He’d never gone down on a woman before. He’d heard it was supposed to be clammy and moist. His hands trembled as he spread her legs and leaned in, tongue sliding in slow, mimicking everything he’d ever seen on his phone.

As he went deeper, something twitched.
He jerked back, gagging, as a fat maggot dropped onto his chin.

The stench hit him properly this time.
He should’ve never dug her up.

-

She asked if I could stay with her until she fell asleep.
I held her tiny hand, whispered promises, and watched her eyelids flutter.
I couldn’t hold back my tears, seeing her frail body tangled in wires, the IV pressed into her hand.
I kissed her forehead, once, softly.
It was almost dawn when the monitor finally flatlined.

-

"So it's not a tumor after all?" the patient asked, a smile cracking across his face.

"I wish it was," the doctor sighed, placing the MRI scans on the desk between them.

"What do you mean?" the patient frowned.

The doctor leaned back, eyes narrowing. "Have you been swimming recently?"

The patient hesitated. "Yeah... why?"
"In a stagnant waterbody?" the doctor asked quietly.

The patient nodded, confused.
The doctor exhaled slowly.
"Because tumors don't crawl."

-

"Put that thing in your mouth like a good girl," he said.

"Now use your tongue—yes, just like in the video," he added, shoving the phone against her face.

"Please don't," she whimpered.

He smiled.

"I'll tell Mom what you were doing with that boy in the school library, sis... unless you do exactly what I say."

-

They found her body in the fields.
They arrested the man who did it.
But the one on trial is her character.

-

She glanced at the clock. 3:17 a.m.
Another body came in, rolled in by the paramedics.
The cop handed her the file.
"Teenager," he said.
“Let me guess. Drunk driving?” she asked.

The cop nodded.
She shook her head, exasperated.
“These rich brats,” she muttered, signing the intake sheet. "In fact, it's the parents...they have no control over kids these days".

The cop said nothing, just stared at the floor.
She pulled the sheet back, expecting another stranger. And froze.
For a second, she couldn’t process what she was seeing. Even with half his face gone, she knew.
She stumbled back, her mouth opening but no sound coming out.
'No control over their kids.'
The words kept hammering inside her skull, long after everything else went silent.

-

“What’s your religion?” the gunman asked, finger steady on the trigger.

The tourist hesitated.

“Wrong answer," he said just before the gunshot echoed.

-

She said she wanted to spice things up. Role reversal, she whispered. Just a little rear play, nothing too wild. She assured him he'd enjoy it. Hesitant but aroused by her insistence, he gave in.

Blindfolded, he flinched as something slick and slimy slid inside.
By the time he realized it could wiggle, it was already scratching its way up to his intestines.

His horror was drowned out by her laughter. Giddy. Unhinged. Utterly thrilled that her little baby had finally found a host to start laying eggs.

-

She watched Ma stir the pot for hours.
No fire. No grain. Just water.

The ration line had ended before their turn. Again.

“Let it boil a little more,” Ma whispered.
Flies buzzed over the rice sacks, empty for days.

By the time Ma filled her bowl, the water had learned to taste like hope. Her stomach stopped growling. And her baby brother stopped crying, like so many others from the mohalla before him.

-

“Daddy’s on the news!” she clapped, eyes wide with joy.

Her mother rushed in from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her anchal.

The glass slipped from her fingers, shattering at her feet as the anchor read “…man arrested for the rape and murder of a five-year-old.”

The girl kept clapping.

-