POISON KINOKO

Day one:

That day mom and dad told us to wait in the basement. I was with Hikaru, my little brother. In our innocence we were absorbed, because that would be the beginning of the most painful experience of our miserable lives.

Day two:

“Noko, I'm afraid…”

Mom opened the door with a huge syringe, and our legs shook in unison.

"Don't worry Hikaru... Your brother is here to protect you."

Without thinking I took a step forward and a sudden burst of force grabbed my arm, hurting me, scratching me in the process.

She sat me in an uncomfortable and dirty wooden chair, that didn't look like my mother. What kind of mother would I be otherwise? A monster without a doubt that was.

She injected me with a lumpy, tarry-purple mass. 

She waited a few seconds that seemed like millennia, and nodded.

My body felt weak and hot, as if a fire was happening in my arm passing from my veins to my heart.

“Yes, just as I thought, it is the right one.”

With that, the monster left and left me dying in the chair.

“Noko! What has happened to you? You are very red…”

Unable to respond because the fire continued, I began to vomit bile since it was my second day without eating.

Day five:

Hikaru is terrified, malnourished, desperate.

I am more or less the same, however, I no longer feel as weak as before, the fire has not subsided at any time, but I am energized.

Still, I knew what awaited me at that hour, somehow I had made a mental clock and I knew it was time.

I sat back down in the chair, waiting for the monster to come.

Hikaru looked at me with teary eyes, we both knew what was going to happen.

The monster emerged from that poorly lit door.

He proceeded to cut me five times with a scalpel, clean cuts ready to get dirty.

He poured a different substance into each one. I didn't need to writhe in pain because I simply didn't feel anything anymore. I had become immune to pain in just two days.

In fact, I think I've been immunized to something else, but I can't really say what.

Day nine:

“Hikaru… Can you sing me a lullaby? I can't sleep."

“But that's your job brother…”

“My job? I'm still too young to work..."

“Are you okay? “I think you should sleep.”

“No… Yes, I have a job. “I am a slave.”

"That?"

“I'm that monster's slave, I'm his guinea pig, I get it.”

“Uh…”

Hikaru looked at me with bewilderment, as if I was saying crazy things. Who is the crazy one here? I was only telling the absolute truth.

“Don't you understand Hikaru? We are trapped FOREVER. OUR PARENTS ARE MONSTERS WITHOUT EMPATHY. To tell the truth, I don't even know how we're still alive. Hehehe…”

“Noko… You're scaring me.”

“Don't worry my dear Hikaru…”

I placed my hand on his shoulder.

“We will get out of here alive and we will have a decent life in a little house in the woods, I promise you.”

Hikaru cried.

“It's okay Noko, everything is okay…”

Day fifteen:

I had a dream.

My brother turned into a mushroom and I ate him. I told him.

It was the first time we laughed in two weeks. Something as absurd as that dream was so funny to us, we even cried from laughter. 

I think my brother didn't think about the possibility of me eating him, I did, but I love him too much to hurt him.

The fire does not go out. The fire spreads. Someone turn on the fire alarm.

Day twenty-three:

My brother was completely malnourished.

“Hikaru…”

More than once I offered him to drink my blood or eat my dead skin or just my skin, but he refused all options.

I, on the other hand, feel phenomenal.

Every day and night I have more energy, I also vomit every few hours, but I've gotten used to it.

The bile turned into blood. But now the blood has turned a dark purple color, similar to the compound they inject me so often. Why will that happen?

I don't know, but I have to protect Hikaru and get him to eat something.

Day twenty-five:

I'm starting to think I'm not alive.

Hikaru has started to become delirious too, I see him hunting for objects in the air that are not there.

I hate the monsters that keep us captive here, I hate them, they hurt what I love most, because of them Hikaru is in a deplorable state, I need to do something.

Day twenty-eight:

I ran towards the door with all my strength and started banging on it frantically.

“LET US OUT, SCUM”

But as was obvious, there was no response.

I continued screaming and hitting for I don't know how long.

But suddenly the door opened, hitting me in the face and knocking me to the ground.

“Do you want to die today, you damned bastard?”

“I'm not afraid of death, whore.”

I said without thinking with all the spite of Hikaru's suffering.

She didn't respond to my attempt to attack her with words, nor would all the resentment in the world affect such a psychopath.

He closed the door in front of me and I just started crying.

But my cries hurt on a physical level, I felt like I was crying acid, and when I wiped away my tears I saw it again.

That purple substance was coming out of my body once again.

“Haha… Again…”

I closed my eyes and when I woke up all I could think about was Hikaru.

Hikaru had fainted.

For my part, I felt like some kind of tumors were emerging from my head.

Day twenty-nine:

“Hikaru…Hikaru!!!”

I shook him violently with my starving arms. He still had a pulse, however he did not open his eyes. He was like a doll, a scrawny and punished one.

He was breathing weakly, I could tell, his heart was suffering from beating, oh little brother, I am sorry with all my soul, this cannot be happening.

“Hikaru…”

I fell asleep hugging him.

Day thirty:

I woke up to a horrible screeching sound. I could feel the grinding of Hikaru's teeth from my position. 

“Hikaru…Hikaru?”

The monster. The monster was injecting him with one of the substances they usually inject me with. 

I don't know why I'm still standing, but without a doubt that would kill him, I was sure.

“YOU STOP NOW”

It was too late, they had already injected him.

“HIKARU.”

Horrified, I remained absorbed in watching the dantesque scene.

My little brother spitting that substance out of every possible orifice, my worst nightmare came true.

I couldn't even say anything, my voice, my breathing, everything had stopped. The only thing I noticed was how those tumors on my head were getting bigger, I saw myself in the reflection of the glass of the door. Those weren't tumors, they were mushrooms.

My brother fell to the ground, he was an inert body, an empty shell that had expelled everything.

There was nothing left.

In a fit of anger I attacked the monster, I opened its mouth wide with my hands, it tried to get away from me but it was impossible. All that… Poison, right? Was it poison they injected me? It seems so.

I vomited into his mouth, making sure he swallowed every measly drop.

It didn't take long for my plan to take effect, immediately afterward, the monster began to vomit out its organs just as my brother had done.

I looked at the dead woman's body at my feet. My work of art and my muse together.

Without avoiding it I started to laugh while I coughed and more poison came out of me.

I took the keys from the monster and I was finally able to get out of there, without my brother, but what did it matter now, I was powerful, I was... Free, insane, capable of anything.

Day ???:

Hello, I'm Poison Kinoko. Only my brother is allowed to call me Noko, okay? But he's traveling, so no one can call me that. Right now I live (or die) in the forest.

I eat poisonous mushrooms, because I have realized one thing. When I consume poison, my own poison becomes more poisonous. Therefore, I become more powerful.

I have fun, the animals accompany me, the lost souls of the forest fill my blood thirst, it's perfect.

To this day I still go from forest to forest, who knows, maybe you will be lucky enough to find me one day.

Until I see you, Poison Kinoko says goodbye.