The Plot Calls #20 : "Descendant Denier"

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination and/or Ai-assisted-content-generation. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

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Carla Voss never craved food. She craved control.

Her father—the brilliant but absent Dr. Voss—chased theories, experiments, and impossible perfection. He had the looks, the pay, the status, but his hollow pride attracted the same—queue Carla’s rotating mothers.

Who cared? Work called. Status called. Anxious Avoidance answered. The sins of the denying dad were the legacy of the denying daughter. An inheritance. Pride that passed on gluttony.

Full plates. Empty plates. Numbers on scales. Calories counted, purged, counted again. She mastered her intake. Mastered her body. She was in control.

Or so she thought.

2,000 calories of mindless consumption erupted with a press of her uvula. A doctor in her own right. She mastered the gnawing, hollow place Dr. Voss’s absence left behind.

Control of an illusion.

Like all control, Carla’s was a lie only people the same as her accepted. A lie they chose not to see through. Vibrational matches in emptiness.

When her father vanished—gone without trace or explanation—Carla unraveled. The mindless snacking returned, but different now.

It wasn’t just in her heart. It was in her chest, her mind, her bones.

Her soul was munch, munch, crunch, crunch. Vomit.

“I’m still in control.” Repeat.

One sleepless night, grief gnawing louder than reason, Carla followed the whisper with no voice to her father’s study. Something called. A whisper without a voice. The door was locked, as usual.

Carla hit the door.

She smashed the knob. Compulsively, without thought.

How else was she supposed to keep herself from crying and control her grief?

In Dr. Voss's office, a lifetime of pride was frozen on display. Newspaper clippings. Academic awards. Proof of brilliance.

But all of it… empty.

A curated, paper-thin façade of success that sought to feed something unexamined—exactly like the body Carla curated by the never-ending need to control anything and everything. Unrestrainable gluttonous lust manifested as pride.

Then, Carla noticed the glow.

Beneath the cocobolo desk, the floor pulsed. Violet-black. Breathing.

A small patch of shimmering soil waited. In its center—a porcelain hand.

Delicate. Beautiful.

Hungry.

Carla didn’t flinch. She grabbed a photo from her father's desk.

It was the last photo of her and Dr. Voss. They were standing beside his protégé, Dr. Leal. It was the final moment before Frank vanished, widening the chasm of absence he’d already created in Carla's life by being who he was.

The plot was Carla's inheritance. It had to be.

She placed the photo into the porcelain palm. It gracefully accepted and sank into the shimmering soil.

The next morning, Carla's grief was gone. So was the pain of abandonment. So was doubt—a doubt she didn't even know she had.

Carla felt incredible. She inhaled, proud. "I'm in control now," she said, exhaling.

For the first time in years, Carla controlled how she ate. She controlled how she ejected without her finger.

She controlled every thought. Every fleeting emotion. Every sensation. Pulse. Excitement.

Carla examined her relationship with her father.

She controlled her guilt for who she was. She controlled her regret for her tantrums, lies, temper, and self-destruction.

Carla compulsively controlled everything.

But then another compulsion came.

The world dulled. A voiceless whisper called. Without thought, she fed it. Over and over. Following suit, Carla consumed—everything.

Her house filled with takeout bags, discarded groceries, forgotten things.

She looked at herself in the mirror. She hadn't purged in weeks. The zits appeared. Her size increased. She hadn't bathed in days.

Then, the guilt returned. The plot called.

Carla answered.

She fed it more—photos. Letters. Old belongings from her father’s study.

Still, she starved.

Half-eaten meals rotted. Groceries spoiled. Pastries decayed. Flies danced over unrecognizable mold and clumps that no longer had an odor.

Friends knocked. She ignored them. Work called. She quit.

“This is Officer Gunn. Accompanied by my partner, Officer Alvarez. Is anyone home?” A voice asked, knocking.

“Go away,” Carla responded. Free to be alone. Unbothered. Timeless. Idle.

The control Carla compulsively sought echoed from the walls. In them. Through them. Behind them.

Control illuminated the room when she turned on the lights. It hummed from the fridge, the television, the landscaper's lawnmower, and time that passed.

Eventually, Carla lost track of time altogether.

She was becoming aware her home was nearly empty of anything emotionally valuable.

The furniture was there. Photos, books, trinkets, heirlooms, and things she forgot she had—gone.

Then, she looked in the mirror. She was flat again, but her hair was falling out.

Carla sighed. Gaunt. Pale. Eyes sunken. Indifferent. She finally asked herself: What am I feeding?

That night, she returned to the soil. The robed entity stood beside it. Pale. Hollow. Neither waiting nor expecting. Idle.

Beside him, the porcelain hand reached to the sky.

Beautiful. Open. Hungry.

Carla stared at it. Idle. “Dad. Pride. Carla. Control. Gluttonous,” she said, faintly aware of the dark fabric brushing her wrists—robes. A gift from the one beneath the plot. She didn’t remember putting them on.

Then, Carla heard a shriek. It was close, but far. Almost muffled. Then, frantic footsteps scattered in every direction.

Doorknobs rattled.

Was someone looking for a way out of her house?

Carla didn’t know. Carla didn’t care. It didn't matter.

The plot mattered.

The One Beneath the plot mattered.

Carla, now a plot person—an Idle Man—stared through the shimmering soil at a smooth, glistening, and beautiful porcelain face. A sparkling mannequin with no features: The One Beneath.

Her lips parted. Hollow. Idle. Indifferent. Carla whispered:

“The Plot Thickens.”

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