Devastation, a very big word for anyone. It is sad to see someone devastated, the feeling of a profound loss, a lifetime of memories flashing in their eyes with a lifeless body of flesh just lying there in front of them. All hope of making more memories with that person dying right there, right along with that person. But what makes it sadder is the idea of something devastating happening to someone very young, a child who just began stepping into the rough world. A boy of thirteen. Riding in the car with his godmother. The music starts playing, “Go, Little Rockstar”. She turns off the music and looks at him, “Shall we go in now”, he nods his head but keeps staring at the floor of the car. 

Watching those who led him this long, those who were supposed to lead him into adulthood, but call it fate or an accident or just simply bad luck. Watching them die that young, is not just difficult. It’s devastating. Holding the hands of a close relative with whom he doesn’t have much of any emotional attachment, watching the only people he can look up to, just lying there, as soulless pieces of meat, traumatized the boy on levels he cannot possibly understand. The feeling of shock hasn’t left his body, neither did the feeling of anguish. He felt his vision getting blurry but his eyes aren’t teary. A sense of discomfort watching all the plain joyless faces lying along with his parents’. He felt his body getting very uncomfortable, his mind getting very misty. His senses are playing with him while his hormones are rushing everywhere.

He wanted to talk to someone, but he remembered his mommy saying, “It’s okay. Sometimes, it happens. All of us are scared of watching dead bodies. You are a kid, so you are a little too scared. Nothing much to think about. Definitely not something to mention to anyone”. Being a good boy, he did ‘exactly’ what his mommy told him to. Holding back his tears. Being told, “It’s okay to cry. It’s okay to let it out.” but not able to talk about the real reason for his tearfulness. 

His discomfort kept growing, weakening his senses and control over his body parts. The bladder was the first to let go. The unsuccessful attempts to conceal the pressure were noticed and a nurse in the room asked him, “Do you want to use the restroom?”. He reluctantly nodded his head while the nurse pointed him toward the nearest restroom. Running to unravel his bladder, he forgot to inform his relative. “It is difficult to see both his parent die at the same time, that too at such a young age. Let him stay in the car. I’ll do the formalities”, she showed concern toward the boy and left the mortuary to start the formalities. 

The room was left unmanned. With an unsettling yellow bulb in the middle of the room. It was a small morgue. With only 2 rows of 7 beds each with flexible gaps placed in it. There was a pillar at the right end with a curtain attached to it with a metal cot inside the curtains. Maybe it is a place for the post-martin. A plate is placed on an empty cot beside the curtains. With all kinds of knives and cutters in it. A bin beside the cot. It has gloves and cotton which are wet with blood. A non-disturbing but unsettling amount of flies, roaming around the place making their creepy buzz sounds. With no sound in the room, the only music was from the chaos the flies were causing. The smell of blood and rotten corpses is filling up the room and the bizarre sight of bloated corpses at the entrance.

With a relaxed bladder and a not-so-relaxed body, he came into the mortuary to find his nearest family member. Maybe it’s the feeling of missing her, maybe it’s the effect of holding on to someone dear, he went to his mother to hold her hand one last time. Maybe it’s the changes in her internal body gases, maybe it’s something supernatural, he held her hand and it suddenly shook. Fear, dominating all his other emotions, rose out of his heart. Pupils dilated and hearing sharpened, he noticed the movement immediately and absconded toward the exit. 

His dilated pupils just looked turned toward the exit to see a pair of dark brown eyes. Face with so many wrinkles and a crooked smile made by a pair of withered lips, “You wanna have a toffee, love?”, it asked him. All the adrenaline and the energy he has left over is now spent on running away from that disfigured face into the necropolis. The disfigured face started to come inside while he hid behind a bed. The dark brown eyes started rotating searching for him all around the room and kept whispering, “How about two toffees, then?”, the deep inhuman voice sent chills down his spine as he started to shiver from behind a pillar he hid. The voice kept getting louder and louder until another nurse came into the room. “Hey, who told you to come in here?”, “A toffee, love?”, “Yeah, we’ll have your toffees somewhere else.”, the nurse took the old woman away and locked the morgue not knowing that the kid is still inside it. His fear rendered him speechless and his body shivering. 

A few minutes of closed eyes did the trick. His legs stopped shaking. He stood on his knees holding on to the bed beside him with his hands, rising only so much until his eyes are able to see the door, seeing the door closed, he closed his eyes with relaxation and turned to his left. Opening his eyes again, there was a pair of black lifeless eyes staring into his eyes. Taken aback by the sight of a soulless body staring into his eyes, he pushed it away and jumped back onto the bed of the next cadaver. The body fell from its cot and was lying there with its head facing the floor. His little eyes became sharper and pupils bigger, diverting all his hands and legs he ran toward the door and started banging it. But a 5-inch thick door with a solid core didn’t do much justice for his anxiety. Tears started flowing down his cheeks and blood dripped through his knuckles. Senses started to play with his mind as his body started to grow weak.

Trying to stabilize his vision, he tried to look around but his head isn’t in his control yet. With blurry moments of vision with bits of clarified vision, he tried to comprehend what was happening around him. But, whatever is in the morgue has other plans. Being unsuccessful in controlling the rotation of his head, he managed to get it to a stop, and the first thing he saw was the cadaver that he pushed out of its bed. A blurry bit later, something felt strange. Flashes of blurriness made his understanding of the situation difficult, but he was able to put the pieces together. The body in front of him looked like it was changing its position with each flash. So, he closed his eyes for a long time and then suddenly opened them again for a few moments of clarified vision. 

The moment he opened his eyes, a pair of brown eyeballs in a black sclera staring straight into his eyes. Rendered speechless, he remained in that position. Like a stone, he stayed there. Hoping the eyes would move away. Breaths were getting lighter, mouth remaining open. A voice in his head said, “Push her away, what’s the worst that can happen”, but sadly he isn’t that brave. Tears struggling to come out of his eyes, but he can’t let em out coz the other pair will see him moving. “Go, Little Rockstar”, a voice whispered in his ear. Gave up on controlling his tears, he let em all out at once. His vision got blurry again, he closed his eyes for the tears to settle. Opened only to see the eyes gone and the body lying on the floor. A little smile of relaxation on the innocent face. It didn’t last long. 

He turned his head to watch in curiosity to look at other parts of the room. And the smile faded. A man was sitting awake on his bed. Smiling at the boy. Completely white eyes with no pupils. His smile ran until his ears, lips cut until his ears, head tilted to a side. To his utter shock, every cadaver was doing the same thing as he looked around the room. Staring at him. And smiling. His heart raced up and face filled up with sweat. Every body woke up and started looking at him except his mommy. He crawled up to a corner and suddenly heard a familiar voice, “Hey baby, how are you?”. With one eye covered by his knees; he looked with the other eye, saw a pair of legs walking toward him. “Hey baby,” he looked up, “Mommy’s here”. She looked at him with large eyes. Her smile was wide and toothy, stretching from ear to ear. Her soulless dark eyes were seeming to drill into his soul. The longer he kept staring at her, the more disturbed he became. She slowly sat down with the smile and stares, “Don’t be scared baby. Mommy’s here. She’ll take care of everything.” He kept nodding his head and crying. She started to wrap her arms around him while he was still crying. “You’ve been a good boy, haven’t you, I will take you to the land of chocolates.”. He kept crying silently in her arms terrified of watching her. The hug started to get tighter and tighter, he started to resist and pull away but instead, it was getting tighter. “Come on little rockstar, let’s go”. He mustered up all his courage and started taking large breaths with his nose and mouth. Tears are rolling down his cheeks but he kept taking in deep breaths. He closed his eyes, “NO!” he yelled. “Listen to mommy, my little rockstar.” “NO!”, he yelled. 

He pushed her away. “NO!”, Mommy took a few steps back and started chanting, “Go little rockstar”. “NO!”. Every cadaver in the room one by one slowly start chanting, “Go, Little Rockstar” “Go, Little Rockstar” “NO!”, he kept shouting at everyone, “Go, Little Rockstar”. “NO! NO! NO!”.  His eyes started tearing blood. Biting his own lips, they started to bleed. He kept punching the floor crying. His fists started to bleed. “NO!” he kept yelling. They all stopped chanting at once and kept staring at him, “NO! NO! NO! NOOOOOOOOO!”. He woke up and went to the empty cot containing all the post-martin equipment. He picked up a large knife. And sat down in the corner, “Go, Little Rockstar”, they started chanting again. He kept watching them with that knife in hand. As they kept chanting, “Go, Little Rockstar”

The door opened after a while with his godmother, a doctor, and a nurse barging inside. He was carried outside by the nurse with fists broken, lips cracked, and bleeding; his left arm has a lot of slit wounds and his right hand held a knife; the doctor tried to remove the knife but he won’t let go. A small card fell out of his pocket while the nurse was carrying him away, the doctor picked it up, it read,  “Please handle with care; Necrophobia!”. The doctor looked up in horror as he saw all the cadavers’ forearms slit too. As the nurse tried to carry him, he slit her forearm with his knife and tried to attack the others who tried to help him. Held down by 3 men after 10 minutes of a lot of slit wounds, he was tied down to a bed. He kept chanting, “Go, Little Rockstar” as he was locked away in the psychiatric ward.