PRETTY WRECKLESS

The news of Ananya’s gruesome end saturated every screen in India. When Rishab finally reached the mansion, the halls were hauntingly empty. Mitali was gone. Neila collapsed into his arms, her face a mask of salt and grief.

"Dad... what happened to Mum?" she choked out, her voice trembling. "The news... they’re saying she blew up. I saw the video. It was her". Rishab held her tightly, but his eyes were fixed on the distance, shadowed by an ancient, growing dread.

Hours away in the village of Mili, Mitali stood before the local priest. "It took my daughter-in-law," she wept, her hands shaking. "Please, help me, Babaji".

The priest’s face didn't soften; it twisted into a snarl of pure rage. His hand shot out, locking around Mitali’s throat. "You dare refuse to feed It?" he hissed. Mitali clawed at his arm, her face turning a dark, bruised purple. "If you do not feed It, you will die just like she did".

Desperate for air, Mitali’s fingers brushed against a cold handle on the table. She gripped the knife and drove it deep into the priest’s neck. He gurgled, blood geysering over his robes as he released her.

"Tell me what to do, and I'll stop the bleeding!" Mitali screamed.

The priest looked up, a crimson smear across his teeth as he smirked. "You’ll join me soon," he rasped.

Mitali snapped. In a blind, wet frenzy, she plunged the blade into him over and over until he fell silent. She stood panting, her skin painted in his warmth. Then, the horror began. The priest’s corpse began to soften and liquefy. Even as his bones melted into a heap of gray sludge, he rised again, eyes sealed shut, wearing a wide, unnatural grin. With a wet, percussive sound, he burst apart, showering the room in a rain of gore just as Ananya had.

Back at the mansion, Rishab dismissed the staff, leaving the house in a suffocating silence.

"Where did Grandma go?" Neila asked, her eyes red-rimmed. "She said she was going to fix the curse. Dad, what is happening?".

Rishab took her hand, his palm clammy. "Stop crying, baby girl," he whispered, though his own eyes were wet. "All your life, you wanted to be beautiful like your mother, didn't you?". Neila nodded slowly. "Today is your eighteenth birthday. I am giving you that beauty".

He led her toward the one place she feared most: the forbidden room. "I thought I wasn't allowed in here," she whispered.

"Not anymore," Rishab replied. They entered a cold, sterile chamber. In the center stood a black wardrobe, surrounded by bubbling tubs of acrid, stinging chemicals.

"What is this place?".

"This is where you become beautiful," Rishab said with a fearful smile. "Enter the wardrobe". Neila swallowed hard, the scent of the chemicals burning her nose, and stepped inside. Rishab swung the heavy doors shut, his face crumbling as he watched her disappear into the dark.

In Mili, Mitali walked toward her car, her clothes damp with blood. Two men stepped out of the shadows, blocking her path.

"Is that the singer, Mitali?" one jeered. He grabbed her hand, his grip bruising.

"Not so fast, beautiful," the second man added, reaching for her hair. Mitali fought back, a blur of kicks and punches, but they were too many. In a moment of cold clarity, she pulled a small blade, sliced her own palm, and held the bleeding wound toward them.

"You silly brat, what is that supposed to be?" the man laughed. "No one can save you. We’re going to enjoy ourselves with you".

"Let me go," Mitali growled, her voice low and dangerous, "or you die". They only laughed harder.

Inside the wardrobe, Neila was submerged in a void. Then, a sound filled the dark—a voice that was both male and female, vibrating through her bones.

"Neila... your time is now," the voice echoed. "You will be beautiful. Do you accept it?".

"Yes!" Neila cried out, her heart hammering. "Make me like the girls at school. Make me so everyone will love me!". A blinding, searing light filled the wardrobe, and the world vanished as she passed out.

In the village, Mitali didn't scream. She flung the blood from her cut hand onto the men. The moment the droplets touched their skin, they began to hiss. The men shrieked as their flesh turned to wax, sliding off their skeletons in hot, bubbling sheets. Before they could even hit the ground, they blew up, leaving nothing but a red mist behind as Mitali ran into the night.

Inside the dark, cramped space of the wardrobe, Neila awoke to a wet, slapping sound. She found herself encased in a thick, pulsating layer of raw, cooling flesh. Panic flared as she began to claw and cut her way through the meat, her fingers tearing through the heavy, skin-like layers of her former self.

She stumbled out of the shedding heap, standing completely naked and slick with the remains of the transformation. She stepped toward a mirror inside the cabinet, her breath hitching as she saw the girl staring back. She was unrecognizable; the weight and features she had hated were gone, replaced by a slim, radiant, and hauntingly beautiful figure.

She smiled through her tears of joy and relief as the wardrobe doors finally creaked open. Her father stood there, immediately looking away to give her a towel to cover her new, perfect body as she stepped out of the carnage.

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