It’s pixel art tonight! I haven’t tried to make an animation before, so I thought I’d start simple.
Tag: body horror
Blink
Bump
Pete had never been a slim man, so when he gained a few kilos he hardly noticed. A few more and he started to blame Christmas and New Years celebrations. Weirdly the only physical change was a swollen stomach, but that was not large enough to justify the extra kilos on the scales.
A few more weeks and even his most polite friends started expressing their concerns. He just slapped his expanding gut and joked about needed to run off some baby weight at the gym.
In private, he chose to ignore the growth. He hardly looked in the mirror, walking directly from the shower to cupboard to find some previously baggy clothes to wear.
He had convinced himself that it could not be too bad, as he had felt no pains, although he could swear he felt it shift sometimes. He refused to see a doctor, telling loved ones not to worry, that he would go if it got more serious. In his mind, the uncertainty that only flared up when he thought about it was better than living with the constant reminder of a death sentence that a doctor might give him.
The pain started below dawn. It was quick.
Pete lay in his bed, on his side. His stomach had burst, but he was unable to moved. He lay in a pool of his own cooling blood, paralysed by the pain. He looked at the phone on the nightstand, and impossible arm’s reach away. He heard skittering beneath the bed and saw a glimpse of something that stared back at him, before hiding again.
It had his eyes.
Uncanny
Lucy had stopped leaving her flat weeks ago. The thought of what she might see terrified her, almost as much as who might be looking back at her.
It had started small, looking at her friends’ Instagram posts. Some had smoother skin, brighter eyes, whiter teeth. Old friends now wore unfamiliar faces, reshaped into symmetrical strangers. None of it was quite right. She had assumed they were trying new filters or programs to alter their looks, but they did not look quite right in person any more, either. Features highlighted in their photos were unnatural in real life.
As she sat in the restaurant with her friends, two began to debate on ways to improve their smiles. One, and she could not longer recognise who they were, wanted a wider smile. The other agreed and pulled a knife from their bag. A moment later, the other said she wanted higher cheekbones. The other gushed through bleeding lips that it would look great on her, and helped angle her head on the table, so that the force of her bodyweight being dropped on top would use the table as a chisel, pushing the broken bones into place.
Lucy was silent in horror at the sound and the lack of reaction. She stared at her food and tried not to look up at her smiling, weeping friends.
Lucy stood in the bathroom, days later, looking at the photo one of her friends had taken of the group at dinner. She was smiling, of course. It would have been rude to look sad in that sea of perfect faces. A friend she no longer recognised beamed widely with bright red lips. Beside her, another with high cheekbones smiled lightly, wearing too-dark rouge. She looked so out of place with her bumpy skin, yellowed teeth and uneven features. But between what she had gathered from her garage and under the sink, she had found everything she needed to fix it.
Little Brother
My little brother has the biggest bedroom
Which I do not think is fair
He takes up the entire basement
and Mum says I’m not to go alone downstairs
I sneak down some nights
After my parents go to bed
He cries until I visit him
And stroke his soft forehead
Other nights he waits quietly
His joy barely restrained
He rushes to hug me when I visit
But I tell him not to pull at his chains
He is not in the family photos
Hung upon the walls
and when I ask my parents why
they say visitors would not understand at all
For a little brother, he’s very large
Taller than mum and dad
But he’s gentle and he’s happy
Unless something makes him mad
Mum is trying to show him
How to brush his teeth
But he has far too many
For any brush to reach
Dad still tries to teach him
How to read and speak
But it’s hard to form words
With hard lips, like a beak
I tell my brother I have a surprise
As I turn the key, the chains unlocked
I hold what I think is his hand
Tonight, for the first time, we will go for a walk
Stages
It was only a small bite
But the skin had turned green
And scales had begun to grow,
so he knew for certain that the foot had to go
The next day he awoke and checked
He saw the scales climbing up his shin
and within second he was sure
He needed only take off a bit more
He took the leg off up to his hip
But the next day the other leg looked green
So he made his choice and braced
Ready to cut everything from his waist
He was always certain it was the last bit
Then he would be completely fine
But every day it was a little bit more
Leaving spare parts over the floor
He was a torso, head and arms
But each arm then needed to go
Then his torso began to moulder
so at last he took his head from his shoulders
Now the parts would not stay still
They reached out for each other
and a different body slowly grew
old parts making something new
His head watched from the floor
As hands lifted him onto a new neck
looking in the mirror, he saw the monstrous grin
in his reflection was the monster that bit him.
Two Sentence Stories (Part 13)
I had wished to be safe from all physical harm. Immobilised in soft restraints in an endless void, my last sane thought is that I probably should have included mental harm too.
There is a face pressed against my bedroom window. This would be scary in and of itself normally, but it is held aloft by a hand, not a neck.
When I told my parents that I trapped a monster in a chest, they pretended to believe me, even giving me a padlock to keep it shut. It was months later that they finally got around to clearing out the attic and found the bones, safely locked away.
The Planner
Hal washed his hands thoroughly before sitting at the desk. He looked through the “To-Do” list, ticking off the completed items. It was hard to concentrate, but he re-checked the day’s agenda to see if he had missed any.
- Remove rotten sections. Check. He’d done the bulk of the work with a saw, but he’d made sure to get into the smaller sections with a craft knife.
- Sand. Check. It had taken three sheets of course paper to get the entire surface done.
- Scour. Check. The steel wool was almost in pieces by the time he was done and he had used up most of the bottle of bleach.
Hal sighed and leaned back. The creator of the list had clearly had some fun putting it in alphabetical order, but it did not seem like the easiest way to get everything done. Still, he would follow the list to the letter.
He checked the remaining items:
- Segment
- Throttle
- Throw away
Home Visit
Susan found herself anxiously cleaning the loungeroom again.
Her fear of being discovered only slightly outweighed her fear of becoming a pathetic anecdote. She knew the appointment was a stupid idea, but in equal measure she did not believe that she was a stupid person. So, she cleaned the room until she was certain it would meet the standards of an operating theatre.
It was only a few injections, anyway. She did not think much could go wrong from something so small. Also, it was an early birthday present and she deserved it. Something about the looming spectre of turning 30 had made her brave enough to research Botox injections in her area, but not brave enough to risk being seen walking into one of the over-bright receptions. So she had made an appointment at 1pm, the week before her 30th birthday to get rid of some encroaching crows feet and to smooth away her smile-lines.
She was assured over the phone that the results would be subtle enough that no one at her upcoming birthday party would notice. They were, in fact, reassuring about everything except for her natural looks. The photo she sent them, of an objectively beautiful woman, was torn apart as they listed the sites that needed injections.
It was 12:40 when the doorbell rang. Susan was surprised that they were early, but hurried to the door. A woman stood before her, dark hair pulled back into a bun so tight that Susan could not tell if it or medical intervention were responsible for the tautness of the woman’s face. She wore a white smock, white gloves and a white mask over her mouth. She held a white briefcase by her side, with a large red cross on it.
Read More »Baking on Demand
I’d like to tell you about the worst cake I’ve ever baked. Probably best not to look if you’re uncomfortable with blood, teeth and sweet, delicious Frankensteined fondant flesh.
I run a facebook group where I post cakes with threatening auras. These can be either deliberate or unintentional. To celebrate hitting a milestone for members, I proposed that I would bake a cake, with the features to decided by vote. The top results were the following:
- Teeth
- Fleshy colour palette
- Blood
- All of the above but a Minion cake
Honestly the minion part was the worst for me. Here’s my process for creating a cake so terrible that the question “cake or death?” yields 50/50 results.
Sketched Text 