She had burned herself alive. Her name was Ms. Tellinii, and she had been my science teacher three years ago, when I was a freshman. She was in her mid-twenties when I was her student, so her suicide occurred before she was even thirty.
It was sordidly ironic, actually. I had always looked up to Ms. Tellinii as one of the most positive people I knew. Truthfully, she was the best teacher I’ve ever had. She was quirky—as all teachers are—in a loveable way.
I can’t believe she’s gone.
Ms. Tellinii often lectured with the aid of PowerPoint slides, so we all often saw the background on her computer: a picture of her smiling vivaciously, surrounded by her three dogs. She was always talking about her beloved pets, and I honestly believe she only used the slides during class so that she could show off that picture. Really, Ms. Tellinii could have taught us without any slides or notes; she was very knowledgeable, and inspiringly enthusiastic about her job. She often talked of finding a fellow dog-lover to marry. It seemed that she had everything to live for.
Why had she killed herself?
It was a gloomy Tuesday night, and like most of the people in my small, quiet suburb, I was attending the funeral of my favorite teacher. News traveled quickly, as it often does, and nearly everyone knew of the disturbing circumstances of her death. Ms. Tellinii failed to show up at school for two days before the police discovered her in her home. She had killed two of her dogs before setting herself on fire. She had burned herself alive.
My parents were busy that night, so I was making the short walk home from the funeral alone. As sunlight gave way to dim streetlamps, Ms. Tellinii’s curious death weighed heavily on my mind. I thought about all of the good days I had had in her second-period science class, and the horrible way that she had passed away. I began to cry.
How could she take her life like that?
As I viewed parked cars and wooden fences through teary eyes, I heard distressed whimpering coming from between two houses. I peered into the alleyway, and found that the source of the sound was a large dog slumped against the wall. I could scarcely discern the outline of the animal, but his eyes shone dully through the dark. He was collapsed partially behind a recycling bin, and the light of the nearest streetlamp bathed the ground immediately before him. He had the demeanor of an abused or neglected animal, yet he appeared, superficially, to be in good health.
His ears lifted excitedly as I slowly approached. My eyes had adjusted to the dim lighting, and I could see that the dog was a young boxer, his fur a mottled brown. Something about him seemed very familiar. The musty air surrounding him was tinged with streaks of color; the dog almost appeared to glow.
I outstretched my hand to the sound of low whimpering. His eyes pleaded with mine, and I knew that this animal was in desperate need of help. I was finally close enough to see that, beneath his glossy coat, his skin was a bright, irritated red. I could make out hundreds of slim scratches on the surface of his skin, and I was overcome with pity. When I was able to read the address on his collar, my heart sunk.
This is Ms. Tellinii’s dog.
My hand connected with the top of his head, and again his ears raised, but his eyelids dropped sullenly and the rest of his body remained still. I gently ran my fingers between his ears, happy to see that his tail had begun to wag. But after a few seconds, I felt a sharp pain on the extremities of my hand, wincing as I reeled backward. The dog looked up at me and whined desperately.
Did something bite me?
Maybe I had imagined it, already under so much stress from the funeral. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t take the dog with me, and everyone I knew was asleep at home by now. It was getting to be quite late, and I still had school in the morning. Having decided to return for the dog the next day, I continued home. I examined my hands for bites or cuts as I passed beneath the streetlamps, but I found nothing. By the time I was home and in bed, I had nearly forgotten that curious pain, and I drifted exhaustedly into sleep.
I awoke early the next morning, and, remembering the previous night’s incident, reminded myself to tell someone about what I had seen. Strangely, I noticed the feeling of a faint tingling, as if each hair on my body was standing on end. I disregarded it, and drowsily ascended the staircase to my bathroom to shower. I flicked on the overhead light, and the strange sensation intensified. I stared into the mirror, looking over my body.
That’s when I saw them. Small, thin, and translucent, they crawled almost imperceptibly over the entirety of my skin. I stood beneath the light and strained my eyes to decipher what was before me. These things—these flat, little bugs—moved in organized chaos. I couldn’t have been able to see them had it not been for their sheer numbers. They blanketed my body; while there were easily millions of individuals, their sum was like a perfect layer of skin. I could see their outlines at the places where this layer overlapped itself, the things crawling atop each other in competition for a place on my body.
What are these things?
As if my cognizance of their existence spurred them into anger, I was overwhelmed by excruciating sensation. My scalp, shoulders, face, and neck began to burn; my torso and legs suddenly felt painfully dry; my hands and feet felt numb, as if asleep; and every inch of my body itched intensely.
I let out a yelp and frantically clawed at my skin; my arms reddened as my nails scratched against them. I leapt into the shower and turned the water on. I could hear the ripping of fabric as I pulled my clothes off in panic. As the water cascaded down my body, I did everything I could to remove those disgusting little bugs: rubbing my palms over the surface of my skin, shaking my arms and legs in the air, slapping and clawing at every part of myself. The painful sensations coalesced into uniform burning and itching on my whole body. It seemed that I could only make things worse through my futile attempts at ridding myself of these things, and I collapsed into uncontrollable sobs.
Both of my parents had already left for work; my cries went unheard. After several minutes of sitting under the showerhead, the pain lessened—or perhaps I was becoming accustomed to it. My efforts were fruitless. I could still feel the bugs crawling over me; I could still see the glint of their bodies as they caught the light.
I lied down in my bed with the lights off and the shades drawn. My room glowed slightly with an eerie luminescence. I could still see the things moving about if I stared into the distance and viewed them peripherally. I closed my eyes and tried to block out my senses.
Maybe this is all just a nightmare.
I heard a soft breeze rustle the leaves of the tree in our front yard. I heard the hum of our refrigerator and the quiet rumble of slow cars on our suburban street. Then, I heard something that flooded me with dread. It was the horrifying sound of movement. I could hear the bugs traverse my skin: a disgusting, muffled sound of scratching, like listening to nails on a chalkboard from underwater. I screamed, both from horror and in desperation to eclipse the creatures’ noise, and ran out of my room.
It’s too bright.
As I moved into the light of my hallway, my skin burned even more than before. I couldn’t handle the thought of millions of tiny bugs on my body. I dropped down and rolled on the carpet. I slammed my body against the floor. Screaming and thrashing, I bruised my arms and legs; my limbs purpled, and I could only better see the impossibly pale bodies crawling over me. There was no killing these things. I ran to the front door and threw it open.
I shouldn’t go outside.
As the sunlight bathed me, I felt the most excruciating pain that I had ever experienced. It was as if a knife was being thrust into every point on my body at once. As I gasped for air, I could feel the vile things crawling into my mouth. I pressed my lips together, only to feel the disgustingly thin bugs slip between them. I gagged and coughed, a taste like rotten milk filling my mouth. My vision clouded and everything sounded muffled. I realized with horror that they were going inside of me to seek shelter from the light.
Get out of the sunlight.
But I couldn’t go inside. I couldn’t let these things spread throughout my home. I sprinted to the side of my house, into the shadows. What was I supposed to do?
Find the dog.
Having attained some relief by hiding from the light, I continued along in the shade of houses and trees, back to where I had seen that poor animal. I felt the invigorated creatures writhe with excitement as I neared the alleyway.
You’re almost there.
I made it between the two houses, where the sunlight failed to reach. The dog was still there, and when I saw what had become of it, I knew I was going to die. What had been a beautiful coat of fur was now a pile of mangled hairs strewn about the concrete. Its skin, clawed and bloodied, was caked in a thin, translucent layer of impossibly pale color. Where once were eyes, there were now holes from which emanated a soft glow.
The smell of decay hung in the air, and I couldn’t keep myself from puking. Vomit and bugs poured forth from my mouth, and when the living things struck the ground, they skittered eagerly towards the dog. It was only then that I realized the animal was still alive.
Its sides heaved with labored breathing, and its tail twitched erratically. It loosed a guttural growl too low in pitch to ever belong to a dog. It rose slowly to its feet and began lumbering towards me. Its joints cracked as they bent in unnatural directions, and its head hung limply from a blood-stained neck. It was as if the thing didn’t know how to walk. It eventually resorted to dragging itself hurriedly along the concrete.
Don’t run.
I felt a visceral inclination to stay, but of course that was insane. I turned and sprinted back towards my house, ignoring the crippling pain of sunlight on skin. I looked back briefly to see that the creature had stopped at the end of the shadows, and a foaming mixture of blood and bile seethed from its crooked jaws.
I ran through my front door, ajar from when I had fled to the dog. Even the ambient lighting in my house was tortuous. How could I escape this inexplicable pain?
Hide in the dark.
I turned off every light in the house and locked myself in my room.
Hide in the dark.
I pulled the mattress off of my bed and pushed it against my window; I stuffed my blanket under my door. I closed my eyes. Now no light invaded the darkness. I finally felt at ease.
Wait.
I felt the bugs scour every inch of my body. They slipped under my eyelids and behind my eyes, and the sight of near-blackness gave way to unadulterated nothingness. They filtered into my ears, and the sounds of the breeze, the refrigerator, and the cars vanished. All I could hear were my own thoughts.
Wait.
Each of the restless bugs finally settled, and they covered my exterior perfectly, an extension of my own skin. I felt a warm numbness.
Wait.
I waited for what must have been hours in my perfectly dark, perfectly quiet room. Suddenly, I sensed that someone else was in my house—probably one of my parents home from work, or a friend from school checking on me. A voracious rage flooded through me.
Kill.
Submitted July 23, 2015 at 07:11AM by SnakeRy http://ift.tt/1SDffau nosleep
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