The light filling the warehouse glinted off of the surgical scalpel in Pandora's hand. I had always marveled that the same instrument that could save so many people's lives could also inflict unspeakable pain. But then again, I guess that was the way for most things.
I watched as she step towards me, rotating the scalpel as if to try and intimidate me with it. This was the second last tool that she had used in her previous life and she used it to fillet first then skin, then muscles, and then finally everything else off me until I was nothing but chunks of flesh, random organs, blood, and bone on the floor of a warehouse just like this one.
Then she took a sledgehammer and ground my bones into small pieces before she was satisfied that I would not be able to regenerate from that. Spoiler alert, I was able to... but I think that was a huge surprise for both of us.
I didn't know how my magic worked; I had assumed that I needed some part of me whole to be able to stitch the rest of me back together, but I could safely say that there was no way I had any part of me left whole at that time. In fact, I could remember feeling like I was floating, and when I looked down, I was able to watch my mother continue to tear apart my body. Like I said, I thought I was dead and gone that time.
Then blackness and I woke up a week later, weak from blood loss but otherwise completely fine. No other monster could do what I had done. Any werewolf, vampire, or skinwalker would have died without question, but not me.
See, I told you that I was special.
With a big smile on my face, I tilted my head to look at my loving mother. "Well now, this brings back memories," I said, refusing to give her even a hit of fear or anything else that she was hoping to get from me. But then again, I really didn't feel fear this time around. Not only did I know that I would be able to survive whatever she threw at me, but Van Helsing and his knights were nearby, waiting for me to call for them.
She stopped inches away from me and caressed my cheek with the back end of the blade. "Shhh," she crooned as she flipped the blade around and made the first cut. "Don't worry, my precious daughter…I will avenge you," she purred, but I knew I was not the one that she was talking to.
I closed my eyes, not wanting to see the madness in hers when I felt my monster stretching, trying to get my attention. Looking within myself, I sent out a confused feeling, hoping that she would be able to tell me what she was so excited about.
Feeling a push against my eyes, like they were trying to open without my permission, I lifted my lids, seeing my mother vacantly staring at my face, so close I could feel each breath she took as it shifted the hair framing my face.
Then I saw what my monster saw…
I saw my mother's thread, so perverted that it was nothing more than a line of rot. I followed that single line and saw where it entered its own web of hundreds of threads, all rotting away to varying degrees.
I smiled as I pictured in my head my beautiful set of silver shears, cutting those threads one…by…one…. until only hers and the one that felt like the rat was left. I wondered if she could feel the threads in her web dying off one at a time, but the way she was taking such pleasure in removing the skin off my forehead, I figured she didn't.
I paused, not willing to cut her thread right now, and knowing that if I cut the rat's thread, she would notice that something was wrong.
The more of me that she cut off, the faster her breath came as if she was taking great… physical pleasure… from doing this. I shuddered at that thought, hopefully, this was the result of reliving your life over and over again. I mean, it would have to drive you crazy to a certain extent… right?
"Why do you hate me?" I asked, ignoring the fact that she had just cut off my right ear. My monster seemed to be absorbing my pain, preventing me from feeling what she was doing to me. I sent a shot of love to her, knowing that she was sacrificing herself for me.
I didn't mean to ask the question. I promised myself that I really didn't care and this was all because I was the only one alive, but still, I needed to know why my own mother hated me to this extent.
She paused, her head snapping to the side so she could look at me in my eyes. "Why do I hate you?" She repeated as if not believing that I could have asked such a stupid question. "I hate you for many, many reasons," she continued, taking a step back from me and holding out the scalpel for George to take and clean.
She sat back down in her chair, crossed her legs, and composed herself, looking nothing like the psycho person who was cutting me up minutes ago. She looked at me and smiled, "I will be more than happy to tell you why I hate you… but for every answer you get, I get to tear out a part of you. What do you say?"
I looked at the woman before me, the one that I thought hung the moon and the stars in the sky, and nodded my head. "Agreed," I replied. "But if you are not honest, you will lose a chunk of your own flesh."
Pandora tilted back her head and laughed as if I just said the funniest thing in the world.
"Sure," she said, "let's do it that way."