Work Text:
Alexis Castle's First Snuff Job
By
Apervylittleperson1990
The old radiator hissed like a forgotten kettle. Alexis traced a fingernail along its peeling paint, counting the chips as they flaked onto the scuffed hotel carpet. Seventeen. Always an odd number. Outside, rain blurred the city lights into streaks of gold and red against the wet asphalt.
Her phone buzzed sharply against the laminate desk—a reminder for Client 9, Suite 308. *Fantasy Unlimited: Fulfillment Pending*. Alexis tightened the buckle on her leather wrist cuff, her reflection in the windowpane looking ghostly and remote. The uniform—black silk, tailored to strategic points—felt suddenly heavy. Training manuals didn't cover this.
A knock. Sharp, impatient. Alexis breathed deep—vanilla-scented air sanitizer, wet wool from the hallway carpet—then slid open the door. Heavy perfume punched her senses: gardenias and something cloying, like spoiled fruit. Meredith Harper stood silhouetted against the emergency exit sign, her Burberry trench dripping rain onto the threshold. "On time. Good," she murmured, stepping inside without glancing at her daughter. Her gaze raked the room’s cheap furnishings—the stained armchair, the vibrating ice machine through the wall—before settling coldly on Alexis. "I expect professionalism."
Alexis’s palms turned slick against her thighs. *Her knuckles are bruised*, she registered distantly—Meredith’s left hand clutching a Prada handbag, tendons straining white beneath the skin. Training protocols screamed in her head: *Secure the space. Verify client intent*. Yet her mouth moved on its own: "Mother." The word tasted of rust and childhood antiseptic. Meredith’s laugh was a dry rattle. "Don’t waste time on sentiment, darling. I paid for Terminal Euphoria. Twelve hours." She tossed her bag onto the bed, the clink of vials inside unmistakable. *Accelerants*. Alexis’s stomach clenched.
Outside, sirens wailed three blocks away — ambulance or police, she couldn’t tell — but Meredith shrugged off her trenchcoat, revealing a silk camisole stained with what looked like red wine near the collarbone.
"You knew you were hiring me?" Alexis’s voice scraped her throat raw as she kicked the door shut. Her thumb found the panic button concealed under her cuff — cold, unyielding metal against her pulse. Meredith turned slowly, running a chipped burgundy nail along the room’s grimy thermostat. "The reservation listed your employee code. 'A-9.' How many Alexandras work Fantasy Unlimited’s termination division?" She paused, tapping the bruised knuckles Alexis had noticed earlier. "Your father always said irony was wasted on the dead."
The St. Andrew’s cross leaned against the textured wallpaper, its cold steel arms contrasting sharply with the cheap floral pattern. Alexis hauled it upright; the metallic scrape echoed like a tomb sealing. Meredith shed her camisole without hesitation. Her torso was a roadmap of old yellowed bruises and surgical scars Alexis didn’t recognize — a mastectomy scar puckered beneath her left breast. Alexis’s fingers trembled as she secured the first leather restraint around Meredith’s wrist. The skin felt paper-thin, smelling of antiseptic and decay beneath expensive perfume. "Why?" Alexis whispered, buckling the ankle cuff too tight before loosening it. "Why like this?"
"I am not getting any younger," Meredith sighed, rolling her shoulders against the restraints. She tilted her chin toward a discreet camera lens protruding from a smoke detector near the ceiling. "Good acting roles are getting hard to come by, and dying in pain is all the rage in Hollywood right now." A razorblade smile sliced across her face. "I arranged with the agency to have the recording of my death sent to all my contacts. They’ll see the proof—I took more pain than they ever could. That bitch Helena Bonham Carter won’t sleep for weeks." Her laughter curdled the air. Alexis snapped the final buckle shut, her own pulse roaring in her ears.
"Why use *me*?" Alexis asked as she took a step back and walked towards the chrome bench where all her tools were laid out—needles glinting under flickering fluorescents, polished chrome blades reflecting Meredith’s stretched silhouette. Her fingers hovered over a vial labeled "Compound X-7"—neurotoxin, slow burn. "You could’ve hired anyone."
Meredith’s throaty chuckle was thick with unspoken history. "Because I was never there for you when you were growing up," she murmured, shifting against the restraints. Rain lashed louder against the window; its rhythmic drumming filled the pause where her breath hitched. "Too busy flying around the world working, so this will give you a chance to work out your issues with me." A playful gleam sparked in her eyes—so horribly familiar from childhood birthday calls interrupted by film sets. "And as far as I know," she added, lips twisting like torn silk, "no one in Hollywood has been willing snuffed by their own child yet. Imagine the headlines tomorrow."
Alexis swallowed the knot in her throat, the vial slick against her palm. Compound X-7 felt colder than metal, heavier than guilt. She stepped closer—close enough to see the fine tremor in Meredith's shoulder, smell the stale wine beneath gardenia perfume. The needle’s tip hovered just beneath her mother’s jawline, kissing the frail blue vein pulsing there.
"This compound," Alexis began, her voice flat and distant as the rain-streaked glass, "will amplify every nerve signal tenfold. Every cut, every shock, every broken bone." The needle trembled. She forced her hand steady. "Once I inject this, nothing stops the cascade. No antidote. Only agony until your heart explodes." Her eyes locked onto Meredith’s—not seeking reassurance, but absolution. "You will know pain no human has survived documenting. Do you understand? Do you *consent*?"
Meredith’s gaze snapped past Alexis, locking onto the camera lens protruding from the smoke detector. Her chin tilted upward, defiantly theatrical, lips curling into a grotesque parody of a smile. "I, Meredith Lee Harper," she announced, voice cracking towards a fever-pitched vibrato Alex recognized from her Oscar-nominated role in *Shattered Vows*, "freely consent to this death! My final script demands agony—rich, exquisite agony!" She paused dramatically, chest heaving, eyes wild and wet beneath the fluorescent glare. "And I implore my daughter—Alexis Castle—to carve it slow! Make it sing!" Her head whipped back towards Alexis, pupils dilated pools of dark demand. "NOW! **GIVE ME THE PAIN!**"
Alexis inhaled the syrupy vanilla sanitizer mixed with Meredith’s sweat and decaying perfume. Her stomach coiled tight, bile rising, but her hands remained unnervingly steady. Training kicked in: *Professionalism is detachment.* She leaned in slowly, her lips brushing Meredith’s ear, breath a whisper against damp grey roots at her mother’s temple. "Drama suits you," she murmured, voice flat and cold. Then, like a practiced thief stealing solace, she tilted Meredith’s face and kissed her—deeply, violently—her tongue tasting stale lipstick and desperation. In that same heartbeat, Alexis’s right hand drove the needle up beneath Meredith’s jaw, sinking deep into the pulsing blue vein with brutal precision. The plunger slammed home.
Compound X-7 flooded Meredith’s bloodstream like liquid fire. She gasped against Alexis’s mouth—a wet, ragged choke—as the neurotoxin ignited every nerve ending. Alexis ripped back, tearing Meredith’s silk camisole and slacks apart with clawed fingers. Fabric shredded like wet paper, leaving Meredith exposed and trembling against the restraints. Meredith's perfect skin was laid bare, a canvass for Alexis to work her art upon "You will know pain."
Alexis stepped away, the syringe clattering onto the chrome tray. Her fingers curled around the handle of a leather flogger—thick braided strands tipped with lead weights. Rain hammered the window in sync with Meredith’s ragged breathing. Alexis swung low and hard, the flogger cracking across Meredith’s stomach. Metal beads bit into skin, leaving an immediate lattice of crimson welts. *Thud.* Meredith convulsed against the restraints, a strangled cry escaping her lips. "You know," Alexis said, her voice unnervingly calm as she raised the flogger again, "no one’s ever made it through the full twelve hours without dying first." The second strike landed higher—across Meredith’s right breast, directly over the puckered mastectomy scar. Flesh purpled instantly. "Then make me the first!" Meredith gritted out, spit flecking her chin, eyes wild with agony and defiance. Compound X-7 roared through her; pain flooded her system like drowning.
Alexis circled the St. Andrew’s cross, tracing the flogger’s tails lightly over the fresh wounds. Fresh blood oozed, mixing with sweat and the sour reek of accelerated metabolism. She paused behind Meredith, letting the anticipation thicken. "That would mean I’d have to hold back," Alexis murmured, her lips brushing Meredith’s ear. Ice settled in her tone. "Don’t think you can take half a day of what I have planned for you." With an evil grin twisting her features, Alexis reared back and struck Meredith’s spine—a diagonal slash from shoulder to hip. Skin split like overripe fruit. Meredith screamed—a raw, animal sound that vibrated against Alexis’s palm pressed flat against her mother’s heaving back. Yet, beneath the agony, Meredith’s eyes snapped to the camera lens. A manic grin stretched across her tear-streaked face. *Helena Bonham Carter will watch,* Alexis realized. *She wants them all to see.* Determination hardened Meredith’s expression into something terrifyingly lucid.
"Hold back?" Meredith rasped, each word forced through clenched teeth. Her knuckles paled against the restraints. "Don’t you dare. I paid for twelve hours. No one"—she gasped as Alexis flicked a scalpel downward, tracing a shallow crimson line beside her spine—"had better recognize my body tomorrow." The scalpel paused. Alexis leaned close, studying her mother’s reflection in the fogged windowpane. Rain blurred the city into smudged watercolor beyond the glass. "Shattered Vows earned you accolades," Alexis whispered, cold steel kissing Meredith’s scalp. "Helena Bonham Carter called your performance ‘meretricious.’ Remember?" Meredith’s breath hitched—half pain, half fury. Alexis’s grin widened. "Good. Channel that." With surgical precision, she carved a jagged symbol—a crude Oscar statuette—into Meredith’s shoulder blade. Skin peeled away. Blood flowed freely, dripping onto the stained carpet with a rhythmic *tap-tap-tap*. Meredith’s choked scream dissolved into hysterical laughter. "Yes! Let her see!"
"Then show her what you can take!" Alexis gritted out, fingers curling around polished brass knuckles slick with blood. She struck low—a brutal hammer-fist to Meredith’s exposed kidney. Bone cracked audibly. Meredith sagged against the restraints, a primal shriek tearing from her ruined throat. Alexis pivoted, driving two rapid elbow strikes into the raw, flayed muscle of Meredith’s upper back. Skin shredded like wet tissue paper beneath the blows, exposing slick crimson sinew underneath. The stench flooded the tiny room—hot copper blood, sour sweat, and the cloying decay beneath Compound X-7’s chemical burn. Blow after blow rained down: knuckles splitting skin above Meredith’s hips, knotted leather tails biting into her thighs. Alexis lost count—her movements became a piston-fury of precision brutality. Meredith convulsed, suspended only by the leather straps, her screams devolving into wet, gurgling sobs. Skin peeled away in ragged flaps. Bone glistened beneath torn flesh.
Abruptly, Alexis staggered back, chest heaving. Sweat stung her eyes, blurring the carnal masterpiece she’d painted across her mother’s ruined back. Blood pooled thickly on the carpet beneath Meredith’s bare feet. Alexis gasped, gulping the stagnant air—vanilla sanitizer choked beneath blood-metal tang and voided bowels. She wiped her crimson-slicked forearm across her face, smearing Meredith’s blood like war paint. Meredith slumped forward, head lolling, breath coming in shallow, rapid hitches. The compound amplified every ragged nerve impulse—her exposed spine twitched like a live wire, muscles seizing uncontrollably around shattered ribs. Alexis watched, detached. Professionalism demanded detachment. She turned mechanically toward the chrome bench.
Her fingers, trembling only slightly now, bypassed blades and needles slick with gore. She grasped a rectangular black device trailing thick, coiled wires. Each wire terminated in gleaming alligator clips, their jaws squeaking faintly as she pried them open. Meredith whimpered, a thin, broken sound, as Alexis approached. Roughly, Alexis pinched each swollen nipple—bruised purple-black from earlier flogging—and snapped the cold metal clips into place. Meredith’s entire body arched violently against the restraints, tendons straining beneath shredded skin. A raw, splintered scream tore from her throat, echoing off the vibrating ice machine’s hum. Alexis leaned in close, her breath cold against Meredith’s sweat-slicked ear. "After an hour sculpting your spine," Alexis murmured, her voice unnervingly calm amidst the carnage, "I need a break. But your agony doesn’t pause." Her thumb hovered over the device’s cracked red toggle switch. "This delivers electricity. Random amps. Random volts. Each shock… a fresh masterpiece for Helena." She flicked the switch.
A jagged scream ripped through Meredith, sharper than any blade – a vicious, involuntary response as raw voltage surged through her damaged nerve endings, amplified tenfold by Compound X-7. Her back arched impossibly high, muscles spasming wildly against the leather straps, pulling grotesquely at flayed flesh. The exposed vertebrae beneath her shredded skin seemed to ripple with the current. Her jaw clenched so tightly Alexis heard teeth crack. Tears and saliva streamed down Meredith’s contorted face, mingling with blood dripping from her chin onto her thighs. Yet, her eyes, wild and desperate, remained locked onto the camera lens, a silent plea for witness etched in agony. Alexis watched dispassionately for a moment – the jerking limbs, the choked gasps between screams, the acrid scent of burnt flesh beneath the metallic blood tang – before turning her back.
The bathroom offered cold, sterile respite. Alexis leaned heavily against the chipped porcelain sink, her reflection a ghastly specter in the fogged mirror. Blood was smeared across her cheekbone, flecked in her blonde hair, darkening the black silk of her uniform’s shoulder strap. She splashed icy water onto her face, the shock a welcome counterpoint to the furnace heat radiating from the main room where her mother convulsed. Each muffled scream through the thin door vibrated in her bones. She methodically scrubbed her hands and forearms with harsh hotel soap, the lather turning pink, then brown, swirling down the drain. Professionalism required cleansing before the next act. Her fingers lingered on the scalpel she’d placed beside the soap dish – unused, pristine steel waiting for the delicate work to come. An ice bath, perhaps. Slow hypothermia. Nerve clusters meticulously isolated. The possibilities unfolded clinically in her mind.
Thirst clawed her throat. She filled a plastic cup, gulping lukewarm water that tasted faintly of chlorine and recycled pipes. The silence from the room felt heavier than the screams. *Professionalism is detachment*, she repeated, the mantra as hollow as the dripping faucet. Her gaze flickered to the panic button beneath her wrist cuff. A single press would bring security, EMTs. An end. Her mother's manic, pain-glazed eyes, fixed defiantly on that camera lens, slammed that door shut. Helena Bonham Carter *would* see. Alexis crushed the empty cup, letting it fall silently into the trash. Detachment wasn't the absence of feeling; it was channeling the storm into precise, calculated strikes. The ice bath would require preparation. Needles filled with inflammatory agents. Salt.
The stench hit her anew as she pushed open the bathroom door – burnt ozone layered over blood, vomit, and the sickly-sweet decay of Compound X-7 metabolizing. Meredith hung limp against the cross, shuddering violently with aftershocks. Patches of skin on her chest were charred black beneath the alligator clips; metallic saliva dripped from her slack jaw onto the pooling crimson below. Her eyes, unfocused and rolling, struggled to find the camera lens. Alexis walked past her trembling form without acknowledgment, her high heels sticking slightly to the tacky carpet. She paused at the chrome bench, deliberately selecting a simple box cutter, the shallow cuts that couldn't kill would be a different type of pain.
With clinical disinterest, Alexis flicked the toggle switch on the electrocution device off. The harsh buzz died instantly. Using the razor edge of the box cutter, she sliced through the thick wires leading to the alligator clips – not gently, but swiftly, like severing unwanted cords. The clips unlatched with sharp clicks, leaving behind raw, puckered wounds where the metal teeth had bitten deep. Meredith gasped – a ragged, wet sound that devolved into a hacking cough. Relief flooded her ravaged features only briefly; her chest heaved violently, struggling for air that couldn’t seem to fill her punctured lung. Her gaze finally drifted from the camera, staring dazedly at the blood-soaked floorboards between her feet, confusion clouding the defiance.
Alexis took a measured step backwards. Her gaze travelled slowly, deliberately, from the grotesque charred patches on Meredith’s chest, upwards over the jagged Oscar carved deep into her shoulder blade, following the crimson valleys Alexis’s knuckles had carved across her flayed back, lingering on the exposed glint of bone near her hips. A slow, serpentine smile spread across Alexis’s face. "Look at you," she breathed, her voice thick with acidic wonder. "Such an exquisite, ugly ruin." She gestured loosely at the chrome tray where a sleek black pistol lay amongst the gleaming instruments. "Are you sure," Alexis hissed, a cruel laugh bubbling beneath the words, "you don't want me to just pick up that gun and paint the wall with what's left of your brains? End this pathetic suffering *now*?" The laughter escaped fully then, cold and metallic, echoing in the heavy silence punctuated only by Meredith's labored breathing.
Meredith shuddered, a full-body tremor that rattled the restraints. Her head hung low, matted grey hair plastered to her forehead with blood and sweat. For long, agonizing seconds, she seemed utterly insensate, her consciousness drowning beneath the tsunami of amplified agony gripping every nerve. Her breathing was shallow, rasping bubbles rising wetly from her damaged lung. Then, with torturous slowness, her neck muscles strained. Inch by agonizing inch, she lifted her head. Her eyes, swimming with pain and dulled shock, slowly focused. Not on Alexis. Not on the gun. Not even initially on the relentless camera lens. They locked onto the cheap, floral-patterned wallpaper directly opposite the St. Andrew’s cross – a focus point amidst the swirling horror. Slowly, with monumental effort, her gaze dragged upwards, tracking the peeling seam where mismatched wallpaper strips met the stained ceiling tiles. She swallowed thickly, a visible struggle against the thick saliva pooling in her ruined throat. Her lips moved, forming words that died silently. She tried again. The sound that emerged was less a voice and more a desperate scrape of ruined tissue, barely audible above the dripping blood. "... won't... beg... easy..." She paused, gulping air like a suffocating fish. Her eyes finally snapped to Alexis, blazing with a terrifying mix of agony and primal defiance. "Hurts... good," she managed, each word a raw gasp. "More..."
Alexis stared at her mother, this shuddering ruin hanging before her. The mocking laughter died in her throat, replaced by something colder, sharper. This wasn't defiance born of strength, Alexis realized with a jolt of disgust. It was defiance fueled by obsession – the all-consuming need for Helena Bonham Carter to witness *this*. To witness Meredith Harper transcend mere endurance. Professional detachment threatened to crack, replaced by a chilling fury. Her fingers tightened around the cheap plastic handle of the box cutter. Without ceremony, without theatrics, Alexis lunged forward. Not with a slash, but a deliberate, sustained drag. The brittle blade rasped harshly across Meredith’s raised cheekbone, grating against bone. Skin parted like damp paper, revealing raw pink flesh beneath before bright crimson welled and spilled in a thick rivulet down her mother’s cheek and jaw. The wound carved a jagged, ugly path through bruising and grime. Meredith flinched violently, a choked gasp escaping her lips. Yet, amidst the fresh agony, a bizarre spark ignited in her pain-glazed eyes. She choked, spitting blood onto her own chest. "Good... girl," she rasped, the words thick and garbled but unmistakable, a grotesque parody of maternal approval. A gout of crimson bubbled over her lower lip as she fought to form the next words. "...won't... twelve... but... Helena..." Her eyes rolled upwards, desperately seeking the camera lens, her entire ruined face a mask of agonized triumph. "...won't... take... this... much..."
Alexis watched Meredith's gaze lock onto the smoke detector lens, saw the demented pride flickering amidst the agony. That flicker sparked something volcanic within Alexis – white-hot fury mixed with profound revulsion. Her mother wasn't looking *at* Alexis. She was looking *through* her, seeking validation only from the imagined horror-stricken eyes of Helena Bonham Carter viewing the recording later. The detached professionalism shattered utterly. Alexis leaned in close, her lips brushing Meredith’s ear damp with blood and sweat. Her voice, when it came, was low, flat, devoid of inflection, yet vibrating with a suppressed violence colder than any blade. "You want Helena to *watch*?" Alexis hissed, the words dripping acid. She stepped back deliberately. "Fine." Her gaze locked onto Meredith’s pain-bright eyes, locked onto the camera lens beyond. "But I don't want you to see what comes next," Alexis stated simply. Her thumb slid the thin, brittle blade fully out of the box cutter handle with a sharp click. "It will make it more painful." She said it as a clinical observation, not a threat.
Alexis moved with terrifying swiftness. One hand clamped onto Meredith’s sweat-slicked forehead, fingers digging bruisingly into her temples, wrenching her head back and immobilizing it against the steel arm of the cross. Meredith’s breath hitched in panicked confusion – the awful promise slicing through her narcotic haze of agony. Before Meredith could even formulate a scream or a plea, Alexis drove the cheap plastic cutter upwards. With brutal, unhesitating force, she jammed the tip deep into the inner corner of Meredith’s right eye socket. A sickeningly wet *pop* sounded as the orbital bone fractured beneath the impact. Alexis twisted the blade savagely, hooking behind the eyeball. Tendons and optic nerve stretched, tore, then snapped with a wet crunch. She ripped the mangled orb free, dangling it momentarily on the end of the blade before flinging the viscous jelly onto the blood-sodden carpet. Blood surged from the gaping socket in a warm, arterial pulse. Meredith’s body bucked violently against the restraints, a primal shriek erupting – not just pain, but utter, shattering horror. The sound broke, dissolving into wet, choking gurgles.
Alexis didn’t pause. Her grip tightened. The cutter, slick with vitreous humor and dark blood, jabbed deep into the left socket. Meredith’s head thrashed wildly, but Alexis held firm, her expression a mask of chilling efficiency. She gouged deeper, forcing the blade past resisting muscle and ligament, levering the eyeball upwards in its socket until it too tore loose, trailing ragged strands of connective tissue. A second geyser of hot crimson-black fluid erupted. Alexis dropped the second ruined eye onto Meredith’s heaving chest, where it rolled stickily into a fold of torn muscle. Meredith’s screams devolved into raw, bubbling inhalations, her face a grotesque fountain mask, twin streams of blood pouring down her cheeks like macabre tears. She choked, sputtering, trembling uncontrollably, her breath whistling wetly through shattered ribs.
With clinical detachment, Alexis moved to the restraints. Leather straps, soaked in sweat and blood, yielded stiffly. She worked methodically: wrists first, buckles clicking open with a sharp pop; then ankles, torn fabric straps rasping against bruised flesh. Meredith’s ruined body, deprived instantly of tension, crumpled. She hit the sticky carpet with a sickeningly dense *thud*, limbs splayed bonelessly, momentarily still except for the frantic drumming of her heart visible beneath glistening ribs. Her fingers twitched, clawing blindly at the saturated pile. She tried to lift her head – the gaping sockets aimed futilely towards the sound of Alexis's heels – but only managed a ragged groan.
Rain lashed harder against the window. Alexis evaluated Meredith’s broken spine, the exposed vertebrae gleaming wetly in the overhead light, her back a topographic map of agony. A predatory stillness settled over Alexis. She lifted her right foot – designer stiletto slick with gore – and pressed the sharp heel experimentally against the unharmed skin near Meredith’s flank. Skin dimpled, resisted, then yielded. Alexis drove the heel downwards with fierce, twisting force, punching deep through muscle layers until bone grated against metal. Blood surged black-red around the puncture, coating the pristine silver hardware in a thick glaze. Meredith convulsed violently, a guttural, choking scream escaping her ruined throat, her head whipping sideways as if fleeing the assault. Alexis leaned close, her voice a venomous whisper slicing through the wet gasps. "Bet you didn't think I had this in me when you hired me!" The sneer that followed was colder than the rain battering the pane.
The stiletto slid free with a wet suck. Before Meredith’s writhing form could settle, Alexis pivoted sharply. Her foot hooked under Meredith’s hipbone, leveraging momentum. She delivered a vicious, short thrust kick to Meredith’s lower ribs – already fragmented – sending her mother sprawling onto her flayed back. Torn skin met tacky carpet with a sickeningly moist slap. Meredith gasped, a sound like drowning, her ruined sockets staring blindly at the nicotine-stained ceiling tiles as fresh waves of amplified agony ripped through her punctured organs. Alexis towered over her, breathing heavily, observing the raw terror etched across the mangled face that had once starred in glossy film premieres. Blood pooled faster beneath the shattered ribs. The scent intensified – burnt flesh, spilled bile, and the metallic sweetness of deep tissue trauma mingling with cheap hotel disinfectant.
Meredith’s mouth opened impossibly wide, a last attempt at a scream. Only a ragged, desperate inhalation tore from her throat, choked immediately by bloody saliva and violent tremors wracking her entire frame. Her fingers clawed weakly at the bloody pile beneath her, a silent, frantic plea echoing in the abrupt quiet broken only by the rain hammering the window and Meredith’s own wet, labored rasping. Alexis watched, unmoved, the sterile overhead light catching the crimson staining her blonde hair. "*Now*," Alexis spat, the word sharp as a shard of glass. She knelt swiftly beside the shaking wreckage, the cheap plastic box cutter gleaming wetly in her grip. "*Am I important enough for you to pay attention to?!*" The question wasn’t accusation; it was fury distilled into a lethal whisper. With chilling deliberation, Alexis pressed the brittle blade against Meredith’s unmarked thigh, just above the knee where pale skin stretched taut over wasted muscle.
"*Look at me!*" Alexis roared this time, her voice cracking against the confines of the room, shaking Meredith’s shuddering torso. She slammed her free hand down onto Meredith’s sternum – a percussive blow – forcing a spike of agony that momentarily pinned Meredith’s consciousness to the horror. Her head jerked blindly towards the sound, twin waves of blood cresting over her cheeks from the empty sockets. Alexis drove the blade sideways with brutal force, dragging its shallow edge through muscle and fat in a deliberate, agonizingly slow gash that split skin like wet silk. Meredith convulsed, a brutal arch lifting her torso entirely off the carpet for a split second before collapsing back with a wet gasp. Alexis held the blade buried deep in the fresh wound, twisting it minutely. The scent changed – coppery blood layering over the burnt ozone and spilled bile, a new tang sharpening the air. "Answer me!"
Meredith’s breath rattled – a wet, bubbling sound deep in her chest cavity. Despite the fresh agony ripping through her thigh, despite the blindness, despite the suffocating horror, her cracked lips peeled back in a grotesque approximation of a smirk. Her head tilted fractionally towards Alexis’s voice again. A thick globule of blood slid from the corner of her mouth as she choked out the words, garbled but agonizingly clear: "You’re... still... boring." It wasn’t defiance born from pain tolerance; it was pure, distilled dismissal, echoing across decades of neglect, spat out on her own blood.
Alexis’s control shattered. A raw, guttural roar tore from her throat, shaking the walls. It wasn't a scream of rage – it was the sound of tectonic plates rupturing deep within her psyche. Before Meredith could flinch back from the sound, Alexis hauled back her fist, knuckles whitening beneath layers of drying crimson, and drove it straight into her mother’s jawbone. The impact cracked loud and sickening – jawbone fracturing, teeth snapping loose. Meredith’s head whipped sideways violently, spraying clots of blood and saliva across the stained carpet. The blind gaze snapped sideways, unfocused, a heavy groan escaping her ruined airway as she slumped further into the stain she’d become.
Alexis lurched upright, blood pounding in her temples like a drum signaling war. Her gaze swept the chrome tray, skimming past scalpels and syringes, past the gleaming pistol she knew Meredith would welcome. It fixed, laser-sharp, on the compact propane torch nestled beside a cauterizing pen. Its chrome shell gleamed coldly under the harsh overhead light. She snatched it up, the metal instantly cold against her overheated palm. Her thumb found the ignition switch. A sharp, decisive *click-hhhisss* filled the awful silence, louder than Meredith’s wet breathing. A precise, intensely blue flame erupted from the nozzle, flickering hungrily, casting sharp, dancing shadows on the blood-spattered wallpaper. The scent of propane cut sharply through the sickening miasma of burnt flesh, bile, and blood – a sterile, alien smell promising pure annihilation.
Without preamble, Alexis knelt again beside Meredith’s shattered form. Her free hand, slick with sweat and gore, grasped Meredith’s thigh just above the mangled knee. With brutal leverage, she jerked her mother’s pelvis upwards, exposing the tangled, blood-soaked hair between her thighs. The blue flame danced mere inches away, radiating palpable waves of heat Meredith could feel even through the haze of agony clouding her senses. "You wanted unforgettable?" Alexis hissed, her voice devoid of inflection, utterly flat. "Helena *will* remember this." The flame dipped downwards swiftly, deliberately, aimed squarely at the coiled dark patch. The heat hit first – an intense, searing wave. Then, with horrifying speed, the dry pubic hair ignited. *Whoosh.* A sudden, fierce bloom of yellow-orange flame engulfed the area, flaring brightly against pale, bruised skin, accompanied by a sharp, crackling sound like dry twigs snapping underfoot.
Meredith’s reaction was visceral, primal. Her body jackknifed off the carpet in a violent, convulsive arc, fueled purely by reflexive terror. A choked, animalistic shriek tore from her throat – a sound raw with utter horror, stripped of words or defiance. The acrid stench of burning hair filled the air instantly, thick and cloying, blanketing the metallic tang of blood with something sickeningly organic. Her blind eyes seemed to widen impossibly in the ruined sockets, her mouth gaping silently beneath the shattered jaw as searing pain – different from bone-deep agony, sharper, more immediate – ripped through her nervous system. Tendrils of greasy black smoke curled upwards from the burning patch, mixing with the heavier propane scent.
Alexis didn't linger there. The blue flame lifted, leaving behind blackened, smoldering skin and a patch of rapidly blistering flesh. Her hand, gripping Meredith's jawbone despite the fractures, forced her mother's head to one side, exposing the relatively unmarred skin of her left cheek. It was pale, bruised, still bearing the ghost of Meredith's pristine Hollywood complexion beneath the grime and drying blood. Without ceremony, without theatrics beyond the hiss of the torch, Alexis pressed the concentrated blue tip directly against the soft flesh beneath the cheekbone. The reaction was instantaneous. Skin shriveled and blackened upon contact. Fat sizzled violently, popping and spitting, releasing a grotesque fatty aroma that mingled horribly with the singed hair. Meredith’s scream became a continuous, ragged inhalation against the agony, her body straining impossibly against Alexis's grip, trembling uncontrollably as the flame cauterized nerve endings.
With contemptuous ease, Alexis released the pressure holding Meredith’s pelvis and shoulder. Her gaze swept the ruined landscape – the charred pubis, the weeping socket, the fresh brand on the face. Professional detachment dissolved completely under corrosive wrath. Her mother’s choked rasp – "*boring*" – reverberated louder than any scream. Her boot shot out, catching Meredith roughly in the ribs, leveraging force. Meredith’s broken body flopped heavily onto her stomach with a wet thud, her flayed back instantly plastered against the tacky carpet. Exposed ribs scraped wood beneath, drawing a choked gasp. Alexis straddled her mother’s hips. One hand grasped the waistband of Meredith's shredded underwear, wrenching them down brutally past ruined thighs. The other slammed the nozzle of the still-hissing torch against Meredith’s exposed anus. Alexis stared directly into the camera lens dangling from the smoke detector, her expression glacial fury. "*Unforgettable*, Mother," she spat. Her thumb jammed the trigger fully open. The blue flame didn't just lick – it roared.
A torrent of liquid blue fire filled the clenched aperture. Hair vanished instantly in a puff of acrid smoke. Taut skin puckered, shriveled, and blackened before Meredith’s nerve endings could fully register the intrusion. Then came the deeper agony: searing heat plunging inward. Not just surface ignition, but a dense column of superheated gas expanding violently within the cramped confines. Intimate muscles spasmed wildly, ineffectually against the invasion. Meredith’s spine arched impossibly off the carpet – a violent, rigid bow straining against gravity. Her jawbone, already fractured, gaped wide in a silent, airless scream trapped behind clenched teeth. Her entire body locked, trembling violently as the fire drilled deep, scalding soft tissue, filling her pelvis with liquid agony. The air filled with the sharp crackle of burning hair, the wet sizzle of fat vaporizing at the entrance, and the terrifyingly intimate gurgling sound of superheated gas forcing its way deeper.
Alexis savagely wrenched the torch free. The sudden absence of flame revealed a charred, smoldering crater surrounded by concentric rings of rapidly blistered flesh stretching up Meredith’s buttocks. Greasy smoke coiled thickly from the violated opening. Alexis kicked Meredith’s hip hard. The broken body flopped bonelessly onto its back again, landing in the spreading pool of her own fluids. Before Meredith could draw a shuddering breath choked with smoke and bile, Alexis planted one stiletto heel squarely onto the blackened, weeping pubis. Leather soles grinding into raw flesh, Alexis leaned her weight forward, relishing the wet squelch beneath her boot. She delivered three sharp, brutal stomps, each impact driving the heel deeper into the charred tissue and bruised pelvis beneath. Bone grated audibly. Meredith’s body spasmed like a landed fish, a raw gurgle escaping her ruined throat. Alexis stared down at the blind, trembling wreck, her own breathing ragged. "Still happy," Alexis snarled, punctuating each word with another grinding twist of her boot heel on blistered flesh, "you asked ME... to work out... my *issues*... with you... THIS way?!"
Meredith’s shattered jaw trembled violently. Her lips worked, attempting to form syllables – perhaps defiance, perhaps agony – but only bloody froth bubbled from the corners. Her blind gaze rolled wildly beneath the lidless sockets, frantically seeking a sound or sensation that made sense. Alexis roared, a feral explosion of fury. She jerked her boot free from the sticky mess underfoot. Then her stiletto heel lashed out again – a vicious, piston-like kick crashing into Meredith’s exposed rib cage. Fragmented bone splintered inward with a sickening *crunch*. Another kick hammered Meredith’s shattered sternum. Another drove into the torn abdomen. Alexis moved with savage, uncontrolled ferocity, unleashing years of abandonment and fury into every brutal strike. Her boot heels became flails, stamping, grinding, kicking indiscriminately – thighs, belly, the anguished face still trying to contort into defiance. Skin tore further under the assault. Bone fragments shifted sickeningly beneath bruising flesh. Each landing blow elicited a wet gasp or a shuddering spasm from Meredith’s ruined form as Alexis vented her primal rage onto the broken shell that had housed her neglect.
Alexis stilled abruptly, chest heaving, rivulets of sweat carving paths through the grime and drying blood coating her face. She scanned Meredith’s horrific tableau – the labored, shallow breaths barely lifting the chest now resembling pulped meat, the twin rivers of crimson flowing ceaselessly from the sockets, the awful charred crater between her thighs still emitting thin wisps of acrid smoke. The end was imminent – a choked demise drowning in her own fluids. That was too clean. Too quick. "*Not yet,*" Alexis snarled, her voice ragged. "*Wild dogs deserve fresher meat.*" She stepped deliberately over Meredith’s hip, aligning herself near her mother’s mangled head. Her fingers tangled brutally in Meredith’s sweat-matted blonde hair, hauling the ruined head partly off the sodden carpet. Meredith gagged, thick blood pooling in her pharynx. "*But choking…*" Alexis hissed, "*would be too fucking polite.*" The propane torch was still clutched in her other hand. Its blue flame sputtered, hungry and unwavering.
Without ceremony, Alexis shoved the chrome nozzle deep into Meredith’s gaping mouth, forcing it past shattered teeth and broken jawbone, driving it into the raw meat of her throat. The chilled metal scraped against torn flesh. Meredith’s body jerked wildly, a silent convulsion seizing her limbs, her blinded face contorting in fresh, unimaginable terror. Her ruined throat attempted a frantic, instinctive gasp – a last desperate pull for oxygen. Alexis watched the primal reflex with glacial indifference. "*Breathe it in,*" she commanded softly, a chilling contrast to the violence. "*Make Helena proud.*" Her thumb slammed the trigger fully open.
A torrent of liquid blue flame roared into Meredith’s esophagus. Air vanished, replaced instantly by superheated annihilation. Hair in her nostrils vanished in a microsecond puff of acrid smoke. Soft palate and uvula shriveled black upon contact. Deeper tissues ignited violently – tracheal rings glowed cherry-red before collapsing, vocal cords vaporized into greasy steam, epiglottis curling like burnt paper. The flame surged downward, filling lungs saturated with blood, transforming them into bellows of fire. Meredith’s spine arched off the carpet in a final, rigid paroxysm – a grotesque, voiceless scream tearing through her entire frame. Heat bloomed outward, swelling her chest cavity visibly beneath torn skin, charring ribs from within. Thick, oily smoke poured from her nostrils and mangled eye sockets, mingling with the stench of seared pork and incinerated viscera.
Alexis watched, utterly still, as the convulsions ceased. Meredith’s body settled into the sodden carpet, chest grotesquely distended, skin crackling faintly. Only the faintest tremor in her fingertips betrayed the lingering electrical storm in her nervous system. Alexis yanked the torch nozzle free with a wet, sucking sound, revealing the charred ruin of Meredith's throat – a gaping, blackened maw outlined by teeth fused into a permanent rictus. She tossed the torch aside; it clattered metallically, the blue flame dying instantly. "Choking on blood?" Alexis murmured, her voice flat and detached as rainwater sliding down glass. "Too clean for a spectacle. Too... merciful." Her boot nudged Meredith’s limp hip, rolling her slightly. The charred pubis and smoldering crater puckered obscenely. "Wild dogs deserve fresher meat."
She stepped over the body, trailing bloody footprints towards the nightstand where her burner phone lay beside a congealed espresso cup. Her fingers, sticky and trembling with exhaustion, closed around the cheap plastic. She tapped a memorized sequence – seven digits, sharp and decisive. The line connected after half a ring. "Job’s done," Alexis stated, her voice devoid of inflection, colder than the rain outside. "Client’s terminated. Terminal Euphoria Protocol fulfilled. Send the clean-up crew." A pause, thick with the scent of charred flesh and ozone. "Disposal site: Nearest forest. Deep containment procedures." She didn’t wait for acknowledgment. Her thumb jabbed the disconnect button. The screen flickered back to black. Her reflection stared back – red hair matted with drying crimson, eyes hollow and bruised above a face streaked with grime.
Alexis didn’t glance towards the ruin splayed across the carpet. She moved to the ensuite bathroom, the clinical white tiles a jarring contrast to the slaughterhouse tableau behind her. She stripped methodically: ruined cocktail dress peeled away like shed skin, expensive stilettos kicked into a corner. The water hissed brutally from the chrome showerhead, scalding, turning the drain crimson. She scrubbed furiously with industrial disinfectant soap, the sharp citrus scent battling the phantom stench of burning entrails lodged deep in her sinuses. Steam curled around her, carrying whispers of her mother’s choked scream – *"You're still boring!"* Alexis clenched her jaw, driving her knuckles harder against her skin until it burned pink. Beneath the water’s roar, her breath hitched once – a sharp, choked gasp muffled by falling water.
She emerged wrapped in a thin hotel towel, dripping onto the sterile tiles. Her reflection glared back from the fogged mirror: hollow blue eyes beneath smudged mascara. Her gaze drifted past her own image, past the steam, to rest on the carnage bleeding into the cheap carpet. Seeing the mangled form – the charred cavities, the blind gaping sockets – didn’t twist her stomach. A fierce, cold pride surged instead, sharp and clean as a scalpel slice. *Well, guess I proved myself to her*, Alexis thought, the ghost of a smirk touching her cracked lips. *And Fantasy Unlimited.* The smile widened, baring teeth flecked with dried crimson. She’d delivered unforgettable agony. She’d forced Meredith to *see* her, finally, amidst the ruin.
The End.