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墨書 Inktalez
At three forty-seven in the morning, the attic floor creaked with age. I curled up behind a pile of clutter, my nails digging into the lines of my palm, as the oil lamp cast the hunched shadow of my Stepfather on the wallpaper, resembling a vulture gnawing at decaying flesh.
"This is the last batch."
The sound of the iron box opening pierced the darkness, the metallic scraping echoing as glass vials clinked together, reminding me of the milk cup I shattered when I was five. My Mother pressed her fingertip, dusted with powder, onto the ledger, the crimson hue glistening under the kerosene lamp like a scab.
The smell of camphor suddenly intensified.
My Stepfather's breath came in raspy, phlegm-laden snores as he pulled out a leather paper bag from the bottom of the iron box. I counted the rustling sounds of him counting bills; on the thirty-seventh note, I suddenly heard my name.
"Send Xia Jian over next month."
The silver spoon my Mother stirred her coffee with clinked against the bone china cup, its clarity reminiscent of nails being hammered into a coffin at a funeral home. I counted the mold spots on the wallpaper; upon reaching the twenty-third black dot, I saw my half-body photo stuck to the last page of the ledger—taken at last week's physical examination at the school nurse's request.
The sensation of a cockroach scuttling across my foot awakened muscle memory.
The attic stairs groaned under my heel, and a jar of pickles I had knocked over rolled across the floor with a dull thud. As my Stepfather's scent of smoke and oil wafted up from behind me, the hairs on my neck prickled with warm breath.
"I've raised you for twelve years; it's time to repay."
His palm grazed my earlobe with calloused skin, and under the moonlight, the skull on the medicine bottle grinned back at me. I counted the ticking of the hallway clock; on the seventh tick, I heard my Mother humming a lullaby from the bedroom, its melody overlapping with gasps that had seeped through the door when I was eight.
The rusty smell from the basement door hinges filled my nostrils.
My Stepfather's belt buckle clanged against the concrete floor, sharp and clear like coins rolling away when I was caught stealing for the first time. In an instant, as he grabbed me by the nape and slammed me against the wall, I suddenly saw what was written on the medicine bottle—Flunitrazepam—the prescription given by the school nurse just before my deskmate went missing six months ago.
The kerosene lamp flickered, casting fragmented shadows.
As searing pain exploded from my spine, I stared at a mouse peeking through a crack in the ceiling; its dark bean-like eyes reflected my Stepfather's distorted face. The sound of my Mother's high heels approached from afar; after pausing for three seconds at the door, she walked away to the rhythm of The Blue Danube.
The blood pearl slid down the inner thigh, blooming into tiny plum blossoms on the concrete floor. The cigarette butt of my stepfather was extinguished on my collarbone, the familiar burnt smell reminding me of the roasted meat aroma that wafted from the basement last month when he dealt with a disobedient prostitute. As he rummaged through the medicine cabinet with his pants half-up, I counted the twenty-three bottles of Flunitrazepam left in the metal box, exactly matching the number of missing female students over the past six months.
Morning light pierced through the iron bars of the ventilation window as I felt the remnants of a stolen ledger tucked in my pocket. The wall dust wedged in the nail mixed with bloodstains, tracing out a fragmented address on a yellowing paper page—Warehouse 12, Area B, South City Dock, which coincided with the coordinates of a drug bust publicized by the police three months ago.
A dragging sound of heavy objects came from the attic. My mother was humming a tune while ironing my new uniform, the light blue skirt adorned with small flowers resembling the bloodstains splattered in the basement. When my stepfather plunged the syringe into my vein, I gazed at my reflection in the mirror, noticing the dark circles under my eyes, and suddenly recalled that stray cat pushed out into the rain-soaked night—its pupils illuminated by headlights held a similar thick despair.
(End of chapter)
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