Ink Has No Weight in the Crimson
A short horror by Matthew Tonks
A man signs to lift his life from the ordinary and into promise. He believes the ink will buy him everything he has lost, but the reflection keeps its own ledgers and demands payment in ways the living never expected.
“We’ve got nothing left to hold each other accountable for,” he says with a warped grin, staring into the mirror. “We both know I’m better at being you than you ever could be. Your family’s grown closer. Your mother said she could see the little boy in your eyes again—the one who used to care, not the thing you were turning into. We all cried—even you—back there in my skull, just out of reach. And you’ve achieved things in your work life you never even dared to dream. So why care? Why break the rhythm? Let it play out. Let me grow bored. Then you can have it all back—wealth, love, respect, everything I’ll earn for you. Just like we agreed,” he says with a wide smile.
“You never said it would be like this! You never said you’d possess my flesh!” he spits, lurking behind him—visible only in the corners of his eyes, but never in the reflection.
“You didn’t care then, but you care now—why? Because your family loves me more than they ever loved you?” he purrs.
“You tricked me—you lied!”
He laughs, his smile stretching wide enough for his decaying flesh to show beneath the skin suit that used to be Conner. “I never lied. I never do. I promised riches. I vowed dreams never dreamt, and your family to be whole. I can’t just snap my fingers and make them so. That’s not how this works—he, up there,” he says, nodding upward, “he’s got rules we can’t break—rules that cover far greater plans than yours and mine. So we manipulate the likes—we play inside the square we’re given. Sometimes he gets his goat, changes the rules, tightens the trap, and kills a few thousand of us. Some get reborn as slugs, worms, or other low-bearing fruit, while the rest are repurposed for his celestial orgies. But whatever the case may be, we are bound. And you took the deal. Now I do the work—and, like I said, as it reads,” he says, rolling out a copy of the contract signed by them both, “I leave the ride once the agreement has been honoured and all terms have been upheld for more than two or three years, to ensure they stay in place.”
“T-Two or three years?” he cries, clawing at himself. “You can’t be serious! I—I—I can’t let you do that to my family. I won’t! They’ll work it out! They’ll see you for what you are, and then—”
“And then what, Conner? What will you do?” his wife asks, standing in the doorway behind them, her arms folded across the old rugby shirt that hangs to her knees, her hair messy, more grey than black.
“S-S-Samantha? Y-You—you can hear me?”
“Have you forgotten who brought in the mail that morning when you received his offer?” she asks, as an image plays of her placing the three envelopes on his desk. His lip trembles, and he takes a stuttered breath.
“Y-You did this? You tricked me?”
She laughs. “I didn’t trick you. I just gave you an opportunity. One you dove at like a fat kid at an all-you-can-eat buffet!”
He laughs. “Like a fat kid,” he says, turning to her with a palm raised.
She looks at him with a curious expression.
He slaps his hand and winks. “Give me some skin—let me pay you for the burn!” he scoffs.
“S-S-Stop it! Stop it!” Conner screams from somewhere inside, as Samantha slaps his hand.
“S-S-Stop it,” she mocks, right before he pulls her close.
“You first,” he growls, and when he kisses her, it’s angry and clumsy, a car crash, desperate, more of an argument than affection—while Conner’s screams spill through the cracks as he drops to what his tortured mind thinks are his knees.
“I hope you’ve got your eyes closed for this one, Conner,” Samantha says playfully—just as Conner suddenly finds himself strapped to a cross, his eyes pinned open and his mouth wired shut.
Nails tear through his flesh. Barbed wire coils around his limbs. Tears flood his face—he can only cry as he sees a look in his wife’s eyes he’d only ever seen once—in a photo from before they ever met.
💬 Did this one echo?
Tell me—before it forgets your name.
—
Written by Matthew Tonks
→ Read more nightmares at mtonks.com
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