Take My Hand

Blood splattered across the chopping board as the cleaver cut through flesh and bone. The dismembered digit rolled across the bench, leaving a thin trail of blood.

"Love me, dammit!  Why won't LOVE ME?!" Screamed Jake, raising the cleaver again.

“Nobody loves you Jake, not after what you did”, the voice whispered.

Tears welled in his eyes as he thought about the events that had unfolded over the last week.

Belle, his precious Belle.

Things had been going so well. They’d sat and had lunch, and she’d talked to him! He remembered her sparkling blue eyes, her smile, the way she tossed her hair when she laughed at what he said.

But he had paid a price to get to her to sit there with him.

The cleaver whistled down again, and with a sickening thud, hacked the little finger off with such force it shot across the kitchen.

"Love me, dammit!  Why won't LOVE ME?!"

Belle had never paid him any attention before. Every time he walked passed her in the hall, she would look at him with disgust. His long, oily dark hair, the dark trench coat he always wore. He could almost feel the revulsion emanating  from her, and it made his stomach churn.

So one day, Jake had gone to that little occult store that was tucked away down the alley near the shopping centre. Not many people knew about it, and those that did, thought it was a hoax. But Jake knew better.

He’d found a book there, a book that promised him that with one small ritual, she would be his.

"Love me, dammit!  Why won't LOVE ME?!"

“Think about what you did, Jake”, the voice whispered.

He needed ingredients, one of which need to  be something from Belle. So, waiting until they were in class together, he managed to find a single strand of her golden hair, loose on her coat that was hung over the back of her chair.

That night, he completed the ritual. Her hair, his blood.

The following day he saw her in the hall. Again his stomach churned, but this time, she didn’t look at him as if he was some kind of freak. This time she smiled.

"Love me, dammit!  Why won't LOVE ME?!"

The cleaver came down again, this time on the thumb. But the bone was thicker, and the cleaver got wedged. Blood spurted from around the blade as Jake wrestled to pull it free, tears cutting tracks through his dirt covered face. Freeing it, he brought it down again. The thumb sat on the bench, disengaged from the rest of the hand, blood dribbling from the severed end.

They had lunch. She smiled and laughed.

Jake then invited her to the shopping centre, and she agreed!

But that is where it all went horribly wrong. He’d reached out with his hand, and taken hers. She stopped smiling. The look of horror came back into her eyes as she screamed at him, asking him what the hell he thought he was doing, touching her with his filthy, disgusting hands.

The spell was broken, and Jake had run.

"Love me, dammit!  Why won't LOVE ME?!"

This time the ring finger joined the others scattered across the bench. Blood soaked the surface, dripping down the side and onto the white tiles beneath.

“You thought she would like you, that she would love you. Then you had to go and touch her? How could you think she would EVER want someone like you, touching someone like her?”  said the voices inside his head.

Jake looked at his hand and the bloody stumps of his fingers.

“How could she love you, when you don’t even love yourself ………”