Encroachment

I slowly start to open my eyes until a hazy, green light makes me wince, quickly forcing me to close them again. My head rolls gently to the side.

I feel groggy.

Urgh. What’s that beeping?

My eyes are stinging. I gradually raise my right arm and sweep a finger across them both. They’re watery, and my fingertip is now damp.

Ow, my head hurts.

It’s thumping with an uneven rhythm. I scrunch my face and massage my hand back and forth between my eyebrows to try and soothe the pain.

All right. I guess I should get up. Some water and aspirin might help.

My eyes open fully this time and begin to adjust.

Weird, it’s still quite dark.

I put my hands down flat to push myself off the bed. My left wrist feels sore but I shrug it off.

I try to sit up but barely move.

I can’t sit up.

My chest feels tight, restricted.

I tilt my head down to see, but my vision is still fuzzy.

Huh? What’s that?

I clench something across my chest and pull. It doesn’t budge.

What’s going on?

A belt?

I tug at it again; much harder this time. It still resists, only flexing slightly.

Use two hands.

I lift my left hand, but it stops abruptly with a rattling jangle.

I yank my arm again.

“Aah shit!” It only moved an inch before stopping in agonising pain.

Why’s there a strap on my wrist?!

I’m panicking. My skin is getting clammy. I can feel beads forming on my cheeks and in the notch of my neck.

Now my breathing is becoming increasingly ragged and laboured. I take four frantic deep breaths to calm myself, but it does nothing.

“Help me! Help!” I try to scream with a fractured croak.

My clothes! Where are my clothes?

All I’m wearing is a thin gown with a pale, repeating pattern.

Why?!

I touch my groin, relieved to feel the raised elastic of my underwear.

I have to get out of here.

I twist my body slightly and, with my right hand, just manage to squeeze three fingers underneath the leather strap around my other wrist.

I grip as hard as I can and give a swift, vigorous pull.

“Come on!”

I try again, more forcefully.

“Move! God damn it!”

My frustration gets the better of me as I yank once more and my grip slips.

“Fuuuck!”

There’s a quick squelching sound as I feel my nail rip backwards before a trail of crimson travels down the top of my finger.

I nurse my hand on my chest, my fingers forming a claw. I see the nail barely hanging on as drops of blood land on my gown and create cherry red fractals as they flow through its fibres.

There’s that beeping again. It seems faster this time.

I delicately grip my nail between my teeth, tensing and grimacing as I wiggle it loose before spitting it away in painful disgust.

Tears well in my eyes, then promptly roll down my cheeks before meeting on my lip. I lick them away. They taste saltier than usual from the perspiration they mixed with on their sombre journey.

What the hell is happening?!

“Let me out!” I wail as I thrash my feet around, bashing my heels on the cold, firm vinyl beneath.

I’ve felt this before.

Where?

Think!

My tears abruptly turn to uncontrollable sobbing.

I don’t know.

“Why are you doing this to me?” I say with a choking whimper.

“I want to go home.”

“Please,” I utter in a desperate grovel. “I promise I won’t tell anyone if you just let me out.”

I wait impatiently for a response.

I shout with a guttural roar. “Let me go, you bastard!”

Then suddenly, my head pounds with excruciating pain. It feels like a building has just collapsed inside my skull, casting debris everywhere.

I try to shake the build-up of rubble from behind my forehead, to no avail. My vision is distorting, as if I’m looking through a frosted, heavy glass.

What have you done to me?

Something brushes against the heel of my right foot. I rub it side-to-side into the bed to scratch the sensation. Then I sense something touch my big toe, so I flick it back and forth to get rid of it.

Fucking flies.

The tingling feelings become more intense. They creep around my feet and over my ankles.

What is that?

The sensations turn heavier, like a constant sweeping of bristles.

I rock my head a few times to clear my sight. It’s still blurry, but it feels slightly better. I glimpse a shimmering around my feet. It’s moving in a swaying motion and is gradually getting closer.

My shins are ominously disappearing, being replaced by a deep aubergine-brown.

I stretch my arm down to investigate, but something quickly latches on to the soft tissue on the side of my hand.

“Argh!”

I cast it off with a brisk flick, and whatever was there let go with a high-pitched hiss before thudding on the floor.

What the fuck was that?!

But the hissing continues and is now radiating. The first one must have signalled some kind of chain reaction because whatever the hell is on my legs is producing a cacophony that’s piercing my already tormented head.

I shake my legs in frenzied convulsions, but the noise intensifies, and the wave surges forward past my knees. The shimmering swell is now becoming apparent through the distortion: I’m witnessing hundreds of monstrous, layered, chestnut exoskeletons crawling over me.

“Get these fuckers off of me!”

“I’ll kill you! Whoever you are. I’ll fucking kill you!”

It’s no good. I can barely hear myself yell through the insects’ incessant screeching.

Suddenly, a sharp, stabbing pain shoots through my inner thigh, and I look in horror to find a giant cockroach burrowing its way through my skin. I instinctively grab it to prevent it from going in any further and joyfully tear its back half from its body, causing murky yellow pus to leak onto the bed.

“Ya little shit!”

As blood trickles from the wound and more of the insects clamber over me, I try to pull the remainder out of my thigh. As I gently wriggle it to and fro, its jagged legs start twitching again.

What? Aren’t you dead?

It hisses again with an ear-splitting shriek, then, with its mole-like front claws, it lacerates my skin with ease and heaves its way deep under the tissue.

Son of a bitch!

I immediately dive my index finger into the gash. There’s a disturbing gurgle, and blood spurts all over the lower seam of my gown. I grit my teeth and close my eyes, unable to watch as I brutalise myself by bending and hooking my digit around to find the buried roach.

The pain escalates, and I feel increasingly faint. I hear that beeping sound again, which has now crescendoed to a constant, rapid siren.

Gotcha.

I pull as hard as I can, wrenching my finger out, and within its curled knuckles is a warm, dripping, tightly wound lump of fibrous tissue.

Oh, crap.

I expel a primal scream of a magnitude I didn’t know possible before immediately collapsing on the bed, my right hand hanging limply over the edge.

Sweat extrudes like a torrent from every inch of my body, and the headache returns with an unrelenting force. Everything flickers with a confetti of colour before slowly fading to black.

In my uncontrollable, helpless despair, I hear what sounds like a heavy door opening. Hands press all over me, forcing me down. I’m motionless. Then something hard snaps tight onto my face before a warm rush flows through the inner crook of my arm.

I hear one more faint beep… a flash of my mother’s smile, then nothing. My mind is empty, but somehow peaceful. My breathing slows.

This is it. My time has come.

I slowly open my eyes, but they’re sharply dazzled by a brilliant white.

My skin feels sticky all over, and I can smell a distinct saline scent all around.

My temples throb like the rattled beating of a drum.

It’s true! I’ve made it.

Then I hear a soft, muffled voice. “You’re awake! Do you know where you are?”

I barely register a nod of my head.

“You’re in the hospi–” I blank momentarily. “You’re okay.”

I clumsily clutch my thigh and feel cotton bandages wrapped tightly around my leg.

“Careful.” My hand is eased away.

“Do you know why you’re here?”

I blink dejectedly.

“You overdosed on a cocktail of dru–”

I close my eyes and fixate on a slow, comforting recurring tone.

Not again.