Dust

I must warn you now that every detail included in this account is not of my own invention – though I wish from the bottom of my heart that it was exactly that, an invention – and that none of it is at all pleasant to read, so if you have any sense you will stop now, forget you ever saw this and never allow your mind to wander onto this subject again.

For those of you who ignore this warning through carelessness and stupidity, you have my disrespect. For those of you who ignore this warning due to overpowering curiosity, you have my empathy for I am just like you. But I wish now that I could return to the moment I first found that dictaphone under the floorboards of my home and stop myself from ever pressing play.

But I cannot, and this is the result of that mistake. I hope that anyone who learns of the events which transpired here in my home to its previous owner, either by reading it here or otherwise, will use such information in order to prevent it from ever happening to someone else, although the madness will undoubtedly set in before long.

The following is everything that I heard from the moment I pressed play.

***

Please, please, somebody hear this. Just listen to what I have to say. I don’t have much time. I can’t even pick up a pen anymore; who knows how quickly it’ll take the rest of me?

There’s no point in telling you my name or anything about myself – it would just end up hurting my family even more – except that I used to have a sister… or I was supposed to have one. Or I still do. She’s sort of still here, but only inside me. Like a ghost that exists only within my body.

You might have heard stories about people who found teeth in their shoulders or other growths that are all that remains of the twin brother or sister they were supposed to have – the ones that never made it out of the womb, the ones that people like me absorbed before they even had a chance.

It’s not our fault. We don’t know what we’re doing. Maybe we get too close, maybe there’s something wrong with us, or maybe there’s something wrong with them and that’s why we do it. Either way, my sister is still here, still inside my body, and she hates me for it. It’s not her fault either. I’d probably want revenge too, if I were in her position.

But this? I don’t think I could ever do this to anyone. Maybe she doesn’t even know she’s doing it. But she is and it’s unbearable.

I’m meant to be turning twenty in two weeks and I doubt now that I’ll ever see that day arrive. A month ago my health was near perfect; now I’m confined to my room and even my parents can barely look at me, and when they do it’s like all the love they ever felt for me has been depleted from their eyes, replaced with the fear and disdain that I feel for myself. I can walk but only slowly and stiffly, and trying to eat is more than slightly difficult when your stomach has rotted away to nothing. The skin on my legs is thin and pale but the skin on my torso, arms and hands crumbled from existence a week ago. My heart can barely bring itself to beat, my lungs are almost enveloped in dust inside and out and yet my face hasn’t changed at all.

My sister has shown me what I am to her: a monster.

As I sit here now, my fingers… my fingers are breaking. That’s the snapping sound you can hear. They’re crumbling. I’m crumbling. It won’t be long now. I can’t stop the recording. I’m sorry – I’m sorry you have to hear this.

***

After that there were screams of indescribable horror, laced with a chilling undertone of snapping and crunching. I can only imagine that the poor girl’s life ended then, with the final scream, and that nothing on earth could be more torturous than the way in which she met her demise.

Please, if you have read all of this, put this knowledge to good use.

I will help as much as I can but already this girl is consuming my dreams and every night I awake to the snapping of bone, always in agony and always with a new piece of skin missing or peeling away. Please. Stop this from happening again.