Autophagy

The skeleton turned its head towards Song Lei and spoke, "Daughter?"

Its voice wasn\'t what you would expect from a skeleton. It sounded calm, collective, disconnected from the world, and feminine. Hearing this voice, Song Lei\'s chest tightened. The reason wasn\'t the voice\'s properties.

\'Mia remembers this voice,\' Song Lei thought. The body he was in right now wasn\'t his, it was an innocent little girl\'s body. It was obvious that this voice meant a lot to her. He felt distinct memories flashing inside his mind.

He limped forward, surprisingly, this room had a window unlike any other room in this mansion. As the moonlight hit Song Lei\'s face, he felt a different feeling churning inside his body, slowly growing and creeping into his very being. Made up of hate and love, it made Song Lei\'s throat dry.

"Mom? Why?" Song Lei conveyed Mia\'s words to the skeleton. They weren\'t his words. Instead, he could feel that deep inside, this was what Mia always wanted to ask her mother.

"How did you get here?" Skeleton asked. It was trying to change the topic. Song Lei shook his head.

"That isn\'t an answer to the question I asked you. Answer your daughter," Song Lei said. He folded his arms and directly looked at the skeleton\'s empty, soulless eye sockets. The skeleton, seemingly surprised by the change of Song Lei\'s attitude, jumped in its place. It tried to back off a little bit but couldn\'t do so.

"You\'re not my daughter!" The skeleton shouted. Its jaw was constantly hitting its upper mouth, making clacking noises.

"Yes, I\'m not just your daughter. Instead, I\'m more than that," Song Lei answered vaguely. "You have to answer. Answer, so she can learn."

The skeleton went silent. It looked at its hands. They were devoid of flesh, but it could still feel the sins, crawling like worms inside them. She was once a normal mother, but her actions, her weakness had resulted in her losing everything.

"I was weak," she started talking. Song Lei walked up and sat on the side of the bed, looking out at the moon. "I didn\'t resist. I was scared of losing so I let everything go. My own daughter, my husband, my life..."

Song Lei turned his head towards her. There were two lines of blood-red tears, slowly following her cheekbones, falling down, staining the white bedsheets. \'It\'s actually crying,\' he thought. It was definitely weird to see a crying skeleton but it didn\'t make Lei feel uncomfortable. Mia\'s soul, her very being inside him made him feel affectionate towards it.

"If I hadn\'t let my daughter go; if I fought back when that woman came to this house; if I left this house when my husband decided to divorce me; taking my daughter with me..." The skeleton tried to speak. Her throat seemed to tighten, unable to make any more sounds.

Song Lei nodded without saying anything. As he realized that the skeleton wasn\'t continuing, he spoke, "You\'re right. You could\'ve done all that, but choose to surrender?" There was a tinge of mockery in his eyes.

"What should I do Mia? Or whoever the person in there is... How can I make up for the mistakes I\'ve made up until now?" The skeleton yearned. She yearned for an answer, for someone to show her a way out.

"You can\'t," Song Lei said. "You\'ve made all of those mistakes and you\'re still asking someone for advice?"

"I..." The skeleton kept crying. She couldn\'t find an answer. The regrets, hate, sadness, and her love towards her old life were pouring in.

"That\'s the right thing to do," Song Lei smiled. Skeleton went silent as she looked at her daughter\'s face. "When you\'re unable to make up for your mistakes. When you don\'t know what to do, you can rely on other people, that\'s the right thing to do," he continued.

"Personally, I couldn\'t forgive you for what you\'ve done if I were Mia. But I know, I know for a fact that Mia, deep inside this body, forgives you for everything you\'ve done. What she wants is for you to stand by her side from now on," he said

Mia\'s mother stopped sobbing. There was a weird, red light inside her eye sockets. When Song Lei focused inside them, he felt the whole house shaking.

"What?" Song Lei asked out loud as he turned his head towards the door. \'Oh fuck!\' He shouted inside his mind. The room was being filled by the red flesh, pouring in from the gaps on the door. Wave after wave, the flesh came in and stacked into a pool in front of the door. A part of it rose up and turned around as if it was looking around the room. It then spiked towards Song Lei. He dodged sideways as a huge amount of flesh jumped towards him.

*Plop

Song Lei managed to get away by a hair\'s breadth. He saw the flesh scattering around boiling blood. Some of it hit Song Lei. As the little drops of boiling blood sizzled on Song Lei\'s skin, he saw all of the flesh attaching itself onto the skeleton, slowly spreading around, forming new organs.

At the same time, Song Lei felt his mind shaking. There were sirens going off in his brain, making his soul vibrate. As he lost his consciousness, he dove deep into his mind, there was another soul there. It was vibrating in sync with his, slowly coming to life. Deattaching itself from him, forming a new body. This separation made Song Lei feel both melancholic and happy at the same time. He felt lonely, losing what seemed to be a part of him.

As the rumbling was over, Song Lei got pushed out of his mind, dizzy and nauseous. When he opened his eyes, he realized that there was a woman with blonde hair standing in front of him. She seemed to be around 30 years old.

Song Lei shook his head to overcome the dizziness and tried to stand up. When he did so, he felt that his body was oddly familiar. He put aside the odd familiarity and tried to connect the dots. He frowned while turning towards the woman standing in front of him.

"Young man," the woman said while smiling. "I\'m Isabel Fraser. Mother of Mia Fraser," she continued while reaching out with her hand. "Nice to meet you...."