RELIFE GAME

[WARNING!! Gross! Proceed at your own peril!]

Monday, around 7:00 in the morning, the snooze alarm had been ringing on and off. There was vomit on the floor, and Marty's head throbbed with indescribable intensity. It was as if his brain was pounding against the confines of his own skull.

Soon turning twenty-four on 13th January, but for the first time, he went clubbing as a small act of rebellion. He emptied his bank account, drowned himself in alcohol, almost choked to death from inhaling a cigarette wrong, and swore to never do it again. He puked on a beautiful woman's chest and so on and so forth. It was a wild night, but most importantly, he had thirty-two missed calls and thirteen unread messages, all from his boss. He was just too wasted to even check them.

"Ah, I wanna die," he muttered under his breath.

Then the sound of something banging entered his ears; it was coming from the room next to his, which belonged to his grandma. Knowing full well she was banging her cane against her bedside table again, he started to frown.

More or less two years ago, she was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. Marty wouldn't have minded taking care of her if it hadn't been for how she treated him growing up. She was abusive, oblivious, and a thief.

If Marty made the slightest of mistakes, such as breaking a glass, explaining why he was late, not going to bed on time, or not looking her in the eyes when she taught him life lessons, he would be beaten with a leather belt and forced to kneel on salt until it melted. She liked to call this "discipline" and claimed it was for his own good.

Whenever she got the chance, she would call her siblings on the phone and talk bad about him. "Lazy and disrespectful," she would say.

In fact, Marty busted his butt cleaning the whole house while she just cuddled with her cat, washed all the dishes, hand-washed all the laundry since she refused to buy a washing machine to save on electricity, and even changed her diapers. And like a sucker, he would wake up before sunrise to feed the pigs that she loved so much. Well, except for today, obviously.

He was only ever called disrespectful because he was the one changing her diapers, having to see everything - her butt and all. She would call Marty all sorts of names, "pervert" being one of her favorites when her thing wasn't even remotely attractive. It looked disgusting, like some infested, haunted forest. Hygiene clearly wasn't a priority of hers, you could imagine. It was the last thing he would want to ogle at.

And that wasn't all. When Marty was still a teenager, she went ahead and stole his secret savings, which he had carefully hidden under his mattress. She used it to buy herself a fancy new set of tea cups. The audacity! Saying she did all that to protect her beloved grandson from getting addicted to drugs, getting influenced by bad company and stuff when the only bad company he ever had was her.

Marty despised her. No. He resented her. More anger than anything else.

Then the banging intensified. "Marty!" she yelled like she usually did, announcing to the whole world who she was calling.

But Marty ignored her and turned his head to his bedside table, reached for his phone that was once again ringing, and answered it. He was supposed to go to work yesterday and today, but didn't show up.

Just seeing the face of his boss triggered his anxiety. He wasn't the nicest boss either, but talking about him now would only make this chapter a whole mess of exposition, so let's save him for later.

"Marty! Where the hell are you? I've been—"

"Sir?" Marty cut him off. "I quit."

And then… silence.

His boss went on a rant for a while that Marty didn't care to listen to, only to end the call midway and turn the phone to airplane mode. He didn't care anymore.

Then, with a heavy heart, he forced himself to stand up and wobbled towards the door. His knees, unsurprisingly weakened from drinking all that alcohol, barely had any strength to support his weight.

And just when he thought nothing could ruin his morning any further, while passing through the hallway going to his grandma's room, he caught a glimpse of his reflection in the mirror. Disheveled brown hair, thick bags and circles underneath his brown eyes, chapped lips, sunken cheeks, and sweat that made his shirt cling to his skin. He snorted before immediately turning his head away and wobbled to his grandma's room. She was still banging her cane.

Upon entering, she glared at him with those condescending eyes of hers. He took the glucometer, lancet, and blood pressure monitor from the medicine kit and dragged the plastic chair with his foot towards her, trying hard to ignore the putrid smell on her sheets.

For the first time since Marty was born, he drank himself to oblivion the night prior, forgetting to put on her diaper while she didn't even bother to stand up to get to the chamber pot just under her bed. She could still walk, just hellbent on making Marty's life miserable.

Marty even saw her dancing cha-cha, blasting music in the living room, but pretended to faint when she noticed him. She still insisted she was very weak and could die any moment soon, and that Marty should take care of her. His father actually believed in her and yelled at Marty for making things up just so he could cut on some responsibilities.

As Marty was about to prick her finger for the blood sugar test, she suddenly shot out her other hand and smeared something on his face. It was sticky, uncomfortably warm, and accompanied by a strong, unpleasant odor. She had just smeared her feces on Marty's face!

That was finally it. The tiniest bit of patience he had been clutching onto finally snapped. His vision turned red, and the next thing he knew, he was already pressing a pillow on her face. She struggled for a while, clawed at his arms, smeared brown everywhere, and then… nothing. She stopped moving. 

She was dead.