What began as a normal morning quickly went downhill when our seven-year-old son came downstairs from bed. He sat down at the dining room table for breakfast, still rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. It was, by my best guess, this as-of-yet-half-asleep stupor that was the reason he didn’t notice the tip of his ring finger on his right hand was missing. I jumped up and took his hand in mine to examine what I thought I’d seen. Indeed, his ring finger was a nub at what would be the first knuckle. No blood, no carnage, but instead, it looked as if he’d never had it in the first place.

Naturally, this terrified him when he noticed it, and my wife was no better equipped to handle such a shocking realization. It was difficult to know when this part of his finger went missing, because how often does someone check to make sure their child isn’t missing a body part? It seems like one of those things that would be a big scene. My son swore up and down that he’d had each part of every finger when he went to bed the night before. Nonetheless, I checked his bed and all around the house, but didn’t find anything.

We took him to the emergency room, and the doctor thought we were playing a joke on her. She said there was no way his finger had just “fallen” off, certainly not recently, because the wound that should have been there was completely closed. Once she realized we were serious, she expressed great concern, because she had never seen anything like it before. She conferred with other doctors on staff, and they all said the same thing.

The next week, my wife had been taking a nap on the couch. I was in my office writing when her screams permeated the air. I quickly ran out to the living room and found he sitting on the couch, holding her foot in her hands. Just above where her left ankle would’ve been, was a nub, not dissimilar from our son’s ring finger. Once again, there was no blood, no mess. It was as if her foot had just fallen off while she was asleep. She said it didn’t hurt, not even a little, and our son agreed at the sentiment. It just “felt weird”.

Another trip to the emergency room offered no help nor answers. Searches online yielded nothing that was of any use to us. The following day, my son lost the rest of his ring finger, and the tips of three of his toes. The day after that, my left ear simply dropped to my desk; I felt it slide off of my head like a refrigerator magnet unable enough to hold the contents beneath it. Around the same time, my wife lost her left hand at the wrist, and my son shrieked when his right arm dropped at the shoulder, his hand still clutching the marker he’d been drawing with.

We were, the three of us, admitted to a facility where we were put under constant watch by a team of doctors, each one more bewildered than the last at the steady decline of body parts my family and I were in possession of. This has been going on for the last two weeks, thereabout. My wife passed away three days ago, when her torso disconnected just below her breasts, taking with it several vital organs necessary to her mortality. She died instantly.

At this point, my son is merely a torso with one arm, cut off at the bicep, no ears, no nose, no lips. As for myself, I’ve lost the entire lower half of my body, my left arm, my right thumb and middle finger (leaving in addition to the others, my index finger, which is how I’m typing this out, nevermind you how long it’s taken), my nose, lips, other ear, and eyelids. I fear this world isn’t long for me, nor my son. There is a strange calmness about all this. I am completely aware that my wife wasn’t in pain when she passed; we were having a conversation when it happened.

Sure, it’s scary as all hell, I mean, this is completely unprecedented. But I like knowing that my son, while naturally afraid, more than likely won’t experience any pain for the rest of his, albeit surely very short, life. The doctors that have been observing us are at a complete and utter loss for the cause of this lethal phenomenon.

I suppose, before I waste away any further and am unable to get this out, I should offer a word of advice. If you inexplicably begin losing body part after body part, make your peace with this world, because you are not long for it.