Page 127 of Cruel Pleasures

I had always craved attention. I had always wished for human connection.

…until my mother chased me around our massive property clutching a butcher knife she had every intention of running me through with.

There was the time in the bath when I was three-years-old and she tried to drown me. Other nights where I’d wake in the dark to a shadowy figure hovering over me and a pillow that would smash down on my face to smother me.

A lifetime of attempts to undo what she considers her biggest mistake.

Many years later, the sight of her draws my mind to these memories. It makes me remember how I’d once crawled under the furniture to escape her. I’d question how she could be so hot and cold, so fantastical one second and then murderous and dark the next.

“It was never the same after you,” she rages not for the first time. “He stopped loving me because of you! He would’ve still been here if you hadn’t… if you hadn’t ruined everything!”

“I’m sorry for being born, Mother. But that was your choice, wasn’t it?”

“You were supposed to fix things. Instead, you just made everything worse!”

“Are you going to explain what the hell this has to do with me?” Imani asks out of frustration.

Mother spins around to face Imani. “You,” she snarls, “are even more useless than he is. You want to know why you’re here and what your purpose is? You were to be used to draw out my son… my other son! Him and that little devil he calls a girlfriend—I’ll make them pay for what they did to Dmitri. For… for taking him away from me!”

My arms uncross themselves and drop to my sides. The grin has wiped off my face and I’ve been hit with a pang of disbelief.

It can’t be what I think it is…

There’s no way.

“What the fuck do you mean your other son?”

“I’ve had enough!” she wails, then spins around to shove the marble bust statue of the beautiful woman she’s always adored. The statue wobbles on its podium before it crashes to the ground.

The lights cut out and the secret passage in the room’s slid open.

We’re plunged into immediate darkness. The Hostess is making her desperate escape attempt. A silhouette I recognize as Imani’s whizzes by me as she launches after her. I rush forward to do the same.

Ryu has the same idea.

But we’re a split second too late as the secret passage closes before we can make it through. Ryu goes to the light switch on the wall and flicks it on.

Mother and Imani are gone.

32. Imani

Do You Feel Real? - Sevdaliza

I’m stumbling down a dark passage in my pursuit of the Hostess. She’s a few steps ahead of me ‘til I bridge the gap altogether and grab at her.

Seconds pass where our arms and legs are tangled up and we’re struggling to stay on our feet.

She doesn’t put up the kind of fight I expected. She peels herself away the first chance she gets and backs up to the stone wall lining the passage. It’s then that it occurs to me we’re trapped in this narrow passage together.

The only way forward in the stone tunnel we’re in is to move in the direction she’s headed in.

An intentional set up on her part.

Her long dress flicks like a curtain as she spins on her heel and takes off.

Exhausted and covered in blood and grime, emotionally spent with nerves that won’t stop buzzing, I’m not giving up now. Adrenaline kicks in and I spring after her.

The dark tunnel narrows the deeper we go. Cobwebs brush against us, thick but invisible ’til we’re tangled up in them. We force our way through, the Hostess still in the lead. I’m a few steps behind.