifting each day. My mind ventures to lands unknown, enacts my impending explosion in lands far too vast for me to vocalise the extent of it all. Lord knows I have tried, however it is as grand as it is daunting. If I am to bastardise it all: the air I breathe is golden, my exhales curl upwards to the stars, turning into insignificant specks of dust.

My head thumps continuously on the door, and I scream until crimson drips down the creases of my forehead and my voice turns to rasping, pleading whispers.

day v. the art of decomposition

By definition, the decomposition of a corpse refers to a process including five stages: fresh, bloat, active decay, advanced decay, and eventual skeletonization. In my short lifetime, I have been still in the limbo between life and death; forced to remain suffering in eternal decay. The hope I once clung onto relied on the possibility of escaping this treacherous isolation, finding nimble fingers to caress the rot out of my body, and bring me to life.

I stifle the age-old urge to fight in the depths of every failed attempt, every broken bone, every night spent moaning in anguish—unsurprisingly, there are many moments to call upon. They will want me, as they do now; in the postmortem, let the men in suits defile my body, but only if it is with care.

I wonder if they watch me now, warped and corrupted; torn into the ugly truth, laid bare for them to see. I shed my second skin wilfully, regretfully. Lacerations to cicatrix; nothing truly healed. No salve I long for shall be efficacious, nor shall any cure or remedy; nothing is to halt my scorching metamorphosis. I yearn now only to speed up the process, lay my bones to rest; let my blood spread like wildfire.