The Wound (Short Story)

I'm stabbing my father to death.

Well, not “to death”.

That would imply he's still alive.

He hasn't been for a while.

I think I've been at him for an hour now. I'm surprised the knife hasn't broken. It's just a cheap kitchen knife. I would have thought driving it into his skull multiple times would have at least bent the blade. It didn't. His face looks like raw meat now. I've been going at the gut. I tried to slice him down the middle but the edge wasn't sharp enough. So I've just been jabbing it in. 

The first thing I attacked was his genitals. Originally, I was just going to cut them off and let them bleed to death. But I didn't like the faces or the noises he made. So I decided to stab it until he died. I just couldn't stop. 

I start feeling bored so I take the knife out. I go over and sit against the wall. I'm breathing heavy from the excitement of destroying him. My heart is racing and I can feel the hard-on in my pants.

I guess none of the neighbors heard. I'm pretty sure the cops would be here by now if they had.

I look at the sleeve of my right arm. It's covered with blood. I pull it up and reveal the bandage that covers my arm from the wrist to the elbow. I take the knife and cut the bandage off. I reveal the gaping wound that covers the entire underside of my forearm.

It doesn't bleed or fester.

I can't see any bone or muscle in the split skin.

I can feel intense cold coming from it. I feel wind blowing from it and white flakes come through it.

Snow.

I look closer.

I see mostly white.

I can see some mountains nearby. It's a calming image. It settles me and I let the cold wind blow against my sweaty face for a moment.

Then I get bored. I roll down my sleeve and wait a moment. I pull it back up.

I see a mostly desolate area this time. The body in the middle lays on the gray ground. It's bloated with a blue face. The vacant eyes are wide and staring up at me.

I remember this guy. He hadn't wronged me. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. I wanted to see if people could travel through the wound. So I found someone walking alone in a secluded area. I waited for him. Then jumped down and swung my forearm at him. It swallowed him right up.

I looked down in the wound and saw he had landed on the gray land. Apparently, the air was breathable because he didn't die right away. I guess he could see me too. He looked up and demanded I let him out. I shouted down that I didn't know how. After a day or so, I checked up on him. He was still there and he asked for food and water. I told him he could have some in exchange for his clothes. He didn't comply at first. After a couple days he broke down and stripped. He tried to toss his clothes up, but they couldn't reach. No food for you then, I told him. Every so often I checked up on him and he would beg and plead. I just ignored him. Eventually, he died of dehydration.

I should take a moment to explain the wound. You see, I don't know why it acts like it does. About a year or so ago, I wanted to die. I took a razor and sliced down my wrist. It hurt like hell, but I didn't bleed. I looked in the small wound and I could see something. I was looking at some other world. This first world I saw looked like a jungle with plants that were mostly red. It was like looking through a peephole. I sliced the wound further so I could see more. I could see strange animals wandering this red jungle. I was amazed. I decided didn't want to die anymore.

By experimenting, I figured out how the wound worked. When I covered it up for about 30 seconds, it would show me a new world. Except every other time, it would show me the same two worlds. The pattern was like this

1. New world.
2. The gray world. The body is in this one.
3. New world.
4. A vacuum.
5. Back to 1.

I could spend hours just looking at these new worlds. After a time, they simply began to make me depressed. All I could do was look at them. I couldn't climb through to them. I thought about cutting my arm off and climbing down that way. But I knew that wouldn't work. Every other place on my body I tried cutting just bled normally. If I cut off my arm I would bleed to death. I didn't even know if people could travel through. That's why I forced that guy into it.

Knowing that I could put bodies through the wound, I got an idea. I've been wanting to kill my father for years now. I could never think of way I could get away with it, though. Now I knew. I would just go to his house and murder him. Then I would dispose of the body in the wound. What could they do if they could never find his body?

I guess I got a little carried away. I'm lucky the neighbors didn't hear my rampage.

I think it's time to shove his body in the wound.

I decide to see what the next world will be first.

I cover up the wound and wait a moment.

I uncover it and look in.

It's a desert. I can see a pile of bones that have some meat on it. There's a creature picking at it. The creature has a body that looks like a giant roach and a head that looks like some kind of bird's. It looks up at me. It has black insect eyes. It goes back to picking at the bones.

I get an idea.

I yell into the wound. The creature looks back up at me. I turn my forearm to face my father's body.

I hope this works.

After a moment I hear flapping from inside the wound.

It gets louder.

The creature comes out of the wound. It goes over to my father's body. It starts eating it.

I smile.

I go into the bathroom to make another bandage for the wound.

I leave.

When they find his body, they'll believe that creature killed him. The confusion will keep them from ever knowing it was me. Better yet, I now know things can come here from the wound.

All I need to do now is bide my time and be patient. Soon, I'll find a world in the wound with far more destructive creatures. I'll entice them out and I'll release them on the world.