Iraia’s body fell to the stone floor with a shocking crunch.

       “Otumbo…” Von Hechten mumbled, then shouted at the ceiling, “Otumbo!”

       “Ehehehe, my bad!” a voice boomed from above.

       “What are you doing? It wasn’t supposed to        happen now! It’s too soon!”

       “I tell you, It was an accident!”

       “I knew things couldn’t go smoothly!”

Anselm fell out of the booth and scraped his palms on the rough floor. Iraia’s limbs bent at irregular angles, her dark blood threaded between the cobblestones.
Was she—

A pale figure stalked toward him, and his feet told him to run.

Anselm flung himself past the rows of empty booths. His legs useless as two frozen hams.        It’s too soon? It’s too soon?!

He clawed through silken curtains and hurtled down a dark hall. Perhaps monks had stored precious texts here, but now the mouldering shelves held unlabeled cardboard boxes, and
a complicated ventilation system roared above. The hall became darker until he was pawing the wall to keep his bearings. His boot caught on a rough stone, and he almost toppled.

       “Stop this. Don’t be ridiculous.”

From behind, so close. Anselm stumbled around a corner and into sickly fluorescent light.
He weaved between thick wooden beams, gasping for air. His feet went out from beneath him as he skidded through a puddle. That scent. That dirty copper smell. A dark pool flowed from a beam and— and the corpse that was pinned to it. A rough hand gripped his shoulder. Oh god, that’s not a hand…

         “Regen! Are we just doing whatever we want now?” Von Hechten held Anselm tightly from behind, his arms like rough bark. How was he this strong?

The buxom woman flicked hair out of her bloody face.

       “I heard screaming, so I figured it was time.”

       “No no no! This isn’t going to work! Both of you,
       so impatient!”

The gored corpse still twitched, but the blank eyes would never see again.

       “Hoo, she was annoying,” Regen said, “I almost don’t        want to win. Not that I will.”

         “I’ll show you how it’s done,” Von Hechten’s voice pitched up, stretched beyond human range. He shoved Anselm away and laughed like a rusty gate. No, no, no… Why didn’t you get out? Why didn’t you run?

Anselm’s hands skidded in the hot blood as he tried to gain his footing. Regen chuckled, her voice warped as well.

       “Glad you didn’t die on us! Especially with those        minor injuries, I’d be so embarrassed for you.”

A blinding white light shone on Anselm, lighting the glimmers off the silver poking out of his body.
Von Hechten arranged a spread of stiletto knives on
a card table, and a crowd shifted and chattered genially, unseen. Anselm’s wrists hung over his head, bound with nylon cords and he stood balanced on
a narrow wooden crate. With each twitch the blades slid through his flesh. Each movement a new, startling pain.

       “What do you think? Are you enjoying
       yourself now?”

Anselm parted his lips and a stream of vomit and blood dribbled down his neck. It filled his mouth until he choked and sputtered.

         “Oh not again. No, no, this won’t do. Hm.” Von Hechten repositioned Anselm’s head, “Breathe, breathe. You should be alive
a little longer.”

Anselm shook his head and Von Hechten held him by the chin.

         “Embrace your pain! It’s all you have left!”

Why should he? What was this? A disgusting show for rich monsters? He couldn’t see the faces in the crowd, only the back-lit outlines of their heads. Just die, just die. Don’t give them the satisfaction. Now, with dignity, don’t let them finish jerking off.
He willed his body unconscious, but each fresh pain brought him back. This is it, this is how it happens. Of all the ways, this is it.

Von Hechten paced and gestured to the crowd. “Nothing matters except for the meaning we bring to the world while we are in it.
Here you are, with your last opportunity to make something of your insignificant time. Don’t waste it.”

Yes, help these rich fucks shoot their wads. What a noble cause. Anselm snorted and a drip of blood trickled from his nostrils.

       “Defiance? Hm. Defiance is a decision, an act, it’s fine enough.        Rather pedestrian though. I’d hoped for better.”

After everything, after those times he overdosed and Edi took him to the hospital. They always brought him back even when he didn’t want it. Even now, he couldn’t be afforded that one comfort.
Couldn’t even die on his own terms. Von Hechten sorted through
the knives; in this bright lighting and with his pale hair and clothing, he really did look like a pigeon. Pecking him again. Knives instead
of a beak. Anselm smiled tight-lipped to hold in the blood.

       Von Hechten raised an eyebrow. “More tedious defiance? No.
       I’ve seen that before— laughing at the joke of your life.”

A joke, Anselm thought. Yes, it’s very funny. But what was fun about this bloody scene? An audience of cooing birds, shuffling and pecking the ground. He let out a choking little laugh and blood dribbled off his chin. Von Hechten selected a blade, flipped it through the air and caught it without looking. Show off. Why don’t you show them the trick you showed me years ago? It was quite impressive
to restrain your gag-reflex that way.

       Von Hechten inserted the blade through Anselm’s bicep with
a passive expression. A slick sound, slicing an overripe melon. Anselm wobbled on the crate and spasmed with the new pain. Would this continue until he was a pincushion? Until he used every knife on
the table? That could take a long time…

Von Hechten stepped back and tapped his chin. “I wonder what this will do to the value of your books? Rather unsporting of me, isn’t it? Would that be considered insider trading?”

Insider trading… Trading inside… trading inside… a funny phrase,
he had traded inside Von Hechten once. Oh, how to make this stop? It took forever to die. Just die, hurry, die just die die hurry hurry… He rocked on the crate, words running through his head, melding into each other, turning to gibberish. His eyes unfocused, his lids dropped.

Von Hechten pushed his eyelids up with his thumbs. “No no no.
Not yet. Is it uncomfortable standing there? I’ll help you with that.”

He slammed a foot into the crate and Anselm dropped, the cords pulled tight. His fragile wrist bones shattered like celery stalks, and his bare toes scrambled for ground, never reaching it. The knives clattered together and a fresh gout of blood spurted from his abdomen. The audience chuckled and gasped.

         “Did you really have to live all these years?” Von Hechten looked him up and down, “What was the point? So lazy, tsk tsk. Couldn’t have done this for yourself?”

Anselm shuddered, snapped away from his daydreams.

       “What are you thinking about? What clever last words will you        attempt to form? You’ve surely thought about it before.”

What was it— every time someone asks you and you forget everything… ‘Pigeon,’ he mouthed, 'Pecking me.'

         “Still nothing to say… just like your simple-minded art, if you must call it that. What's the point? No one cares about those outdated fads, your trite little pastiches. If you won't use those hands for anything worthwhile, I’ll take them out of consideration.”

       Von Hechten selected a bouquet of knives and approached him with the same passive half-lidded insouciance as ever.  He plunged a blade through Anselm’s open palm; the metal slid through the delicate bones and tendons like a tender fillet. Anselm spasmed, his fingers curling in agony. Someone let out a sympathetic whistle.

         “Wait,” Von Hechten cocked his head, “Are you right or left-handed? Oh well, there’s enough for both.”

A helpful audience member provided him more knives and he continued the surgery. He rammed the blades through Anselm’s skinny forearms and hot blood coursed down in thick ribbons.

       “Funny how easily these things go,” the monster said,        “Now as for me, I can rely on my charisma and        intellect. All my friends… money… property…”

He punctuated each word with another gouge of a blade.

       “It’s very convenient. I guess you could learn to use        your feet. Too much effort if you ask me.”

Anselm couldn’t move his fingers. They burned, alight with pain and dying nerves. He couldn’t see them swinging over his head. Were they gone? Sliced away? Rolling around on the floor? The birds will come eat them up. Save me one, just leave one fingerbone to unlock the door, I need to get out before Father gets me. Let me in, he’s coming…

       “Everything could have been different for you. Your peers used the printing to create burgeoning careers. They all did. Everyone but you. You left me with a substantial loss. I still have stacks of the trash lying around; really ought to throw them out.
If only you had shaken a hand or two. Guess you don’t have to worry about that now!”

         Shake a hand— who was there to shake? They shook their hands at me, wave goodbye. Goodbye, goodbye…

The wrestlers stood up from their eternal grapple and waved to him in the dusty snow.

       This way, hurry. They pointed to a clean wooden door hidden in the field of white.
       Through there!

         “Pitiful. Is there even a mind in there? Are you just a body to be used? We’ve already played that game. You let me use you like a little hustler.
Very clever to wait until the contract was sealed,
but pity your trick didn’t work out for you. And now, not so appealing as the years have worn on. At the end of the night, a whore is a whore, and a used-up whore is nothing at all.”

       Come to the forest, it’s safe, he can’t find you there. It’s dark and
       he isn’t allowed inside. Run! Hurry and lock the door!

         “Where did the defiance go? It is simple-minded, but at least it denotes a measure of virility. Tsk, just a boy that grew ill instead of growing up.”

         It’s too late. I can’t run anymore.

       No no, you can break the curse! Hurry, hurry, the animals will        help you! Stay close, they will protect you from him.

Von Hechten went through his collection, finding new and interesting places to gouge, sometimes pulling a blade out to reposition it. Anselm’s head lolled on his neck, eyes unfocused as he took ragged, weak breaths. He shivered uncontrollably as his body heat poured out with his blood.

Familiar toys ran behind the trunks and over the roots, stuffed bears and foxes and bunnies hopped around madly, disordered.

       Listen to the birds, they will tell you where to go— to the old tree        with the hollow. The secret is there, hurry!

At last the monster was down to a spread of three knives, which he held out in a fan. He inserted the first delicately into Anselm’s abdomen. No reaction but a feeble twitch.

          “You were right, I see now. Not quite human. I didn’t believe you, had to find out for myself. You’re taking this like an animal, just meat with the mind of a simple brute. Should have stayed on the street, begging for scraps.”

The birds tweeted and sang in a maddening cacophony, he couldn’t make sense of it. Their songs and voices melded into a vortex. The toys fled from him, just out of sight, too far for him to catch. They knew, Father was coming.

         Help, wait for me. Don’t leave me.

The second blade, and the third. Metal breaking shivering skin and sliding through flesh. Von Hechten stepped back to admire his work as Anselm rolled his eyes in uncomprehending agony.

          “And there we go. With the stamina of youth, you could live for
a very, very long time. But we don’t have that luxury. Why, if you were to die slowly, you might develop a mad hope that you could be saved. There is no one to save you. Such self delusions are unbecoming of
an artist. I shall twist these blades, and you will feel yourself die.
It shouldn't take more than five minutes. How fortunate.”

The monster pushed the daggers in Anselm’s belly one at a time, all the way in to their golden hilts. He twisted them like creaky old faucets and dark red water splashed on the floor.

          “You had a chance. A chance to do something with your death. I’m very disappointed. And so… he dies forgotten. Worthless. Why did I bother?”

Depraved giggles and chattering sucked into the vortex. The branches of the trees tore away, the birds gone and the sky a flat black.

         It’s too late, too late. He’s here.

The pain became a hum of blackened heat. It expanded until it overtook him, pulled him under its current. His head dropped and
the last drops of blood in his body poured from his lips and nose in
a dark stream. His toes went slack and he dangled limply, his flesh
no longer resisted the blades.

The crowd stood in mute, drained anticipation. Von Hechten threw his hands up with a sheepish grin. They broke off into excited conversation about the next part of the evening’s festivities. Others approached to talk to their master of ceremonies and examine the body in closer detail.

       “I didn’t like that!” Ms. Löwenhaar patted the corpse’s hair. “It’s so… morbid.        What if it doesn’t work? All that cruelty for nothing?”

         “I feel it was a necessary component…” Von Hechten made contrite gestures until the old woman gave up and returned to the crowd.

Otumbo chortled and put his little hands on his hips. “Can’t please them all! A splendid effort though!”

        “Thank you, but I am still irritated with your mistake. I had to rush and
       the transition to the torture could have gone more smoothly. Ah well…
       I hope this wasn’t all a waste.”

        “I do apologize but look on the bright side!” Otumbo boomed, “This is a once        in a century party and it’s only beginning!”

Regen patted Von Hechten on the back with a comforting nod.

         “Let’s have fun!” Otumbo’s laughter rang through the hollow chamber.

Von Hechten managed a smile. “Oh,” he said, “Can someone cut down that body? I need those knives— they’re heirlooms.”

       What?

The little bird and the strange deer stared at Anselm like he'd always been there. Like they were in the middle of a conversation and it was his turn to speak. He sat in a mossy clearing, spindly poplars grew around him and stretched into a slate colored sky.

       This can't be the afterlife.

He was nude in a forest without being ravaged by splinters in unfortunate places.

       Okay maybe this is the afterlife.

He died. Tortured to death. Now he was in a staring contest with a robin and a goofy-looking deer.

          "Uhh—"

          "FOLLOW!" said the disembodied voice of a child. The robin flapped away through the narrow trees. The deer gazed at him with wet eyes and bounded off the same way.

Wasn't like he had anything better to do. He made his way through the wormy trees. The plush moss was cool under his feet, and he remembered how thankful he should be to have solid ground beneath him. His death was abstract now, an unpleasant dream. But it really happened… Rage and horror tickled at his consciousness, but the serenity of this blank forest consumed him. He followed the tiny robin as it flitted here and there. The deer lurked shyly behind a trunk and hopped away when he drew too close. Their glossy black eyes regarded
him with inscrutable emotion.

The sparse trees cleared until they revealed a cottage.

          "YOUR HOUSE!" said the creatures, in their indistinct baby-voices.

A giant gingerbread house sat in the center of a weedy field. Cookie windows, knee-high gumdrop bushes, smears of sticky white frosting.
But cracks traced the crumbly walls, candies slid down wet frosting and fell out of alignment.

The robin lit atop a man-sized candy cane.

          "EAT IT."

          "What…?"

          "EAT IT." The deer hopped over a sparkling gumdrop.

          "IT'S THE RULE," said the bird, "EAT IT."

Anselm ran his hand over a cookie window. It was pillowy soft and left a thin slick of butter on his palm. That ruined palm, stuck through with knives and half-severed.

The animals watched him in silence. He did feel a little hungry; probably vomited everything up when he… died.

He dipped a finger into the frosting, sticky and fluffy. Ridiculous. He brought a big glob up to his lips; it tasted just as gooey sweet as it looked.
A fist-sized chocolate plopped off the crumbling wall and he tried that too. With each bite he became more and more ravenous until he was smashing apart the walls with his bare hands, ripping down windows and chewing on licorice girders. What he couldn't fit in his mouth, he tore at and smashed into his face. He'd completely lost control.

***

The party raged on until dawn approached. The doors were locked tight and underlings wandered the grounds to discourage any looky-loos or latecomers. No one would notice the screams. Appetites were sated several times over. Guests fiddled with their food or engaged in dry, lethargic conversations.

The contestants had tried their best but as the night waned, so did their hope. Just three more bodies for the stack, more fuel for the coming arson. The party died, wound down to nothing. Half the guests had already left, eager to get changed out of their blood-soaked evening dresses. Otumbo kept up with the jokes and arm punching, but Von Hechten couldn't feel the cheer. Regen sat on a ledge, sipping on a wine bottle of blood and staring off sullenly.

          "Hey!" a voice cut through the decadent ennui. "Look!"

       "What's this…?" Von Hechten grinned like a fool, and
       his friends gathered around.

       "One of them woke up?" Regen said, more surprised
       than hopeful.

        "HA!" Otumbo shook his head. "You win as ever,
       Von Hechten!"

Anselm came to his senses when Von Hechten chuckled at him.

          "Silly, you don't need to eat them!"

He dropped the dead leg and crawled back until he bumped into another corpse. Hundreds of bodies, more. They piled the floor of the banquet hall, their twisted limbs and ruined faces lit only by moonlight. The air stank of meat and vomit, and monsters picked through the leavings like lazy vultures. But they perked up at the commotion.

Anselm's mouth was full of warm blood, and not all of it his own. He was dead.
A lump of intestines tried to push out of his slit belly. But here he was, moving and thinking and all these monsters surrounding him…

More and more appeared from halls and alcoves. Curiosity pulled them out of their torpid boredom. Their opalescent eyes found him, staring and grinning corpse smiles.

       Otumbo surveyed the landscape."Look at what you've done boy!        What a mess!"

Anselm gasped and choked on blood.

Otumbo laughed at his horror. "Just playin'. We helped."

       It really worked…!

Von Hechten couldn't be more pleased. All this worry for nothing, he only had to believe in himself! His research paid off, now he'd be the hot topic, Von Hechten the inventor, the sage, the scientist. More esteemed than ever!

          "Everyone!" he called out, "What a suitably poignant moment to end our celebration. Please welcome Reckenburg's newest progenitor!"

"No hard feelings, right?"

THE END - KOMM ZUR PARTY