Hive of One

Something is working its way inside me. Hundreds of somethings probing the insides of my body with fresh and frantic tendrils.

I could swear I felt its presence. The moment I woke, I could feel something along the lining of my lungs and larynx.

A slight but abrasive scraping along the tunnels of my esophagus.

What. Is. Happening.

I close my eyes to steady my mind.

For a moment, all is clear. I am alone again in my skin.

Until the reverberations of marching, out of time with anything familiar, echo in my ears.

Onward.

Forward.

Inward.

Through the eardrums and beyond.

Mum.

Again. I tighten my eyelids shut until I see kaleidoscopic stars, hoping to shut off the madness.

For a few brief moments, it stops. The invasion was purely mental. A cerebral vinyl skip of distortion.

Then, from under my skin, I feel slithering bodies. Mandibles pierce my skin. Something drags through my arms and legs.

I want to scratch the itch, make the movement stop. As my nails dig into my arms, I fight the unbearable feeling. But no matter how much I scratch, I still feel it. The mandibles grasp, so I dig my nails in deeper, harder, until the fresh red lines I've drawn become canals along my veins.

When my arms feel afire, I shift my nails to chase the pulsations just under the surface of my facial skin. I need to make it stop.

Mum.

Wait, did I say that?

I dig deep into the flesh of my cheeks. Resistance. Something. Is. Stopping. Me. I can't break free from the infestation.

My only hope may be to cut it off at the source. Or burn it to its core. Where it all began. At my ears and throat. Regardless of the cost.

But still I feel it taking over. It may number in the hundreds of thousands, but it moves united, with order and structure.

Mum.

I try in vain to close my eyes in the smallest hope that I am just imagining it.

But I can't close my eyelids. My sight is obscured. I can feel and taste the venomous secretion as slug-like creatures block the light and prevent me from ending the nightmare I still think I'm stuck in.

I try to grip the slithering black spots on my eyes but can't, so I reach for a knife instead and, without thinking, press it to my throat to open up the flesh.

As I pierce through the skin and blood starts to seep from the opening, a black sludge-like substance sprays out from the wound.

Before I can do anything else, a set of wings unfurl and spread from the wound.

I can't move.

Whether paralysed with terror and disgust, or because I no longer have control — well, the real me anyway.

So I try to stay awake, against my better judgment, as I tap into my need to survive.

The wings sprouting from my throat flutter, knocking off excess flesh and blood to reveal a dark brown tone.

There is a strong stench of death.

Then silence.

But not the kind of silence that offers a reprieve.

As my eyes are fully covered, darkness takes over to join the silence, and then time has no meaning.

…

I feel nothing until the marching begins afresh, with the invaders traversing the expanse of my body to my chest, and then a shooting pain forces me forward onto my knees.

I am not sure why, but I feel the need — no, the desire, the hunger — to scratch at the top of my head.

As my fingers follow the same pathways and the valleys deepen, the pain does not impact me. Change is occurring, but I feel none of the setbacks and consequences.

There is a rumble and, without even thinking to stop, I start to grip at the skin as if it were fabric sewn over my flesh-coated head.

There is a strange light ahead, but not from my defunct eyes.

My field of vision changes to the wall behind me. Wait. What is happening.

Mum, I'm coming to find you.

That wasn't me. I move to the mirror, and I am horrified at what I see.

A brand new face staring into the mirror from the back of my head, and then I feel a quick jolt to my heart, and my arms twist, and I hear the distant call of Mum on the horizon.

This is goodbye.

To self.