Devour

Danielle's body wasn't her body anymore. It was hard to tell where Danielle began and where Eli ended. 

Danielle danced to the point her feet were about to fall off but Eli - determined as ever, kept her on her toes. Given the state of them, torsos fused together by needle and thread they played a game of tug-of-war, pulling apart at the seams. 

Eli grabbed Danielle's wrists at any point she slowed down. 

The thread sewn so deep into their flesh that their skin folded over each other's, swollen and bleeding. His toes flexed when she tried to move hers. Her arms flailed when he tried to move his own. When he tried to bite down on his teeth she could feel her molars grind. 

Danielle pulsed against his tremors, a steady percussion echoing throughout their body and as she exhaled, Eli's lungs expanded. 

"I can feel you." She whispered.

"I know." Eli traced the threads sewn on their legs, torso and arms. His words vibrated as if they came from Danielle's throat. Their torso's rippled together. Danielle's stomach clenched as she heaved but nothing but blood. The crimson liquid oozed from her sore lips, trickling down her chin as Eli tasted the blood on his own tongue. 

"We're changing," Eli said. They stood there sewn together, aware of every muscle twitch and every inch of their shared body. 

"I know." She says, repeating his words. 

Danielle's stomach lurched as she doubled over. She felt her own intestines knot and twist as Eli clasped onto her, accidentally pulling a loose thread. 

The cramp became a spasm. Something inside shifted—a slick sliding sensation, like organs rearranging themselves. Danielle gasped. Beneath her ribs a second heartbeat rolled forward and then merged with the first. For a dizzy instant she couldn't tell if she had one heart or two.

She pressed a hand to her chest. Eli did the same, their palms overlapping. The beats aligned. A single, powerful thud shook them both.

"We're becoming one." Eli said. 

Danielle's vision blurred as the studio tilted. She felt the surge of agony as their insides moulded together. Stumbling together they saw their flesh intertwine. 

Danielle tore her arm from Eli, pulling the threads that patched themselves together until their upper limbs separated. Their torsos and hips were still intact. 

Eli muttered a curse. The studio reeked of salt and copper. Eli's breath pulsed against her collarbone as Danielle mirrored his actions as if two chests as if drawn by a single lung.

"Danielle?" Eli's voice was a vibration in her own throat. "Something's...moving," 

The ribbons and threads seeped into their skins, moving in their insides like a parasite. They could see that just beneath their skin the material was moving like a worm inside a rotting corpse. 

Next came the hunger arriving without warning, gnawing at Danielle. 

"Do you feel that?" Danielle gasped as their skin began to crawl, literally. 

Beneath the surface of their skins, something braided together whether that would be their arteries, nerves, and muscles. Danielle felt her ribs flex to accommodate his. For an instant she was sure a bone from his side slid beneath hers, slotting together like interlocking teeth.

"It wants us whole." It was impossible at this point in time to decipher who first broke the silence. 

Danielle's hunger swelled deep inside her bones as their body sank to the floor.

Danielle raised her fingertips and brushed them along the lining of her swollen lips as she then proceeded to bite down hard on her own flesh. Human flesh is easier to cut than a piece of meat, she thought mindfully. Eli watched as she devoured pieces of skin around the bones of her fingers.

Their shared heart thumped against their torsos as Eli replaced her hands with his. 

Danielle happily accepted his offer.

At the rate Danielle was going it seemed she was going to chew off both his hands until something inside them both snapped. 

All the threads that connected them together were pulling apart at the seams simultaneously. Each pull and tug of the thread fell off of Eli but remained intact on Danielle. Little tiny holes from the needle touching skin remained on Eli, whereas Danielle's threads woved in her flesh, cutting her apart. Danielle collapsed from the agonizing pain. 

“I don’t understand… I thought it wanted us as one.” Eli said. 

The pink ribbons still moved beneath her skin just under the surface of her small, frail body. The ribbons wrapped around her throat, her ribcage and her organs or what was left of them anyways.

The parasite clinging to Danielle’s insides has weaved itself inside her, refusing to let her or Eli go.