Author's Note/// Hey thur. Just a quick little note to tell you that I honestly don't remember writing this, and it was probably done when I was sleep- deprieved, hence the kinda rushed ending. So there that is. I was going through my files and found this, and thought it would be nice to post on here, just to break away from "Partly Lacy". ///
The company in which Andrea had acquainted and adjusted herself too was not one of her own choosing- they had started wandering in one day, through the slits of her windows, and in through the ceiling tiles. Their legs skittered and scraped against the floor, leaving her lying in her bed stricken with the shock of fear the first night they arrived. They left her alone that one night, instead opting to search through what they would take in as their home in the coming weeks. This particular Sunday night, she lay curled into a ball on the plush mattress, headphones plugged into her ears; dusty blond hair sprawled over her shoulders. Her stomach ached for nutrition, for substance to enter the hollow den that became of it. Booming music filtered through into her eardrums, but she was numb and neither heard nor felt the vibrations. Closed, vainly eyelids blocked her view, as they had for hours. She refused to open, refused to open, refused to open…Andrea wondered momentarily what time it was. Not that it mattered much…she'd know when the morning light shone through the battered windowsills, streaking its horrible rays across the scratchy blanket that lay across her.
Dirty and dingy….she had grown used to those words. They described the mess that grew all around her, trash littering the floors from discarded, greasy fast food she had tentatively ordered before hurrying home to climb back in the haven of her bed. She could, or at least felt the need to occasionally, clear the clutter, clear the clutter, clear the clutter…And yet, that need was persistently ignored, shoved away to the back corners of her mind where it would eventually, in around an hour or so, pop up once more and exasperate her...once more. The bug's tiny feet, now becoming more and more large with seemingly each breath they took, moved over the wrappers and cheap cardboard boxes. Andrea could only wish to not think of those very same feet over her, towards her chilled and hollow body. As she fell into a easily broken, hesitant sleep, her mind wandered of dreams far away and a life not lived in the body it bloomed in.
And that, for a month or so, was how it went. Each day growing longer, each second an hour.
On March Third, officially two months after the beetles had arrived, there was silence. While this brief moment of tender relief to the soul did not fully regain Andrea's confidence in her home, she peeked from the quilt she had formed into her grungy sanctuary , glared her beady, dry eyes at the floor and saw- Nothing. Andrea's heart skidded, beats being skipped without care. Her bare legs underneath the covers started to yearn to be free, to be...anywhere but the claustrophobic space she had confined them to. While the fanciful part of her mind buzzed with the possibilities that had been presented to it, the rational part fought. Stay in bed, it said. Don'tDon'tDon'tDon'tDon't-
"Don't," Andrea muttered to herself. It was right. They were still there. Hiding underneath the crooked floorboards, in the cabinets, doors hanging freely from their hinges, rust collecting and creaking. But what if? What if? Andrea's eyes were sore despite the little time they had been lifted open. Bloodshot, that was for sure. If only she had a mirror...She lightly turned her head sideways, towards the night table, and picked up a light pink make up compact. Made of cheap and flimsy plastic, but the mirror inside reflected her scarred and pale face with an ease that made Andrea sick. She threw the compact with force towards the ground, and the mirror shattered, shards of glass breaking and creaking and shattering and breaking and creaking...
The noise that had come from the item pulsed in Andrea's gentle ear drums. She threw her hands to her ears, grabbing the flesh covered cartridge, and squeezed. What came from that particular action did not help, instead flaring the skin red and creating a sort of suffocating noise, loud and disturbing. Giving up on this course of defense, she sat up in bed and gazed around. The wrappers, some of them at least, had been completely eaten by the bugs. It prevented her from cleaning them up, sure (although she hardly believed she would do such a thing anyway), but the image of bugs tearing and ripping into the paper sickened her. A macabre feeling in her stomach formed, and she clutched it with her sharp nails. They sunk in deep, not cutting or slicing, just bruising into the soft and delicate tissue. A gasp escaped her lips, cool air leaving the inflamed body. Her body temperature, she had dully noted, tended to rotate often. Icy to burning, moderate to extremes. There was never a day in which she happily stayed in one range.
When the bugs had come, she gave up all hope to maintain a decent diet. Or for that matter, a decent anything. Friends, once adored and close to her, were left to dance in the dark by themselves. Family, though not of much importance to her, stopped calling at all. Andrea had left the phone off the hook, and presumed that it was lost in the mess. Either that, or the the possibility that it was eaten. Visible bones bled through the skin she lived in, easily showing their existence to her. As she traced a calloused finger tip down a Tibia, she felt the door jiggle. No. he thought, pulling the covers up to her forehead rapidly. Yes, because that will protect you in this sort of situation. The Rational side teased. They can eat through the blanket, stupid!
A squeal moved through her lips.
You're so pathetic. Bugs can't jiggle the door, get up. Get out of these ranky ass blankets, and get up.
So she did.
With each dainty step, her weight tilted to each side of her sick body. Empty of nutrients, she could already feel the fat being eaten away in the body she called 'home.'
Almost as if on cue, the bugs came.
They skittered onto her, climbing the flesh with the pricks they call 'legs.' Natural reactions took place, hands flying to skin, pushing the bugs off. They crawled onto her hands, running across the very notable veins that streaked underneath her tissue. The feeling of them on top triggered her to shake her arms, wailing and throwing them into the air.
It was at this point she realized that she just might suffer from an irrational fear of bugs.
Bone was shoved onto the wall, Andrea doing anything to get the horrid beings off of her. Please no, Please no, She moaned into her head. Nausea filtered into her head, and glanced down on an empty piece of skin that hadn't been hijacked by what was covering her body. Bruises were forming, whether from the wall smashing or the bug's mouths, but they were there all right. A dark purple muddled with a light shade of blue, with just a hint of her skin tone underneath.
They were up to her knees now. It wasn't a substantial amount, but not much was needed for a entomophobic to flee into a hushed insanity. Using the term 'hushed' here is only applicable as Andrea was trying her hardest not to call the neighbors, or to wake them, or to otherwise disrupt their evening...or morning, if the case may be. The blinds were still down. She hadn't bothered to put them up.
The almost silent tone of bugs munching on a human's flesh would be almost be relaxing...had it not been so eerily violent as it was. As they suddenly came from her floorboards, they appeared in a giant black and brown mass, no empty area left in the bunch. Andrea fell to the floor, giving up, letting her bones collapse and allowing herself to fall to floor. The beetles didn't hesitate to clasp on to the skin, teeth clutching and pinching. The hard part about a death such as this is that a being wouldn't die right away- with only tiny munchers, it certainly was not easy for the bugs to eat quickly. The wrappers Andrea had thrown to the floor had only been the appetizer- as cliché as it was, she was, all in all, their main course.
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