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墨書 Inktalez
The buzzing of the convenience store freezer suddenly stopped. I curled up among the moldy cardboard boxes, watching as the edges of a burning business card in my phone's photo curled into ash, the policewoman's secretly written phone number twisting and distorting in the flames.
Blood seeping from the cold storage pooled around my ankles, congealing into pale pink ice crystals in the cracks of the tiles.
"Did Cargo run away?" A man's low, angry roar came from outside. The sound of Gold Watch's chain scraping against the rolling shutter door was like Nail scraping across a blackboard. "You’re asking for death, Xia Wenjuan!" The sound of Mother's high heels retreating in panic collided with the shelves, knocking down several bags of expired shrimp chips.
I felt around for the Cutter hidden beneath the cash register. The blade was embedded with dried Bloodstain, and it made a tearing sound like a ripped scar as I sliced open the lining of my Sweatshirt.
Fragments of an old newspaper from Twenty Years Ago fluttered from my Inner Pocket, the lead type of a social column headline glinting blue under the emergency light: “Enthusiastic Citizen Mr. Wang provides crucial clues.”
Suddenly, I heard the sound of chains dragging from the Ventilation Duct. My Stepfather's leather shoes crunched on melting ice shards, and the smell of whiskey mixed with Iron Rust Smell seeped through the gaps in the shelves.
A toppled instant noodle bucket rolled to my feet, splattering pickled vegetable juice onto my phone's Screen, blurring the close-up of the man's wrist with its Serpent Tattoo.
"Little Bitch!" The iron chain slammed against the glass of the milk cabinet, and shards flew past my earlobe.
My Stepfather's bloodshot eyes bulged from their sockets, bits of ceiling plaster clinging to his Belt Buckle. "Did you think you could escape like that bitch?" As he snapped the chain around his neck, fresh Scratch marks appeared just below his collarbone—identical to the bruise on Mother's neck from last night.
The emergency light in the cold storage suddenly went out. I burst through the back door into the alley, rotten vegetable leaves bursting beneath my feet like pus-filled juice.
Across the street, I saw a man shoving Mother into a black sedan, the cold light reflecting off her wrist where a new Cartier bracelet had been added.
In that moment when the trunk slammed shut, I caught sight of my backpack lying inside, its zipper stained with blood from a talisman hanging from it.
The sound of a siren echoed from three blocks away. I clutched the Cutter and rushed toward the Fire Escape, my frozen fingers scraping against the iron railing, producing a sound that made my teeth ache.
My Stepfather's maniacal laughter reverberated between the building crevices, and the overturned trash can startled a group of feral cats, their green eyes glowing like ghostly flames in the night.
"Do you really think that policewoman can save you?" Chains wrapped around the third step of the Fire Escape, sparks flying as they hit the scabbed burn on my calf.
My Stepfather climbed with the speed of a venomous snake, his gold tooth biting down on a half-smoked cigarette. "The last call she took yesterday was from the Traffic Accident Handling Center."
The wind at this height whipped icy particles into my collar. I felt the melted chocolate in my Pants Pocket, its sticky texture reminding me of the menstrual blood seeping through the cracks in the attic floor.
Suddenly, my phone vibrated. A strange number sent me surveillance screenshots—on that day in the Mediation Room, a shedding Black Snake lay on the policewoman's Uniform Epaulet.
The Fire Escape abruptly ended on the tenth floor. The cut end of the Safety Rope revealed a clean slicing surface, steel fibers standing out like surgical stitches.
Down below, my Mother’s sharp laughter rang out as she lit a cigarette for a man, the flame of the lighter illuminating the red stamp saying "To Pay" on the Delivery Receipt.
"Jump!" My Stepfather's Belt Buckle caught around my ankle. In an instant, as chains wrapped around my neck, hidden words from the Prenatal Checkup Form exploded in my mind.
I turned and plunged the Cutter into his Femoral Artery. Warm blood sprayed onto the rooftop Water Tank, mingling with melting ice as it dripped into my Pupil.
The Safety Rope dug deep into my Palm, leaving bloodstains visible to the bone. I hung at the edge of a Thirteenth Floor billboard, a Neon Tube illuminating the window of a hotel across the street—there was a man pressing my Mother against the glass, her newly done Crystal Nails tracing ten bloody lines in the fogged-up surface.
The Fire Escape echoed with the sound of a door being broken down; my Stepfather limped through the Fire Door, clutching a dripping iron chain.
The gale lifted the hem of the school uniform, and the old burn scar on my abdomen blossomed with fine Blood Pearl under the low temperature. I gazed at the flashing police lights below and suddenly caught sight of the tattoo on the man's neck—a faded Black Snake at seven inches, concealing the three characters "Wang Jianguo," identical to the signature of "Enthusiastic Citizen Wang" from a Twenty Years Ago newspaper.
"What do you think you can prove?" The Stepfather suddenly eased the force with which he tugged on the iron chain, raising his phone that was Video Recording the scene. "Your mother just received two hundred thousand in hush money."
In the video, Mother was counting cash, with a dismembered Stuffed Toy lying at her feet—that was the birthday gift she bought for me when I was six.
The broken steel rebar of the Fire Escape suddenly pierced the Water Tank. Ice water mixed with Rusty Iron poured down, drowning out the sound of sirens emanating from Stepfather's phone.
I released my palm, raw from the Safety Rope, watching as the ashes of the Prenatal Checkup Form swirled together to form a fragmented outline of an infant. The moment I felt the weightlessness of falling, the buzzing sound of the convenience store freezer restarting pierced through my Eardrum.
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