Butterfly Corpses
For many years, I have been haunted by the same recurring dream. In it, I am always wearing a long white dress, walking through mud, until I suddenly find myself in the middle of the sea. I stand on the water's surface, floating yet standing, with an overwhelming fear—how can a person stand on water? I ask myself. A few seconds later, I begin to sink, experiencing an unusually clear descent. I watch helplessly as the azure seawater slowly engulfs me, suffocating me silently, and even see my own corpse suspended helplessly in the deep sea.
I don't know why this dream keeps appearing again and again. Every time I wake up in despair from the dream, my body is icy cold. I know that the seawater has submerged me, the sea of death.
He was slightly surprised when he came to my house for the first time. My room contained nothing but a bed and a photograph. After a long while, he asked me why the room was so empty. I said, "Because it's filled with memories."
He sat on the bed as I took out a bowl and poured him some water to drink. The water quality wasn't good; it had a strange taste. He drank a sip, paused in silence, then asked why I didn't use a glass to hold the water. I said, "There's no glass." Then we started kissing. At that moment, I had known him for exactly 2 hours and 32 minutes.
He stood for a long time in front of the photograph on the west wall. It was a large two-square-meter photo with three people: a father and his two daughters, one of whom was me. He pointed at the other two people and asked, "How are they now? Why don't they live with you?" I said, "They're dead. They're all dead. Only I am still alive."
That night, he did not stay with me but left behind only his mobile phone number. We never knew each other's names, seemingly never asking. I knew I didn't love him, so every time we made love, I felt justified, never overthinking it. This state fascinated me until one day after making love and smoking, he said, "You and your sister don't look like your father."
The enormous photo faced our bed. Sunlight leaking through the curtains cast a beam of light on the black-and-white photo. I saw dust swirling endlessly in the beam, ceaselessly and tirelessly. In that instant, I saw Dad smiling, his finger pressed to his lips, softly saying, "Shh..."
I said, "Because he was our adoptive father, and my sister and I were twins."
"What about the adoptive mother?"
"She divorced Dad a long time ago."
"What is that red thing? It's bright, it's glaring... I panicked and ran, my long white dress fluttering in the air like a soul banner. Like all sensitive prey, I smelled the blood. It was beside me; I knew it was there. Don't look up, don't see! But I knew I was back on the sea surface, about to sink again! That corpse is mine, occasionally swaying in the deep blue sea. Blood spreads around me like overflowing wine, dissolving in the azure.
I woke up gasping for breath. He was sleeping soundly beside me. After vomiting in the bathroom, I looked up and stared hard at the mirror above the sink. In the mirror was a pale and haggard face, with deep shadows under the eyes. Is this me? Who is the person behind me? Same oval face, same paleness, except for the bloodstains on her face, which made her look horrifying.
She said, "Sister, do you miss me?"
I tightly gripped the sink and couldn't say a word to her in the mirror.
She reached out her hand, caressing my face. Her fingers were as cold as ice, and their touch made me shiver involuntarily. My throat spasmed in extreme tension, leaving me unable to breathe.
My sister's left wrist had a long wound, blood still gushing out. She smiled and approached me from behind, whispering sweetly in my ear, "Sister, who is the man in the room?" I opened my mouth but couldn't utter a single word. That coldness engulfed me, and I was suffocating in the brightly lit bathroom. My sister laughed lightly as her blood soaked all over me.
Finally, I screamed wildly, my shrill voice startling the entire night. He rushed into the bathroom barefoot from the bedroom, and I fell into the bathtub. A razor blade was deeply embedded in my left wrist, and blood was gushing out of the wound. My eyes were slightly open, seeing nothing clearly, but I knew I was screaming wildly. He picked me up amidst my screams, and later, I couldn't scream anymore, feeling increasingly cold. He held me, and I was just cold.
When I woke up in the hospital, he was not by my side. The glaring whiteness hurt my eyes, and patients and nurses walked back and forth in front of the crowded beds.
There was a bandage on my left wrist, and beneath it was a sharp pain.
In the distance, cries and painful screams could be heard. I knew this place was hell on earth, wanting to escape but lacking the strength. The peculiar and bizarre smell in the air was frightening. I stopped a nurse wearing a mask and said, "I want to go home, but I can't walk."
Her big eyes exposed outside the mask glared at me fiercely and said, "Then lie down first."
She turned around, and I clearly heard her muttering, "Mental illness."
After lying down for a while, I began hoping he would come. I knew he had sent me here. He left me here alone to face so much suffering and terrifying scenes. I didn't dare close my eyes, stiffly keeping them open, stubbornly staring at the emergency room door that kept opening and closing.
Five hours later, the doctor arranged for me to vacate my bed to make room for a woman involved in a car accident, her head wrapped in bandages. While waiting on the bench opposite the emergency room, I thought, her face is ruined, does she know? Her face is gone; how will she look in the mirror?
Dad sat next to me and said, "My face is also gone; how will I look in the mirror?"
Many people passed by, but there was no sign of him. I thought I was waiting, hoping someone whose name I didn't know and whose life I wasn't familiar with would come pick me up. We once went crazy together in that house, where he whispered "I love you" in my ear.
"I don't know, Dad, I don't know."
Dad said, "Why seventeen cuts instead of eighteen or nineteen? Why all on the face? Cutting on the face, how can I look in the mirror?"
"I don't know, Dad, please don't ask me, I don't know."
I stood up, swaying unsteadily towards the entrance.
"Dad, don't follow me, I really don't know. Does cutting on the face hurt a lot? Dad, please don't follow me."
Strangers passed by me continuously. No one could help me. I sat in the front seat of a taxi but couldn't stop looking back. The driver asked me, "Is there something wrong, Miss?" I said, "Nothing." Dad was sitting in the back. The driver laughed loudly, saying, "You're really joking; there's obviously no one there." After a brief silence, the traffic light turned red. I suddenly asked him, "Why use seventeen cuts instead of eighteen or nineteen to kill someone?" The driver looked at me suspiciously and said, "What seventeen cuts? Kill who?"
The green light turned on, and the car sped off, chasing the cars ahead in the vast city. I muttered, "It's fate, but also an accident." When I got out of the car, I realized I had no money on me. The driver's suspicion grew stronger. After thinking for a minute, he sighed and waved me away. The meter showed 9 yuan and 2 mao.
At my doorstep, I found I had lost my keys. In late autumn, I was only wearing pajamas and a male coat, with snow-white bandages on my left wrist. I sat down at the entrance, leaning against the wall. Cold, I curled up outside my door, unable to enter.
Around midnight, he came. He silently picked me up and carried me into the open door. We didn't speak until he said, "Sleep, I'll keep watch by you." I couldn't close my eyes. I said, "Cold." He took off his clothes, lay down beside me, hugged me tightly, and asked, "Does it hurt?" I shook my head. He asked softly, "Why don't you cry?" I said, "I haven't cried since I was twelve." Why? Because of my sister.
He seemed to ask me something else, but I couldn't respond. I fell into a deep sleep in his broad and warm embrace. It was a rare night without nightmares since I was twelve. He said I looked cute while sleeping.
That Christmas, he gave me a cute Mr. Frog with stylish shoes. I held Mr. Frog and shouted "MERRY CHRISTMAS" on the balcony. He hugged my shoulders and kissed me deeply, handing me a small box. Inside was a platinum nine-carat ring. I looked at him, and he somewhat bashfully said, "To celebrate eight months of knowing each other."
I put it on my middle finger, but it was a bit big, so I moved it to my thumb, where it fit perfectly.
I looked up at him, and he smiled, about to kiss me. At that moment, his phone rang. From his tone, I knew it was his girlfriend, whom I had seen drinking coffee with him in the City Garden. He finally told her, "Alright, I'll be there soon."
After looking at him for a while, I quietly walked into the room, undressed, and went to bed. He stood by my side for a while, said "Merry Christmas," and then left.
The city lights dimly flooded into my room, and the people in the photo began to laugh. I turned away, unwilling to look at them.
My sister laughed wildly beside me, her laughter sharp and piercing. Her blood flowed along her fingers to the ground, and she impatiently paced back and forth in the room. I fell into the abyss in a weightless state. The azure seawater slowly, slowly turned red, a sharp red.
That early morning, he returned to my side. When he woke me up, I was suffocating in a nightmare. He gently touched my body with his fingers, and instantly, tears streamed down my face. I cried and clung to him desperately, begging him, begging him to take me. I wouldn't let his body separate from mine even slightly, holding him so tightly that I wanted to melt into his body. We kept going and going until the faint dawn broke, and we finally stopped exhaustedly. He fell asleep beside me. I slipped on his shirt, quietly stepped barefoot onto the balcony.
The city after the revelry was eerily silent, the gray-white morning light soundless. I opened the window and carefully looked out. Vast! The 19th floor below was vast, like barren seawater, akin to the despair in my dreams. What kind of despair it was, penetrating to the bone...
I leaned on the window frame and stood on the windowsill, trembling hands letting go of the support, with the world beneath my feet.
The wind blew open my shirt, revealing my body before the city at five in the morning. At that moment, I had never been more beautiful, like a butterfly about to fly, like a butterfly poised to fall.
The wind blew gently. I gazed at the seawater, azure, beautiful, and desperate. My sister said, "There is our home in the deep sea. It is peaceful." He was sleeping in the bedroom, his hand stretched out beside the pillow, thinking he was holding me. Seconds later, I squatted down, then trembled as I descended from the windowsill. I slid down the wall below the windowsill, covered my face with my hands, and cried.
I often think that everyone, no matter how lonely, has a need to express themselves. But I wandered in a world of silence for so long that I even forgot how to express myself.
So when he told me he was getting married, I merely responded with a faint "Oh."
He hesitated for a moment and said, "I really want to help you. Can you tell me about your past... We've been together for such a long time."
The heating in the room was set high, but my fingers were icy cold.
My hand supported my chin, and the ring on my thumb was slightly uncomfortable against my cheek. I stammered, choosing words cautiously. What is language? Language is the greatest deception.
My sister and I were twins. We were abandoned at birth and grew up in an orphanage.
When we were three, my sister was adopted, and no one wanted me, so I stayed in the orphanage.
The air was dry yet humid, and I suddenly lost the ability to continue speaking.
I put on my coat and quickly walked out of the coffee shop. This winter seemed exceptionally long, and I was just cold.
He caught up with me and shouted loudly, "Then what? Then what? You need to face it! I can't just leave like this... I know you have a knot you can't untie! I know you don't love me, but I want to help you face this knot!"
I crossed the street and stopped under a building. I stared into his eyes, darker than the night.
I said, "I don't even know your name."
As his lips moved to speak, I immediately interrupted him, gritting my teeth and continued, "I don't know what happened, but when my sister was returned, she had already been tortured beyond recognition! Her adoptive father raped her, and her adoptive mother, afraid of him, abused my sister mercilessly."
The seawater gradually rose, and I needed to finish speaking before I suffocated... My sister was rescued when she was twelve, already five months pregnant, with severe burns on her back, and she was dying! My sister, she was being tortured to death! She gave birth to a stillborn child. I stayed by her side, hearing her wail sharply in the dead of night, hearing her cries of anguish when she was stripped of her last dignity.
Later, we were adopted by another family. My sister suffered from severe amnesia and obsessive-compulsive disorder. After our adoptive parents divorced, she believed that the adoptive father wanted to possess her. The adoptive father was innocent, I knew he was innocent, but my sister believed he wanted to possess her. One day, my sister took a knife and killed him, slashing him seventeen times, cutting his throat and face to pieces. Seventeen cuts, do you know why seventeen?
The man across from me unconsciously took a half-step back and murmured, "I don't know."
I laughed and said, "It was a coincidence. Do you know what a coincidence is? She couldn't slash anymore after seventeen cuts, so she cut her wrists and committed suicide. Blood flowed everywhere, splashing the walls red, flooding this dirty city."
He was momentarily speechless, wanting to say something but stopping.
I looked disdainfully at the man in front of me and turned to leave. After walking a hundred meters, he caught up with me and softly said, "Do you remember? When we made love, I never stayed behind you." After saying this, he nodded strangely, called a taxi, and helped me get in.
My heart felt heavy for some reason, sensing something greatly amiss but unclear where it was. After entering the house, I stood for a long time in front of the two-square-meter photo, staring at the two girls who looked extremely alike and rarely smiled.
I took my makeup mirror into the bathroom, took a deep breath, took off my top, and used a small mirror to see my back in the large mirror. In those few seconds of breathing, I heard the whispers of the dead, the sounds of life growing and dying, the roar of my heartbeat and the flow of my blood.
The mirror in my hand fell to the ground in the silence created by the interweaving of all these sounds, breaking into pieces of varying sizes.
In a blood-curdling scream, I was horrified to see the scars on my back, those irreparable burn wounds, black and ugly. I understood, I understood everything. I am the sister, the one who died was my younger sister! It was she who thought the adoptive father wanted to harm me, it was she who protected me by killing him! I am the sister, the one who didn't die!
My younger sister stood behind me gently, her face very pale, her bloodstains very grotesque. She whispered, "Sister, I'm waiting for you."
I rushed into the bedroom, where the two girls in the photo were equally beautiful and melancholic. I couldn't recognize which one was me. I only knew that my younger sister was dead, having slit her wrists and died, while I was still alive, living in a dark nightmare.
My younger sister embraced me, her wet, bloody trail like tears. She whispered, "Sister, I'm waiting for you in the deep sea."
I said, "I know."