Severed Hand
The bus rumbles beneath me, a living beast of metal and glass, as I steer it through the city's veins. The day is warm, deceptively warm, the kind of warmth that lulls you into a false sense of security. Golden rays dance on the buildings, an illusion of peace that clings to the air like a fragile veil, but I know better—today is different. Today, the sun’s glow feels like a lie, a mask for something dark and twisted waiting to claw its way into the light.
I see him—my colleague, my friend—just ahead. He’s waving, or maybe just stretching out his arm, seeking relief from the sweltering heat. A simple, mundane gesture. The kind you see a thousand times and never think twice about. But not today. Today, the mundane becomes monstrous. Today, the ordinary becomes a nightmare.
And then, it happens.
Time fractures into a thousand shards. A glazier's van roars past, a wolf in sheep’s clothing, its menace hidden behind a façade of daily routine. But this is no ordinary day, and that van carries more than just glass—it carries danger, it carries horror. A blade of glass, sharp as a guillotine, slices through the air with a sound that will haunt my dreams—a sickening whoosh that cuts through the noise of the city like a scream in the dead of night.
It slices through his hand. Clean. Swift. Merciless.
A spray of crimson paints the day, the sun’s golden hue now tainted with blood. His hand—severed, disembodied—flies through the air, a grotesque parody of freedom. The bus halts with a shudder, as if the machine itself is recoiling in horror. But there’s no time to process, no time to understand. The hand lands, soft and wet, into the basket of a passing food delivery cyclist. The cyclist pedals on, oblivious, carrying this macabre cargo through the city streets as if it were nothing more than a bag of takeout.
The world around me becomes disjointed, fragmented—reality splintering like that cursed sheet of glass. I see it all, but it doesn’t make sense. It can’t make sense. The crowd gathers, their faces twisted in a mix of shock and morbid curiosity. I hear their gasps, their whispered prayers. But their voices are distant, muffled, as if they’re coming from underwater.
I am both here and not here. I am the driver, hands gripping the wheel with white-knuckled terror, and I am the observer, floating above it all, detached, watching the scene unfold like some gruesome play. The smell of blood is in my nostrils—metallic, nauseating. It fills my lungs, choking me. The air, once warm and comforting, now feels thick, suffocating.
I can’t stop thinking about the hand—his hand—nestled among the delivery bags, bouncing with each pedal stroke, a grim passenger on a journey to nowhere. And I can’t stop seeing it, over and over, the moment of severance, the instant life turned into a nightmare. The sun is still shining, but its light is cold now, mocking. The day has turned on itself, a serene moment twisted into something hideous, something that cannot be unseen, something that cannot be undone.
And yet, the bus must move. I must drive. The city’s rhythm doesn’t pause for horror; it doesn’t care for nightmares. The wheels turn, the engine growls, and I am carried forward, into the day, into the madness, into the unknown. The image stays with me, seared into my mind, a permanent scar, a reminder that safety is an illusion, that normalcy is a lie.
This city is alive, and it is hungry. And today, it has claimed its pound of flesh.
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___ Vincent
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