4.
K for Kurma
Running to the bathroom, Kurma’s feet thudded on the floor. She practically fell through the door and immediately threw up into the sink. Her stomach didn’t feel right, and she had no idea why. Santino had forgotten to put a condom on and maybe that was making her anxious.
Yet Kurma never threw up due to anxiety. If anything she became fidgety and felt the need to prioritize and organize something. This feeling she had now was intense. It was as if her stomach was being turned upside down. The pain in her lower region was backbreaking. She tried to steady herself but became faint. Goosebumps rose all over her skin, and her body’s temperature dropped.
Her breath came out in frosty puffs as if she were outside in the cold. Kurma was scared to death. What had she done to deserve this? She had sex one time, and all of a sudden she felt so ill. Falling to the floor, she clawed at her stomach. Her insides were on fire, and it felt like her internal organs were being torn out. Her belly button, most of all, felt like someone was ripping it out with a metal clothes hanger.
Tears fell from Kurma’s eyes. She felt weak as she tried to call out for Santino. Reaching up to the doorknob, she saw her skin changing colors. Quickly she snatched her hand back. She steadied it in front of her. Like a chameleon trying to match its surroundings, Kurma changed from olive to pink, from pink to yellow, from yellow to a weird fish-scale pattern. She couldn’t take her eyes off it. Fine hair sprouted in patches from her hands to her arms, baby blue like bird’s eggs. Frantically she stood up and tried to claw the feather-like hair from her body. Lines of blood appeared where she tore and scratched.
Kurma was about to hyperventilate; she had no idea what was happening to her. Just as her temperature had dropped, it rose again and soared to an unbearable heat. Kurma felt as if she were on fire. Tearing at her hair, she screamed out loud and fell into the shelves of toiletries behind her. No matter what she did, she was on fire, and the hair didn’t stop growing. Twisting the shower on, she threw her body into the water, and was quickly released from her hell.
Water ran down her face and back, and matted her waist-length hair to her body. The pain in her stomach ceased, but everything else tingled. Her stomach felt empty, as if there were a void in her middle. Kurma feared the worst. She didn’t even want to think what that feeling meant.
Even though her body felt shaken up, Kurma did feel better. Suddenly she heard a voice that sounded like Santino’s.
“I can’t,” she said. “Hear you,” she finished quietly to herself.
As she opened the shower’s glass door, she heard the doorknob rattle. Kurma remembered what her skin looked like and froze. Santino couldn’t see her like this. Grabbing the nearest towel, she huddled in the shower and turned off the water. What would he say when he saw what she had become?
There was a bang at the door. Oh my God, thought Kurma. He’s going to break down the door. My mom’s going to kill me!
Her hands began to itch, and her body felt lightweight. She felt the need to escape the tiny bathroom, but Santino was on the other side of the door trying to charge in. She faced a dilemma, and felt the fight-or-flight mode come over her.
There was another loud thud at the door, and Santino’s ginormous body came crashing through. At that very moment, there was a blinding pain in Kurma’s eyes that made her body spasm out of control. In an instant her limbs bent in on themselves, and it felt as if her muscles had stretched and torn at an unbearable rate—too quickly for Kurma to brace herself.
Santino looked deformed as he lunged for her. Throwing her hand up as a shield, she realized a huge, steel rod protruded from her wrist, sharp and piercing. In shock she screamed at the top of her lungs and fell forward out of the tub. She saw Santino’s teeth and eyes and knew she was in jeopardy.
In response to the animal that was Santino, Kurma’s body transformed into a beast. It was twice the size of Kurma’s normal physique. The steel rod—now attached to a baby blue-colored wing covered in thin skin—knocked Santino backward, giving Kurma a full view of herself in the mirror. Her eyes widened in horror. Her feet were no more; in their place were two bony legs with claws bent at odd angles. Her torso, the biggest part of her body, was round and covered with the blue hair she had seen on her arms. Also, she had wings! And they were so big; she couldn’t fully open them in the bathroom without knocking something over. Instead of five fingers she had four, with the metal rod acting like a fifth ligament. Her mouth let out a shrill scream that sounded more like a caw.
Santino roared at her, and she answered with a swipe of her rod, which she used liked a dagger. Kurma wanted to get away from him; she wanted out of this house. She needed to get herself outside where she could use her wings.
Santino bit and snapped at Kurma, and clawed his nails deep into her body. Raising both winged arms, she clumsily shoved him against the mirror, breaking the glass and drawing blood. Kurma plunged her dagger into Santino’s shoulder, and silver blood spurted out. Santino heaved back, and Kurma smashed through the door into the hallway. She felt ungainly, but tried to get her chicken-like legs to the nearest exit.
She could hear Santino behind her. She couldn’t fight him; in fact she had no idea what he was capable of. She needed to regroup and clear her head away from everybody, especially her family. Kurma spotted a window, and was preparing to leave down the fire escape outside when Santino swiped at her head and barely missed.
Kurma felt the glass of the window shatter against her skin as her huge body propelled through it. The sun lit her body and the wind swept her up. Kurma felt light as a feather. Flinging out her arms, she began to panic. Back and forth she moved her wings, but it seemed like they weren’t working as wings should. Her body twisted through the air, and she heard screams. Finally, in the last instant, her wings created enough momentum, and she glided over a group of onlookers’ heads.
She heard their voices: anger, fright, and shock. She turned her head and caught the people’s reactions and expressions. Kurma bet she looked like something out of a comic book.
Suddenly she caught something big falling fast in her peripheral. She heard a loud thud and felt vibrations in the air as the ground shook. The screams she’d heard when she’d launched from the window were nothing compared to what she heard now. Slowing her wings, she steadied her body upright and saw Santino rising from the fall. In the blink of an eye, he snarled loudly and attacked the nearest bystander. Red blood splattered the sidewalk as he ripped the innocent man’s head from his shoulders and bit into it.
The crowd erupted as the corpse fell into a puddle of red-hot liquid...blood.