Impulse

𝑾𝒆𝒍𝒄𝒐𝒎𝒆, 𝒎𝒚 𝒇𝒓𝒊𝒆𝒏𝒅𝒔, 𝒕𝒐 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒍𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒃𝒆𝒕𝒘𝒆𝒆𝒏 𝒍𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒅𝒂𝒓𝒌, 𝒃𝒆𝒕𝒘𝒆𝒆𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒍𝒊𝒗𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒅𝒆𝒂𝒅, 𝒃𝒆𝒕𝒘𝒆𝒆𝒏 𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒍𝒊𝒕𝒚 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒇𝒂𝒏𝒕𝒂𝒔𝒚, 𝒃𝒆𝒕𝒘𝒆𝒆𝒏 𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒇𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒔 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒓𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏𝒂𝒍𝒊𝒕𝒚.

𝑻𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒘𝒐𝒓𝒍𝒅 𝒊𝒔 𝒎𝒖𝒄𝒉 𝒍𝒊𝒌𝒆 𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒐𝒘𝒏, 𝒔𝒐 𝒊𝒅𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒊𝒄𝒂𝒍 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒐𝒏𝒆 𝒄𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅 𝒏𝒐𝒕 𝒕𝒆𝒍𝒍 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒅𝒊𝒇𝒇𝒆𝒓𝒆𝒏𝒄𝒆 𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒏 𝒖𝒑𝒐𝒏 𝒄𝒍𝒐𝒔𝒆 𝒊𝒏𝒔𝒑𝒆𝒄𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏. 𝑻𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒘𝒐𝒓𝒍𝒅 𝒆𝒙𝒊𝒔𝒕𝒔 𝒔𝒐𝒎𝒆𝒘𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒆 𝒃𝒆𝒕𝒘𝒆𝒆𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒇𝒂𝒃𝒓𝒊𝒄𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒎𝒂𝒌𝒆 𝒖𝒑 𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒐𝒘𝒏 𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒍𝒊𝒕𝒚. 𝑶𝒏𝒆 𝒔𝒆𝒄𝒐𝒏𝒅, 𝒐𝒏𝒆 𝒎𝒂𝒚 𝒇𝒊𝒏𝒅 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒎𝒔𝒆𝒍𝒗𝒆𝒔 𝒍𝒊𝒗𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒊𝒏 𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒚 𝒘𝒐𝒓𝒍𝒅, 𝒐𝒏𝒍𝒚 𝒕𝒐 𝒔𝒖𝒅𝒅𝒆𝒏𝒍𝒚 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒔𝒆𝒂𝒎𝒍𝒆𝒔𝒔𝒍𝒚 𝒆𝒙𝒊𝒔𝒕 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒏𝒆𝒘 𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒍𝒊𝒕𝒚, 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑪𝒓𝒆𝒑𝒖𝒔𝒄𝒍𝒆!

𝑩𝒚 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒕𝒊𝒎𝒆 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒍𝒊𝒛𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒏𝒐 𝒍𝒐𝒏𝒈𝒆𝒓 𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒍𝒊𝒕𝒚 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒐𝒏𝒄𝒆 𝒄𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒆𝒅 𝒉𝒐𝒎𝒆, 𝒊𝒕 𝒘𝒊𝒍𝒍 𝒃𝒆 𝒇𝒂𝒓 𝒕𝒐𝒐 𝒍𝒂𝒕𝒆...

A man lay in bed, alone, opening his eyes slowly as the sun's rays delicately entered his room. He was a married man, one who loved his wife and kids dearly. His name was Jason, and from the outside in, Jason was your average American Joe living the American dream, white picket fence and all.

His wife was off dropping the kids off at school, leaving Jason with the house to himself. Mornings were always lonely for him. By the time he was awake, the house was always empty and he'd leave for work before ever getting the chance to see a single inch of his beautiful family's faces.

Groggy, Jason stepped out of bed and walked over to the bathroom. Before anything, he washed his hands with soap and water.

He scrubbed.

And he scrubbed.

And he scrubbed.

He kept scrubbing until his hands had practically turned beet red.

He then dried his hands and placed the soap back in the exact location it needed to be before he stripped naked and began taking a hot shower.

As he showered, steam filled the bathroom and his bedroom that was connected to it due to the heat coming from it. Jason always took hot showers, as hot as the water could go. He'd scrub himself clean to the point of redness, only stopping once he felt himself nearly to the point of collapse.

He left the shower and dried himself off before returning back to his bedroom with a towel around his waist. Opening his closet, he was met with a plethora of dress shirts and slacks, his attire for his mundane office job.

As he always did, Jason got dressed, putting on a pair of striped boxer briefs before putting on an undershirt. He then chose a grey button-up, putting it on one sleeve at a time before buttoning it while checking himself out in the mirror. As he looked at his own reflection, Jason noticed something that immediately bothered him.

There was a piece of dead skin on his thumb, hanging off ever so slightly to the point where it was distracting. Looking down from the mirror and down at his thumb so he could see it with his own eyes, he noticed that this piece of dead skin was only a few millimeters in length, but it might as well have been a mile in Jason's eyes.

Using his other thumb and index finger, Jason impulsively tugged on the dead skin, tearing it off slowly as blood began to pool around it. Jason pulled with the intent to remove it, ignoring the stinging as he continued to rip the dead skin off of himself...

However, the dead skin seemingly had no end. He stretched the dead skin until it reached about an inch in length, looking down at it with his eyebrows pushed together and his mouth clenched. As the piece of dead skin hung from his thumb, curling into itself and showing more of his blood pooling up, Jason began to panic.

Once again, Jason tried peeling this cursed skin from his thumb, only for the pain, the blood, and the long streak of skin to continue building up. He stopped about halfway down his thumb before looking around the room. 'Where is it? WHERE IS IT!?' Jason panicked his eyes frantically darted around, searching for something, anything he could use to cut this wretched dead skin from further infecting his body.

He practically tore the room apart, pulling drawers out from his nightstand, yanking the sheets from his bed and tossing them on the ground, and checking every single inch of the room until he spotted a pair of nail clippers right beside the television stand. He ran to them as if his life were on the line, grabbed them, and snipped the piece of dead skin off his body.

Jason exhaled, feeling relieved that this disgusting imperfection was finally removed from his thumb. He looked at his finger, seeing the blood continuing to pool where his skin was torn. Hastily, he headed straight for the bathroom and washed his hands with soap, water, and rubbing alcohol before he dug through the medicine cabinet for a band-aid.

Once he found one, he unwrapped it from its packaging and began placing it over his finger...

Though his eyes would widen and his entire body would remain frozen upon seeing that the trail of dead skin was still there, only now, it was only a millimeter in length, starting halfway down his thumb. 'What? N-no but I removed it. I- I-.' Jason's eyes were still wide and filled with dread as he glared at the imperfection on his finger. He could feel that impulse, that compulsion of wanting to rip his thumb to shreds beginning to overwhelm him.

Before he could do anything horrific, he covered the dead skin with the bandaid and once again sighed with relief. 'Out of sight, out of mind.' he thought to himself.

With the dead skin hiding beneath his bandage, Jason resumed getting dressed and ready for work. Before long, he was on the road, driving to work while occasionally taking glances at his bandage-covered thumb. He could hear a voice in his head telling him to get rid of it.

𝙏𝙚𝙖𝙧 𝙞𝙩.

𝙏𝙚𝙖𝙧 𝙞𝙩.

𝙏𝙚𝙖𝙧 𝙞𝙩.

𝙏𝙚𝙖𝙧 𝙞𝙩.

𝙏𝙚𝙖𝙧 𝙞𝙩.

The voice repeated over and over in his mind, trying to convince him to rip it off. "NO! NO! NO! NO!" like a madman, Jason screamed at the top of his lungs as he drove, feeling himself slipping further into insanity. He wanted to rip it off more than anything, in fact, he wanted to cut his entire finger off if that meant getting rid of the dead skin that kept haunting him.

Eventually, Jason made it to his work building and headed straight for his grey, drab cubicle as he always did. For the next few hours, he dealt with the same thing he had to deal with in his car.

𝙏𝙚𝙖𝙧 𝙞𝙩.

𝙏𝙚𝙖𝙧 𝙞𝙩.

𝙏𝙚𝙖𝙧 𝙞𝙩.

𝙏𝙚𝙖𝙧 𝙞𝙩.

That voice...

That wretched voice that sounded similar to his own, yet more sinister and psychotic, repeated that same phrase in his mind over and over and over and over and over and over...

It was getting to the point where he couldn't even hear his own thoughts, he couldn't even hear the world around him as the sound of that voice grew louder with every passing moment. As he typed away at his keyboard whose clicking and clacking were muted out by the sounds of the voice haunting him, Jason's hands quivered.

He couldn't take it anymore.

He needed to remove it.

'I need to get this DAMNED PARASITE OFF OF ME!' he bellowed in his own mind before taking a pair of scissors from his desk and storming into the bathroom. He forced the bandaid off and began using his office scissors to cut away at the dead skin. With each slice, he'd removed a small piece of this skin only for just the smaller bit of it to still remain.

Jason cut.

And he cut.

And he cut.

And he cut.

And he cut.

Snipping away at his thumb until the trail left in the wake of his dead skin was down his entire thumb. It stung so badly, it was agonizing, and the blood was beginning to pour down his hand as he was not only peeling his skin apart but cutting into his hand with his scissors. "WHY CAN'T I GET THIS FUCKING PARASITE OFF OF ME!" Jason yelled like a maniac just as someone walked into the bathroom. As the two locked eyes, his coworker stood in place, glancing at Jason's crazed, crimson face, then the blood-soaked scissors, and then Jason's mutilated thumb.

"Jason? Are you alright?" his coworker asked him, taking a step backward. He was scared, he had no clue what Jason was planning with those scissors. He heard him yelling just before he entered, and Jason's face was riddling with bloodlust.

"I'm not crazy. I'm not crazy." Jason repeated to himself, still locking eyes with his coworker who continued to slowly back away. "I. AM. NOT. CRAZY!" Jason shouting this prompted his colleague to immediately flee, leaving Jason by himself once again. "I'm not." Jason said quietly as he looked at his own lunacy-filled face in the mirror. He looked at those blood-lusting eyes of his, his scissors drenched in blood, and his now unrecognizable thumb.

𝙏𝙚𝙖𝙧 𝙞𝙩.

𝙏𝙚𝙖𝙧 𝙞𝙩.

𝙏𝙚𝙖𝙧 𝙞𝙩.

𝙏𝙚𝙖𝙧 𝙞𝙩.

𝙏𝙚𝙖𝙧 𝙞𝙩.

"AAAAAAAAGHAAA!" Jason let out a blood-curdling scream before sprinting out of the bathroom, past his cubicle, and toward the stairs of the building. Like an animal, he ran back down to the first floor and sprinted out of the front door and to his car.

Many of his employees either followed behind him or were glancing out of the windows from the upper floors as he backed out of his parking spot and speeded away, nearly striking curbs, cars, and people before disappearing off into the distance.

𝙏𝙚𝙖𝙧 𝙞𝙩.

𝙏𝙚𝙖𝙧 𝙞𝙩.

𝙏𝙚𝙖𝙧 𝙞𝙩.

𝙏𝙚𝙖𝙧 𝙞𝙩.

As he drove, the voice kept repeating.

𝙏𝙚𝙖𝙧 𝙞𝙩.

𝙏𝙚𝙖𝙧 𝙞𝙩.

𝙏𝙚𝙖𝙧 𝙞𝙩.

𝙏𝙚𝙖𝙧 𝙞𝙩.

Jason eventually made it home, using his bloodied hand to turn the key and burst inside, leaving the door open and unlocked before sprinting up the stairs, leaving a trail of blood from the entrance to his bedroom before slamming the door shut.

𝙏𝙀𝘼𝙍 𝙄𝙏!

𝙏𝙀𝘼𝙍 𝙄𝙏!

𝙏𝙀𝘼𝙍 𝙄𝙏!

𝙏𝙀𝘼𝙍 𝙄𝙏!

The voice was getting louder, so loud that he had no choice but to oblige. In the center of his bedroom, Jason began tearing the dead skin off with his fingers, ripping it off and peeling himself like a banana from his thumb downward.

𝙏𝙀𝘼𝙍 𝙄𝙏!

𝙏𝙀𝘼𝙍 𝙄𝙏!

𝙏𝙀𝘼𝙍 𝙄𝙏!

𝙏𝙀𝘼𝙍 𝙄𝙏!

This long, stringy piece of dead skin continued, going down his hand, then his wrist, and down his entire arm. It hurt so badly, it felt as if he was no longer just pulling off dead skin, but peeling all of his skin straight from the bone.

𝙏𝙀𝘼𝙍 𝙄𝙏!

𝙏𝙀𝘼𝙍 𝙄𝙏!

𝙏𝙀𝘼𝙍 𝙄𝙏!

𝙏𝙀𝘼𝙍 𝙄𝙏!

The redness of the muscles beneath his skin would go unnoticed as it matched the blood coming from within him.

𝙏𝙀𝘼𝙍 𝙄𝙏!

He kept removing his skin, pulling it down as if he were removing wallpaper.

𝙏𝙀𝘼𝙍 𝙄𝙏!

Yanking it off as if he were trying to remove a piece of tape from the roll.

𝙏𝙀𝘼𝙍 𝙄𝙏!

Eventually, the tearing became satisfying to him, as if he were removing the plastic from the screen of a brand new electronic. The pain turned into numbness and that numbness turned into euphoria as he felt himself being cleansed from the parasite of dead skin plaguing him.

Hearing about how he fled from work, Jason's wife came home from her job early, finding the front door unlocked and open just as Jason left it. "Jason!?" she called for her lover upon entering the home, seeing the trail of blood he left at the front door, following it with her fearful eyes as she watched the trail go up the stairs.

She followed it, not even bothering to remove her high heels as she sprinted up the stairs. "Baby, are you alright!?" she called out to him again, following the trail until she finally reached the bedroom door.

Seeing the bloody doorknob, she hesitated. She could hear Jason's sporadic breathing on the other side of it. It sounded like he was in pain, but at the same time, she could hear what sounded like pleasure-filled giggles.

Slowly, Jason's wife turned the doorknob and pushed the door open.

What she saw next nearly compelled her to scream in horror, but she was too shocked to utter a sound. The sight sent a shiver down every single inch of her body and her heart felt as if it had sunk and disappeared.

Jason, sitting on the floor with his knees to his chest, turned his head to face her very, very slowly. In his hand, he held up what looked like some sort of animal hide. However, upon closer inspection, it was clearly that of a human. Jason's wife could make out the eyeholes, the lips, and the nose as the face was seemingly the last part that was skinned from the man.

"Look..." Jason said, his face and body were completely skinless, showing the muscles, blood vessels, and veins that were no longer being covered by that parasite that once shrouded his body. His eyes bulged out, no longer having eyelids or eyelashes as he looked deeply into his wife's soul. There was a pool of blood beneath him, and his body trembled as if he were in torturous pain.

"...I got it off."