By: magn0lia111
The silence in the apartment was not the silence of peace, but the silence of the holding pen. It was thick, suffocating, like the air inside a plastic bag pulled tight over a face. Arthur sat on the edge of his futon, his spine curved forward in a posture of defeat, his hands clasped together so tightly the knuckles had turned the color of old parchment. The room smelled of stale pizza, unwashed sheets, and the acrid, metallic tang of his own fear.
Fear was vibrating through him, a high-frequency oscillation of terror that rattled his very marrow. On the scarred coffee table in front of him, his phone lay face down, a black slab of obsidian that felt less like an object and more like a bomb counting down the final seconds of his life. Shadows seemed to lengthen and stretch of their own accord.
Picking it up was the last thing he wanted to do. He knew what was waiting. He knew who was waiting. The debt was three thousand dollars. It might as well have been three million. It was a mountain of white powder that had vanished up his nose over the course of three frantic weeks, a foolish lapse in judgment that now felt like a terminal diagnosis.
The screen swiped clean with a trembling thumb. The image loaded pixel by pixel, a slow reveal of his impending doom. It was a butt. It was perfect, sculpted by expensive genetics and perhaps a surgeon’s knife, encased in denim so tight it looked painted on. The fabric was a deep, indigo wash, hugging every curve with predatory precision. The skin was flawless, pale and glowing against the dark denim. Above it, scrawled in black Sharpie across the back pocket, was a crude smiley face: two dots and a jagged, screaming curve for a mouth.
Coming to collect, the caption read. Arthur felt his stomach turn over, a hot, greasy roil of nausea that rose into his throat. They were Juggalos, but Shyla was different. She was a glitch in the matrix of their grime, a Harley Quinn fantasy ripped from the screen and forced into reality. Her face paint was immaculate, not smeared but applied with the precision of a high-fashion editorial. The clown mask was perfect, terrifying in its symmetry.
A dive bar on the edge of town was where he had met them, a place where the air was thick with stale beer and desperation. The woman, Shyla, had a laugh like a hyena choking on a bone, but she looked like she belonged on a billboard in Times Square. The man, Riggs, was a slab of muscle and bad tattoos who moved with the heavy, deliberate gait of a predator that knew it was at the top of the food chain.
Sadism was their true trade, not just drugs. They enjoyed the art of the scare. Arthur stood up, his legs weak and watery. He went to the window, parting the blinds with a single finger. The street below was quiet, bathed in the sickly orange glow of the sodium vapor lamps. Nothing moved but a plastic bag tumbling in the wind.
Safety was an illusion he clung to, telling himself he was secure on the third floor. The door was locked. He had a baseball bat under the bed. But the fear was a living thing now, crawling up his esophagus. He turned back to the room, trying to breathe, trying to find a rhythm that wasn't a ragged gasp.
Calling the cops was his first instinct, but he quickly squashed it. He was holding. The residue in the hidden drawer of his nightstand would be enough to put him away. He was trapped in a box of his own making. Unseen by Arthur, a shadow shifted in the corner of the room. It was not a shadow cast by the sodium light outside, but something denser, something ancient.
Coalescing for a fraction of a second, it took the vague shape of a great lion or a man-beast, before dissolving back into the drywall. The air pressure dropped, just for a heartbeat, and a low thrumming vibration, below the range of human hearing, passed through the floorboards. It was a silent greeting, a whisper of obeisance to the demon who presided over mechanics and hidden things, who watched the breaking of men with the detached interest of a tinkerer watching a gear strip.
Crash. The sound came from the hallway, not the street. Splintering wood, the groan of a frame giving way. Arthur froze, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird. It wasn't the front door. It was the service door, the one at the end of the hall that led to the fire escape. He had deadbolted it, but he had seen the rust on the hinges earlier that summer.
Fixing it had been his plan, but he had meant to do a lot of things. Heavy footsteps thudded against the cheap linoleum. Thud. Thud. Thud. They didn't run. They marched. There was a heavy, rhythmic certainty to the sound that promised violence. "Arthur, oh Arthur," Shyla’s voice drifted through the thin walls, singsong and mocking. "We know you're hoooome. Don't be rude to a lady."
Scrambling for the bat, his fingers fumbled as he knocked the lamp off the table. It shattered, the bulb popping in a brief flare of violence. He gripped the bat, the wood slick with his sweat. He positioned himself behind the armchair, his back to the wall. He could hear them whispering, giggling. The sound of their amusement was worse than the threats; it meant they were enjoying this.
Exploding inward, the door to his apartment didn't just open. The lock splintered, the doorframe groaning in protest as it gave way. Dust motes danced in the sudden draft, illuminated by the harsh hallway light. Two silhouettes stood in the breach. They were painted. Shyla’s face was a ghostly white with black, hollowed-out eyes and a crimson slash of a mouth that was too wide, too stretched. Her body was a perfect hourglass, accentuated by a tight, red-and-black leather bodysuit that cost more than Arthur’s car. Riggs wore a similar mask, but his was green and black, twisted into a permanent sneer of rage.
Rejects from a nightmare circus, they looked terrifying in their absurdity and lethal in their reality. "Found him," Riggs rumbled. His voice sounded like gravel grinding together. "Put the stick down, little piggy," Shyla teased, stepping over the threshold. She was holding a hammer, clawing the air with it. Her movements were lithe, acrobatic, like a dancer performing a violent ballet. "We just want to play." Arthur didn't speak. He tightened his grip on the bat, his breath coming in short, sharp whistles.
Swinging wildly as Riggs charged, he made a desperate, flailing arc that lacked any real power. Riggs caught the bat mid-swing. He didn't even grunt. He just twisted, wrenching Arthur's wrist with a sickening crack. Arthur screamed, dropping to his knees as pain shot up his arm like lightning. The bat clattered to the floor. "Bad boy," Shyla cooed, stepping closer. She smelled of expensive perfume and copper. "You owe us, Artie. Three large. And you don't have the cash. So we're taking it out in trade."
"Please," Arthur gasped, cradling his wrist. "I'll get it. I swear." Riggs kicked him in the stomach. The air left Arthur’s lungs in a rush, and he curled into a ball, gasping for oxygen that wouldn't come. Riggs laughed, a wet, phlegmy sound. "He's soft, Shy. Like a marshmallow." "Soft things squish good," she replied. They dragged him up by his hair. Arthur shrieked, his scalp burning as they hauled him toward the bedroom. He tried to dig his heels in, but he was limp, a ragdoll in their grip.
Thrown onto the bed, the springs groaned under his weight. Before he could scramble away, Riggs was on him. A knee in the chest, pinning him down. Arthur looked up into the painted face of his nightmare. The black eyes of the makeup seemed to bore into his soul, devoid of any humanity. "Shyla's got a present for you," Riggs sneered. "Open wide." Shyla climbed onto the bed, straddling his legs. She was heavy, solid. She leaned forward, her hair hanging in perfect, glossy strands around his face.
Her hand came up, nails long and filed to points, painted a chipped purple. "You didn't like the text?" she whispered, her breath hot and foul. "You didn't like the preview?" She stood up on the mattress, her feet planted on either side of his hips. She towered over him, a colossus of cruelty. Slowly, agonizingly, she began to lower herself. She kept the jeans on. The denim was rigid, unyielding, a second skin that promised no mercy.
"Look at it," she commanded, her voice dropping an octave, becoming serious. "Look at what you owe me." She hovered just inches above his face. The sheer size of it blocked out the light, the ceiling lamp eclipsed by the looming moon of her buttocks encased in stiff, expensive denim. It was a landscape of his doom. The fabric was rough against his cheek, the smell of indigo dye and her own musk filling his nose. It was a vast, undulating plain of blue, broken only by the deep crease of the cleavage and the metallic glint of the button fly.
Hypnotic in its grotesquerie, it was a terrifying monument to the female form that demanded worship. He could see the stitching, the way the fabric pulled and strained against her thighs. "Eyes open, Artie," Riggs said, grabbing Arthur's jaw and squeezing. "Don't be rude." Arthur stared, his eyes wide and glassy. He felt a strange detachment, as if his mind was trying to flee from the reality of what was happening.
"Beautiful, isn't it?" Shyla giggled, wiggling her hips back and forth. The movement made the denim rasp against his skin, a wave of rough terror. "This is the last thing you're gonna see clearly, Artie. Say goodbye to the world." She reached down, her hand coming into his field of view. Her fingers were splayed, the nails like talons. "Time to pay the interest," she whispered. She didn't scratch him. She didn't swipe. She dug.
Driving straight down, the middle finger of her right hand aimed for the center of his left eye. The pain was not immediate; it was a delayed shock, a split second of cold pressure followed by a white-hot explosion that obliterated his thoughts. Arthur screamed, a guttural, animal sound that tore at his throat. He felt the nail puncture the sclera, pierce the lens, and scrape against the back of the socket. It was a wet, squelching sound that he would hear in his nightmares for the rest of his life—if he survived.
"Pop goes the weasel!" Shyla shrieked with laughter. She twisted her finger. Arthur’s body arched off the bed, his back bowing in agony. Blood erupted instantly, hot and thick, running down his cheek and into his ear. The world on the left side dissolved into a swirling, chaotic vortex of red and black. Riggs held him down, laughing as Arthur thrashed. "Hold still, buddy! You're messing up the art!" Shyla withdrew her finger with a wet shhluck. A string of viscous fluid connected her nail to his ruined eye for a moment before snapping. She inspected her work, her painted face hovering just above his.
"Looks like you're crying red," she purred. "Very artistic." She didn't move away. Instead, she lowered herself the final few inches. The weight settled onto his face. It was heavy, suffocating, and absolute. The denim was rough, grinding against his skin, sealing off his nose and mouth with relentless gravity. The smell of her—sweat, expensive perfume, and the coppery tang of his own blood—filled his senses, choking him. She didn't sit all the way down immediately. She hovered, letting him feel the heat, the proximity, the total dominance she held over him. She was a statue of oppression, a monolith of cruelty crushing him into the mattress.
Air was cut off completely. Arthur opened his mouth to gasp, but only found the unyielding barrier of her jeans filling the void. He tried to turn his head, but she was too heavy, her thighs clamping down on the sides of his head like a vice. "Can you breathe down there?" Riggs asked from somewhere far away. "Mmph! Mmm!" Arthur tried to scream, but the sound was muffled into silence, absorbed by the heavy fabric and the body of his tormentor. "Let him up for a second," Riggs said. "I want to get a shot of the eye."
Lifting her hips slightly, Shyla granted him a moment of mercy. Arthur gasped, sucking in a desperate, ragged breath of air. It tasted like iron. His left eye was gone, a throbbing ruin of agony that made him want to vomit. "Look at the camera, Artie," Riggs commanded. Arthur squeezed his right eye shut, trying to block it out. "Open it!" Riggs roared, backhanding him across the face. Arthur opened his eye. Through the blur of tears, he saw the flash of the phone.
"Beautiful," Riggs said. "Now, finish him." Shyla lowered herself again. This time, she didn't hover. She dropped. The impact knocked the wind out of him. The full weight of her settled onto his face, the rough denim crushing his nose flat, sealing his lips shut. Darkness descended, not just from the lack of light, but from the lack of oxygen. Arthur struggled, his bound hands pulling uselessly at the headboard. His legs kicked out, spasming. The panic was a white noise in his head, drowning out everything else. He needed air. He needed it now.
Laughter was the last thing he heard, the vibration traveling through her body and into his skull, a mocking buzz that accompanied him into the abyss. Click. Click. Click. The sound of the camera shutter was faint, rhythmic. They were documenting his death. They were turning his final, humiliating moments into content for the void. Arthur’s vision began to tunnel. The darkness at the edges of his sight crept inward, eating away the last of the light. The pain in his eye faded, replaced by a cold numbness that spread from his extremities inward. His lungs burned, screaming for oxygen that wasn't there.
Thoughts of the debt swirled in his fading mind. It was such a small amount, really. Three thousand dollars. It seemed ridiculous now, a trivial sum of money that had cost him everything. He would have paid it. He would have worked ten jobs. He would have sold everything he owned. But it was too late. The last thing Arthur felt was the weight. The crushing, suffocating, eternal weight. And then, even the weight faded away, leaving him floating in the cold, silent dark.
***
Hours later, or perhaps minutes—time had lost its meaning in the small, dark apartment—Shyla finally lifted herself off the unconscious man. She wiped herself off with his bedsheets, a look of disgusted satisfaction on her face. "He's out cold," she said, climbing off the bed and stretching. Her back cracked audibly. "Boring." Riggs was sitting on the futon in the living room, scrolling through his phone. The blue light cast long shadows across his painted face.
"They're loving it, Shy," he said, his voice filled with a dark glee. "Look at the comments." She walked over, peering over his shoulder. The screen displayed a social media feed, the image of Arthur’s terrified, bloody face juxtaposed with the crude image of her denim-clad butt. The caption read: Juggalo Justice. Don't do drugs, kids, or you'll get clowned. The comments were scrolling by so fast they were a blur. LOL! Total rekt! Hope he learned his lesson! She needs a throne! Pop that eye! Do it again! Fam, is he dead? Who cares? Lol.
Fame tasted sweet to Shyla. "They love us," she whispered, a smile spreading across her painted face. "We're famous." "Viral," Riggs corrected. "We're viral." He tapped the screen, liking a particularly nasty comment about Arthur’s eye. "What should we do with him?" Shyla asked, gesturing toward the bedroom with a thumb. "He's still breathing." "Let him wake up," Riggs said, standing up and grabbing his jacket. "Let him wake up and see how many people saw him cry. That's worse than killing him. That's forever."
Nodding, Shyla's eyes gleamed with malice. "You're right. The internet never forgets." She took one last look at the photo on the screen, at the man they had broken, at the chaos they had wrought. "Happy New Year, Artie," she giggled. They left the apartment door hanging off its hinges, the silence of the room returning, heavier and more suffocating than before. On the nightstand, the screen of Arthur's phone lit up one last time, casting a pale glow over the bloodstained pillow.
A notification popped up. New Comment: 'What a loser.' Then, the screen went black, and the darkness reclaimed the room. In the corner, the shadow shifted again, a lion-shaped silhouette dissolving into the drywall, satisfied with the mechanics of the ruin.