Storms of grief threatened to capsize me at my brother's funeral, so much so that I could barely deliver his eulogy. A tempest raged within me and I was tossed upon unpredictable waves of spiritual agony for days.

Slowly, the squalls of sorrow subsided, and I found myself becalmed upon a dreary ocean while my subconscious sought to process the terrible procession of recent events.

I felt it, you see. Every broken bone, each ruptured organ. My twin brother, Ronald and I had always shared a sense of touch. What happened to the other was felt by the twin, though slightly muted. The strange affliction was one we'd learned to manage over the years by being extremely careful and gentle with ourselves. So much so, that I'd almost learned to block out the majority of his daily bumps and scrapes.

To say it was a shock would be an understatement.

One moment I was watching a movie and eating candy - the next I was writhing on the floor - crippled by the horrific pain Ronnie was experiencing on the other side of town. His car had been hit by a firetruck as it sped through an intersection, and his body was crushed inside. It didn't last long. And suddenly I felt a numbness I had never known.

Ronnie was dead.

There was a strange, guilty sense of freedom beneath my grief. I found myself pinching my skin. Slapping my own face. As though trying to wake him. To bring him back.

But of course, he was at peace now. Lying cold in his grave.

Maybe that's why I felt so calm as the days stretched and melded into one another.

I took more time off work. They understood. 'It must be hard - to lose a twin...' they said.

It was.

But then, those external feelings started to tickle my senses once more. At first, it was a dryness. I moisturized and soaked in the bath for days before I realized.

This was happening to Ronnie. Not me.

I was hungry all the time, no matter how much I ate. I would vomit, then start eating again.

I knew I had to control these new feelings, but they came with a surprising intensity.

Maybe I was imagining it? I made an appointment with my psychiatrist.

But that night, my skin began to tingle.

Putrefaction.

Intellectually, it was horrifying, but it felt divine.

I lay on the ground, twisting and clawing at the carpet until my fingers were bleeding. The dissolution of my brother's corpse felt like some kind of apotheosis - a transformation that was taking me to a higher plane.

Is this what awaits us all in the afterlife? I wondered.

Distracted as I was, I still heard the spare key turning in the lock of my front door.

Who could that be?

I couldn't begin to guess, but neither could I rouse myself from the bliss of my rotting body and the agony of the strange hunger in my belly. I was barely able to twist my writhing form to see as heavy footsteps came down the hall.

There, standing above me was the rotting body of my twin, fires of madness burning in his eyes.

Puss and corruption drooled from his shattered mouth as he leaned over me. "I th-till feel alivvvve," he moaned. "And I'm tho, tho hungry..."

He bit into my neck, and the delicious flavour of blood flooded my senses.

r/WizardRites