Ever wondered how you'd react if you found a dead body hidden somewhere in your house? Would you scream? Would you inspect it? Or would you run away in blind terror?
Today I found out my answer to that question: Piss myself.
It had been a regular enough day. Cloudy, a little chilly, but not cold. Just any other average Tuesday really. I was set to go out and meet a few friends at the park, and decided I would wear a beanie, partly for the warmth, mostly for the aesthetic. I remembered we used to keep a laundry basket full of hats and gloves and scarves in a small cabinet under the stairs, so I figured that would be the best place to find the beanie.
Instead, I found a bloodied human arm.
And our lovely clean white floor tiles were painted with streams of gold.
I stood for a few minutes in complete shock. The smell was the first thing that hit me. Like really gone off meat. It made me gag and made my eyes water. But at the same time, there was something a little familiar about the smell...
A scream from my mother snapped me out of my trance. "Daniel!" She cried, running quickly to shut the door to the cabinet. "What are you doing?!" I didn't respond, my body still seizing up in shock. "Brian!" My mother yelled my Father's name. "Come here!" Quickly, my father joined us at the cabinet. I still hadn't moved. Together, he and my mother pulled me to my feet and half led, half dragged me into the kitchen, where they sat me down at the table. A painfully long silence followed. Eventually, I mustered up the energy to speak. "What is going on?" I managed to say in a very small voice. My mother put her face in her hands and started crying. My father cleared his throat. "I know you must be scared." He spoke slowly, measuring his words carefully. "But it's not what it looks like?" "So it's not a dead body under the stairs?" I say. That made him flinch. "It is..." He said at last. He got up and moved towards the sink, filling a cup with water and downing it in two quick gulps before filling another one and rejoining us at the table. "Your...condition, son." He said at last, running a hand through his hair. "What you saw is the cure. Your special meals." That made my blood run cold. The familiar smell...it's what the special diet I was on for my condition smelt like. "W-what?" I choked out. My father took another deep breath. "When you were born, we had a choice. Raise you right, or let the government poison you." His voice was still shaking. "We couldn't let them do that. Those things they want to pump into you cause autism, and who knows what else." He shook his head. "We weren't going to give in like all the other sheeple. So we had to boost your immune system the natural way. By exposing you to every bug that any human gets. One meal of it a day, and your immune system would get stronger and stronger." I stay silent. "We started with morgues." He continues. "But they wouldn't do. The corpses were all decontaminated. We needed fresh ones. Eventually we had to take matters into our own hands. Tourists, homeless, drunks, people who wouldn't be missed and who wouldn't raise too many questions. We did this for you Daniel." He smiled. "This is the natural way. I'll be damned if I was going to let them vaccinate my only son."