Chapter 6. The Weight of the Hook

The fish keeps singing.

Still.

Still.

His voice rides the rusted rhythm,
screaming joy with a cracked speaker’s soul.

The plants dance.
The air throbs with that ancient, cursed tune—

“I... CAN’T STOP THIS FEELING…”

But I’m no longer listening.

Because my hand is burning.

The hook.
The damn hook.

Still lodged neatly between thumb and forefinger, right in the purlicue.
Not deep enough to tear through—
but perfectly barbed.
Anchored.
Planted.

It throbs in rhythm with my pulse.
A second heartbeat beneath my skin.

The pain is…

clean.

Bright and honest,
like hot metal pressed into a blank page.

I hold it up to the light.

The hook is silver, slightly dulled with age.
The barbs are tiny—one in, two down—curved just enough to snag if I pull wrong.

The skin around it has begun to pucker.
Raised. Inflamed.
A slow bloom of red surrounding the site.

And now—

a dribble of blood.

Small.
Thin.
Barely a thread, like the first ink of a pen pressed too softly.

It creeps along the metal.
Pauses.
Hangs there like a teardrop…

Then falls.
Onto the tile.
Perfectly silent.

Pain means I’m alive.

That’s the bright side.

‘Pain means nerves.’

‘Nerves mean signal.’

‘Signal means brain.’

‘Brain means I’m still here.’

Good.

I am still here.

Even if the music still plays.
Even if the plants are dancing like they know all my worst secrets.

Even if the walls are too close, and time doesn’t move, and the air smells like bleach and sick joy.

I am here.

The fish flops.
The chorus loops.
The hook pulses.

The blood drips.

“I’m—!”
“I ahhh—HOOKED on a feeeling~!”
“I’m HIGH on belieeeving—”
“That you’re in looooove with meeee~!”

“Oh for the love of—SHUT UP!”

I stumble out of the bathroom, hand cradled to my chest, leaving wet smears of black goop and blood against the doorframe.

Glub doesn’t shut up.
He laughs harder.

A horrible clicking, phlegm-slicked cackle bursts from the fish's frame, shaking the whole wall with his amusement.

“That fish is funny. REAL funny.”

Every word in my brain sounds like it’s gritted between teeth.

But then I see it.

The flower.

The Never After Flower.

The white bloom, center of this monochrome trap.

It’s…

Dancing.

Not swaying.
Not drifting.

Dancing.

Jolting in violent, timed lurches—
Left.
Right.
Left.
Right.

Its thin stem vibrates with the beat of the song.
Its thorns twitch like antennae, pointing—

At me.

And worse—

Bending.

Slow. Heavy. Sensual.

Like a lover stretching out their hand for the next step in a ballroom duet.

‘What the hell is this?!’

‘What is happening?!’

The Never After Flower begins to shake so violently
that its petals blur—
its core wobbling with such force you almost expect it to uproot itself and leap into my arms.

Its thorns no longer stand as spears.
They bend—beckoning.
Curled inward, like fingers asking for a dance.

“No. Nope. Absolutely not.”

“Is this damn flower... trying to serenade me?”

The fish belts louder.

The vines in the bathroom slap against glass in rhythm.

The flower keeps dancing.

And I?

I stand in the doorway, hand bleeding,
heart pounding,
wondering if I’ve stepped into someone else’s punchline…

Or my own personal courtship horror show....

I sit on the ruined floor.

The flower dances behind me.
Somewhere, Glub’s laugh begins to wind down—crackling into silence like a tape wearing thin.

The world shrinks to a single point—

My hand.

The hook still hangs between thumb and finger, its silver barb glinting like a joke no one wants to hear.

It doesn't shake anymore.
But the weight of it pulses.
A dull hum that vibrates up my arm like a warning from the bones themselves.

I flex my fingers.

Pain snaps through the soft meat of the palm—quick, hot, vivid.
A red stain now trails beneath the metal curve, blooming wider with every heartbeat.

‘It has to come out.’

I steady the hand against my knee.

Fingers slick with slime grip the metal.
The tip is smooth, the bend slick with gore, and the angle—wrong.

The barb didn’t just stab—it slid sideways, forcing itself into the tissue like a worm burrowing for warmth.

I breathe once.
Then pull.

At first, it moves easily.
Too easily.

A slight twitch, like unzipping a wet jacket.

But halfway through the curve, something catches.
The barb hooks behind a band of flesh—
sinew, muscle, perhaps a nerve.

It doesn't let go.

The second pull is worse.
Not from resistance—
but from the way the tissue stretches,
clinging to the barbed metal as though trying to protect it.

Strings of blood stretch between skin and steel,
pink and translucent, like chewed gum pulled from a jaw.

A wet snap breaks one strand.
It stings through the entire palm.

The wound yawns open wider.
Now I see it.

Fat.

Yellow, wet, pulsing slightly with tremors.
It peeks from beneath the torn layer, trembling with every shift of the hook.

I pull again.

The barb grinds.

A noise like gravel inside meat.
Flesh peels back in tiny threads.

A droplet of clear fluid seeps out from deeper in the hand.
It smells faintly of copper and something thicker—
like the inside of a stomach.

“Gghkk—ghrrrhhh—”

The sound crawls from my throat,
low and rising with teeth clenched.

Tears sting the corners of my eyes.
Not sorrow—just body’s reaction to violation.

I twist the hook.
It’s the only way.

The barb doesn’t come free.
It tears its way out,
ripping a slit of skin as it exits sideways.

A strand of flesh clings to the point—
almost noodled, as if spiraled around the tip.

I drop it.

It hits the floor with a soft, metallic clink,
leaving behind a wet trail of blood, ink, and something whitish I don’t want to name.

My hand gapes open.

Torn.

Gaping.

Alive...
---

The hook is out.
My hand is ruined.

Blood pours freely now—real blood, but not entirely.

Because something’s wrong.

I lift the hand toward my face,
watching the dark liquid run down my wrist in jagged lines.

Red, yes.

But also—

Black.

Thick veins of ink, swirling inside the blood like oil in water.

Moving.
Alive.
Changing the texture with every drop.

It sticks between my fingers like paint,
then spills in fat globules across the floor.

“…oh.”

“…oh no.”

“That’s… not normal.”

The words arrive as a whisper,
as though saying them louder might make them true.

‘Must be… Shang-Rah-Lah corruption.’

The name comes uninvited.

I don’t explain it.

Even in thought—
I leave it alone.

My vision swims a little.

Whether from pain, or blood loss, or just the wrongness of what’s leaking from my hand—
I can’t tell.

But I’m still standing.

I’m still awake.

I turn toward the flower.

It still dances.
Still trembles.
Still shakes in rhythm with a song that’s already ended.

I raise the hand, still weeping that dark and pulsing mix.
And I wave it—

Slowly
Macabrely
Deliberately

Over the bloom.

Like a priest dripping oil over a grave.

“Here’s your water.”

The blood hits the petals.

And the flower responds.

Instant.

Violent.

It lurches forward—
not toward me, but down.

The stem coils into itself.
Thorns dig into the wood around it.
Its entire body bows like a swine pressed to a feeding trough.

It drinks.

Drinks deeply.

The vines at its base twist into sucking cords.
They lap and slurp and pulse with need.

Every drop that touches the soil is devoured,
siphoned into the roots with desperate glee.

It doesn’t look beautiful anymore.

It looks gluttonous.
Obsessed.
Too busy to care who fed it.

Perfect.

My legs feel heavier now.

Vision tilts again.

Hand numb.

But I lunge forward—
clumsily, scraping the floor—
and scoop up the book.

Fingers dig into the dirt with it.
A small mound clings to the cover.

The journal is still half-buried.
But it’s mine now.

The flower keeps feasting.

The room holds its breath.

And I—
bleeding, shaking, victorious—
clutch the book like a relic wrestled from the throat of a beast.