Where There's A Will: Epilogue

Epilogue

ONE YEAR LATER...

The dim light of a single, flickering bulb cast jagged shadows along the damp stone walls of the manor's basement, a subterranean chamber thick with the acrid scent of antiseptic and decay. The workbench was littered with jagged needles, rust-flecked scissors, and suturing thread pulled taut across an obscene creation. The figure hunched over it, hands steady despite the tremor of fury rolling through his ruined body. A pig’s head—severed, skinned, its hollow eyes unblinking—lay before him, split open like a cadaver, its flesh preserved and glistening under the glow of the bulb.

The figure’s breath hitched as he guided the needle through taut muscle and gristle, pulling thread tight, one careful stitch at a time. His fingers, gnarled and scarred, worked with precision, as if each tug of the sutures reassembled the broken thing inside him. The agony of what had been done to him in the manor—humiliation, mutilation, a slow and savage ruin—boiled within his chest, but he swallowed it down. There would be no room for self-pity in what came next.

His gaze flicked up, and there, tacked to the corkboard in front of him, were glossy brochures—mementos of his fury. BodyShred Muscle and Fitness Gym, its covers gleaming with the oil-slicked forms of perfect muscleboys, their sculpted bodies grinning at the camera in arrogance. Bullcock Academy Athletics Teams, champions in their prime, all muscle and heavy bulges, flexing with the privilege of youth. Hollywood Colts Strip Club, where Adonises cavorted under strobing lights, turning their perfect, smirking faces toward adoring crowds, showcasing their incredible bodies. 

A slow, rasping breath passed through his lips as his good eye twitched. Hatred slithered through his mind, thick as congealing blood. These men, these types, had always looked at him with disgust, with amusement, had torn him down, mutilated his flesh, laughed as they left him mangled and worthless. Left him for DEAD. They had called him pathetic. Called him Gibson—a name that now meant nothing.

His grip tightened on the suturing needle. He caught his reflection staring back at him from the polished surface of a scalpel laying on the table. A reflected face that was now a grotesque patchwork of torn flesh and crude stitches, a savage monument to his suffering, to his burning hatred and anger. He looked away.

He lifted the pig’s head with reverence, turning it over in his hands. The stitches held firm. He lifted it up and over his head, the preserved flesh pressing against his ruined skin, the snout’s hollowed nostrils fitting perfectly over the shattered holes where his nose once was.

For a moment, there was silence. Then, his lips curled in satisfaction beneath the mask.

He was no longer Gibson.

He was Pig Man.

And he would make them suffer