In the Eyes of Fear (pt.1)

    

    CW: mild body horror, bullying

    It wasn't until last winter that the creature started parasitizing my ceiling. I almost couldn't remember how life was before it made itself at home in my walls—any flat surface it could shift its body into. It dragged its comically long limbs on the ceiling, often drooling tiny rivulets of blood that evaporated in my peripheral vision. I had gotten used to it. Its body took the silhouette of a human, but it had no face, only a pair of eyes that floated in the void of its anvil-shaped head. The sclera was ghostly white, gleaming like a pearl, and its irises were abysmally black. It was just about as tall as I am, although the torso and arms are so long they always dragged on the floor as strips of skin. The whole creature was pitch black, its outline buzzing, never visible. 

    "What... are you?" I fell onto the floor, scrambling backwards. My head hit the floor forcefully, but instead of an incessant, dazing pain, I just felt light. Fear had taken over, enough that I could taste the adrenaline on my tongue. This motherfucker had just crawled out of me. Out of my fucking abdomen, then dropped to the floor in a crawling position. I stayed frozen, hearing its burnt flesh rip.

   "Oh, me?" It lowered itself, its bones shifting and clicking until it was face-to-face with me. The skin didn't merge, only pooled around it like a body suit ten sizes too loose. The creature spoke with a mouth that looked like it had been lacerated open with a knife: a void that smelled like blood. "I'm the... physical being... of your fear."

    I blinked multiple times. This couldn't be real. This grisly humanoid that spoke like its throat was being lit at a Salem trial couldn't have crawled out of me. There was no precedent for this. The thing just...appeared. And also, what fear? What fear could this thing possibly be made up of?! Of death, of torture, of rot and guts? Of my failed attempts? Of MYSELF? NO, NO— I fell forward and grabbed its neck in panic. There was a strange, sloppy feeling. I didn't touch flesh; I touched muscle. Bloody, squelching muscle that my fingers slipped right through.

    "NO YOU'RE NOT! GET... IN!" I grabbed it, shoving the creature back inside me. If it came out of that hole then SURELY it should be able to come back in...RIGHT?? Maybe this is just an amnesiac dream...But my stomach felt like it was being ripped raw. The creature melted through the epidermis, then pounced itself back out onto the floor. My eyes pooled with tears. "I'm dreaming! You're not real! Get out!" I pressed my eyes together tightly, then its cold fingers forced my lids open. There I was, eye-to-eye with this absolute vomitus of a being. I jerked back again, mouth clamped shut.

    It put its hand on my stomach; the touch was gooey. "Don't run away from me. I came out of you. Remember? Your fear..." It emphasized each word with a raspy moan at the end, as if afraid that the room itself wouldn't be able to hear. Then it pulled away, shifting onto all fours again. Its head was on the ceiling now, bending sideways with a grin.

    I never dared to question it. I just lived with it. I once tried to tell my mother about it, but my mouth filled with vomit before I could say a word. And yes, I did fucking throw up in the kitchen. Never wanted to bring it up again after that. 

    It never crawled outside, so my room had never stopped smelling like rot since then. But it seemed like I was the only one who could feel its pungent presence. The creature spent its time lurking around, and it fed its nonexistent hunger by listening to me rant about my days. Fear, anger, disgust... I had been watching its tummy bloat and immediately flatten every meal, every day, for the past few months. After I was done rambling, it would burp out a cloud of crimson air. My emotions sure smelled like gore. It would then retreat to its paradise inside my walls, occasionally poking its large eyeballs out just to stare at me.

    The thing did grow. It nourished itself with the agony I threw up every afternoon after school, growing so large it was now half the size of my room. Whenever it moved around, its body was half in the walls, half in the ground. Sometimes it would make a jelly carpet on the floor with its skin. Its long limbs stayed draped over anything they wanted. My bed, my dirty piles of clothes—sometimes they were just held up in the air like that, or sometimes they felt like blood clots on my thighs. While I was sleeping, it would stick itself onto the ceiling by its back, limbs drooping down. It didn't touch me, but having wet flesh hovering over my sleep was nothing bearable either.

    Almost every day it would crawl onto my back and stay there while I studied.

    "Remember me? I'm the manifestation of your fear and aversion... Do you know they're sentient? Oh... you're so breakable..." it would whisper, running the tips of its fingers—they didn't even look like fingers, just thin strips of skin-covered bone—across the myriad white scars on my skin.

    "Shut the fuck up. I don't have a fear of buzzwords or bad sextalk. Can't you leave me alone?" I would snap, and it would stick out its hot tongue to lick my scars. I felt its warmth on the healed ones, its rash on the scabs. Tickling my wrist and sticking to my forearm. Then it would pull its tongue back—no, swallow the thing back into its throat. It would always leave a splatter of blood behind, too. One that I had learned to lap up by now. It was weird, but after months, this thing was starting to feel like a friend. It was the only thing that would listen to me or look at me like a coequal. Perhaps because it had crawled out of me... Fuck it, I just needed something with a true brain to talk to me. Unlike those shit-filled craniums at school. The girls at school. They possessed no intelligence of their own, only belligerence. That was a story to be told...

    Splash.

    It was twenty minutes past dismissal time, and I was on my knees in the handicapped stall of the school bathroom instead of going home. I glared up at the girls standing in front of me: Desiray, Avah, and the worst of them: Valerie. I didn't fight back when the girls started kicking me with their heels. I had tried to before, but your safety here could only be bought or rented. I didn't have that privilege.

    Avah slapped me across the face with a force so hard it made my ears buzz. Her high-pitched laugh reverberated off the walls, while Desiray started to rip my clothes off. Valerie was smoking in a corner of the stall. She was grinning again... clouding herself in smoke. Uh oh. She walked over to where her minions were beating me up and gestured for them to stop, then squatted down.

    "Poor baby. Aren't you cold on the ground?" she said, then slowly began to stub her cigarette out on my neck. My eyes snapped open, and I screamed as loud as I could. Only half a sound came out, because Desiray was pressing her hands down on my face to keep me pinned and quiet, while Avah held the lower half of me. They laughed while my body frantically jerked, my neck burning up.

    "Fuck you, you nasty cunts!" I growled, but Desiray grabbed my hair and dragged me to the toilet. Valerie’s hand replaced Desiray’s and pushed me down into the bowl without a second thought. All sounds disappeared immediately. The sharp tips of Valerie's nails dig into my scalp, so much that it nearly draws blood. Everything started to dim, faster than it ever had. I choked on the nasty water.

    Suddenly, I shuddered. Eyes. I just saw a pair of eyes. Unblinking, pale sclera and gleaming black irises staring straight at me in the toilet bowl.

    "It's me. You'll be fine. Wake up." 

    "Can't you see I'm fucking drowning?"

    "I know. But trust me. Wake the fuck up." Its voice lacked the usual raspiness, now soothing and silky. 

    "Holy shit, this bitch is actually drowning. Wait, is she really? Why isn't she moving? Hey, hey!— " I shot up and fell backwards in one movement and landed onto Valerie. The bitch shrieked, gesturing wildly for her friends to pull her up. Her chest was wet with the water that just splashed off of me. With a satisfying crack, I slowly twisted my back, then supported myself with my hands on the floor. I'm on my fours, but only my front part is at the right position. My waist twisted like that of a pastry, bunches of flesh curling into one another. My feet pointed outwards instead of inwards, then they pushed me towards the terrified girls. They stumbled backwards out of the stall, clinging onto the others as they pushed themselves against the sinks. Their eyes were so impossibly wide, I could see the white even in Avah's. Valerie jerked herself onto the counter, her perfect foundation running with her tears. They're all trying to stab me with their stilettos.

    "Ah, ah, ahhh~ Come here. Where are you girls going?" I laughed hysterically, mouth almost gashing. Desiray’s heel jabbed into one of my eyes, and she screamed so loud the stalls' doors almost shook. I wailed, falling onto my front. They jumped off and dashed for the door, almost tripping over one another on their way out. Once they were gone, I twisted myself again, falling onto my back and hitting the floor. A few minutes of silence passed before I reluctantly helped myself sit up. I ripped Desiray’s heel out of my eye socket. The leather pulled out tiny squirts of vitreous humor. It didn't hurt, and it didn't bleed, but it moved in such a way that made my nerves vibrate like a harp. I almost moaned.

    A void opened in my abdomen. My hand shook as I pushed the designer piece into it. Fed myself. My body worked on its own and swallowed the thing with a guttural squelch, steaming gore squashing around it like slime. The sound was wet and sloppy, as if I were gripping my organs with my bare hands. Then my abdomen closed, leaving nothing but my pale flesh. It felt like there had been nothing there at all.

    "What the fuck..." I groan, struggling to stand up. Once my hands are on the counter, I blink multiple times to try and look at myself in the mirror. My hair is all frizzy and sticking together, my eyes bloodshot from the water. Avah would have loved them. I can't stop thinking about Valerie's horrified expression. The fear bulged her eyes out, baring her gums, spit flying everywhere. She looked like the Cheshire Cat more than ever, except she was crying instead of celebrating. That triumph is on my face instead.

    I giggled and walked back into the stall to retrieve my bag. As I left the bathroom, I could swear I saw a pair of eyes in the mirror, staring at me.

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.NO WAIT THERE'S A PART TWO. JUST WAIT.