Spectators in the Dark

Zzt. Zzt. A low, irregular hum.

The sound of a fluorescent light flickering at random intervals scraped across her eardrums. Na-bi opened her eyes slowly. Her head was a fog. It felt as if she'd been lying at the bottom of deep water and had been hauled, against her will, back to the surface. How long had it been?

"Nngh... ugh..."

She tried, out of habit, to curl in on herself. Her body would not obey. It was stiff and heavy, as though her entire frame had been wrapped in wet plaster casts. The landscape in her vision had changed. Beyond the convenience store's glass doors, the lobby lay drowned in pitch darkness — an abyss where nothing could be seen. And yet Na-bi knew, instinctively, that hundreds of eyes were watching her from within that dark.

Faint, peach-colored silhouettes clustered thick against the glass. Mannequins. They hadn't gone home. They had stood in the unlit lobby, waiting endlessly for the broken doll in the display window — Na-bi — to wake. Like spectators watching the nocturnal animals at a zoo.

"Hah... I'm not dead... not yet..."

Na-bi tried to sit up and froze. Something was wrong. The sharp, viscera-tearing pain she'd felt right after the fall was gone. The stench of blood, the reek of vomit — all of it had dried to a crust. But what filled the space where the pain had been was something far more terrible: the sensation of a foreign body.

With a trembling hand, she probed her lower belly. It was still lumpy and hard, as if a stone had settled there. She checked between her legs. The black handle of a dildo jutted grotesquely from her vaginal opening. The flesh around it had changed.

"Ah... aah..."

A despairing moan spilled from Na-bi's lips.

The curse of Indomitable. While she had been unconscious, the torn and shredded flesh had undergone cellular division of its own accord, repairing the wounds. The problem was that it had healed with a foreign object still lodged inside.

New flesh had grown in, clamping the black, viciously studded industrial dildo in a gapless grip. The flesh and rubber hadn't fused, but the mucous membrane had hardened around every spiral ridge of the dildo as if it were a custom-molded case.

"No... I can't pull it out like this... Do I have to live like this forever?"

Terrified, Na-bi grabbed the dildo's handle and shook it.

It barely gave. It didn't move. It was locked in place as if a steel rod had been driven into bone. When she forced it, a dull pain of tautly stretched flesh echoed through her gut. The vaginal walls had bitten down on the dildo and would not let go.

I have to melt it. Make it... make it loose again.

She needed something to make this hardened flesh pliable — something to separate the plastic from the mucous membrane. Cooking oil alone wasn't enough. It only glistened on the surface; it couldn't loosen the muscles clenched tight inside. Na-bi realized, instinctively, that she needed to relax.

Enduring the discomfort of the dildo handle jabbing her thigh, she staggered to her feet. Her lower body had no strength in it; she braced herself against the checkout counter just to stay upright. Her gaze swept the convenience store's over-the-counter medicine aisle.

A sedative. Or a painkiller with muscle-relaxant effects. Na-bi picked up a box with trembling hands. She didn't have the presence of mind to read the ingredients. She tore open the packaging at the mere sight of the word sedative. She tried to toss two pills into her mouth without water, then realized her swollen throat made swallowing difficult, and pulled a bottle of water from the refrigerator.

Gulp. Gulp. Cold water slid down her esophagus. She didn't have the luxury of waiting for the medicine to take effect. She had to borrow even a placebo if that was what it took. Na-bi sank to the floor and spread her legs wide. Beyond the glass, the mannequins all tilted their heads in unison, focusing. Their gazes poured into the space between her thighs.

"Hoo... hoo..."

Na-bi drew a deep breath. She tried to release the tension in her abdomen, to ease her pelvic muscles. Then, with both hands, she gripped the grotesquely protruding handle.

"Hhk!"

She pulled. It still didn't budge, solid as a brick. Terror washed over her again. What if it wouldn't come out? What if it rotted inside her belly? There was no surgeon here — would she have to cut ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠her own stomach open? Panicking, Na-bi yanked at the dildo like a madwoman.

A crunch. A wet grind.

"KYAAAAH!"

Agony as if her entire cervix were being ripped out. It wasn't the dildo that was moving — it felt as if the uterus cradling it were being dragged out along with it. Her vision flashed white. Nausea surged up her throat.

"Urgh! Hleck..."

Na-bi retched ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and collapsed onto the floor. It hurt so much that even tears wouldn't come. Cold sweat poured down her in sheets. She pressed her forehead to the floor and gasped.

Calm down... You can't do this ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠with force...

Whether it was the medicine kicking in or simple resignation, her frantically pounding heart settled a little. But the pills ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠alone weren't enough. Na-bi understood it instinctively. To separate the dried-out flesh from the rubber, she needed a gap — and she needed lubricant to fill that gap. She'd spilled all the cooking oil. All that remained was the fluid her own body could produce.

"I have to... I have to get wet... so it'll come out..."

Na-bi stretched out a trembling finger and probed the swollen flesh above the dildo's handle. The small, sensitive bud perched above the grotesquely stretched opening — her clitoris. She squeezed her eyes shut against the shame and began rubbing it with her rough fingertips.

"Hnn... nngh..."

It was closer to torture than pleasure. But even if the brain refused, the body was honest. At the stimulation, her hardened uterus twitched, and the vaginal walls that had been clenched tight began to pulse reflexively, contracting and relaxing in turn. With her other hand, Na-bi roughly kneaded her own breast. She had to get aroused somehow. She had to force the nerves to fire, to loosen herself down below. The mannequins beyond the display window pressed even closer to the glass at the sight. In front of their gazes, Na-bi had to put on the worst kind of show — spreading her own legs and caressing a body that still had a dildo buried inside it.

A squelch. A wet slip.

At last, a response. Warm, clear fluid began to seep from the inner walls that had been dried and twisted. The liquid soaked between the dildo's rubber surface and the mucous membrane, slowly dissolving the hardened adhesion.

"Ahk! Nngh! Hah, hah..."

The dildo buried inside her felt like a massive vibrator grinding against her G-spot. Na-bi's hips jerked up of their own accord. Reason went numb; only the animal sensation of wanting to come dominated her brain. That instant when the vaginal muscles went slack, drowned in pleasure — right now.

Na-bi reset her stance. This time she wouldn't just yank. She would do it the way they had rammed it in.

"Hhk... haah."

She had to turn it.

Na-bi gripped the handle and applied force, very slowly, counterclockwise.

A click. A tick.

"Hnnnngh... nngh..."

It moved. Barely — maybe a millimeter. The nauseating sensation of the adhesion between hardened mucous membrane and rubber tearing apart. Frictional heat of raw flesh scraping rose in her belly. Na-bi bit her lip until it bled and widened the angle, bit by bit.

A rip. A wet grind.

With every turn, the dildo's spiral ridges raked across her cervix and vaginal walls. It wasn't a smooth rod. The pain of those lumpy ridges rotating as they forced through flesh was like feeding her guts into a blender and turning it very, very slowly. And it wasn't just the dildo. As it moved, the smaller accessories wedged deeper inside or caught in the gaps — finger models, joint beads — shifted along with it, stabbing in every direction.

"Ahk! Ah! It hurts! Don't stab me!"

Na-bi's hips bucked. One small fragment jabbed toward her bladder. But if she stopped, she would have to start over from the beginning. She screamed and still didn't let go.

A slick, heavy give.

Her cervix expelled the thickest part of the dildo's head. She had passed the worst of it. Sobbing, Na-bi pulled. Now she could twist and extract at the same time. Blood and mucus and the cooking oil that had been congealing served as lubricant, and the dildo inched outward. The black rubber pillar emerged from Na-bi's body. Its surface bore the exact imprint of her inner walls, streaked vividly with blood.

"Just a little more... nngh... almost there..."

The last of it.

With a heavy, wet pop, the massive dildo came free. At the same time, red blood and pooled fluids gushed from Na-bi's vagina and soaked the floor.

"Hah... hah... hah..."

Na-bi flung the blood-smeared dildo onto the floor. A hollowed-out, punched-through sensation of relief. Then the sting rushed in. It wasn't over yet.

Without even a moment to catch her breath, Na-bi pulled the tweezers from the first-aid kit. Small things were still left inside her. Watching herself in the mirror, she held her gasping breath and fed the tweezers into the gaping hole.

A clink. Something hard caught on the metal tip. A mannequin's finger joint. Na-bi gripped it with the tweezers and carefully drew it out.

A white plastic fragment dropped to the floor. The moment she saw it, the emotions she'd been holding down exploded.

"Why... why the hell..."

Na-bi's hand holding the tweezers shook. She had no memories. Who she was, where this was, why she had to endure this torture. She knew nothing — she was only being subjected to things that hurt, that terrified, that shamed her. Her body had become a trash can. A toy.

Na-bi wailed and punched her own thigh with her fist. Grief welled up and overflowed. Spreading her legs like an animal, extracting a dildo from herself in front of a mirror, fishing out accessories with tweezers — the wretchedness of her own shape was unbearable.

"Mom... hhk... Mommy..."

Tears and snot streaming, Na-bi kept working the tweezers. Even as she cried, her hands didn't stop. Because she had to live. One, two, three... joint beads, plastic fragments, unidentifiable shards. When she pulled out the last piece and threw it on the floor, the inside of Na-bi's vagina was a mass of wounds — but it was empty.

"It's... over..."

The moment the tension broke, every muscle in her body seemed to melt. Na-bi dropped the tweezers and toppled sideways.

A thud. Her cheek met the cold convenience store floor. It was a mess of blood and oil and urine, but right now it felt cozier than any bed. The dildo was out. The hole was empty.

Through blurring vision she saw the mannequins beyond the glass lose interest and vanish one by one. Na-bi's eyelids grew heavy as lead. She couldn't so much as twitch a finger.

Na-bi's consciousness sank once more into deep darkness. This time it was a sleep without pain — a truly deep sleep.