Chapter 5 – A Shrinking Feeling

Darkness. I feel as though I’ve experienced this once before. Screaming as I fall; my voice goes nowhere as darkness envelops me. My voice suddenly stops as I realize there is no oxygen here. Yet, it feels like I don’t need to breathe. My body slows down and comes to a halt. I feel weird, like my mind is only picking things up after something has already happened. Like I have nineties PC game lag.

Focusing my mind, I try to perceive something, anything around me. Gradually, the area around me reveals itself. A kaleidoscope of colors open, once I concentrated on seeing something other than the dark. What first looks like a huge mass of squirming colors, appear to be living things. Flitting from place to place, back and forth, they are like a pile of happy blue worms. I think I’ll settle on just blue.

My eyes strain to even see them. They meld and blur, as if I stop thinking about them, they’ll disappear. Strangely, as I begin to look at the whole instead of the individual creatures, they meld into a picture of sorts. What appears in front of me is an image of an old, but active diner. There seems to be someone sitting at a restaurant table in the image.  My surroundings blur and begin to match the diner in the picture, with waitresses and patrons doing their thing; running around. Like the worms in the picture. Wait. Does that mean I’m surrounded by these things?! Reaching out my hand, I try to wave in front of my face. My hand seemingly goes through nothing, and the air bristles, like a cat. One of the waitresses’ head twists behind to sharply look at me, and my arm jumps in response, waving her off.  She moves away, pacified, but I feel like there is something watching me on my right.

I’ve been sitting at one of the tables in the restaurant next to the person I saw earlier. Sitting at a table in this diner and devouring a steak beside me, is a beautiful black woman with reddish brown curly hair. Her freckles streak across her face like stars. Slowly, I recognize her as my first and last girlfriend, Geraldine. It must have been a year since I’ve last seen her. Though as always, she hasn’t aged a day.

Continuing to tear into a never-ending pile of steaks, the man eater, Gerry, was always boisterous, hilarious and kind. It’s one of the reasons we remained friends after breaking up many years ago. Looking up at me with pieces of flesh in her teeth, she snorts in amusement.

“What are you looking at weirdo?” She asks while chewing loudly.

“You say something, genius?” I shoot back instinctually.

We both glare at each and then bust out laughing.

“I told you before, genius isn’t an insult” she laughs affectionately.

Familiar. This seems so familiar, but almost as if something wa…

“So, what’s up? You wouldn’t have bugged me if it wasn’t important.” She states seriously, interrupting my thoughts. My head hurts as I focus on her again.

That’s true, why am I here? As I open my mouth to say something, I notice something about her eyes. They’re dark. Very dark. She’s always had dark brown eyes, but these look like a void. Deep. Dark. Nothingne…

My thoughts get cutoff as she grabs my hand softly, my eyes scurrying down to them and then back to her. Our hands are side by side, on a surprisingly comfortable sofa.

“Hey. I have something for you. It’s kind of important.” she leans back across the couch to reach into the cabinet beside her. Her skins glistens like the glow of a thousand different carapaces crossing each other. Wait. Geraldine married the love of her life a year ago. I was at their wedding; I’ve been to their home. This looks nothing like anywhere we’ve ever been! And where’s her ring?! My heart rate quickens. Where am I? Weren’t we at a diner?  I stand up suddenly, and Geraldine places a key in my hands. Strangely, the key feels warm. Far warmer than it should.

“You know, it’s funny” she says softly.

I look up at her, as she waves from a distance, but her voice is near. “Your mind tends to protect you in the weirdest ways, helping you to interpret things that you should never be able to comprehend.” She grins a toothy smile, alien and mysterious. “I hope I’ll see you again, ______"

Everything melts away but me and the key. It has a darkness around it, drawing me in deep. The darkness and key expand around me until the key encompasses everything. Inside the darkness, there are squirming somethings. As I go deeper, my being feels like it’s being ripped apart. My hands squiggle, and my arms and legs are bloated. I see atoms expanding and pain erupts across my body, but slowly fades away.

I continuously scream praying for someone to help. Anyone. God please, No! Help me!

I continue to fade until almost nothing remains except a sense of self.

Eventually, I feel warmth around my soul and what feels like a soft light expands. My sense of self grows, as my body reconstitutes. AI reform, pain returns. Flaring up in each part of my body; agonizing, burning pain. As it continues to burn, I desperately turn inward and begin praying for relief. Yep, this still hurts. Then, the burning goes away, starting at my feet, and a bone-chilling coldness replaces it. I really hope that I still have legs.

Lying in exhaustion from the pain, I have plenty of time to clear my mind and feel out my situation. I can’t feel anything but my chest and back. Slowly moving my upper body up, the feeling in my entire body gradually returns. I can’t get up yet. My arms are still numb and prickly, limply hanging at my sides. My legs are numb, but also itchy.  Groggily opening my eyes, the landscape is black with blue shades of brownish gray. As my eyes adjust to the lighting, I can feel weight on my legs and hips.  Glancing down at my pants, I see four scorpion-like creatures, each the size of my hand, resting peacefully on my legs. I’m naked. No. Oh God, please no. I freeze, closing my eyes. Expecting the sudden stab from their abnormally large stingers, I stay frozen. Nothing happens. I continue to sit in fear-filled anticipation, for what seems to be hours in an attempt at complete stillness.

After a while, I open my eyes slowly. They continue to rest there. One of them is bristling, as if my slight movements are jostling them. I sit futilely, staring at them. Awaiting my pointy fate. Well. While I wait, I might as well observe them. Peering down at them, I try to get a better look at what I’m dealing with.

            These scorpions seen to have thick body and tail, enormous pincers, and a body part that varies greatly from the scorpions I know; a nubby protrusion, a third the size of the entire scorpion, on its cephalothorax (head). I am firmly in the camp of being afraid of spiders, insects, and other small creepy things. One of my sisters loved to place all kinds of living creepy crawlies in my bed, since she thought it would help me get used to them. And because she probably delighted in my reactions. Some people think insects look cuter as they get bigger. Those people are wrong.

One good thing about my sister’s antics, is that I learned how to deal with different types of insects. The best way to handle scorpions is to not. Best thing to do, is to wait for them to move off and don’t stress them out. I’m surrounded by a hard, dark, and empty wasteland. The ground is cracked and each shadow within seems darker than any shadows I’ve ever seen. I’m pretty sure I can see several somethings watching me in the cracks.

“Oh God, what happens now?” I mutter. As I say that, one of the scorpion creatures gets up and stretches like a cat. Except its tail is extending out like a large flail, ready to be swung. It slowly turns to look at me and preens itself with its tail. Taking its sweet time, it slowly climbs off and waddles onto the ground next to me. Okay. One down, three to go.

I stare intensely at the remaining three scorpions. While the scorpions lazily relax on my legs, one of the scorpion’s giant nubs slowly rotates, until it finally turns toward me. The nub is kind of cute with a black mole on top of it. Upon closer inspection, I realize those nubs have eyeholes. Tiny empty eyeholes. And a gaping mouth without teeth. The mouth has been open this whole time. It opens wider and smiles brightly at me.

“Nope.”

I can handle regular creepers, but crazy human-like creepers are out of my meter. As if they can sense my rising stress levels, they all bristle, and jump off me. All four of their nubs (including the one that had previously jumped off) face me. They have an open-mouthed frown that is getting worse by the second. By the time that image registers in my head, I’ve run across the desert away from them.