Locust

The girl feels sick.

And tired.

Sick and tired, of being sick and tired.

A deep breath to calm herself and-

-the scent of rot and decay, spoilt milk and eggs-

-the illusory smell from her memories makes her gag, and she has to catch herself unless she wants to heave up the meager scraps of food in her system.

She shivers, goosebumps rising as the sensation went back and forth inside her throat for a moment.

An exhale. The nausea stops.

It doesn't get better.

The memories remained fresh, no matter how much she tries to lock it away.

She knows not how she awoke to such a power, all she knows that she has hated it and herself since the day she heralded deterioration.

The day it happened was too fast. She was just in bed with Sunny, reading him a bedtime story about a pink alligator...

Then she woke up and everything went wrong.

The stench assaulted her first. Filthy and metallic.

Then came the sight that forever branded into her mind.

Sunny. Or, the deformed, ghoulish remains.

Necrosis. Lesions. Blisters, and pus. Blood and decay. She screamed that morning and scrambled away, crashing to the floor and begging she is hurt awake.

She does not wake up from this nightmare, and her parents bursting through the door threatened to prolong it.

They say the body. Putrid leftovers. The malodor hung heavy.

The father stood still, utterly shocked, just as her mother ran for the bathroom, bile rising in her unprepared form.

Relentless tears staining her, she begged her dad to do something.

He reached out for her, grabbing her with clammy shaking hands, telling her to call...someone. Police? Hospital? Just call for help, please.

Heart pounding, head set in complete daze, border of hysteria.

Just as she reached for a phone, she heard a scream from her father this time. Agonizing and bloodcurdling.

She ran up and witnessed her father's arm convulse and pulse.

Flesh quivered, rotted black, peeled off and reduced to rancid slurry on the floor.

He stared at her, just as the decay ran up, and to the rest of the body.

Run.

And run she did, grabbing her panicking mother without a second thought. Whatever was in that room...

Run. They have to run.

Run where? Where will they go? What will they do? The death of family echoed through her head but she was too shaken to even register anything else.

They got close to the sidewalk, tripping on their own frantic pace as the newly widowed woman let out a gut-wrenching cry.

They were both a mess. What were they to do? Mari hugged her close and cried into her mother's shoulder, uncaring of who sees.

After a few moments, her mother's sobs became short, wheezing almost.

Mari dared a cautionary glance, and saw that the woman's neck was becoming a sickly pale green. No. NO! PLEASE!

She doesn't know what's happening. Disease? Where? Why? Mind racing, desperately clutching her spasming mother, pleas for help, for a miracle being screeched out her mouth.

Nothing happened, and she held her hand as the light faded from her eyes.

Backpedal. Spinning head. This isn't happening.

Hands firmly planted on the ground, she shakingly stared at their house. This isn't happening.

She was alone. This can't be real.

She stared at her hands, clutching blades of grass.

Clumps that limped and went brown and black.

Her eyes widened. She lets go and her hand lands on another. The same thing.

Like a gibbering infant she scrambled away, despairing at the sight of the rot closing in on her.

Her back hits wood. The grass around her wilts.

Nothing.

A stare. A breath. There was a sharp ringing noise in her ears that won't leave.

She braces a hand behind her.

The wood cracks and discolors.

Her.

It was her.

She was the cause.

A momentary silence.

A startling clarity.

Emptily, she stares forward.

If it was by her hands...

She wrapped them tight around her neck.

The memory stops.

The clattering of thick steel.

A hatch opened then immediately closed once something was brought in.

Cold food. A bowl of something liquid. She stopped caring.

Empty gaze, tired soul.

They knew what she had done, easily got to her in her half-awake and suicidal state.

And in this impenetrable cell, she never saw the light of day ever again.

She deserves this, she thinks to herself. Now, in the next minute, hour, day.

She tells herself that a lot.

Mari feels very alone.

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Pub: 17 Dec 2021 08:59 UTC
Views: 497