The music exploded in Lena's ears like shards of glass. The party pulsed, a living organism of sweaty bodies and fake laughter, but she was dead inside. Crushed plastic cups on the floor. Cutting laughter. Someone vomiting behind the sofa, the sound of vomit flowing like mud. The air was a mix of cheap alcohol, cigarette smoke, and someone's sweet perfume trying to mask the emptiness. She was there, but she had already left a long time ago.
Under the strobe light, Leonardo danced with a group, his blue gradient mask shining like a beacon in the dark. He smiled, that wide, forced smile that never reached his eyes. Lena knew that expression well. It was the same one she wore in the mirror every morning.
Her feet took her upstairs, to an empty room. Silence. Finally. She threw herself onto the bed, the moldy mattress sinking under her weight. The party lights still flashed outside, trying to invade her refuge, but she was already far away. And then... The world went black.
When she woke up, she was sitting in a wooden chair with a cracked back. In front of her, a tea table covered with a stained cloth. The air smelled of damp earth and forgotten meat. The walls breathed, swelling and deflating like diseased lungs.
"Good morning, Mrs. Mime," said a childlike voice, but without life. Lena (or what had taken her place) smiled. The voice wasn't hers. Someone was using her.
On the other side of the table, a figure rose, too tall, too thin, like a mannequin stretched to the breaking point. The woman's skin hung in pale folds, like wet paper. Her eyes were two black holes, shining with a light that came from nowhere.
"Good morning, my little flower..." The creature's voice was a raspy whisper, as if something much larger was trying to speak through her. "Do you like tea?"
"Yes, I do," Lena replied.
The liquid pouring from the teapot was thick, dark red, sticking to the edges of the cup like coagulated blood. The smell was of rust and rotting flesh.
"You know, I woke up at six in the morning. He wasn't there anymore. My husband." The creature's bony fingers drummed on the table, long nails scratching the wood.
"The bed was cold. Cold like meat left on the cement." She laughed and told thousands of words in a story. Time stretched, folding into layers of hours that didn't exist.
"...and that's how you arrived." Lena (or what was left of her) stood up. "Thank you for the story, Mrs. Mime. I need to go."
The creature tilted her head, her neck creaking like dry branches. "Of course, dear. Come back anytime."
"You have a... special taste." Lena walked to the door, her legs moving without her permission.
"And then she opened the door. And hell received her."
Outside, the world had rotted. The sky was torn, a coffin lid open revealing an endless void. The city was a faded photograph, its colors sucked out, leaving only shades of gray and black. And the monsters. Creatures twisted in the streets, limbs stretched too far, mouths torn to the ears. Some had human faces sewn onto their bodies, the eyes still alive, screaming silently. Others devoured each other, regurgitating pieces and reassembling into even more horrific forms. The ground pulsed. It wasn't an earthquake. It was something trying to be born.
Lena ran back inside. "Mrs. Mime?!"
The old woman was standing. But she was no longer an old woman. Her skin was peeling off in strips, revealing a black, shiny body made of solid shadow. Her eyes were now two red flames, burning with the hunger of a thousand years. The mouth opened, not a smile, but a slit, tearing the face from ear to ear.
"Did I bother you... with my stories, daughter?" The voice now came from all sides, echoing from the walls, the floor, inside Lena's head. She screamed. The floor cracked like broken bone. And she fell.
Darkness. Pain. Emptiness.
When she woke up, she was in an infinite corridor, walls of pulsing flesh, exposed veins beating like hearts. A melting candle lit just enough to show the horror.
"Lena..." - the voice came from all sides. "Is that you?"
"Who's there?!" - her voice was a rag.
"Hmm... bossy. I like that." Something moved in the darkness.
"Speak up! Who are you?!"
"What matters who I am... if what I want is you?" Silence. Then, the shadow took shape. It was her. But it was her. But not really. It was a distorted version, her face elongated, her eyes red and empty, her mouth cut into a smile that hurt to look at.
"I know you better than anyone," the reflection whispered, its voice a sweet poison. "Better than Leonardo. Better than your mother. Better than that man who touched you in the dark when you were too small to understand." Lena backed away. Her eyes burned. "Shut up..." "I know every cut. I know every night you cried until you fell asleep." The reflection laughed, and the sound was like knives being dragged on metal. "You're special, Lena. That's why you'll be my queen. The Queen of Hell." "Go to hell!" He smiled. "I am hell." A scythe appeared in his hands, not made of metal, but of living flesh, made of intertwined fingers, nails sharpened like claws, teeth serrated on the handle. He swung the weapon. And then... He plunged it into her neck. "You belong to me." Blood gushed out like a black river. The blade descended slowly, cutting her throat like opening a present. And she fell. And she died there.
She woke up screaming. The party room. The light still flashed. Someone was knocking on the door, calling her name. "It was just a dream..." She touched her neck. Nothing. She breathed deeply. She stood up, grabbed her coat, and ran out. But she didn't see. In the darkest corner of the room, sitting on the bed, he watched. The reflection. The King. The shadow. His lips curved into a smile that wasn't human. "Magnificent," he whispered, his voice echoing even after the words had ended. "I thought it would be harder..." And then, slowly, he began to laugh. And the sound never stopped.