The next day        

The following day, Woman walked down the bright street of Stratford. Woman couldn’t thoroughly explain the way she felt at that moment. 

Woman felt like a snake. A snake that had shed it’s old, boring, mediocre skin and was now wearing its new, dazzling and fresh light layer. 

Man from her work said he liked that she was a virgin.

Man said he’d liked how untouched she was, it made her fresh. 

Like a newborn baby, Man had said.

As Woman walked to her depressingly beige apartment in Downham street, she simply felt free. The weights Woman had so heavily carried had finally been burnt, and she finally was a true woman. 

A real woman. 

Walking home, Woman viewed 7 unnoticed messages from Mother. 

“If you don’t answer God will banish you from his sacred coven of trust” Mother had said.

“I'm praying for you, but it's no use if you do this” Mother had said.

“I just want to know if you're safe.” Mother had said.

“Please answer me.” Mother had said.

“If you don’t reply I don't know what I'll do.” Mother had said.

“Please reply I feel I might hurt myself” Mother had said.

“Please reply baby i'm hurt and am going to do something worse” Mother had said.

Seeing this Woman cringed from grimace. Woman still  simply put her phone back in her jean’s pocket and kept walking. This wasn’t the first time Mother had made threats like this, and every time Mother had never prevailed. Besides, Woman had Man from work now. Man from work said he loves Woman and that’s all Woman needs. 

After a 10 minute street walk, Woman arrived at her building; Building C. Woman lived on the third floor, in the third room in the one building. Woman entered the grill-design elevator door and began her rakkety-ride to floor three. 

The elevator was a small, beige and boring slab with only a mirror inside that reflected the glittering floor inside of it.

 Woman looked at herself in it. A new woman; skinned and shredded from the old one. A normal woman. The innocent childlike one was now long gone, and had been replaced with a new, attractive, real woman. 

In a trice, inside the reflective glass a figure stood. A tall, glowing man appeared, fully naked. 

But by tall, Woman meant towering and elevated. 

But by glowing, Woman meant like a silhouette in front of a blinding sunrise

But by naked, Woman meant missing pieces of flesh and skin. Blackout holes replaced the skin, and a bright light shone through the missing flesh. He watched her from the mirror. 

As a  real woman, Woman should have been thinking of all the new opportunities possible to occur with this man. However, Woman didn't think about this. Woman simply thought of Mother. 

Woman breathlessly thought of her Mother. Real women wouldn’t think of their mothers when encountered with a man. Nevertheless, Woman still did. 

It was God. Otherwise known as her mother sending him to pursue Woman. This can't be real, Woman said to herself, it’s too peculiar- it's too unorthodox. Nonetheless, belief hit her instantly,  and any sign of the disbelief was soon pulverised once the being opened his mouth and words and blood flooded out in chunks (the blood to specify, not his words). 

God spoke to Woman with a raspy voice as if he’d had his voice box crushed; not a voice one would tend to associate a god with. He told her of her sin and how it held her close to the devil in spirit. Woman begged and begged and begged for redemption.

The first one fell. 

God, as his name holds worthy, forgave Woman for her sin. 

Even so, no evil deed goes unpunished. 

God offered Woman a choice; An odd choice for a god. The scarification of Mothers heartbeat for Women's redemption. Woman begged and begged, but eventually came to the conclusion of Mothers decease. 

3 miles away a poor, lonely woman passed. The neighbour discovered this through an odd smell slivering into his patio. The Neighbour poked his head over the spiked fence, careful not to impale his chin, and saw his elderly neighbour dead. Laying face first through her rake, pieces of skin and brain clung onto the pole for dear life as he dragged his eyes further up. 

Mother had finally gone through what she did tell. 

God faced Woman once again, revealing a beautiful smile holding 24 angelic teeth. 

Truth soon came to light.  This God was no God at all, he was in fact the anti-God.

 The devil.

 This ‘Gods’ cracking skin steadily flaked off, still as he kept firm eye contact with Woman. The angelic teeth all soon turned to black, and eventually nonexistent. Even with the most expensive Electrotherapy, nothing could truly explain what Woman saw. 

The head of a Man from work, the torso of a mother, the legs were carved from oak and stood like brick walls, and finally the arms of a married woman with a beautiful diamond wedding ring on her finger. Woman smashed her fists on the metal doors screaming into the metal doors causing her knuckles to crack. 

Then another followed; continued by the third. 

Pushing all her body weight onto the doors, Woman screamed and begged as Satan stood, wide-eyed and silent in the mirror. 

Fourth and the fifth.

Eventually, the door pinged and slid open, revealing the residents and a few police officers holding their .45 APC pistols.  

Sixth.

Death     

Finally, the 7th tear slivered down the elevator shaft, creating an unheard plip as it hit the wires, sliding down the small gap between the blackened abyss and safety of a sticky-carpet hallway. 

Woman looked up at the vertical residents and officers as she laid halfway out of the elevator. Torso and above in the hall, legs inside the elevator.

Woman pointed her bony index finger to the mirror, revealing nothing but the reflection of those opposite. In realisation, Woman cried harder, choking on her tears and snot as it ran down her throat.

The eighth, the ninth and the tenth. 

Suddenly, a deafening bleep blared from the shaft speakers. 

And so the shaft dropped. 

Woman lay in the hall with her beautiful face and her rib-caged waist staring up at those above, wide eyed and puffy faced. But nothing else remained below her hips.

The aftermath         

Deep down in the shaft to a place not many had gone laid the shaft, smashed and electrical circuits frizzing from within. Inside perched Woman's legs, her beautiful, long and shiny legs drowned in red oozing goop flooding into the glittered floor. 

Crawling and scuttering came the rats; Scuttering and snivelling they stared. Snivelling and squeaking they made their way to the remaining legs and began to feast. 

Every muscle, every scar and every capillary gone within moments. 

Pleased with their feast, the rats returned  to take part in their day-to-today activities. They don't have much to do down in the shafts, so anything is pretty much interesting to them-especially a full meal which is ever so rare. 

One by one they entered the elevator shaft for the means of exploration; leaving the shadows for the first and final time. 

Rat by rat they were grabbed by their chubby, grease covered cheeks and shoved down the throat of a corner bounded creature hiding in the shaft.

 As each rat went into the stomach of this beast, slowly its oak, stacked legs began to transition to something beautiful, long and shiny.