A psychological-horror-adjacent short story about a lot of things.
Cleaned up and posted now for seasonally appropriate reasons.
It was hard to call it anything else:
There was a massive, gaping hole in his chest.
Stood in front of the mirror, staring, he had a hard time deciding if he should investigate it much further. It looked… sickly. Green, mottled around the edges. If he breathed a little too hard, a wet sound came out from within. When he leaned in for a closer look, a bit of sludge poured out. He'd rather not hear the sound it made upon hitting the basin of the sink a second time.
But, for some reason, it didn't… feel like there was a hole. Most of the time, at least. Sure, his hands could feel it when he carefully prodded at the edge, and it was the way his shirt sagged into it that brought it to his attention in the first place, but… Well, when left alone, his chest felt just like it did before the hole showed up. (He didn't want to think about how long it could've gone unnoticed entirely, though.)
And most importantly of all, it only hurt when his finger accidentally slipped a little too far past the edge. As gross as it appeared, and as annoying it was when it got his shirts all damp, it wasn't really that big of a deal.
So it proved surprisingly easy to ignore.
For years, in fact.
Years spent letting his eyes simply gloss over the elephant in the room completely.
The dampness and the muck were surprisingly easy to get the hang of. Whatever it was made of wasn't especially hard to wash out. And it's not like he was getting into many situations where his chest was going to be seen, let alone touched, by another.
He could ignore the massive pit in his chest just fine.
Until, one night, he woke up in searing pain. And one of the first coherent thoughts he could pull through it was that his hand was resting on his chest. He must've carelessly left it there as he drifted off.
Shortly after, his thoughts took a hard dive into delirium. How could he be that careless? How could he grow so accustomed to it that he'd tumble right into the one thing that was off limits? How could—
… Was the hole always so massive?
He couldn't seem to escape the pain, no matter how much he pulled away. It must've expanded over most of his torso as this point. He couldn't bring himself to look down and see just how big it was. Like knowing would only make it engulf him even faster.
Like…
Like if he…
…
He feels something squeeze his hand.
It fucking hurts, but he still hesitates to look.
The second squeeze, though, hurts… a bit less.
Finally, the confusion clawing its way through the pain is enough to yank him out of the spiral.
He looks down.
The hole's not really that much bigger than he remembers. (He would later be lucid enough to feel ashamed for not keeping better track.)
What's actually new about the hole is the arm reaching out of it, coated in familiar grime, fingers linked between his own.
Holding his hand.
Not only that, but seemingly trying to… comfort him. He belatedly realizes that his cheeks are wet- much more than the natural moisture of the pit inside him, and not as clammy as the sweat brought on by his pain. Now that he's gotten his bearings, he also realizes that the comfort seems to be working, reducing the pain to a dull ache.
He brings his hand back to his chest, watching the arm recede. His fingers uncurl, and he sees the strange hand hesitate before it does the same.
And once the hand slips back inside as well, he just… lays there. For a while. Until he falls back asleep.
When morning comes, he stands in front of the mirror again, and slowly brings a damp washcloth to the hole in his chest.
It doesn't hurt as much.