——•✧✦ Disgust II ✧✦•——
That was no mere metaphor, nor a hallucination.
This was a real, tangible heart.
Its fleshy tissue rose from the chest like a ripe fruit, saturated with life and liquid.
The beat was slow, almost faint, but it was there. Each pulsation seemed to release a cold wave into the air, an echo of something deeply wrong.
Alex lifted it completely; the heart hung by its tendons, veins as thin as roots torn from the earth.
Mitchell held his breath, then exhaled slowly; for the first time, his face cracked slightly—concern? Or perhaps... morbid curiosity.
But the heart kept beating, weakly. As if it had only been removed for a moment of rest.
"There it is," he simply said. Blood dripped slowly from his fingers, staining his shirt, the carpet beneath them like the relentless rain pattering outside.
Mitchell leaned forward, his analytical coolness tinged with a slight, vibrant excitement under his skin. "Alex... how... is this possible?"
"I don't know," Alex replied, staring at the heart with empty eyes. "But it doesn't hurt. I don't feel anything. Only..." He paused, observing the shiny surface of the pulsating organ.
The gelatinous mass throbbed, slipping from his hand and landing on the table, above the now-empty teacup.
The sound, a soft plop, as blood splattered slightly, staining Mitchell's face—a tiny drop on his right cheek, like a thick black tear.
But the heart... kept beating.
Mitch took a handkerchief with a slow, methodical gesture, wiping his cheek without taking his gaze from the culprit.
His mind churned silently, searching for a rational explanation in that horror.
"There's... no pain?" he asked, his voice now low, almost fearful.
"Nothing," replied Alex, with a twisted smile. "Maybe because... it isn't my heart."
The silence that followed was broken only by the ticking clock and the slow drip of blood into the cup. Each drop seemed to mark time, a time suspended between them like a taut string ready to snap.
Mitchell, unable to look away, whispered softly, "How do you know?"
Alex tilted his head, a nearly mechanical movement, like a puppet. "I have a copy at home. And I can assure you... mine isn't this alive."
Mitchell held his breath for a moment. "So, what will you do? Will you leave it here beating, or put it back?"
A strained smile crossed Alex's face. "I can't put it back. It doesn't belong to me..." He looked at the heart as if it were an object found by chance, of no importance.
Mitchell nodded slowly, his lips curling into a cold smile, like someone who already knows the answer. "Shall we leave it here? While we continue pretending everything is normal?"
Alex didn't respond immediately. The beat seemed to slow, as if even the heart was tiring of living in that room.
"I don't know what normal is anymore, Doctor," Alex murmured, his voice distant. "But this... this can't last."
Then, without warning, he picked up the heart from the cup, gripping it with both hands.
Mitchell stiffened. "Alex... be careful."
Alex smiled, a bitter smile, devoid of warmth. "Careful? I don't need this." He gripped the gelatinous mass, feeling the tissue between his fingers, more blood dripping onto his shoes in small rivulets as the beat grew weaker.
And then he did it.
With a sudden motion, Alex crushed the heart between his hands.
The veins snapped, blood splattered everywhere, staining Mitchell's face, the walls, the floor, and Alex himself.
The sound was revolting, a mix of tearing flesh and liquid exploding. The heart, now reduced to a shapeless mass, dangled from his fingers like an emptied shell.
"See?" Alex said with a twisted smile, his voice breaking into a hysterical laugh. "I don't need this to be here. It's just... a symbol."
Mitch rose slowly, his gaze fixed on Alex, his face rigid, motionless. "You just destroyed the closest thing to life you had. And now? What do you have left?"
The young man let the remains fall to the carpet. No more liquid came out. The heart was soaked with a life now gone.
"Maybe," Alex whispered, with empty eyes, "this is my truth."
The doctor slowly approached, walking through the puddles that clung to his shoes.
Placing his hands on Alex's shoulders, he looked him in the eyes. "And now, Alex, now that you've destroyed another heart... are you ready to live with the emptiness that remains?"
Alex opened his mouth to respond, but the words wouldn't come out.
Only the dry sound of his lips parting, a moist noise.
His face was pale, his hands still trembling, stained with blood as if sealed with his own despair.
"Do you know how to be happy in this world, Mitch?" he finally whispered, with a tone that seemed to come from a distant abyss.
The silence became deafening. It wasn't the silence of peace, but the heavy, suffocating one that forms when everything dies—except consciousness.
"Having nothing lets you avoid losing anything, but over time, it becomes a drug."
Then the boy lowered his gaze to the table, looking down at the destroyed heart and the teacup filled with liquid again.
So he did the only thing possible, almost like a lifeless automaton; he took the cup in hand.
"I'm drinking nothing." Alex whispered, almost to himself, as if that gesture were the closure of a circle he had begun a long time ago, in a place only he remembered.
He started drinking the contents of the cup, without any grace, with rough movements, indifferent to the blood mingling with the tiny remains of tea.
He stained his lips, letting a large amount of liquid slide under his chin, down to his chest, which now existed as an open void, an abyss of nothingness happily joined with its owner.