Devour

Danielle locked the studio door behind her.

The echo of the bolt slid into place sounded more heavy tonight than ever before. She stood alone beneath the cold fluorescent lights, her thin reflection stretched and flickering in the mirrored walls like some gaunt ghost mimicking her movements. She pressed her trembling fingertips against her ribs, counting them beneath skin stretched too tight. Hunger had hollowed her out; it was part of the sacrifice.

Her ballet shoes sat in the center of the floor, waiting. They weren't the standard pale pink satin anymore. Weeks of rehearsals had soaked them in sweat and blood, staining them the color of raw meat. The toes were cracked at the seams from constant en pointe work, bones grinding together in her feet. The pads of her toes were blistered, nails purple-black and loose beneath calloused skin. But tonight wasn't about rehearsal.

Tonight was about permanence.

Danielle dropped to her knees beside the shoes and opened the medical kit she had stolen from the infirmary. Her fingers trembled as she pulled out the curved suturing needle, gleaming like a fishhook in the harsh light. Next came the spool of silk thread. Red. Like her arteries. 

Her ballet teacher, Madame Severin, had told the company this morning:

"Dedication means sacrifice. Become your role. Bleed for it."

Danielle had clapped along with the others, but her mind had latched onto the word bleed and couldn't let go. She took a breath that felt like inhaling glass.

The first stitch went through the arch of her left foot.

She pressed the needle against the skin, just beneath the thin veins, where the shoe's ribbon would normally cross. A quick jab. The needle slid into her flesh like butter softened in the sun. There was resistance, then a give—a grotesque little pop—as it punctured through the dermis.

Her vision prickled at the edges, darkness blooming in fractal patterns, but she kept going.

Danielle pulled the needle through with shaking hands. The thread followed, slick and warm with blood. She tugged until the silk ribbon was taut against her foot, cinching the ballet slipper in place. She tied it off with a surgeon's knot. It wasn't secure enough.

So she did it again. And again.

The second stitch went deeper.

Her breath hitched as the needle scraped against bone.

She gasped, but it came out as laughter, wild and breathless, echoing around the mirrored room. The studio warped in her periphery, walls pulsing like lungs. She swore she could hear the floorboards whispering beneath her.

"Prima. Prima. Prima."

Her lips split into a grin so wide it tore at the corners.

The ribbons of her ballet shoes no longer wrapped around her ankles the way normal dancers wore them. Danielle was beyond normal. She punctured the needle straight through the skin of her ankle, weaving the ribbon into her flesh like embroidery. Blood trickled down her heel, sticky and bright. It painted the floor in delicate arcs as she flexed her foot.

The pain was secondary now.

Her body was a costume. A prop.

She moved on to the other foot. Her hands were slippery with sweat and gore, but she didn't care. Every prick of the needle stitched her closer to perfection. She looped the thread in figure-eights around her toes, lashing them together until they pointed unnaturally straight. The needle punctured the nailbed of her big toe, and a sharp hiss escaped her lips. Blood welled up beneath the silk, saturating the ribbons, but Danielle kept sewing. She was lacing herself into her role, suturing desire into anatomy.

When both shoes were secured—no longer shoes but flesh extensions—Danielle sat back on her heels, trembling. Her legs quivered with adrenaline, mouth dry as cotton. She flexed her feet experimentally. A scream pressed against the back of her throat but she swallowed it down.

Pain meant progress.

Her feet felt alien now. Heavy. Weighted with stitches and silk. Her veins pulsed in time with the thread, every heartbeat pulling at the knots in her flesh.

But it wasn't enough.

Not yet.

Her reflection in the mirror was staring at her, lips moving soundlessly. Danielle cocked her head, eyes wide, listening. The mirror whispered back.

"Higher. You have to go higher."

She nodded, eyes glassy.

The next ribbon she took wasn't for her feet.

It was for her upper chest. 

She threaded the needle through the soft skin, above her beating heart and between her rib cage. Over and over, sewing the ribbons directly into her own chest. 

The flesh puckered and screamed. Her joints ached with each new stitch.

Her breath came in ragged sobs now, but still she worked, hands fluttering like frantic moths, threading silk into skin.

She wasn't human anymore. She was costume. A marionette with red ribbons in place of tendons.

Danielle's body sagged against the mirror. Her stitched arms dangled at her sides like broken wings. Blood splattered the floor beneath her, pooling like melted velvet.

Somewhere in the corner of the room, the music started.

It was soft at first—a distant phonograph scratch—but then louder, swelling to fill the studio with notes from Swan Lake. The overture bent and twisted in her ears, turning discordant, like the strings of the orchestra were snapping one by one.

Danielle smiled through bloodied teeth.

Her cue.

She pushed herself upright, her sutured feet screaming against the floor, ribbons pulling at her flesh with every movement. Each step tore tiny new holes in her skin. She twirled slowly, arms raised, silk ribbons slicing into her like butcher's wire.

Her pirouettes left streaks of red on the studio floor and when she collapsed, the world slowed and the imaginary audience sat on the edge of their seats. 

Danielle's blood-soaked slippers pulsed against her feet like second hearts. The ribbons cinched tighter with every shuddering breath, knots drawing closed like little mouths biting into her skin.

She had sewn herself into the part.

Danielle giggled, spitting blood between her teeth, and pressed her stitched hands to her face, ribbons slicing new patterns across her cheeks.

In the mirror, her reflection curtsied, ribbons writhing like veins.

The performance had only just begun.