The sun rose like a plague-born sentinel, spreading its disease of light through cracks between his bedroom blinds. To Henri, everything was poison in this acid-vat planet. It was as if nature itself turned the air to knives, condemning him to an eternal gauntlet of absolute agony. But as those beams struck him blind, he swore that it would be for the last time. That was the day his dream came true. The day nothing in this world would have a chance of hurting him again. The day he closed his eyes forever.

 

​

“I DREAM OF YEAR ZERO”

Composed by Felipe Medrado

 

​

Socrates Shaw had never seen twilight rain so thick. A clique of droplets fornicated at the rim of his fedora, carelessly diving like a pack of lemmings as he waited near the doors of Plazente Manor. Shaw drew the zippo from his sleeve, attempting to light it beneath a cupped hand as he held a cigarette between his lips. But the twilight rain was not so merciful, lemming droplets landing on the mouth of the lighter, putting out every flame that emerged.

​

The doors then opened, revealing a short and stout man, adorned in the wear of a servant.

 

“Bonjour, m’sieur Socrates. I am Ducard. Please come inside.”

 

The manor was a muddle of dining halls and lounges, the scene of a hundred galas and receptions for the indulgent aristocracy. Ducard guided Shaw through the maze by candlelight, their destination a secluded solar at the far end of the manor. As they sat down, the servant presented a dossier alongside a platter of hor d'oeuvres and black coffee. Ducard crossed his legs and leaned forward.

​

“You are of course familiar with the Madame?”

​

Shaw turned his gaze to the immense portrait that hung over them. Madame Plazente was an enormous woman, her physical shape a mirror of her own lavish fortune.

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“Hard not to be. I've done work for several of her socialite acquaintances. I'm assuming this is the reason she's decided to contact me.”

​

Ducard’s lip began to twitch beneath his thin moustache.

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“Well... erm... no, m'sieur Socrates. In fact, it was I who called you, for the Madame has been gone since last night, and it is not like her to miss her own soiree. Something is amiss, ever since… he came back.”

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The color from Ducard’s face disappeared along with his posture, replaced by a shivering look in his eyes. Shaw opened the dossier before him, finding pictures and letters and notes composed in a frenzied scrawl.

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“Tell me about her son. Tell me about Henri.”

​

“He was always the same. Small, sickly, and silent. Always silent. You see, the boy was born in dangerous circumstance. Both Madame and M’sieur Plazente had been afflicted with the summer pox during their stay at Demeter’s Cove sixteen years ago. One morning she woke to find the M’sieur dead, choked on his own blood while asleep. It was such a terrible fright that Madame Plazente went into labor, but the boy came too early.”

​

Shaw rifled through the photos, finding one of Plazente with the babe, her visage carrying only sorrow.

 

“He was always the same. Until yesterday. Until he woke up.”

 

“What do you mean, ‘he woke up’?”

 

“Henri has been mute for most of life, m’sieur Socrates. The Madame had him relocated to a sanitarium when he stopped eating six years ago. But yesterday, he came back awake. I had never seen the Madame so happy, so ecstatic to hear his voice again after so long.”

 

Beneath the photos and letters, Shaw found a single page, void of the age and wear of the other contents of the dossier.

 

“You must understand, Madame was overcome with emotion at her son’s return. But as they left for an evening drive before the soiree, I knew there was something wrong with him.”

 

The page that Shaw held was different, the handwriting clean, the structure unified compared to the illegible mess of the other notes.

 

“It was how he looked at the Madame. He did not look in her eyes, only at her stomach. He looked at her like she was prey, m’sieur.”

 

Shaw began to read the page, a poem; Henri’s final manifesto:

 

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​

​

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I cannot breathe.

I cannot see, I cannot touch.

I cannot eat, I cannot drink.

I cannot walk, I cannot talk.

I cannot live.

But I can dream. And it is a beautiful dream.

I dream of floating in that maroon sea, the warmth of the embryo soothing my skin, hoisting me as I sleep in a bed of scarlet.

The cord is my only friend, and it does not complain, or scream, or laugh, or cry. It gives me everything I need, and I am content.

This paradise has a queen, and her song is beautiful.

BA-DUM. BA-DUM. The music of safety.

BA-DUM. BA-DUM. The sound of tranquility.

BA-DUM. BA-DUM. The siren call that pulls me back every time.

That reminds me that there is a better world.

A better world that I must return to.

 

​

​

​

​

Shaw set down the page as he looked up to Ducard, his once ice-cold gaze now sullied by revelation.

​

“Take me to Demeter’s Cove.”

​

The once summer retreat of the Plazentes was nothing less than ruin, a hovel at the rim of a lake that was its namesake, still standing by some miracle. Ducard stayed behind in the car as Shaw approached the cabin, the rotting wooden door left half open. There is no cipher to the delusions of madmen. But in the absence of understanding lies a trail to irrational epiphany, a trail to the end of the ‘psycho path’.

​

The descent into the bowels of Demeter’s Cove was marked by a stench foul enough to strangle. This haze of putrid oblivion baptized Shaw as he reached the final step, an appetizer for the horror to come.

​

Regret was almost immediate as Shaw flipped the light switch to the basement den. There lay the corpse of Madame Plazente, her entire midsection butterflied, a pit of blood and intestines lying in a cavity at the center of her stomach and groin. Shaw vomited instantly upon seeing the corpse, only stopping once he heard the voice emerge from within.

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“Why did you wake me up?”

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Henri Plazente rose out of the hole in his mother’s body, draped in blood, feces, and remnants of her small intestine.

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“I was drea-ming.”

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The boy leapt towards Shaw, screaming, sinking his teeth into Shaw’s arm. As Shaw tried to force him off, the boy grabbed his mother’s intestine, hanging over his shoulder, and began to strangle Shaw with it.

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“Af-ter you’re dead, I’m go-ing back home. Back to the womb. Back to the dream.”

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Shaw then removed a revolver from his coat, propelling Henri off with a .38 caliber gut-shot. As the boy bled out, he crawled back into the corpse of the madame, taking another string of intestine and sticking it into the new hole in his stomach.

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“Can’t you see? I’m re-u-ni-ted… with the cord…”

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And the boy closed his eyes forever.

​

Shaw emerged from the shack, the twilight rain finally lessening its onslaught. As the clouds surrendered to dawn, a newborn sun watched as Shaw drew cigarette and lighter from his coat pocket. But his bloodied hands were not so merciful; dark red fingers trembling against the zippo trigger, gasping for a flame that would never come.