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Finally, one morning, it happens like a knife slipping between my ribs. The pain starts sharp, then blooms outward, radiating through my body in waves that steal my breath. I’m lying on the bed when it hits, my pink nightgown crumpled around me, sticky against my thighs. My hands fly to my stomach, pressing against the source of the agony, as if I could hold it in, as if I could stop it.

I scream, the sound raw and guttural, ripping through the still air of the Pink Room. And then, without warning, I start laughing. It’s a manic, deep and demonic sound, tumbling out of me in bursts I can’t control. The laughter feels wrong in my throat, foreign, but it’s unstoppable. I laugh until I’m choking, until I can taste bile rising.

I reach between my legs, my fingers trembling as they search for confirmation, and when I pull them back, they’re slick with blood. Dark, wet, undeniable. I stare at it, my breath catching, my pulse hammering in my ears. This is it, I think, the realization cutting through the chaos. It worked.

The laughter fizzles out, replaced by another wave of pain that grips me, sharp and merciless. I curl into myself, clutching my stomach as the blood begins to soak through the fabric of my nightgown, staining the pastel pink a deep, violent red. It pools beneath me, spreading out like an accusation, like evidence.

And then the nausea hits. It is violent, immediate. My stomach twists hard, and I barely manage to lean over the edge of the bed before I’m vomiting blood. It spills from my mouth in heavy

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bursts, thick and dark, splattering onto the pristine rug and trailing down my chin. The taste is overwhelming, metallic and cloying, and the smell—the iron tang of blood mingled with bile—fills the room, suffocating and nauseating.

I wipe my mouth with a shaking hand, smearing blood across my face. My stomach lurches again, and I gag, spitting more blood onto the floor, watching it soak into the pink fibers of the rug. It’s everywhere now—the blood, the smell, the suffocating reality of it. My body is a battleground, my insides tearing themselves apart, but I can feel it. I can feel it happening.

Another cramp rips through me, sharper than the last, and I feel something heavy, unnatural, shifting inside me. My body knows what to do, even if I don’t. I slide off the bed onto the floor, the blood warm and sticky beneath my knees, pooling around me as I spread my legs. The instinct to push takes over, ancient and undeniable.

I glance up at the camera, its red light blinking steadily. If there’s people watching, I’ll make sure they see everything. If they think I’m boring, I’ll really give them a show; change the trajectory of their life forever.

I brace my hands against the floor, my fingers slipping in the blood, and I bear down. The pain is white-hot, blinding, carving through me in sharp, relentless waves. My breaths come in ragged gasps, my body trembling violently as I push, the weight inside me slowly shifting downward.

It feels endless, time stretching out and bending under the strain. The room blurs around me, the pink walls and white trim dissolving into a haze of color and light. My entire world narrows to the searing, tearing pressure in my abdomen, the overwhelming sensation of something being forced out of me.

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And then, with one final, desperate push and the help of my hand pulling it out, it’s over.

The thing lying on the blood-soaked floor is small but malformed, its body pale and hairless, its limbs too long and spindly, ending in tiny, clawed paws. The head is canine, unmistakably so—its snout too pronounced, its mouth hanging open to reveal sharp, needle-like teeth. The skin is thin, almost translucent, veins spidering beneath its surface. Its closed eyelids bulge, too large for its head.

I’m too tired to care. I collapse onto my side, shaking, my body spent, my mind teetering on the edge of consciousness. My breaths are shallow, uneven, but they keep coming, each one a small defiance.

It’s there in front of me, surrounded by blood and tissue, a grotesque, fibrous thing that doesn’t look human, but still carries the weight of what it is. What it was. I can’t look away.

The room is silent now, save for my labored breaths and the faint, distant hum of the house. Master Nathan isn’t home. I’ve done this alone. For the first time in years, I feel something like triumph, tangled and bloody, raw and unrecognizable.

The blood doesn’t stop. It seeps from me in steady streams, soaking into the rug, pooling around my legs. My nightgown clings to me, ruined, sticky and damp. The smell of blood and vomit is thick in the air, pressing down on me, making me gag as I try to sit up, to orient myself.

I close my eyes, my head heavy, my body trembling with exhaustion. The pain is still there, dull and insistent, but the worst of it is over. For the first time in months, I feel like I’ve won, even as I lie here in the wreckage of my body, the weight of what I’ve done pressing down on me.

His fetus is gone.