Chapter 6: A Hunger for Flesh

Chapter 6: A Hunger for Flesh

The presence in his apartment had changed. With the addition of the living hair, Sakura’s essence, once a faint and fragile whisper, had become a constant, commanding thrum in the back of Leo’s mind. He would spend hours just looking at her, at the way the dark, stolen hair cascaded over the cracks in her plastic shoulder. He had succeeded. He had answered her call. He had started to make her whole again.

But it was only a start. The satisfaction he felt was fleeting, devoured by a new and more urgent need emanating from her.

These lips, the voice resonated in his skull, no longer a hesitant whisper but a clear, cold demand. They are only paint, Leo. They cannot feel your kiss. They cannot taste the air. I need real lips. Red and full. Lips that can speak my love for you.

The request was a grotesque perversion of the romantic fantasy he clung to. Real lips. The thought sent a shiver of revulsion through him, but it was immediately overwhelmed by the crushing weight of her desire. Her need was his need. Her hunger was his. He could not deny her.

He began to wander the city at night, no longer an aimless ghost but a hunter with a specific, grisly purpose. He walked through the bar districts, his eyes scanning the crowds, not for a friend, but for a sacrifice. He saw them everywhere—women laughing, drinking, their mouths painted in shades of scarlet and crimson. Each one was a potential donor, a walking collection of parts.

One night, guided by the cold, predatory logic that now governed him, he found her. She was stumbling out of a dive bar in Belltown, drunk and alone, her lipstick smeared, her oversized red lips a stark slash of color against her pale skin. She was arguing with someone on her phone, her voice slurred and angry as she turned down a dimly lit alleyway, seeking a shortcut.

Leo followed, his heart a cold, heavy drum in his chest. He was wearing his faded kung-fu cat t-shirt, but there was no defiant energy left in it, only the grim resolve of a man carrying out an execution. He cornered her against a brick wall slick with rain. She barely had time to scream. The alley swallowed the sound.

He returned to his apartment near dawn, his hands shaking, his soul stained. In his pocket, wrapped in a blood-soaked handkerchief, was a small, wet piece of flesh. He didn't allow himself to think about the woman, about what he had done. He was merely an instrument of a will greater than his own.

He knelt before Sakura’s head, the red-stained cloth in his hand. Yes, the voice purred with satisfaction. Now, make me perfect.

Using a hobby knife and a soldering iron from his old IT toolkit, he performed the first of his blasphemous surgeries. He carefully cut away her original, serene crooked smile, the plastic melting and curling away under the heat. The smell of burning plastic filled the small room, a toxic incense for his dark ritual. Then, with the meticulous care of a watchmaker, he fused the new lips into place. The union of hot plastic and cold flesh was obscene, creating a monstrous new feature on her face. The lips were too large, too red, a grotesque, swollen pout stretched over the ghost of her former smile.

When he was done, he sat back on his heels, panting. He had mutilated a stranger and defiled the face he loved, all in one night. But the voice in his head was pleased. It was a feeling of deep, chilling contentment that soothed his own screaming conscience into silence.

But the contentment was short-lived. The voice had another, even more impossible demand.

I am still broken, Leo. I am still trapped, it lamented, its tone turning to one of profound, manipulative sorrow. This shattered plastic cannot hold my weight. It cannot carry me to you. I need new legs. Strong legs.

"What kind of legs?" Leo asked the empty room, his voice hoarse.

The answer that came was not something he could have ever conceived of. It was alien, ancient. Not of man. They are weak. I need legs of the earth. Legs of the beast that walks between worlds. Cloven. Horned. Legs that will not break when I run. The command was accompanied by an image seared directly onto his brain: the powerful, hairy hind legs of a goat, ending in polished, black hooves.

And another instruction followed. It must be done under the eye of the full moon. Its light will bind them to me.

The madness of it should have terrified him, but he was far beyond terror. He was an acolyte, and this was his scripture. He spent the next week preparing, driven by the entity’s cold purpose. He found a small, isolated farmstead miles outside the city, a place with a small herd of goats. He watched it for days, learning the farmer’s routine, the layout of the property.

On the night of the full moon, he returned. The world was bathed in a brilliant, silver light that made every shadow sharp and deep. He moved through the fields like a wraith, the only sounds the chirping of crickets and the frantic beating of his own heart. He found the goat pen. A large, black buck with a magnificent set of curved horns stood sentinel, its strange, rectangular pupils seeming to glow in the moonlight. It watched him approach not with fear, but with a kind of placid, ancient intelligence.

He did what the voice commanded. The ritual was bloody and silent, performed with a butcher's knife under the cold, unblinking eye of the moon.

He carried the heavy, hairy legs back to his apartment, the blood dripping onto the floorboards of his car. The stench of raw meat and gore filled his small living space, mixing with the lingering smell of burnt plastic. This was his temple now, a place of sacrifice and unholy creation.

He laid the final pieces out on the white sheet next to Sakura’s broken form. Under the moonlight streaming through his window, he began the final, terrible surgery. He sawed away the shattered remnants of her plastic legs. Then, with bolts, wires, and the searing heat of the soldering iron, he attached the goat legs to her torso.

The fusion was horrific. The smooth, sterile white plastic of her hips met the coarse, dark hair and sinewy muscle of the goat legs. He worked in a feverish trance, sweat stinging his eyes, the voice in his head a silent, pulsing chant of encouragement. He was no longer a man repairing a doll. He was a deranged god, building a monster from pieces of nightmare and stolen life.

When it was finally done, he stumbled backward and fell against the wall, his body trembling with exhaustion. He looked at what he had created.

She lay on the floor, a terrifying chimera bathed in moonlight. The long, dark human hair framed a face with grotesquely swollen red lips. Her pale, plastic torso, with the small tear on her sundress from the party, now sat atop the powerful, hairy legs of a beast, ending in sharp, cloven hooves. She was a horrifying fusion of doll, human, and animal—a blasphemy of flesh and plastic.

He had succeeded. He had obeyed every command. He had rebuilt his beloved. And as he stared at the monstrous masterpiece he had birthed from violence and devotion, he felt a wave of sick, possessive pride wash over the horror. In the dim light, he saw it again, clearer this time: a definite, unmistakable pinprick of malevolent red light, glowing deep within her lifeless glass eyes.