u/HeGotBricks

A fleet of alien space goons stared down on Earth from their warship, backed by a legion of drones that left the planet in a permanent shadow.

“Prepare the broadcast,” the commander ordered. “Demand they stand their weapons down.”

The officer slid the dials and hacked into earth’s broadcasting network.

“Earth’s feed has been breached, commander.” 

Entering live stream in… three.. two… one. The screen popped on but never had the image of the high commander and his entourage of black ships behind him. It just had a grumpy looking dude, sipping out of a mug that read: World’s Greatest Mom.

He never stared at the camera. He put his cup down and rubbed his eyes.

The high commander couldn’t believe what he was seeing. “What’s this, officer. Patch me through.”

“I can’t, commander, something went wrong,” the officer said. His voice was cracking. His hands were shaking. The high commander extinguished officers for less.

“It’s not our feed they’re using. They’re broadcasting on every radio wave. It looks like a quantum band, commander. Somewhere in Florida.”

The human looked up at the screen. He had bags under his eyes, a stubbled black beard and his hair was unsorted.

“So, here’s what’s happening,” he said staring at the camera with a tired sounding annoyed voice.

“Whoever or whatever is lined up outside our atmosphere in those pretty ships, I’m going to start with this, if you think this is the first time we’ve been invaded before, and that you’re the first interstellar alien warrior beings to show up and want to conquer Earth. Save the speech you prepared and listen carefully.” The human on the screen handed his empty cup to an assistant to fill up, and then cleared his throat.

“It’s not and you’re not, okay.“ He turned his head and faced the camera again. “We’ve done this song and dance with the whole aliens invading Earth a couple of times now. From grays, to reptilians, we’ve even had giant squids, nothing new here. Let me tell you the result.” The human reached out and clasped the mug handed to him and set it on the table.

The crew on the alien warship remained silent. Not a word came from the deck. They all just stared uneasily at each other.

“See I got this cousin, here in Florida, great guy, wish you could meet him.” The human took a sip from the mug and continued. “My cousin Billy-Ray, took a 200 ton space wreck from one of those invaders out of a compound in southern Florida and reinforced the siding of his house and driveway with it. Should see the fence he built.”

He looked away from the screen to someone saying something behind the camera. “We don’t bother calling the military anymore, bunch of us just jump on a group chat, load up and make sushi out of you guys.”

The human took a deep breath and exhaled. “I’ll make you an offer, either try to “obliterate” us and we’ll just deploy our Alien Assassins, learn how to smash through your shield with cheap re-wiring of car batteries and by Tuesday will be reengineering your high/tech weaponry and selling bootleg replicas on the black market.”

The human smiled and took a long sip from his mug and gasped. “Or you can turn your ships around and we won’t post a viral video of your highest ruler taking a tomato in the face by a guy pulling the elastic back on giant slingshot and believe this, we’ll even make sure the entire galactic community sees it too. It’s up to you,” the human said.

The feed shut off. The commander of the fleet looked at their strategic plan. Glanced at the map. Stared down at the officer running the communication band. Then, his second in charge, who was visibly shaken. The second in charge choked out, “commander, do we have a counter strike for the tomato slingshot?”

The commander swallowed staring blankly at the black screen and said, “rev shields to 100% and why are we still here? I wanted us away from this planet and into deep space five minutes ago. They’re not taking our ships as scrap pieces of junk metal.”

The last thing I remember is the taste of iron in my mouth before waking up on the ground. My brother is lying in a puddle of crusted blood next to me. 

I sit up, my skin sticks to the floor, it hurts to peel away. I shake Billy, but Billy won't move. “Wake up Billy. Billy, wake up.” I tell him, “I’m going to get mommy.”

I stand up but the room starts to spin. My vision goes blurry and I almost fall over. I close my eyes, hold my head in my hand and my body flinches.

A swelling on my skull stings when I touch it and shoots through my body like an electrical shock.

I push myself off the dresser and steady my footing. The strength in my legs slowly comes back. I’m able to stand without falling but my balance is off and my ear is ringing. 

The lights are out in the hallway and they won’t turn on. I walk to my mom’s room leaning against the wall to support myself.

The air tastes like the smell of rusted metal and the barnyard at grandpa’s. My knee buckles and I almost fall. I slide my spine down the wall, sit on the floor and rest against it. 

I see white stars dancing over a black background that‘s pulsing. My breathing gets heavy and the nausea returns. I take a couple of breaths, and my sight starts coming into focus.

I crawl to my mom’s room. The wood is sharp against my bones, I can hear my knees crunch on the floorboards as they creak under my weight.

A lump of vomit sits in the middle of my throat and it sounds like there’s water splashing in my ear.

I struggle to get up, using my mom’s doorknob as leverage as I try to push the door open. It sticks and doesn’t budge. I twist the knob, lift and nudge my way in with my shoulder.

The room’s lit by moonlight seeping through her open window. A breeze blows sending a gust of air that smells like a dirty hamper. It overwhelms me, warning me back. 

I can see an outline of a shadow on her bed lying motionless. I creep a little closer but I still can’t make out what it is, until the figure on the bed forms into the shape of a person as my eyes grow accustomed to the darkness. It doesn’t look like my mom.

I approach the bed tip-toeing, there’s an arm hanging from it. The room breathes as I choke on my breath and gasp. My lower spine tingles with icicles. The skin on the back of my neck tightens as my ears rise to the ceiling.

I realize it’s my mom. There’s too much blood crusted and matted hair around her face to recognize her. It’s too dark.

Her hand. I can see her arm dangling from the side of the bed. Her finger has the plastic-cotton ring I made her on it.

I tug at her arm. “Mom,” I shout. I start trying to shake her awake. “Mom, wake up, something’s wrong with Billy.”

She doesn’t move. “Mom?” I shake her harder. I close my eyes and tell myself to wake up. I say it over and over. I open my eyes and I’m still in her room. “Susie!” I yell for my older sister. “Susie!”

She doesn’t answer. The house remains silent but loud in a haunting presence. I whisper to my mom, “I’ll be back mommy.”

I stumble backwards, shaking, too afraid to look away from my mom. Afraid, if I turn away it’ll all become real.

I need to get Susie, Billy and mom need help. I hold my breath, close my eyes, count to eight, hide my fear behind my mom and brother and check Susie’s room to see if she’s there.

The hallway wall near her door has blood on the floor. It’s slightly open with a bloody handprint painted on it. Her room is dark. I can’t see anything in there. “Susie?“ no answer. “Are you there?”

I slowly push the door open and it cries the squeak of a dying dog. I slap her light switch quickly and the light turns on, revealing a state of decomposition. I gag and nearly throw up. I shoot my head in the other direction and try to build the courage to look at them.

Susie’s lying on her bed with my little sister Jenny beside her.

The smell is suffocating the thick air in metals. Susie and Jenny don’t look real. I can see ground beef stuck to their face and in their hair. They’re not moving.  

I hear a foot press down on the bottom of the stairs. It was like the house shifted to the right from the weight. A raspy voice travels up the steps ahead of his body. “What did I do?”

I jump behind Jenny and tuck tightly into her and close my eyes and hold my breath and remain completely still.

“What did I do!” Susie’s door slams open and the force of it jammed the knob in the wall. I can hear someone walking around the room.

“What did I do!” He says and walks out. 

I hear him walk towards my bedroom. Then, I hear him race to my mom’s room. I hear scattering and things falling. He leaves her room and I can hear him breathing heavy as he makes his way back to Susie’s room. 

His steps are getting louder, and closer. His deep breathing sounds like it‘s right behind me. I fight to soothe the tremors shaking my limbs by squeezing my hands into fists and digging my nails into my palms. A shadow towers at the doorway. I hear a gun cock just as the sound of police sirens break through the insulation between the walls.

The last thing I remember is the taste of iron in my mouth before waking up on the ground. My brother is lying in a puddle of crusted blood next to me. 

I sit up, my skin sticks to the floor, it hurt peeling off. I shake Billy, but Billy won't move. “Wake up Billy. Billy, wake up.” I tell him, “I’m going to get mommy.”

I stand up but the room starts to spins. My vision goes blurry and I almost fall over. I close my eyes and hold my head in my hand and my body flinches.

A swell on my skull stings when I touch it and shoots through my body like an electrical shock.

I push myself off the dresser and steady my footing. The strength in my legs comes back. I’m able to stand without falling over but my balance is off. 

The lights are out in the hallway and they won’t turn on. I walk to my mom’s room leaning against the wall.

The air tastes like the smell of rusted metal and the barnyard at grandpa’s. My knee buckles and I almost fall. I slide my back down the wall, sit on the floor and lean against it. 

I see white dancing stars over a black background. My breathing gets heavy and the nausea returns. I take a few quick breaths, slowly my sight starts to focus.

I crawl to my mom’s room. The wood against my bones’ sharp, I can hear my knees crunch on the floorboards as they creak under my weight.

A lump of vomit sits in the middle of my throat and it sounds like water splashing inside my ears.

I struggle to get up and try to push my mom’s door open. But it sticks and doesn’t budge. I twist the knob, lift and nudge my way in.

The rooms lit by the moonlight casting through her open window. A breeze blows and sends a gust of air that stinks like a dirty hamper. It overwhelms me and warns me back. 

I can see an outline of a shadow on her bed lying motionless. I creep closer and I still can’t make out what it is, until the figure on the bed forms as my eyes grow accustom to the darkness, it’s the shape of a person, but it doesn’t look like my mom.

I approach the bed tip-toeing, there’s an arm hanging from it. The room breathes as I choke on my breath. I realize it’s my mom. There’s too much blood crusted and matted hair around her face. It’s too dark to see her clearly.

Her hand. I can see her arm dangling from the side of the bed. Her finger has the plastic-cotton ring I made her on it.

I tug at her arm. “Mom,” I shout. I start trying to shake her awake. “Mom, wake up, something’s wrong with Billy.”

She doesn’t move. “Mom?” I shake her harder. I close my eyes and tell myself to wake up. I say it over and over. I open my eyes and I’m still in her room. “Susie!” I yell for my older sister. “Susie!”

She doesn’t answer. I tell me mom, “I’ll be back.” I go check Susie’s room to see if she’s there. The hallway wall near her door has blood on the floor. It’s slightly open with a bloody handprint painted on it. Her room is dark. I can’t see anything in there. “Susie? Are you there?”

I slowly push the door as it squeaks open, I hit her light switch and the lights turns on. I gag and nearly throw up. I shoot my head in the other direction and try to build the courage to look again. Susie’s lying in her bed with my little sister Jenny.

The smell is suffocating. The air is thick. Both Susie and Jenny have open wounds in their skulls. I can see ground beef stuck to their hair. They’re not moving. 

I hear the stair creak and a voice. “What did I do?” The voice said.

I jump behind Jenny and tuck tightly next to her and close my eyes.

“What did I do!” Susie’s door slams open. I can hear someone walking around the room.

“What did I do!” He says and walks out. 

I hear him walk towards my bedroom. Then, I hear him race to my mom’s room. I hear stuff scattering around and things falling. He leaves and I can hear him making his way back to Susie’s room. 

His steps are getting louder. They’re getting closer. A shadow blocks the little light in Susie’s room. He’s standing at the doorway. I hear a gun cock and then a faint sound of police sirens in the distance.

A fleet of alien space goons stared down on Earth from their warship, backed by a legion of drones that left the planet in a permanent shadow.

“Prepare the broadcast,” the commander ordered. “Demand they stand their weapons down.”

The officer slid the dials and hacked into earth’s broadcasting network.

“Earth’s feed has been breached, commander.” 

Entering live stream in… three.. two… one. The screen popped on but never had the image of the high commander and his entourage of black ships behind him. It just had a grumpy looking dude, sipping out of a mug that read: World’s Greatest Mom.

He never stared at the camera. He put his cup down and rubbed his eyes.

The high commander couldn’t believe what he was seeing. “What’s this, officer. Patch me through.”

“I can’t, commander, something went wrong,” the officer said. His voice was cracking. His hands were shaking. The high commander extinguished officers for less.

“It’s not our feed they’re using. They’re broadcasting on every radio wave. It looks like a quantum band, commander. Somewhere in Florida.”

The human looked up at the screen. He had bags under his eyes, a stubbled black beard and his hair was unsorted.

“So, here’s what’s happening,” he said staring at the camera with a tired sounding annoyed voice.

“Whoever or whatever is lined up outside our atmosphere in those pretty ships, I’m going to start with this, if you think this is the first time we’ve been invaded before, and that you’re the first interstellar alien warrior beings to show up and want to conquer Earth. Save the speech you prepared and listen carefully.” The human on the screen handed his empty cup to an assistant to fill up, and then cleared his throat.

“It’s not and you’re not, okay.“ He turned his head and faced the camera again. “We’ve done this song and dance with the whole aliens invading Earth a couple of times now. From grays, to reptilians, we’ve even had giant squids, nothing new here. Let me tell you the result.” The human reached out and clasped the mug handed to him and set it on the table.

The crew on the alien warship remained silent. Not a word came from the deck. They all just stared uneasily at each other.

“See I got this cousin, here in Florida, great guy, wish you could meet him.” The human took a sip from the mug and continued. “My cousin Billy-Ray, took a 200 ton space wreck from one of those invaders out of a compound in southern Florida and reinforced the siding of his house and driveway with it. Should see the fence he built.”

He looked away from the screen to someone saying something behind the camera. “We don’t bother calling the military anymore, bunch of us just jump on a group chat, load up and make sushi out of you guys.”

The human took a deep breath and exhaled. “I’ll make you an offer, either try to “obliterate” us and we’ll just deploy our Alien Assassins, learn how to smash through your shield with cheap re-wiring of car batteries and by Tuesday will be reengineering your high/tech weaponry and selling bootleg replicas on the black market.”

The human smiled and took a long sip from his mug and gasped. “Or you can turn your ships around and we won’t post a viral video of your highest ruler taking a tomato in the face by a guy pulling the elastic back on giant slingshot and believe this, we’ll even make sure the entire galactic community sees it too. It’s up to you,” the human said.

The feed shut off. The commander of the fleet looked at their strategic plan. Glanced at the map. Stared down at the officer running the communication band. Then, his second in charge, who was visibly shaken. The second in charge choked out, “commander, do we have a counter strike for the tomato slingshot?”

The commander swallowed staring blankly at the black screen and said, “rev shields to 100% and why are we still here? I wanted us away from this planet and into deep space five minutes ago. They’re not taking our ships as scrap pieces of junk metal.”

I started the day with only one rolling paper left, a point-seven of flower and nine previously smoked roach ends.

I had a decision to make that would dictate the rest of my day. And all sorts of questions. 

Do I roll the roaches and the flower all into one? 

Or do I break it into two? 

And should I roll the flower first? 

Or do I waste the paper on the roaches?

Then, I thought, maybe just mix them both together? 

The problem with that would come down to ratio. 

I had trouble choosing and called in outside help. But they were useless. I elected to go with just the nine roaches because smoking them just after you wake up has a different kind of hit to it. A little more heavier than the flower.

When I rolled it and went to lick the glue and twist it together, it wouldn’t stick. I realized through all the confusion of trying to decide, I had the paper inside out, the glue part was at the back.

So, when I tried to dump it out, the paper stuck to my fingertips and wouldn’t come off.

I kept pulling at it and my skin would stretch out. The pain was like frostbitten fingers being scraped with a sharp metal blade.

I stopped tugging at it and then it grew teeth. These huge jagged razor like teeth and it started eating my fingers.

My hand.

My arm.

I couldn’t get it off.

All it wanted to do was eat me. 

“Why are you eating me?” I screamed.

But it wouldn’t tell me. It never said anything. It just kept eating me and eating me and eating me. 

Until all I had left was my brain and because it wasn’t filled with anything other than air, it left my brain alive and some mad scientist threw it into an android body.

It happened when she least expected it.

On a summer day, outside on her porch, while little Timmy from down the street was racing his bike past her house, while Susie next door was yelling at her brother to leave her alone, during the old lady across the street trying to parallel park her oversized Pontiac, while the world performs its usual routine, it happened.

Underneath Susie’s yelling, the neighbor parking, the soda can stuck on Timmy’s back tire revving, and the rustling of tree leaves, the light tapping sound knocked next to her ear. 

She didn’t move, just listened and tried to count.

But it shifted. Instead of a knuckle on metal banging inside her head. It responded to her unaware she was talking to it with her fingertips hammering the armrest. She tapped down a couple beats and paused.

Inside her head it mimicked the sound against her skull.

She calmed herself by saying, “it’s something on the roof or maybe under the porch. It’s just my imagination. Nothing to stress over.”

She finally did what she thought was rational. She stopped tapping on the armrest.

The tapping stopped inside her skull.

She didn’t  know why she did it but she started again, and it started again. She switched the rhythm and it mirrored her. When she’d go off beat, it would go off beat. It matched all her human imperfections.

It never got louder. It just stayed behind her eyes, watching her obediently from the inside. 

And that’s what scared her. At first she imagined a predator, something sinister, until she realized, it’s cooperating with her, it didn’t feel like a possession or a haunting, her and it are synchronized, like a contract signed in taps.

Later that night, she decided to experiment with it and silence, holding her breath and listening.

But nothing would happen.

She exhaled after a minute and she could only hear her heartbeat.

Between breathing the tapping began again, it wasn’t in her head, it was above her coming from the ceiling.

She glanced up at the ceiling. Everything seemed normal.

The ceiling was still the ceiling. She couldn’t think to do anything other than knock back.

She knocked once.

Then, another.

She paused.

And knocked the secret song in Taps her and her friends use to use when they were kids.

It worked. There was a long enough pause to make her believe she finally tricked it. The thought of it being gone sent an empty loneliness in her. 

Her lungs began feeling like two flat tires caught in a bear hug. Released only by the resuming sound of the tapping again, faster this time, more chaotic, in a way that made her feel connected.

Above her something happened. Something that wasn’t a tap.

A voice spoke words that sounded like they never came from a mouth.

The shape of what she heard felt like someone kicking her bedroom door in, blowing a gust of muffled air in her face.

“Stop,” it said in two syllables that felt completely wrong.

Her finger froze mid-tap. The tapping stopped.

The house was quiet almost like it settled to sleep.

She sat in her bed for the rest of the night, forcing herself to think like a skeptic. 

What’s if a serial killer broke in, she thought.

Then she told her self she’d have seen them or heard them walking.

It’s probably just the pipes. 

She tried playing it down.

It wouldn’t have recognized my language.

It’s probably just the guys, pranking me.

But they wouldn’t have been able to copy my secret childhood rhythm.

She looked up, expecting to see something shatter the silence. But nothing happened. The house remained still. 

She slid her hand to the end table and began tapping without realizing. She paused after she noticed. 

And after she paused. She could hear a noise forming but not from the ceiling. From the back of her throat. She could feel the inside of her mouth tingling. The taste of copper on her tongue, and that’s when she heard it come out of her mouth.

“My turn.”

It happened when she least expected it.

On a summer day, outside on her porch, while little Timmy from down the street was racing his bike past her house, while Susie next door was yelling at her brother to leave her alone, during the old lady across the street trying to parallel park her oversized Pontiac, while the world performs its usual routine, it happened.

Underneath Susie’s yelling, the neighbor parking, the soda can stuck on Timmy’s back tire revving, and the rustling of tree leaves, the light tapping sound knocked next to her ear. 

She didn’t move, just listened and tried to count.

But it shifted. Instead of a knuckle on metal banging inside her head. It responded to her unaware she was talking to it with her fingertips hammering the armrest. She tapped down a couple beats and paused.

Inside her head it mimicked the sound against her skull.

She calmed herself by saying, “it’s something on the roof or maybe under the porch. It’s just my imagination. Nothing to stress over.”

She finally did what she thought was rational. She stopped tapping on the armrest.

The tapping stopped inside her skull.

She didn’t  know why she did it but she started again, and it started again. She switched the rhythm and it mirrored her. When she’d go off beat, it would go off beat. It matched all her human imperfections.

It never got louder. It just stayed behind her eyes, watching her obediently from the inside. 

And that’s what scared her. At first she imagined a predator, something sinister, until she realized, it’s cooperating with her, it didn’t feel like a possession or a haunting, her and it are synchronized, like a contract signed in taps.

Later that night, she decided to experiment with it and silence, holding her breath and listening.

But nothing would happen.

She exhaled after a minute and she could only hear her heartbeat.

Between breathing the tapping began again, it wasn’t in her head, it was above her coming from the ceiling.

She glanced up at the ceiling. Everything seemed normal.

The ceiling was still the ceiling. She couldn’t think to do anything other than knock back.

She knocked once.

Then, another.

She paused.

And knocked the secret song in Taps her and her friends use to use when they were kids.

It worked. There was a long enough pause to make her believe she finally tricked it. The thought of it being gone sent an empty loneliness in her. 

Her lungs began feeling like two flat tires caught in a bear hug. Released only by the resuming sound of the tapping again, faster this time, more chaotic, in a way that made her feel connected.

Above her something happened. Something that wasn’t a tap.

A voice spoke words that sounded like they never came from a mouth.

The shape of what she heard felt like someone kicking her bedroom door in, blowing a gust of muffled air in her face.

“Stop,” it said in two syllables that felt completely wrong.

Her finger froze mid-tap. The tapping stopped.

The house was quiet almost like it settled to sleep.

She sat in her bed for the rest of the night, forcing herself to think like a skeptic. 

What’s if a serial killer broke in, she thought.

Then she told her self she’d have seen them or heard them walking.

It’s probably just the pipes. 

She tried playing it down.

It wouldn’t have recognized my language.

It’s probably just the guys, pranking me.

But they wouldn’t have been able to copy my secret childhood song.

She looked up, expecting to see something shatter the silence. But nothing happened. The house remained still. 

She slid her hand to the end table and began tapping without realizing. She paused after she noticed. 

And after she paused. She could hear a noise forming but not from the ceiling. From the back of her throat. She could feel the inside of her mouth tingling. The taste of copper on her tongue, and that’s when she heard it come out from her mout.

“My turn.”

I’m sick of all the talking, Corleone authors gossiping, claiming they’re writers but scared to show shit. Probably because they never wrote shit. Just keep reading your books. Tell me how it ends. 

As a kid I wasn’t watching cartoons or reading picture books, I was on the rooftops scoping the gangsters and drugs dealers, learning the hustle. 

What I learned was the bosses never had the same heart as the hustlers that left bodies on the road.

I’d sneak out of my bedroom apartment window and climb up the staircase, hopping buildings, I never liked being home. 

Something pulled me to the streets. I preferred the late night noise of the slums. There was something comforting in it. Which is why I could paint those beautiful pictures. 

I bleed my heart into my stories every time I wrote something down but left my tears behind because I lost those when my mom died. I wished that my inspiration came from wanting a 10/10 but it thrives on where I came from.

I must have been an author in my past life because of my passion for capturing the raw intimate side of human life. That messiness. Where time stops becoming linear. With zero emotion. All that matters is the story. The piece. Whatever you call it. Whatever it is, I’ll record it. I won’t judge it. I’ll just write it.

People said I don’t deserve nothing. I don’t deserve it? I was raised in a trap. Customers banging at the store, wasn’t no alarm to me. Food on the stove was what woke me up. It wasn’t ever easy but when is it? 

Does it ever happen?

Still, they had this hate gnawing at them. Just know it wasn’t luck. I been out there like a grizzly with a pack of wolves. I know that life.

This life.

Their life.

My life.

His life.

Her life.

Time and death changed our fates. Some are still with me, some are not, but all I wish is that my mother was.

Some hated on me based on jealousy. They’d hoped I’d fall. 

I was born in a city that never slept. Some would go hungry and some would rob to eat.

Writing is my legacy. 

I’m Brooklyn Born, Bitch!

Which POV To Use?

-//———-\\-

It happened when she least expected it.

On a summer day, outside on her porch, while little Timmy from down the street was racing his bike past her house, while Susie next door was yelling at her brother to leave her alone, during the old lady across the street trying to parallel park her oversized Pontiac, while the world performs its usual routine, it happened.

Underneath Susie’s yelling, the neighbor parking, the soda can stuck on Timmy’s back tire revving, and the rustling of tree leaves, the light tapping sound knocked next to her ear. 

She didn’t move, just listened and tried to count.

But it shifted. Instead of a knuckle on metal banging inside her head. It responded to her unaware she was talking to it with her fingertips hammering the armrest. She tapped down a couple beats and paused.

Inside her head it mimicked the sound against her skull.

She calmed herself by saying, “it’s something on the roof or maybe under the porch. It’s just my imagination. Nothing to stress over.”

She finally did what she thought was rational. She stopped tapping on the armrest.

The tapping stopped inside her skull.

She didn’t  know why she did it but she started again, and it started again. She switched the rhythm and it mirrored her. When she’d go off beat, it would go off beat. It matched all her human imperfections.

It never got louder. It just stayed behind her eyes, watching her obediently from the inside. 

And that’s what scared her. At first she imagined a predator, something sinister, until she realized, it’s cooperating with her, it didn’t feel like a possession or a haunting, her and it are synchronized, like a contract signed in taps.

Later that night, she decided to experiment with it and silence, holding her breath and listening.

But nothing would happen.

She exhaled after a minute and she could only hear her heartbeat.

Between breathing the tapping began again, it wasn’t in her head, it was above her coming from the ceiling.

She glanced up at the ceiling. Everything seemed normal.

The ceiling was still the ceiling. She couldn’t think to do anything other than knock back.

She knocked once.

Then, another.

She paused.

And knocked the secret song in Taps her and her friends use to use when they were kids.

It worked. There was a long enough pause to make her believe she finally tricked it. The thought of it being gone sent an empty loneliness in her. 

Her lungs began feeling like two flat tires caught in a bear hug. Released only by the resuming sound of the tapping again, faster this time, more chaotic, in a way that made her feel connected.

Above her something happened. Something that wasn’t a tap.

A voice spoke words that sounded like they never came from a mouth.

The shape of what she heard felt like someone kicking her bedroom door in, blowing a gust of muffled air in her face.

“Stop,” it said in two syllables that felt completely wrong.

Her finger froze mid-tap. The tapping stopped.

The house was quiet almost like it settled to sleep.

She sat in her bed for the rest of the night, forcing herself to think like a skeptic. 

What’s if a serial killer broke in, she thought.

Then she told her self she’d have seen them or heard them walking.

It’s probably just the pipes. 

She tried playing it down.

It wouldn’t have recognized my language.

It’s probably just the guys, pranking me.

But they wouldn’t have been able to copy my secret childhood song.

And then, I fell asleep writing her story and lost the connection to her. I forgot to get her name.

“Holding out for a Hero” crackled over crappy speakers surrounding the office. The keyboard acted like a dance floor under her fingertips as they moved to the music.

A vanilla aroma followed the Director escorting a stranger holding a résumé. 

Thoughts started racing through her mind, gnawing at her stomach.

The glare from the lights left a false sense of a morning glow that faded as they passed her desk.

Both of them were eyeing her. Her eyes never met theirs as they hunkered her under their passing shadow.

Maybe it’s from last week’s evaluation. The second lowest performance.

Her blouse scratched her neck, the cramps sharpened.

The pressure in her bladder tightened, then eased.

She slammed Enter and shuffled to the bathroom.

The chair tipped, banging against the desk, shaking the cubicle and rattling the two next to hers.

She could feel the eyes on her even before stumbling to the bathroom

Bonnie Tyler’s voice faded behind her, the last notes lingered like vanilla in the air, dying to a muffled silence of a bathroom door shutting behind her. 

Seventeen minutes later, her cramps subsided and she slumped back to her desk.

The chair slanted as she sat down, half the wheel had been broken.

Her eyes then snagged an unprocessed invoice that was due last week. 

I’m definitely getting written up. Suspended. Or fired. 

A loud ping cut through the speaker. 

It oscillated between her ears.

One new notification, from the supervisor, read: “Come to my office.”

The HR Director had been Cc’d. 

Elizabeth wondered why, the question had dominated her thoughts.

She smoothed her disheveled hair and walked to his office.

The hallway stretched out further than it seemed with every step adding a new tremor as she approached the door.

A nauseating mix of cologne and vanilla clung to the air. 

The sound of tapping heels died when the door clasped shut.

Her skin itched slippery sweat.

“Hi, you wanted to see me?” Her voice barely a whisper.

His gaze flicked from the screen to her. 

She held her breath. 

He pinched his eyebrows and squinted through a pair of glasses and spoke in a mellow tone. 

“Sorry Elizabeth, I’m a little caught up at the moment. Will talk Monday Okay?”

Elizabeth choked out, “okay.”

She inhaled and wiped her clammy hands.

On her way back, an employee stopped and asked her if she heard anything about layoffs.

Elizabeth shook her head, and started biting her nails down to the skin, responding with a blank stare as she nodded. 

Collapsing in her chair as she got back.

An email alert pinged.

The sound shifted her eyes toward the bottom corner of her right screen where an email alert read:

RE: "Confidential Meeting"

Cc: “Supervisor”

Elizabeth’s eyes were glued to the screen, her nails dug into her palms. The email stuck in the back of her throat like the director’s vanilla-scented perfume, as the music slowed, distorted, and stopped.

One night I passed out, I was gassed out, at around ten p.m, then, when I woke up again, in the middle of the night, I couldn’t see a thing. I couldn’t move. Was this a dream? Or was my reality true. I couldn’t feel my body, I didn’t know what to do.

I was awake though, and I know because, I could hear the deep breaths of me slumbered in a deep rest.

I couldn’t feel my limbs but I could feel the fear. What was weird, is that the feelings were there, the claustrophobia, the paranoia, the signs of being scared, but they weren’t invisible, they had a texture that felt incredibly physical.

I was able to think, but the thinking got worse, I was jumping one terror to the next like my thoughts were playing musical chairs.

Where was I?

How did I get there?

Am I dead?

I tried to solve the puzzle but after I asked, I could feel myself spinning like you spun me in a circular glass.

I felt myself pulse, stretched to the limit and wrinkled back in, I could feel every drop without the action.

It’s like I traded my body to feel these emotions and I started to wonder if maybe my brain was just broken. 

There wasn’t any color, any scenes, it was featureless, shrouded in a cold unsettling darkness.

It didn’t have a temperature, and I could hear every sound, but I was stuck there and I didn’t have a choice. So, that’s when I realized, I was just a voice.

But if I was just a voice shouldn’t I see something, other than a nothing endless black color?

It seemed like I was in a coma trapped in an abyss what else would explain me waking up like this?

That’s when I heard a noise. It sounded like a scratching that came from the floor, then two beings talking in a language that I couldn’t ignore.

It sounded like a frequency, the way they were speaking they never used words but you could hear lines repeating.

Even though I couldn’t see them, I was sure they were there, not just by the sounds, they spiked my fight-or-flight

I started feeling pressure, a pressure squeezing my head and then there was inertia of me leaving the bed.

I tried shouting screams loud enough to leave my head but everything I yelled bounced back at me instead. I couldn’t wake-up not matter what the fuck I hollered. I had to get up, it felt like I was trying to breathe under water.

As I was screaming, like a whack job nut, I heard the voices and a mechanical door shut.

They spoke like a fax machine would if one could. I felt like I was there for hours, tormented in a shadow under my hood.

I began freaking out. I started to pray, begging god please don’t let me stay this way, that’s when I shut off and woke up the next day.

I woke up with an empty sense of hope, with regrets sticking to me like post-it notes.

I couldn’t remember anything, it all just felt like a scattered painting of dreams. But then it came together, one early winter morning.

I was having a headache that was pounding my skull, the lights appeared brighter and my skin a bit rougher. 

I kept scratching a spot, this spot on the left side of my ribs. It felt rough like a dry leaf, a circle that was ribbed.

When I looked down I could see it bubbling under the claw marks, broken vessels and blood.

I poked it with my finger, it was hard but soft like a wet ball of mud. The tingles rushed my veins, numbing my whole body, it felt like I was stuck frozen in time as the memories from that night flashed through my mind.

I snatched my laptop to Google parasites, cause a couple months back we took a flight to Miami and I remembered watching stories about bugs on the show called monsters inside me.

It stops.

As soon as my laptop started up, it made this sound, the sound slapped me with the whole experience I had the night before all at once. 

My heart began pumping, it felt like it doubled in size and couldn’t fit inside my chest cavity. 

Then, a sharp irritation came from that spot again, I bit-cut my nails into serrated tips and kept scratching, trying to scratch as deep as I could with jagged claws. 

I kept scratching and couldn't stop. I scratched until I started bleeding. Not just speckles either, it was dripping a warm liquid of red and a very light tinge of yellow.

I went deeper, and then I went deeper. I went so deep I exposed the ball of fat, or what I thought was a ball of fat. I yanked it out with my fingers, it was slippery and kept sliding off. 

I dried my hands on my shirt and tore a piece of the fabric off, dug into my ribs and pulled out a metallic looking bug. I threw it on the ground and stepped on it, but it wouldn’t squish. 

So I ran to the garage for the hammer and when I got back it was gone. The blood on the floor surrounding it, was also gone.

I‘ve never felt the same since then. And since then I’ve been taking my roommate’s seroquel, because the doctors kept telling me it’s sleep paralysis and a random case of stress psychosis.

Nobody there cared about the orange color of the ketchup, or that it sparkled. They ate it anyway. John said,

“Man, these fries are great!”

Marion turned to him,

“The fries? How ‘bout this ketchup?”

Marcus said, 

“The ketchup is definitely doing all the heavy lifting.”

Joann laughed,

“You guys are nuts!”

John and Marion just stared at each other like Joann was from another planet.

Joann asked,

“How come there’s no mustard?”

“What color you think that’ll be?”

John responded.

“I was actually just thinking that, but about the mayonnaise. I wanted to mix the ketchup with it.” 

Marion frowned, digging a fry into the orange syrup splattered on her plate before snapping down on it.

“John, call the waiter over.”

Joann asked.

“Excuse me, waiter.”

John yelled, snapping his fingers,

“Hey, waiter!”

The waiter faced John waving him over. The waiter nodded and finished what he was doing before racing to the table.

“Good afternoon, how may I help you?”

John pointed to Joann.

“Is there any other condiments besides ketchup?”

Asked Joann.

The waiter stared at her, he stood there and said,

“Good afternoon, how may I help you?”

Marcus broke a laugh, but tried holding it in, Marion, John, and Joann squinted at each other. Joann tried again, 

“Can we get some mustard, or mayonnaise?”

The waiter looked clueless.

“Mustard… Mayonnaise?”

The waiter questioned her.

“Yeah, mustard, the yellow stuff. It goes on hotdogs, and hamburgers.”

“I’m sorry, we don’t have that. We have ketchup. It is famous around here, the chef makes it right at home. Would you like some?”

“No. Well, what other condiments are there?”

“Condiments? I’m not familiar with that,” the waiter said.

John interrupted,

“Ketchup, you know what ketchup is, don’t you?”

“Yes, of course. Would you like me to grab you some?”

“Huh?”

John stared as if he was doing a long division equation in his head.

“Ketchup is a condiment, along with mustard, you know what mustard is?”

“Sorry sir, I’m not familiar with mustard, is there anything other than that I could help you with? Would you like some ketchup? The chef makes it right at home, it’s famous around here.”

John was about to say something, but Marion wisely cut him off,

“That”ll be all, we’re good, thank you.”

Once the waiter left, Marcus threw his hands on the table,

“What the hell just happened?”

John leaned in,

“Was that guy on something?”

“He didn’t know what mustard was, or what condiments were.”

Joann snickered, Marion paused, she thought for a minute before saying,

“What’s the deal with the chef making the ketchup at home? I don’t think we should eat it.”

Marcus sat there chewing on a dipped fry. He stopped chewing after Marion said that, and spit what he had in his mouth into a napkin, and said,

“Let’s get the bill and go.” 

“I second that.”

 

Marion agreed as Joann and John both nodded. They waved the waiter over.

“Good afternoon, how may I help you?”

“Bill, please.”

“Is everything alright, I noticed you didn’t finish your ketchup.”

“Everything’s fine, bill please.”

The waiter left to grab the receipt, and when he returned, he placed the bill on the table and four plastic, small sample containers of ketchup. They sat on the table glittering under the sun.

“Complementary, from the chef.”

John threw out a credit card.

“I got this.”

Said Marcus handing John back his card.

“Thank you” 

Marion smiled at the waiter. The waiter held the card in his hand, pressed it against his palm like a scanner, and handed it back.

“Thank you, you’re all paid. Enjoy your day and come again.”

“What?”

Marcus said to the group after the waiter left.

“Guys, that was weird.”

Joann blurted out wide-eyed as they got up and walked to the car.

Inside the car, Marion opened the glove compartment, and flowing out, were tiny sample containers of ketchup. At least twenty of them. 

“What the hell?”

They all stared at each other, they’ve never been to that restaurant before. John turned the key in the ignition, it sputtered alive, blasting from the speakers was a distinct voice.

“Good afternoon.” The car said. “How may I help you?” 

Whatcha think?

——

One night I passed out, I was gassed out, at around ten p.m, then, when I woke up again, in the middle of the night, I couldn’t see a thing. I couldn’t move.

Was this a dream? Or was my reality true. I couldn’t feel my body, I didn’t know what to do.

I was awake though, and I know because, I could hear the deep breaths of me slumbered in a deep rest.

I couldn’t feel my limbs but I could feel the fear. What was weird, is that the feelings were there, the claustrophobia, the paranoia, the signs of being scared, but they weren’t invisible, they had a texture that felt incredibly physical like being physically there.

I was able to think, but the thinking got worse, I was jumping one terror to the next like my thoughts were playing musical chairs.

Where was I?

How did I get there?

Am I dead?

I tried to solve the puzzle but after I asked, I could feel myself spinning like you spun me in a circular glass.

I felt myself pulse, stretched to the limit and wrinkled back in, I could feel every drop without the action.

It’s like I traded my body to feel these emotions and I started to wonder if maybe my brain was just broken. There wasn’t any color, any scenes, it was featureless, shrouded in a cold unsettling darkness.

It didn’t have a temperature, though I could hear every sound, but I was stuck and I didn’t have a choice. So, that’s when I realized, I was just a voice.

But if I was just a voice shouldn’t I see something, other than a nothing endless black color?

It seemed like I was in a coma trapped in an abyss what else would explain me waking up like this?

That’s when I heard a noise. It sounded like a scratching that came from the floor, then two beings talking in a language that I couldn’t ignore.

It sounded like a frequency, the way they were speaking, they never used words but you could hear lines repeating.

Even though I couldn’t see them, I was sure they were there, not just by the sounds, but because they spiked my fight-or-flight

I started feeling pressure, a pressure squeezing my head and then there was inertia of me leaving the bed.

I tried shouting screams loud enough to leave my head but everything I yelled bounced back at me instead. I couldn’t wake-up not matter what the fuck I hollered I had to get up, it felt like I was trying to breathe under water.

As I was screaming, like a whack job nut, I heard the voices again and a mechanical door shut.

They spoke like a fax machine would if one could. I felt like I was there for hours, tormented in a shadow under my hood.

I began freaking out, so I started to pray, begging god please don’t let me stay this way, that’s when I shut off and woke up the next day.

I woke up with an empty sense of hope, with regrets sticking to me like post-it notes.

I couldn’t remember anything, it all just felt like a scattered painting of messed up dreams. But then it came together, one early winter morning.

I was having a headache that was pounding my skull, the lights appeared brighter and my skin a bit rougher. 

I kept scratching this one spot, this spot on the left side of my ribs. It felt rough like a dry leaf, a circle that was ribbed.

When I looked down, I could see it bubbling out under the claw marks, broken vessels and blood.

I poked it with my finger, it was hard but soft like a ball of wet mud. The tingles rushed my veins, numbing my whole body, it felt I was stuck frozen in time as the memories from that night flashed through my tired mind.

I snatched my laptop to Google parasites, cause a couple months back we took a flight to Miami and I remembered watching stories about bugs on the show called monsters inside me.

It stops.

As soon as my laptop started up, it made this sound, the sound slapped me with the whole experience I had the night before all at once. 

My heart began pumping, it felt like it doubled in size and couldn’t fit inside my chest cavity. 

Then, a sharp irritation came from that spot again, I bit-cut my nails into serrated tips and kept scratching, trying to scratch as deep as I could with jagged claws. 

I kept scratching and couldn't stop. I scratched until I started bleeding. Not just speckles either, it was dripping a warm liquid of red and a very light tinge of yellow.

I went deeper, and then I went deeper. I went so deep I exposed the ball of fat, or what I thought was a ball of fat. I yanked it out with my fingers, it was slippery and kept sliding off. 

I dried my hands on my shirt and tore a piece of the fabric off, dug into my ribs and pulled out a metallic looking bug. I threw it on the ground and stepped on it, but it wouldn’t squish. 

So I ran to the garage for the hammer and when I got back it was gone. The blood on the floor surrounding it, was also gone.

I‘ve never felt the same since then. And since then I’ve been taking my roommate’s seroquel, because the doctors kept telling me it’s sleep paralysis and a random case of stress psychosis.

Oh love, how I lost.

Success is, what it cost.

It left, without a bye.

Without a tear, crossing its eye.

For all the nights, stayed up beside me.

How am I to survive thee, without saying,

Goodbye to me?

Those songs, the ones you whispered.

Warmed my heart, with heat that blistered.

My sweet, singing Muse,

My love for you, is only true.

Aphrodite was just a friend, a friend…

A friend, I made the mistake to choose.

But please my love, come back and see,

That I cannot live without you saying,

Goodbye to me!

Somewhere in this story is missing an “a” please locate the missing area for me. Thank you.

——

One night I passed out at around ten p.m, when I woke up, I couldn’t see anything. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t even feel my body.

I was fully awake and I was able to hear myself snore and I could smell my breath.

But I couldn’t feel myself breathing. I never felt fear so clearly before. What’s weird, was  that I knew how terrified I felt. The sinking claustrophobia feeling was there. The paranoia as well. All those emotions didn’t feel like invisible physical feelings, they felt like they had texture.

I was able to think and thinking jumped from one terror to the next. 

Where was I?

How did I get here?

Am I dead?

And after I asked that, I could feel myself spinning, physically. I started pulsing, it felt like I was being stretched out and wrinkled back to normal.

How could I feel these emotions and not my actual body. It didn’t make sense. I figured, I must be dreaming. But there wasn’t any color, any scenes, it was just an unsettling darkness.

It wasn’t cold. It wasn’t hot. And that’s when I realized, I was just a voice. Chemicals acting in my brain. 

But if I was just a voice, shouldn’t there be like a orangey-red haze, or some kind of static other than absolute black.

I had to be in a coma, I told myself. What else could explain me waking up mentally but not physically. 

That was when I heard a noise. It sounded like something scratching the floor followed by two voices whose language I had trouble picking up. It didn’t even sound like a language, it was more of a frequency. 

I had no idea what they were saying, and I had no clue as to what they looked like. I knew they were there though.

Not just by their sounds. They heightened the fight-or-flight part of my brain. It was like I was covered in defensive spikes. 

I started sensing a feeling of inertia as if my body was being moved and a pressure squeezing my brain. 

I just started yelling, I didn’t know what else to do, I shouted, “wake up,” over a hundred times. I needed to get out from under my skull. It felt like I was choking on water.

Through me yelling, I heard a mechanical door shut and the voices again. 

They sounded like fax machine that spoke. It felt like I was there for hours, slowly being tormented, jailed in a shadow without a body. 

There was nothing I could to do alert my physical self that we were awake. Then, I thought, what if I stay this way. The spikes came back. I started feeling like an empty shell. I got angry at myself for falling asleep.

I shouldn’t have went to sleep. I had all these regrets sticking to me like post-it notes. And I couldn’t help it. I felt like I did it to myself. While I was between thoughts, I completely shut off.

My body and my mind woke up together but when I woke up, I remembered everything as a dream. It didn’t all come together until the next day. 

First, I had trouble concentrating, a headache that was trying to escape through my temple, eyes and even my teeth, was beating against my skull. 

Everything felt brighter, and my skin felt sensitive, but rough, like a fresh dry leaf. I kept itching at one spot, a spot on my ribs below my left underarm. 

When I looked down at it, there was a bubble under the claw marks and broken blood vessels, protruding outward.

I poked around it with my fingertip. It was a soft-hard kind of ball. I started getting a tingling, numbing sensation throughout my entire body and flashes pop up in my mind like broken dream memories. 

I grabbed my laptop and opened it to search through Google on what could be happening to me. 

Because a couple (a) months back, friends and I went to Miami. I started worrying about parasites, you watch those monsters inside me shows and start racing with all sorts of hypochondriac thoughts.

As soon as my laptop started up, it made this sound, the sound slapped me with the whole experience I had the night before all at once. 

My heart began pumping, it felt like it doubled in size and couldn’t fit inside my chest cavity. 

Then, a sharp irritation came from that spot again, I bit-cut my nails into serrated tips and kept scratching, trying to scratch as deep as I could with jagged claws. 

I kept scratching and couldn't stop. I scratched until I started bleeding. Not just speckles either, it was dripping a warm liquid of red and a very light tinge of yellow.

I went deeper, and then I went deeper. I went so deep I exposed the ball of fat, or what I thought was a ball of fat. I yanked it out with my fingers, it was slippery and kept sliding off. 

I dried my hands on my shirt and tore a piece of the fabric off, dug into my ribs and pulled out a metallic looking bug. I threw it on the ground and stepped on it, but it wouldn’t squish. 

So I ran to the garage for the hammer and when I got back it was gone. The blood on the floor surrounding it, was also gone.

I‘ve never felt the same since then. And since then I’ve been taking my roommate’s seroquel, because the doctors kept telling me it’s sleep paralysis and a random case of stress psychosis.

One night I passed out at around ten p.m, when I woke up, I couldn’t see anything. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t even feel my body.

I was fully awake and I was able to hear myself snore and I could smell my breath.

But I couldn’t feel myself breathing. I never felt fear so clearly before. What’s weird, was  that I knew how terrified I felt. The sinking claustrophobia feeling was there. The paranoia as well. All those emotions didn’t feel like invisible physical feelings, they felt like they had texture.

I was able to think and thinking jumped from one terror to the next. 

Where was I?

How did I get here?

Am I dead?

And after I asked that, I could feel myself spinning, physically. I started pulsing, it felt like I was being stretched out and wrinkled back to normal.

How could I feel these emotions and not my actual body. It didn’t make sense. I figured, I must be dreaming. But there wasn’t any color, any scenes, it was just an unsettling darkness.

It wasn’t cold. It wasn’t hot. And that’s when I realized, I was just a voice. Chemicals acting in my brain. 

But if I was just a voice, shouldn’t there be like a orangey-red haze, or some kind of static other than absolute black.

I had to be in a coma, I told myself. What else could explain me waking up mentally but not physically. 

That was when I heard a noise. It sounded like something scratching the floor followed by two voices whose language I had trouble picking up. It didn’t even sound like a language, it was more of a frequency. 

I had no idea what they were saying, and I had no clue as to what they looked like. I knew they were there though.

Not just by their sounds. They heightened the fight-or-flight part of my brain. It was like I was covered in defensive spikes. 

I started sensing a feeling of inertia as if my body was being moved and a pressure squeezing my brain. 

I just started yelling, I didn’t know what else to do, I shouted, “wake up,” over a hundred times. I needed to get out from under my skull. It felt like I was choking on water.

Through me yelling, I heard a mechanical door shut and the voices again. 

They sounded like fax machine that spoke. It felt like I was there for hours, slowly being tormented, jailed in a shadow without a body. 

There was nothing I could to do alert my physical self that we were awake. Then, I thought, what if I stay this way. The spikes came back. I started feeling like an empty shell. I got angry at myself for falling asleep.

I shouldn’t have went to sleep. I had all these regrets sticking to me like post-it notes. And I couldn’t help it. I felt like I did it to myself. While I was between thoughts, I completely shut off.

My body and my mind woke up together but when I woke up, I remembered everything as a dream. It didn’t all come together until the next day. 

First, I had trouble concentrating, a headache that was trying to escape through my temple, eyes and even my teeth, was beating against my skull. 

Everything felt brighter, and my skin felt sensitive, but rough, like a fresh dry leaf. I kept itching at one spot, a spot on my ribs below my left underarm. 

When I looked down at it, there was a bubble under the claw marks and broken blood vessels, protruding outward.

I poked around it with my fingertip. It was a soft-hard kind of ball. I started getting a tingling, numbing sensation throughout my entire body and flashes pop up in my mind like broken dream memories.

I grabbed my laptop and opened it to search through Google on what could be happening to me. 

Because a couple (a) months back, friends and I went to Miami. I started worrying about parasites, you watch those monsters inside me shows and start racing with all sorts of hypochondriac thoughts.

As soon as my laptop started up, it made this sound, the sound slapped me with the whole experience I had the night before all at once. 

My heart began pumping, it felt like it doubled in size and couldn’t fit inside my chest cavity. 

Then, a sharp irritation came from that spot again, I bit-cut into serrated tips and kept scratching, trying to scratch as deep as I could with jagged finger nails.

I kept scratching and couldn't stop. I scratched until I started bleeding. Not just speckles either, it was dripping a warm liquid of red and a very light tinge of yellow.

I went deeper, and then I went deeper. I went so deep I exposed the ball of fat, or what I thought was a ball of fat. I yanked it out with my fingers, it was slippery and kept sliding off. 

I dried my hands on my shirt and tore a piece of the fabric off, dug into my ribs and pulled out a metallic looking bug. I threw it on the ground and stepped on it, but it wouldn’t squish. 

So I ran to the garage for the hammer and when I got back it was gone. The blood on the floor surrounding it, was also gone.

I‘ve never felt the same since then. And since then I’ve been taking my roommate’s seroquel, because the doctors kept telling me it’s sleep paralysis and a random case of stress psychosis.

Psychosis

—-

One night I passed out at around ten p.m, when I woke up, I couldn’t see anything. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t even feel my body.

I was fully awake and I was able to hear myself snore and I could smell my breath.

But I couldn’t feel myself breathing. I never felt fear so clearly before. What’s weird, was  that I knew how terrified I felt. The sinking claustrophobia feeling was there. The paranoia as well. All those emotions didn’t feel like invisible physical feelings, they felt like they had texture.

I was able to think and thinking jumped from one terror to the next. 

Where was I?

How did I get here?

Am I dead?

And after I asked that, I could feel myself spinning, physically. I started pulsing, it felt like I was being stretched out and wrinkled back to normal.

How could I feel these emotions and not my actual body. It didn’t make sense. I figured, I must be dreaming. But there wasn’t any color, any scenes, it was just an unsettling darkness.

It wasn’t cold. It wasn’t hot. And that’s when I realized, I was just a voice. Chemicals acting in my brain. 

But if I was just a voice, shouldn’t there be like a orangey-red haze, or some kind of static other than absolute black.

I had to be in a coma, I told myself. What else could explain me waking up mentally but not physically. 

That was when I heard a noise. It sounded like something scratching the floor followed by two voices whose language I had trouble picking up. It didn’t even sound like a language, it was more of a frequency. 

I had no idea what they were saying, and I had no clue as to what they looked like. I knew they were there though.

Not just by their sounds. They heightened the fight-or-flight part of my brain. It was like I was covered in defensive spikes. 

I started sensing a feeling of inertia as if my body was being moved and a pressure squeezing my brain. 

I just started yelling, I didn’t know what else to do, I shouted, “wake up,” over a hundred times. I needed to get out from under my skull. It felt like I was choking on water.

Through me yelling, I heard a mechanical door shut and the voices again. 

They sounded like fax machine that spoke. It felt like I was there for hours, slowly being tormented, jailed in a shadow without a body. 

There was nothing I could to do alert my physical self that we were awake. Then, I thought, what if I stay this way. The spikes came back. I started feeling like an empty shell. I got angry at myself for falling asleep.

I shouldn’t have went to sleep. I had all these regrets sticking to me like post-it notes. And I couldn’t help it. I felt like I did it to myself. While I was between thoughts, I completely shut off.

My body and my mind woke up together but when I woke up, I remembered everything as a dream. It didn’t all come together until the next day. 

First, I had trouble concentrating, a headache that was trying to escape through my temple, eyes and even my teeth, was beating against my skull. 

Everything felt brighter, and my skin felt sensitive, but rough, like a fresh dry leaf. I kept itching at one spot, a spot on my ribs below my left underarm. 

When I looked down at it, there was a bubble under the claw marks and broken blood vessels, protruding outward.

I poked around it with my fingertip. It was a soft-hard kind of ball. I started getting a tingling, numbing sensation throughout my entire body and flashes pop up in my mind like broken dream memories.

I grabbed my laptop and opened it to search through Google on what could be happening to me. 

Because a couple (a) months back, friends and I went to Miami. I started worrying about parasites, you watch those monsters inside me shows and start racing with all sorts of hypochondriac thoughts.

As soon as my laptop started up, it made this sound, the sound slapped me with the whole experience I had the night before all at once. 

My heart began pumping, it felt like it doubled in size and couldn’t fit inside my chest cavity. 

Then, a sharp irritation came from that spot again, I bit-cut into serrated tips and kept scratching, trying to scratch as deep as I could with jagged finger nails.

I kept scratching and couldn't stop. I scratched until I started bleeding. Not just speckles either, it was dripping a warm liquid of red and a very light tinge of yellow.

I went deeper, and then I went deeper. I went so deep I exposed the ball of fat, or what I thought was a ball of fat. I yanked it out with my fingers, it was slippery and kept sliding off. 

I dried my hands on my shirt and tore a piece of the fabric off, dug into my ribs and pulled out a metallic looking bug. I threw it on the ground and stepped on it, but it wouldn’t squish. 

So I ran to the garage for the hammer and when I got back it was gone. The blood on the floor surrounding it, was also gone.

I‘ve never felt the same since then. And since then I’ve been taking my roommate’s seroquel, because the doctors kept telling me it’s sleep paralysis and a random case of stress psychosis.

Yesterday, while I was writing, tubi randomly played rescue dawn, half-way through it I was like this movie seems pretty good.

At 6:00 pm, I slid the timestamp back to 0:00 and decided to watch it. I was alone at the time.

So, I started the movie again, looked at my bag, had a spliff left and rolled it. At 9:00pm I was at the 37 minute mark of the movie, saw my spliff was a half-spliff and decided to go buy more weed.

i bought three grams for 17$, came home, started watching the show and smoked the rest of the half. At 10:00pm I was now at the 50 minute mark of the movie. I looked at my bags, balled a spliff up, smoked a little bit of it and ate half my pasta.

Now this is where shit gets foggy. ‘Cause I wake up at 6;30 am. my ashtray is tipped over, there’s a roach in the ashtray still, my big spliff is gone, the movie is paused at the 50 minute mark still, I don’t remember actually smoking the spliff, the one roach is in there, but did I toss my ashtray in the garbage before smoking the big one? or is that roach in the dumped ashtray on my bed the half-spliff roach one from earlier? because when I smoke, I smoke in segments. I would have smoked and turned the movie on, but I could have started smoking and writing too. but I didn’t see anything new in my notepad, that I could remember.

I have all these unanswered questions. So, I ripped my bed apart, found nothing. At the corner of my bed on the floor was a roach. but it seemed like it had been since yesterday or the day before yesterday. And if I did smoke the big one, why would the movie be paused at the 50 minute mark still.

This happened to me another time where I had a spliff and couldn’t find it. But when I went to change my bedding a couple of days later, I found that one I told myself I smoked but had the same feeling as I have with this one. An unresolved feeling. I LOOKED EVERYWHERE. I even looked in the mirror at my back and it’s nowhere.

Could I have smoked it even though I only smoke in segments had nothing new written that I know, the movie paused, but can‘t remember falling asleep.

Hi, so sometimes, mostly all the time when I start writing, I also have another page opened and sometimes even another page opened and I start writing like three stories at a time.

How can I block all those voices in my head and focus on one story at a time and actually finish it?

Without wanting to write another one?

I seem to struggle with this. Is there something I can do to ignore all the other muses?

The other night I passed out at around ten p.m, when I woke up, I couldn’t see anything. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t even feel my body.

I was fully awake and I was able to hear myself snore and I could smell my breath.

But I couldn’t feel myself breathing. I never felt fear so clearly before. What’s weird, was  that I knew how terrified I felt. The sinking claustrophobia feeling was there. The paranoia as well. All those emotions didn’t feel like invisible physical feelings, they felt like they had texture.

I was able to think and the thinking jumped from one terror to the next. 

Where was I?

How did I get here?

Am I dead?

And after I asked that, I could feel myself spinning, physically. I started pulsing, it felt like I was being stretched out and wrinkled back to normal.

How could I feel these emotions and not my actual body. It didn’t make sense. I figured, I must be dreaming. But there wasn’t any color, any scenes, it was just an unsettling darkness.

It wasn’t cold. It wasn’t hot. And that’s when I realized, I was just a voice. Chemicals acting in my brain. 

But if I was just a voice, shouldn’t there be like a orangey-red haze, or some kind of static other than absolute black.

I had to be in a coma, I told myself. What else could explain me waking up mentally but not physically. 

That was when I heard a noise. It sounded like something scratching the floor followed by two voices whose language I had trouble picking up. It didn’t even sound like a language, it was more of a frequency. 

I had no idea what they were saying, and I had no clue as to what they looked like. I knew they were there though.

Not just by their sounds. They heightened the fight-or-flight part of my brain. It was like I was covered in defensive spikes. 

I started sensing a feeling of inertia as if my body was being moved and a pressure squeezing my brain. 

I just started yelling, I didn’t know what else to do. I shouted, “wake up,” over a hundred times. I needed to get out from under my skull. It felt like I was choking on water.

Through me yelling, I heard a mechanical door shut and the voices again. 

Imagine a fax machine that spoke, that’s what they sounded like. It felt like I was there for hours, slowly being tormented, jailed in a shadow without a body. 

There was nothing I could to do alert my physical self that we were awake. Then, I thought, what if I stay this way. The spikes came back. I started feeling like an empty shell. I got angry at myself for falling asleep.

I shouldn’t have went to sleep. I had all these regrets sticking to me like post-it notes. And I couldn’t help it. I felt like I did it to myself. While I was between thoughts, I completely shut off.

My body and my mind woke up together, thank god. But when I woke up, I remembered everything as a dream. It didn’t all come together until the next day. I had an incredibly irritating itch just under my armpit.

I kept scratching it. It felt like something was under my skin. I poked around with my finger and felt something soft-hard like a ball of fat.

I don’t know why I did this, something told me to, I grabbed a carpet cutter and went to split the skin between the object I felt. But when I tried, it hurt too much. So, I froze it first with ice cubes, cut, and pulled out a metallic looking bug underneath my skin.