Chapter 3: Bringing Daddy Down

Daddy charged at me with his enormous cleaver raised over his head, and the stench of rotting meat intensified with every thundering step he took across the blood-stained kitchen floor.

The smell had been there since I'd first entered—thick and cloying, like someone had left a side of beef to spoil in the summer heat for weeks. It coated the back of my throat, made my eyes water. Dark brown stains covered nearly every surface: splattered across the white tile walls in arterial sprays, pooled in the grout between floor stones, crusted on the edges of the butcher's block. Some of the stains looked fresh. Others had oxidized to black.

I didn't want to think about how many of those stains were mine from previous nightmares.

Now, I should probably explain something about my father.

He was enormous.

Not just tall—though he stood nearly eight feet, forcing him to duck through doorways—but massive in every dimension. His shoulders were wider than most doorframes, straining against the blood-spattered apron he wore. Muscles bulged beneath his pale, corpse-like skin, the kind of grotesque musculature that would make a professional bodybuilder reconsider his career choices. His hands were the size of dinner plates, fingers thick as sausages, wrapped around that cleaver's handle with casual ease.

My heart hammered against my ribs so hard I thought they might crack. Every instinct screamed at me to run, to hide, to curl up in a corner like I'd done a thousand times before in these nightmares. Twenty-one years of dying in this house had taught me that running was the only option.

But something was different this time.

Because there was one thing my father wasn't.

Agile.

He was big, strong, and absolutely terrifying—his face twisted into something barely human, all jutting bones and a too-wide mouth—but he moved like a refrigerator with anger issues. Each step shook the floor. His breathing came in wet, rattling gasps that echoed off the tile. The cleaver wobbled slightly as he raised it, his massive frame struggling to change direction once momentum carried him forward.

And I was small.

Very small, actually.

My hands trembled as I gripped my own cleaver—a weapon that had felt substantial moments ago but now seemed pathetically inadequate. I could feel how tiny I was in this body, how delicate. The maid outfit clung to my petite frame, the skirt barely reaching mid-thigh. I probably didn't even break five feet tall.

But as Daddy's shadow fell across me and that rancid meat smell grew stronger, as I watched his enormous bulk lumber forward with all the grace of a collapsing building, something clicked in my fear-soaked brain.

I still wasn't used to having such a petite body, but as I watched that enormous cleaver come swinging toward me—the blade catching the flickering overhead light, still crusted with old brown stains that could only be dried blood—I realized something important.

Something that sent a jolt of electricity through my terror-frozen limbs.

I was a hell of a lot faster than he was.

The cleaver descended with enough force to split the kitchen table in half, the air whistling around the blade as it fell. I could feel the displacement of air against my face, smell the metallic tang of the weapon mixing with that ever-present rot.

I wasn't standing there when it landed.

I twisted sideways, my body moving on pure instinct—twenty-one years of running finally paying off in a way I'd never expected. The blade crashed into the wood where I'd been standing a heartbeat before. The impact was deafening. Splinters exploded outward like shrapnel, peppering my face and arms with tiny stinging cuts. The entire table split down the middle with a sound like a gunshot, both halves collapsing to the blood-stained floor.

Daddy let out an annoyed grunt—a wet, phlegmy sound that made my skin crawl. Not pain. Not surprise. Just irritation, like he'd missed swatting a particularly troublesome fly.

Then I did something I'd seen in about a hundred action movies, something that the rational part of my brain screamed was absolutely insane.

I dropped.

My little black shoes—patent leather, I noticed absurdly—found no purchase on the polished wooden floor. I threw myself into a slide beneath his outstretched arm, the one still holding that massive cleaver. My skirt flared around my hips as momentum carried me forward. The floor was slick here, slippery with something I didn't want to identify. That rotting meat smell intensified as I slid through what might have been a puddle of congealed fat.

For one ridiculous instant, as I glided beneath eight feet of murderous monster, I wondered whether the stupid maid outfit was actually helping me move—the fabric smooth enough to reduce friction, the short skirt keeping my legs free.

Then Daddy's shadow passed over me, and I was through, emerging on the other side of him with my heart hammering so hard I could taste copper in my mouth.

With my cleaver held firmly in both hands—my knuckles white, my palms already slick with nervous sweat—I swung at the back of his leg with everything I had.

The blade connected just above his ankle with a resistance I hadn't expected. Not like cutting meat. Like cutting through gristle and bone. The cleaver bit deep, and I felt the vibration travel up through the handle, through my arms, into my shoulders. The sensation made my teeth ache.

There was a sickening crunch—wet and grinding, like someone snapping a chicken drumstick, but amplified a hundred times. The sound echoed off the blood-stained walls, mixing with the ever-present smell of rot that seemed to intensify with every passing second.

Daddy roared.

"AAAAARGH!"

The sound wasn't human. It started deep in his massive chest and erupted from his throat like something primal and ancient, a noise that belonged to slaughterhouses and abattoirs. The kitchen seemed to shake with it.

I didn't wait to see what he'd do next. My survival instincts—honed by twenty-one years of dying in this godforsaken house—screamed at me to move. I slid clear of him, my shoes finding purchase on a patch of relatively clean floor, and scrambled back to my feet. My legs were shaking so badly I nearly fell again.

"HOLY SHIT! THAT ACTUALLY WORKED!"

The words burst out of me, half-laugh, half-sob. My voice sounded hysterical even to my own ears.

Black blood poured from the wound—not red like human blood, but thick and dark like motor oil, viscous and wrong. It splattered across the floor in heavy drops that seemed to sizzle slightly where they landed. The smell hit me immediately: copper and decay and something else, something chemical and bitter that made my eyes water. Daddy staggered sideways, his enormous frame tilting like a felled tree, and grabbed the ruined kitchen table to keep himself upright. His fingers—each one as thick as my wrist—dug into the splintered wood, leaving deep gouges.

I stared at the cleaver in my hands, at the black blood dripping from its edge onto my white apron, leaving dark stains that spread like ink in water.

Then at his leg, at the gaping wound that wept that horrible black ichor.

Then back at the cleaver, its weight suddenly feeling different in my grip. Not just a weapon. Proof. Evidence that after twenty-one years of running, of dying, of waking up screaming—I could fight back.

For twenty-one years, I had been running from this monster.

Twenty-one goddamn years.

Every night, the same house. The same blood-stained walls. The same smell of rot and copper that clung to everything like a second skin. And every night, Daddy with his cleaver, hunting me through these halls until he found me. Until he caught me. Until I woke up screaming with the phantom sensation of steel splitting through bone.

I'd died in this kitchen at least a dozen times. Bled out on these very floorboards while he stood over me, that horrible wet laugh bubbling up from his chest.

And nobody—not a single person in twenty-one years of therapy, medication, and desperate research—had bothered to tell me I could actually hurt the bastard?

My hands were trembling around the cleaver's handle, my knuckles bone-white. The black blood on the blade was already starting to congeal, thickening into something that looked like tar. The chemical stench of it mixed with the ever-present rot, making my stomach churn.

"YOU LITTLE BITCH!" Daddy bellowed, his voice rattling the copper pots still hanging on their hooks. Flecks of something dark and wet flew from his mouth.

The words came out before I could stop them, high-pitched and almost hysterical: "HEY! WATCH YOUR LANGUAGE! I'M YOUR DAUGHTER!"

I paused, my brain catching up with my mouth.

My chest was heaving, adrenaline making everything feel sharp and unreal. The maid outfit suddenly felt absurd—the frilly apron, the too-short skirt, the delicate lace that had no business being in a slaughterhouse.

"Wait, no, I'm not! I'M NOT EVEN SUPPOSED TO BE A GIRL!"

That seemed to confuse him. His massive head tilted slightly, like a dog hearing a strange sound. His grip on the ruined table loosened just a fraction, and for one bizarre moment, something almost human flickered across his face.

Good.

I was confused too. My heart was hammering so hard I could feel it in my throat, taste copper on my tongue that had nothing to do with the blood-soaked air. Nothing about this made sense—not the body I was trapped in, not the fact that I could hurt him, not the way he'd laughed when I'd cut him like he was proud.

Then the moment shattered.

Daddy ripped his cleaver free of the table with a sound like splintering bone. Wood fragments exploded outward, and the entire table groaned before one leg gave way entirely, sending it crashing sideways. The impact sent a fresh wave of disturbed air through the kitchen, carrying with it the intensified stench of old blood and rotting meat.

He swung at me again, the massive blade cutting through the air with a whistle that made my skin crawl.

This time, I was ready. My body was already moving before my mind fully processed the threat, muscle memory from a hundred deaths finally working in my favor instead of against me.

He telegraphed his attacks so badly that I wondered how he'd ever managed to kill me in my dreams. Every movement was broadcast seconds in advance—his massive shoulders rotating like rusted gears, his tree-trunk arm pulling back with ponderous deliberation, his entire body shifting its weight with all the subtlety of a collapsing building. The cleaver rose in a wide arc, and I could have counted to three before the weapon even started its descent.

Maybe that was the difference. In my nightmares, I'd always been paralyzed by terror, frozen in place while he butchered me. But now—now I was moving.

I ducked beneath the swing, feeling the displaced air ruffle my hair as the blade passed inches above my head.

The cleaver smashed into the hanging rack of copper pots with a sound like a car crash. Metal shrieked against metal. Pots exploded outward in every direction, clattering and clanging as they hit the blood-stained floor. One rolled past my feet, its polished surface reflecting the overhead lights in dizzying spirals. The rack itself tore free from the wall, bringing chunks of plaster and a spray of ancient dust with it.

I didn't think. I just moved.

My small body darted behind him while he was still recovering from the impact, still trying to wrench his cleaver free from the tangled metal. The black blood from his first wound had made the floor slick beneath my shoes, and I nearly lost my footing. The chemical stench of it burned in my nostrils—like ammonia mixed with spoiled meat and something else, something that didn't belong in the natural world.

I swung at his other leg, putting every ounce of strength my small frame possessed into the strike.

The cleaver bit deep into the back of his left calf with that same sickening crunch of blade meeting bone.

Another roar shook the kitchen—louder this time, more animal than human. The sound rattled through my ribcage, made my teeth ache. Daddy's massive body lurched forward, his wounded legs struggling to support his enormous weight. More black blood sprayed across the floor, spattering my torn stockings, adding to the nightmare collage of fluids that already decorated this kitchen.

"STOP MOVING!" His voice was raw with frustration and pain, echoing off the walls like thunder in a canyon.

The absurdity of it hit me all at once. Twenty-one years of running, of dying, of waking up screaming—and his brilliant strategy was to ask me nicely to stand still?

I couldn't help it. Laughter bubbled up from somewhere deep in my chest, high-pitched and slightly hysterical. My hands were shaking around the cleaver's handle, my heart was trying to hammer its way out of my ribcage, and I was laughing.

"THAT'S YOUR PLAN?" I gasped between giggles that sounded dangerously close to sobs. "YOU WANT ME TO STAND STILL SO YOU CAN HIT ME?"

He turned toward me, and the movement was agonizing to watch. His right leg dragged uselessly behind him, leaving a thick trail of black blood across the wooden boards. His left leg wasn't much better—I could see the unnatural angle of his calf where my blade had damaged something important. The wet, meaty sounds of his movement made my stomach churn, but I couldn't look away.

His face was a mask of rage and something else—something that might have been respect if it weren't so twisted and wrong.

"ALICE!" The word came out like a command, like he still expected me to obey him despite everything.

My grip tightened on the cleaver. "WHAT?"

"BE A GOOD GIRL!" There was an edge of desperation in his voice now, beneath the anger. As if the old rules still applied. As if I was still the terrified child who died screaming in his kitchen night after night.

Something reckless and wild surged through me. Maybe it was the adrenaline. Maybe it was twenty-one years of pent-up terror finally finding an outlet. Maybe it was this ridiculous maid outfit making me feel like I was playing a role in some twisted fairy tale.

I grinned at him—actually grinned—even though my face felt strange doing it, like my muscles had forgotten how.

"Sorry, Daddy." My voice came out breathless but defiant, pitched higher than I was used to in this borrowed body. "I've been a very bad girl!"

The words hung in the thick, rancid air between us for a horrible moment.

Then I actually registered what had just tumbled out of my mouth.

Really heard them.

God, that had sounded considerably better in my head.

A guttural snarl ripped from Daddy's throat, spraying dark, foul-smelling spittle across the space between us. He lunged. Even with his shredded calves, the explosive fury of his momentum was terrifying. Overhead, the chandelier swayed from the violence of his movement, casting frantic, fractured shadows across the blood-splattered walls and gouged wooden floor.

The massive cleaver whistled downward, carrying the sickening reek of rancid fat and putrefying flesh. I threw myself backward, my small shoes skidding precariously through a pool of his warm, tar-like blood. The heavy blade struck the floor where I had stood a fraction of a second earlier, biting deep into the thick oak boards with a deafening THWACK that sent sharp splinters exploding against my shins.

The shockwave shuddered through the soles of my shoes. Daddy grunted, his massive forearm straining, thick black veins pulsing beneath his sickly gray flesh as he yanked upward. The blade didn't move. The old oak floorboards had clamped around the heavy steel like a vise. He yanked again with a desperate, furious heave, his monstrous bulk overbalanced and trapped by his own weapon.

He was stuck.

A cold jolt of fear spiked through me, immediately chased by a blinding rush of adrenaline. Every survival instinct forged over twenty-one years of horrific nightmares screamed at me to turn and run, to escape the suffocating stench of butcher's offal and iron before he broke free. But I knew this kitchen. I knew how easily he could corner me once he recovered.

I wasn't going to get a better opportunity.

I gripped my cleaver with sweaty, trembling fingers and sprinted forward across the gore-slicked floor. He saw me coming, his sunken, deadened eyes widening in disbelief, but the wedged weapon held him fast. Before he could shift his massive weight, I planted my foot squarely onto his mangled, bleeding knee. The ruined joint buckled slightly under my weight as he let out a sharp howl, but it gave me enough leverage to launch my small body straight upward.

For one suspended, heart-stopping second, I hung in the air, rising until I was almost at eye level with him.

Under the swinging chandelier's erratic yellow light, I saw the brute fury in his face fracture into raw, dumbfounded shock. The monster who had butchered me in a thousand different ways across twenty-one years of suffocating nightmares was looking at me not as helpless prey, but with genuine bewilderment. His bloodshot, yellowed eyes dilated, and the foul breath caught in his throat—a sickening draft of sour decay, curdled offal, and rancid meat.

"HELLO, DADDY!" I screamed over the roaring blood in my ears.

I swung with every ounce of momentum and manic, fear-driven adrenaline coiled in my petite frame, driving the heavy cleaver downward with both hands.

The steel blade bit deep into the junction between his thick neck and massive shoulder, slicing through the grime-caked canvas of his apron, tough sinew, and collarbone with a sickening, wet crunch. A geyser of jet-black blood erupted from the wound, hot and viscous, spraying across my face and soaking into my white lace collar with the suffocating stench of a slaughterhouse drain.

Daddy let out an unearthly, deafening shriek—a shrill blast of pure agony and rage that shook the hanging copper pots and vibrated straight through my teeth.

Almost instantly, cold panic smothered my brief rush of triumph. I immediately regretted my decision.

Not because I felt bad about hurting him.

Absolutely not. The bastard deserved far worse than that.

Because now my feet were kicking in empty air, and I was hanging nearly six feet above the splintered, gore-soaked floorboards with my weapon lodged to the hilt in an eight-foot monster. In his blind agony, Daddy began violently bucking and convulsing like an enraged bull, his massive bulk thrashing so wildly that black sludge sprayed in wide arcs across the blood-spattered cabinets.

"OH, CRAP!"

Before his violent jerking could fling me across the kitchen like a ragdoll, I released the gore-slick handle and dropped.

My shoes hit the slick, gore-greased floorboards, my heels slipping immediately on the dark puddles. I stumbled backward with a sharp gasp, slamming hard onto my backside against the unyielding oak. A jolt of pain shot straight up my spine, knocking the breath from my lungs, and I scrambled backward on hands and knees, my fingers sinking into viscous black sludge and jagged splinters of the ruined table. The heavy, suffocating stench of rotting meat, disturbed wood, and bitter, rancid blood flooded my throat, making my stomach heave.

Across the ruined kitchen, Daddy staggered away, colliding heavily with the counters in a crash of rattling iron pots and shattered porcelain. One massive, filth-encrusted hand clamped over his wounded shoulder, thick, tar-like black blood bubbling through his fingers and streaming down his broad chest in foul, steaming ribbons. He swayed unsteadily on his slashed legs, his chest heaving with a wet, shuddering wheeze.

From the floor, bruised and trembling, I stared up at him. In twenty-one years of suffocating nightmares, this was always where the dream turned into agony—where he crushed my skull or ripped me apart without mercy.

He stared down at me through the erratic, strobing light of the swinging chandelier.

Then he started laughing.

It was a horrible sound, deep and wet, like someone gargling gravel and rancid grease—a guttural eruption of demented mirth that sent a paralyzing chill straight to the marrow of my bones.

"That's my girl!"

I blinked, paralyzed by a rush of utter bewilderment and icy terror.

"What?"

With a sickening, squelching heave, he wrapped his giant fingers around the handle and wrenched my cleaver straight out of his shoulder, the blade tearing free of gristle and bone with a wet crunch.

Black blood splattered across the floor, raining down in heavy, foul-smelling arcs over the blood-stained wood.

"Finally!" he roared, the sound vibrating through the floorboards and rattling inside my chest. "My little Alice finally learned how to fight!"

I scrambled backward on my hands and knees, dragging myself through the foul, sticky pools of his black blood. Splinters from the shattered table dug into my palms, and the choking, metallic stench of his gore mingled with the rancid, sweet decay of rotting meat hanging from the pantry hooks. In twenty-one years of endless, bloody nightmares, he had butchered me in every conceivable way—strangled me, hacked me apart, broken my bones against these very walls. Never once had he looked at me with anything resembling approval.

"YOU'RE HAPPY ABOUT THIS?" My voice cracked with incredulous terror, breathless and sharp against the backdrop of his wet, heavy wheezing.

He smiled, his split, gray lips pulling back so far they nearly tore at the corners, displaying far too many yellowed, needle-sharp teeth slick with dark saliva. The shadow cast by the swinging overhead light flickered violently across his ruined face, turning his grin into a jagged mask of pure nightmare.

"Of course, sweetheart!"

Then he threw the cleaver straight at my head.

The heavy rusted blade whistled through the rancid air like a guillotine. I shrieked and threw myself sideways, rolling violently across the gore-slick floorboards. The cleaver sheared through the empty air where my skull had been a fraction of a second before and buried itself deep into the thick wooden cabinet behind me with a concussive thud that shook clouds of dust, broken glass, and dried flakes of old blood loose from the shelves.

My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird, adrenaline burning through my veins like acid as I scrambled to my feet, my torn maid skirt plastered to my bruised legs with black grime.

"YOU HAVE A REALLY SCREWED-UP WAY OF SHOWING AFFECTION!" I yelled, hysteria and desperate defiance bleeding into every syllable.

Daddy lunged again, a guttural, rabid snarl tearing from his throat. He threw his massive, eight-foot frame forward, reaching for me with bare, claw-like hands ready to snap my neck.

But this time, his injured legs betrayed him.

The deep gashes I had carved into his hamstrings finally gave out under his colossal bulk. His right knee buckled with a wet, sickening pop of snapping tendons.

Then his left leg crumpled completely.

The enormous monster crashed onto the kitchen floor with enough concussive force to shake the entire room to its foundations.

Pots rattled wildly against their hooks on the walls.

Plates shattered across the counters, raining jagged ceramic shards into the puddles of dark gore below.

The heavy wrought-iron chandelier swung wildly overhead, casting chaotic, sweeping arcs of light and deep, suffocating shadows across the ruin.

I stood slowly, my breath ragged and hot in my throat, every muscle in my petite, bruised frame screaming in protest. The floorboards groaned beneath my black shoes, slippery with sticky pools of tar-like black blood and littered with jagged white shards of pulverized dinner plates. Above us, the wrought-iron chandelier continued its drunken sway, casting grotesque shadows that skittered across walls caked in layers of dried crimson and old grease. The air was nearly unbreathable—a suffocating choke of burnt iron, copper, and the foul, sweet rot of spoiled meat leaking from the hooks in the ceiling.

Daddy grunted, his massive gray hands digging into the gouged wood as he tried to push himself upright. His thick, knotty forearms bulged, veins throbbing like black cables beneath his skin, but his wounded legs wouldn't support his colossal weight. Every time he tried to plant his feet, the severed tendons in his knees gave out with a sickening, wet squelch, dropping his torso back into his own spreading gore with a bone-jarring thud.

I looked at him, my heart hammering against my ribs. For twenty-one years, this towering behemoth had stalked my sleep, an unstoppable nightmare that had crushed my skull and hacked me to pieces across hundreds of waking deaths. Now, he was sprawled on his belly like a butchered hog, wheezing and helpless.

Then I looked at the massive cleaver lying on the floor just inches from his twitching, clawed fingers.

An idea formed through the haze of adrenaline burning behind my eyes.

I stepped forward, carefully balancing on the blood-slick boards, and kicked the weapon away. The heavy rusted iron skidded across the floor, scattering broken ceramics before clattering loudly against the ruined baseboards on the far side of the room.

He growled—a low, guttural vibration that started deep in his chest and rattled the loose copper pots still trembling on their wall racks.

I didn't back down. Keeping a white-knuckled grip on the hilt, I pointed my carving knife straight at his face, aiming the steel right between his bloodshot, yellowed eyes.

"Stay."

His eyes narrowed to dangerous, slit-like embers, dark black saliva stringing from his cracked lips onto the floorboards.

I smiled, a manic, breathless spark of defiance flaring through the terror still freezing my veins.

"Good Daddy."

For a moment, I actually thought he was going to explode with rage. I braced for him to lurch forward on pure spite, to dig his claws into my ankles and tear me apart right there on the ruined floor.

Instead, his bloated chest hitched, and he began laughing again. It was a horrible, wet, bubbling sound, like blood gargling in a severed windpipe, shaking his massive shoulders as he lay pinned by his own ruined flesh.

"Very good, Alice. Very good indeed."

The triumphant thrill in my chest curdled into icy confusion. I frowned, the tip of my blade wavering for a fraction of a second before I forced it steady again.

"What the hell are you talking about?"

Before he could answer, the gong rang.

Once. A deep, deafening chime that shuddered through the floorboards and reverberated in my teeth.

Twice. The sound rippled through the dark, stagnant puddles of blood and sent a fresh wave of dust drifting from the shattered ceiling beams.

Three times. A heavy, suffocating toll that seemed to suck the very warmth from the room, freezing the flickering shadows in place.

The same strange, disembodied voice echoed through the ruined kitchen, booming as if the blood-soaked walls themselves were speaking.

"FIRST GUARDIAN DEFEATED."

I froze, the carving knife trembling in my slick, white-knuckled grip. Every nerve in my body seized, locked in place by an unnatural dread that cut deeper than the twenty-one years of butcher-hook massacres I had suffered in my sleep.

Daddy stopped laughing. The wet, gargling rattle died instantly in his throat, his jaw hanging slack as his bloodshot yellow eyes widened in shock.

"THE BUTCHER HAS FALLEN."

The swaying chandelier and the wall sconces flickered violently, plunging the room into frantic pulses of shadow and sickly amber light. The stench in the air grew unbearable—a suffocating collision of spoiled hanging carcass and the caustic, acrid reek of Daddy’s boiling black blood sizzling against the gouged floorboards.

Before my eyes, Daddy's enormous, eight-foot frame began to break apart. Flesh didn't tear into bone and gristle; instead, his skin bubbled away into thick, greasy plumes of pitch-black smoke that hissed like angry vipers.

My stomach plummeted, horror clawing up my throat. I backed away, my heels slipping through the pooling black gore and grinding against pulverized porcelain and splintered oak.

"Wait. What?"

Daddy looked down at his own colossal, clawed hands as his fingers dissolved into smoldering ash and curling black vapor. He didn't rage or fight the decay. Instead, he slowly lifted his heavy head, locking his gaze onto mine with terrifying lucidity.

"Well done, sweetheart."

My breath seized in my lungs. For the first time, the guttural, demonic grinding had vanished from his throat. His voice sounded almost normal.

Almost like my real father's—a haunting, gentle tone from a life buried beneath twenty-one years of waking screams. Hearing that familiar warmth coming from the monster who had hacked me to pieces in a thousand nightmares terrified me more than any roar ever could.

"You're getting closer."

"Closer to WHAT?" I demanded, my voice cracking as I held the trembling steel out between us.

A faint, chilling smile touched his fading lips—an uncanny, twisted reflection of paternal pride.

"Your prize, Alice."

Then, with a final rush of cold air and a whispering hiss of black smoke, he vanished.

The massive cleaver dissolved right along with him, turning into drifting ribbons of soot that melted away into the freezing air.

I stood completely alone in the devastated kitchen, my chest heaving in ragged, shuddering gasps. The silence rushed in behind Daddy's disappearance, thick and suffocating, broken only by the erratic creaking of the brass chandelier swaying overhead, casting drunken shadows across the gouged walls and shattered cabinets. The air reeked horribly—a suffocating cocktail of rancid hanging meat, copper, and the sharp, chemical stench of Daddy’s curdled black blood that coated the floorboards in slick, smoking pools.

For several seconds, my legs locked in terror and shock. I couldn't move. My fingers were clamped so tightly around the hilt of the carving knife that my knuckles burned white, my whole frame vibrating with the violent comedown of adrenaline. Every instinct honed over twenty-one years of nocturnal massacres screamed that he was going to re-form behind me, that his cleaver would split my skull the second I dropped my guard.

Slow, trembling breaths rattled against my ribs as I looked down at myself.

My absurd maid outfit was filthy, ruined beyond recognition. Thick, oily smears of black monster blood drenched the frilly white apron and clung to the ruffled hem of my dress. My stockings were shredded, soaked with soot and bone-pale splinters from the demolished kitchen table. One of my little black shoes had nearly come off, its sole caked in gore and crushed porcelain from the shattered plates littering the floor.

My hair was a sweat-soaked, tangled disaster plastered against my clammy face.

A deep, throbbing ache flared along my ribs, and a massive, purpling bruise was already swelling viciously across my thigh where I’d slammed into the hard floor. Pain—real, searing, physical pain that belonged to a waking body, not the phantom numbness of a sleep-paralyzed mind.

But I was alive.

I was actually alive. My heart thudded violently against my ribs, pumping real blood through living veins.

And for the first time in twenty-one agonizing years—twenty-one years of waking in cold sweats, of having my throat cut, my bones pulverized, and my limbs hacked apart night after night—I had fought back. I had defeated one of the monsters.

The sheer disbelief cracked wide open, melting into a ferocious, intoxicating wave of pure vindication. A slow grin spread across my blood-streaked face.

"HA!"

I threw both arms into the air, the carving knife catching the sickly yellow gleam of the chandelier.

"TAKE THAT, YOU OVERSIZED ASSHOLE!"

A violent, deafening crash detonated behind me.

I spun around, my worn shoes nearly slipping on the blood-slick floorboards and shattered porcelain.

At the far end of the kitchen, the splintered frame of the servants' passage had finally given way. Chunks of masonry and clouds of broken plaster dust rained down into the stench of rotting meat and cooling black blood.

Mom's enormous spider body squeezed through the broken doorway, her chitinous mass scraping violently against the crumbling jambs as long, bristled arachnid legs stabbed into the debris. Above that bloated, nightmare thorax, her porcelain human face was twisted into a furious expression, her manicured features contorted with maternal rage and predatory hunger.

"ALICE! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO YOUR FATHER?"

I looked at her, my pulse pounding in my ears as the phantom memories of twenty-one years of paralyzing venom and suffocating silk clawed at my mind.

Then at the knife still in my hand, its blade dripping with Daddy's foul, smoking blood.

Then at the enormous collection of sharp kitchen utensils hanging on the wall beneath the flickering light of the chandelier—heavy meat hooks, carving blades, and gleaming iron.

My shuddering breaths steadied, my exhaustion burning away into raw, feral defiance. I slowly smiled.

"Well, Mom..."

I reached for another cleaver, wrapping my white-knuckled grip around the heavy wooden handle and ripping it from the rack.

"...apparently we're having a family reunion."

Her eight jointed, chitinous legs scraped against the floorboards, claws clicking and skittering through the pools of Daddy's smoking black blood and heaps of shattered porcelain. Plaster dust drifted through the ruined kitchen air, thick with the suffocating stench of rotting meat, rancid bile, and coppery gore. Beneath the flickering, blood-streaked chandelier, the monstrous silhouette of her bloated arachnid abdomen stretched across the walls, twitching with predatory hunger.

I shifted my stance on the slick wood, my torn stockings damp with filth, and lifted both weapons—the bloodied carving knife in my right hand, the heavy iron cleaver in my left. The steel gleamed beneath the rows of hanging utensils and rusted meat hooks. My limbs trembled with exhaustion, but twenty-one years of terror—twenty-one years of dying in cold, paralyzed agony in this house of horrors—calcified into pure, vicious resolve.

"And guess what?"

She hissed, a wet, rattling screech that erupted from behind twitching pedipalps, sending droplets of corrosive venom sizzling into the floorboards near my shoes.

I grinned, baring my teeth as adrenaline burned away the last traces of fear.

"I'm done being the main course."