[Content warning: under the read more, the following piece contains explicit gore including intestines, accidental self-injury, mention of vomit, and detailed description of a PTSD flashback.
If you followed a direct link to get here, the content mentioned above starts at the start of the italicised paragraph]

It’s the things you don’t expect that gall the most.

Like the steak. You didn’t like steak, before – cultural thing, probably, and the taste of it never appealed even if that hadn’t been at the back of your mind – but it wasn’t more than a general issue of preference. Nothing that actually impacted your life in any way.

Then, one afternoon, you’re making supper – you and your daughter, while your wife’s out at work. Since both the girls eat steak, you decide you’ll cook some for them (just because you don’t eat the damn stuff, doesn’t mean you can’t cook it). You get the packet out of the fridge, and that goes fine. Get a knife, slit the plastic, peel it open. All fine, all usual. Reach in to pick up the steak- and that’s when it goes wrong.

-the feel of his intestine slick and bloody under your fingers, the whole thing fucking warm and wet and moving against your hand, everything stinking of blood and vomit and shit, trying not to think too hard about the fact you’re elbow-deep in the guts of a guy you were sharing what passes for breakfast out here with this morning, trying not to think about the fact you know he’s got a wife and kid back home, trying not to-

You’re not sure what happens next – too much at once, you think, when you’ve got your wits together – but the next thing you know you’re doubled over with one hand braced against the table and the other covering your mouth, trying not to vomit over the start of the supper. You’re shaking, and there’s sweat pricking on your forehead, and your eyes are shut, and everything sounds like you’re hearing it from underwater, and you realise (somewhat belatedly) that the sodding knife is trapped blade-up under your palm and you’re bleeding all over the brand-new kitchen table (and isn’t that a fine example to set the kid with regards to safety around sharp objects?).

What feels like a lifetime later, when you’ve finished vomiting into the sink and cleaned the table and made a start on actually getting some sort of supper salvaged from the mess, your daughter will ask you what happened.

It’ll be five years before she gets a proper answer.

[Author’s note: Mutantsverse again and, again, copied from dA (where this piece won a Daily Deviation, which I’m still deeply honoured/confused by)]

Copyright © 2020 by Finn McLellan.  All rights reserved.