My name is Jim, growing up my relationship with my mother was not very good, she was abusive and as corrosive as sulfuric acid, even if at the time I didn’t see it like that, but I was still happy when she had to leave me in the care of my aunt when I was young. I was a lot more happier living with her, she wasn’t perfect, she had her fair share of bad habits like smoking, over eating and bouts of depression, however her worst strait was the refusal to ever acknowledge her own mistake. I still loved my aunt, she was a mother to me when I needed one, and she gave me a home I felt comfortable in.
That’s why what I’m about to tell you broke me, and what I saw will echo in the recess of my mind even into the next life.
I had lived with my aunt all the way up to my mid 20s, it was the easier option for me because I had no bills to pay, I got free home cooked meals, and I got to save every penny I earned from my job, so why should I move was my thinking. Eventually moving out started being a more attractive prospect when every time I left the house I got interrogated like I was an adulterer with a paranoid spouse, even bringing dates to the house became unacceptable to her. It hit her hard when I announced I was moving out and that I already found an apartment, she never saw that this day would ever come, she just like my mother always assumed I would bring a nice girl home, and build a life inside her house and we all lived together under the same roof like some 90s sitcom.
The following days she became a ghost in her own house, wandering around aimless unsure of what to do, she complained about health problems she was feeling, but any time we took her to the doctors, they couldn’t find anything wrong with her. It continued for weeks, she became more erratic, wandering around in the middle of the night and knocking on my bedroom door, I had to sleep with the door locked after one night where I woke up to see her sitting at my bedside, she even played with all the cords in the house, shortening them and making nooses. My uncle, her brother, had to move in and watch over her because of her worrying behavior, she was committed to the psych ward a day after I moved out, the way it was told to me they needed to sedate her so she could be transported there.
I would check up on her from time to time, she looked a little better and more aware of herself, even looked happier, but she would also say how the doctors refuse to diagnose the stomach problems she claimed to have, but we spoke with the doctors and she was healthy, there was nothing wrong with her physically. She got discharged after a couple months, the doctors couldn’t find anything wrong internally and they put her through enough shock therapy to stabilize her mental state, my aunt was happy to be back home and she actually seemed a lot healthier too. My aunt tended to be a shut in, rarely left the house unless it was to shop for groceries but after coming back she started taking walks, would try to go and be around people more, I was very happy to see that my aunt had finally turn her life around, it was good while it lasted.
The first sign that something was rotting in the state of Denmark was on one of my visits to her, we were in the kitchen, I sat and watched as she was chopping up some carrots for a stew she was cooking up. We talked and I casually mentioned how since she came back home she seemed so much better, she looked healthier, was more social and even more outgoing, she dismissed the remark saying nothing’s changed about her, but she did mention how she’s been in contact with a special doctor she met at the ward. This doctor had given her some recommendations for home remedies she could try for her stomach problems, apparently it worked and now she feels better thanks to him. While chopping up ingredients she sliced her finger, it was a nasty cut, one you can’t help but flinch from, I checked to see if she was okay, but she waved off my concern and just sucked on the cut, I swear in that moment I saw her eyes roll back as she moaned in pleasure from sucking on the blood running from her finger.
I didn’t stay to eat with her, the whole thing weirded me out, the way she just greedily sucked on her finger like a hungry dog licking a bowl clean, something was off but I didn’t know what at the time and just shoved it to the back of mind. I wasn’t able to see her for a while, work was giving me stress with some weirdos calling at night, it was maybe two weeks after the blood sucking that I got a call from my aunt, she was checking up on me, seeing if I was okay, we talked a little bit about what was going on in my life when she asked if I could swing by and help her log into her Amazon account, they kept rejecting her password during log in, so I decided I would swing on by.
My aunt was sitting on her bed with tablet in hand still trying to log in, I took a look at what she was doing when I saw red smears on the screen, then I saw her thumb, something had taken a clean chunk off. I panicked and asked her if she was okay, wanting to know what did that to her, but my aunt looked at me like I was a hypochondriac losing their shit over a splinter, she told me how she was in her backyard checking up on her mango tree when an iguana suddenly bit her thumb. I called bullshit on that story, never heard an iguana biting people, let alone have the the bite strength to tear human flesh off the bone, but she didn’t really care, she just gave me a smile and said nothing else.
That night while at work I couldn’t help but research iguana attacks, while they do pack a mean bite they only ever do it when they’re in danger, something just didn’t feel right and I just kept thinking back to when she cut her finger. An idea started festering in my head, one I didn’t want to think was possible, because who would ever willingly bite their own finger off like that? I heard the notification chime from my phone, my aunt texted me a picture of a young and extremely handsome Korean guy, the dude looked like a movie star, she wrote that this was the doctor she told me about and how she had him check the bite wound. This doctor, who she said is called Dr. Ki-wu, advised she use a healing salve from some of the plants she had growing in her yard, it would close up the gash and even regrow some of the lost tissue, that didn’t sound right to me and that smile she gave me earlier just sat wrong, it creeped me out.
I felt like I needed to confront her about the thumb, something was going on with her and I needed to find out what, the next day I went back to her house to talk about her worrying behavior, but what i found was enough to make me want to puke my guts out. My aunt took a gleeful chomp on her own finger, ripping it off like a piece of jerky, I could even hear the sound of sloshing meat with large crunch & cracking of bones, I was paralyzed in place seeing her eat her own hand. It was a nauseating sight but no matter how repulsed I was I just couldn’t look away as she felt no pain, blood dripping from her mouth, and that gratified look of eating grade A prime meat. I came back to my senses when I saw her take another bite off her own hand, I hurried to stop her from doing more damage to herself, I called out to her, shook her but she didn’t even turn to look at me, she just kept eating herself. Now I don’t know if the visceral shock of what I saw tunneled my vision, but as I tried holding her arm away from her bloody maw, I saw him.
In the corner of her bedroom stood tall a lanky man, at first glance he had a passing resemblance to Dr. Ki-wu but deformed, he wasn’t the chiseled male model from the picture, instead he looked like a car wreck victim who then had a botched reconstructive surgery, his face hanging off his head, his body was crooked as if stitched together randomly. From his corner he spoke to me, never moving his body not even his mouth, he told me to leave my aunt to her treatment
“She is in therapy right now, this procedure is cleansing her body, purifying her blood and releasing all the harmful toxins that made her ill.”
I shouted back to this freakish husk
“She’s eating herself, what kind of fucked up quack are you to let this happen!”
I tried again to break her away from eating any more of herself, but as I tried prying her away from her own arm I felt a sudden freezing chill run down my spine, I turned to see that Dr. Ki-wu now towered over me, seeing him up front I could see how freakishly grotesque he was. He didn’t look human but like some gaunt creature wearing the skin of a person, its mouth was partially drooped open and I could see inside, the entire jaw of this thing had no tendons attaching the mouth, despite what my eyes could see I still heard him say
“Please do not interrupt her treatment, further disruption could negate the progress she has been making with her health.”
I was sweating bullets, it moved so quickly that I never even registered it until he was right in front of me, my mind was racing five hundred miles an hour not sure what my next move would be, but before I could decide on anything I heard my aunt’s voice
“Jim, it’s okay my surrogate son. Dr. Ki-wu knows what he’s doing, you need to trust me that this is helping.”
This insanity was suffocating me and I needed to get away from this madness, I slithered away trying to avoid as hard as I could to even brush up next this freak doctor, before I managed run out the room I turned to see my aunt one more time, she gave me that smile again just to follow it up with her snapping her own leg to then devouring it.
I needed to know who this doctor was, maybe if I could learn anything about him I might be able to break this unholy hold he held over my aunt, the only lead I had was that she met him at psych ward. I spoke with anyone I could, doctors and nurses, asking anyone but no matter who I spoke not a single person ever heard of Dr. Ki-wu, even showing his picture didn’t jog any memories to them, I even mentioned he might have been in an accident that left him physically scared but I might as well of been asking them if they’ve seen a ghost. Google couldn’t find this man either, no search results came up on this doctor, he had no digital footprint I could track, even trying to reverse google search his picture sent me nowhere, all I could find was reports of a South Korean actor that looked like Dr. Ki-wu, going missing in the early 90s, with claims he may have been kidnapped by North Korean spies. I was looking for a man that didn’t exist, panic was creeping in because I’ve only found more questions than answers and one of them was how did my aunt ever get in contact with him. It dawned on me that this doctor really was not human, and it has my aunt under some spell, I had to save her even if it meant confronting that abomination.
I waited until it was nightfall to go back to her house, what I was about to do I needed to be done in cover of darkness, with me I brought a large kitchen knife to end that doctor, I slipped into the house avoiding making any sound, I didn’t want this monster knowing I was here until I plunged this knife into its chest. Inched my way deeper into the house, reaching my aunt’s bedroom door, I slowly opened it to check and see if she was okay, when I saw my aunt it took everything in me to not break down crying, she laid sitting up right in her bed, most of her arms, her legs, even her stomach were eaten away, her face was a horrifying visage as she chewed off her own lips. What sat there was not my aunt anymore, this thing turned to see me and in her voice said
“Jim, my dear boy I’m glad you’re here, can you help me, could you use a knife to cut off a piece of my back and feed it to me? I can’t reach back there myself.”
My body was shaking at this horror show unraveling before me, I scanned her room and saw Dr. Ki-wu in the same corner from before, he stood facing her but hunched over widening its mouth open to an impossible size with its hands. I backed away from the door making sure I never broke line of sight, I felt my way into the kitchen where I started searching drawers looking for anything that burns, found some cooking oil and a jar of grease my aunt was saving, I lite up the burners of the stove and began pouring the oil and grease anywhere I could. It didn’t take long for a fire to start and I ran outside, the fire took the house quickly, the whole place was set a blaze, before I could drive away, I turned to look at the window to my aunt’s room, the curtains had burnt off and I could see the burning figure of my aunt, she wasn’t writhing in pain but instead just sat there as if everything was fine, biting into her own shoulder to rip out a chunk of burnt flesh and ate it. She turned to see me and even in the flames I could see her smile at me, her whole body was engulfed in fire obscuring all her features, but that toothy smile was clear as day.
The fire that burnt down her house was blamed on my aunt, they couldn’t find her remains in the burnt out husk, even her car was gone and because of her history with depression and mental illness they suspected this was all self inflicted. Obviously they never found her and she became a missing a person case.
I have a million memories of my aunt, the trips we took, the birthdays we celebrated, the first pancake she made me, they’re all great, but whenever I remember my aunt, all I see her smiling in the fire, I remember what she became.
submitted by /u/Casshern_VIII
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