Chapter 1
This
is where it began, in a dream: intense, excruciating pain, pulsing
through every nerve in my spine. Blood spilled and splattered
everywhere. And a shadow burned upon the wall, and painfully carved into
my memory. Sometimes I'd even wake up from the burning on either side
of my spine. The two sharp, burning aches screamed louder than any alarm
clock. Eventually the bastard sensation made a leap from my
subconscious to the reality of the waking world. The only option it left
then was teary eyes and teeth marks on my cracked lips. When it
attacked me while I was awake, it was relentless, malicious,
unforgiving; it felt like something inside of me wanted out. And it'd be
damned to stay confined underneath my skin. I had no say in the battle
taking place in my body. I may have had some control in my mind, but
when the shit hit the fan, I was only a helpless bystander.
The
only way I can tell it is from the beginning, skipping all the boring,
mundane parts and details. There were boring days with only after
thoughts in the wake of the dream. Others were dramatically painful and
fresh, like a broken heart, where I found myself reduced to a pathetic
snot-nosed husk of a human being, at the mercy of this horrible, painful
new sensation. There's only one solid place that I can start to tell
the story:
Fucking
kids, pushing and weaving themselves through the maze of zombies and
monotonous automatons, myself included. They mostly sported poop stains
smeared on their foreheads, trying to resemble a lightning bolt, but
there were deviants that had shit smears on their cheeks, so rebellious.
The children scurried like insects through the looming droids, tailed
by less graceful parents or oversized fat friends that made ripples in
the tranquil sea of standing in one spot, peacefully. This is where I
found myself, stalking the graphic novels as if they were a surgically
perfected blonde in my sickest fantasy. I was trying to avoid being a
human pinball, forced to follow the waves of the crowd, for a herd of
impatient A.D.D. victims that found standing still next to impossible.
Here
I was alone, surprise, and in a bookstore so packed that it made a
sorority girl's asshole seem like Hiroshima after the bomb dropped. What
the fuck was I doing here? Waiting on some god damned book, and
bitterly doing so. I was here, in this corporate coffee shop hell,
because I thought I had said book reserved. As it turns out, I get the
cream of the crop of the summer help, and found I was shit out of luck,
and myself at the end of the line. There weren't any real lines right
now, just a series of color-coded, stickered wristbands that no one but
high school graduates could completely comprehend, and the way it
seemed, no one in the bookstore made it out of high school. To add
insult to injury, they were all colorblind as well.
I
could feel it gripping me, like icy fingers lingering right above the
threshold of touch, and I was stranded, stuck in an ocean of strangers.
At the mercy of my flaring social anxiety, and now I have to deal with
this. I should've been with Allistor and Bigsby, then I could've ran
off, passed off some cash for them to spare me the public humiliation.
Instead, a swarm of children and yip-yapping dip-shits were my only
comrades. Their ignorant words forced themselves into my ears, and I was
reluctant to hear their academic debates on the forecast of the book,
treating fiction like it was life or death. I wish I could sleep while standing, I thought to myself.
Then
it happens, round after round I unload into the backs, shoulders, legs
and faces of anyone and everyone in my sight, panic and hysteria – perfect.
Looks like there're more people being trampled than hit by my bullets,
but that's okay. They're all running like confused animals, some
circling, some stampeding through stands and displays, and over other
animals. No heroes. Maybe I was wrong; some glorified steroid jockey's
sneaking around the sci-fi section, looking to get his face on the front
page. The poor idiot doesn't know I'm omnipresent here, in the now, so I
kindly educate him. Bullets push through paper and wood, and find a
home in his chest. The blood splatter hits a fugly teeny-bop hipster
stopping her dead in her fleeing tracks. Over the top of the bookshelf, I
can see her eyes widen as she realizes what just became her makeup, and
she may have gotten AIDS, too, for all either of us knows. Explosions
from my hands set of a ripe panic on her face, the true look of
knowledge, and Ms. Two-Tone-Hair meets the carpet missing a knee cap. In
the morning, she'll appreciate her life a lot more, especially with
this new awakening I put in her brain. My mind screams at her, Don't thank God, thank me.
An older woman next to her screams when someone's hot coffee hits her
face like a Jackson Pollock painting. I plug the noisy wench straight in
the eye. I was aiming for the forehead, but even in my wet dreams of
gore and ultra-violence, I'm not a great marksman, I just get the job
done.
When
I'm at the peak of my unquenchable bloodlust, a microphone disrupts my
train, and it's time to be herded toward the registers. Painfully slow,
the crowd files down to the irresponsible people, like me, who decided
last minute to show up and wait a couple hours for a book. Then,
finally, it was my turn to get in the back of an actual line, with the
best of them. It's when I start to move that I feel it, a dull prickling
between my shoulder blades. I can feel the storm festering, and the
wind's blowing toward me. I try to concentrate, and block out the pain
as I move up the line, convincing myself that I'm just tired and
imagining it. There's no real pain, it's just tense muscles from
standing around with my arms crossed all night. God, I wish it was the
honest truth.
I zombie my way vacantly up to the register. A one-handed cashier smiles and asks, "One?"
I
appreciate the irony of the question, and nod. He bags and takes my
cash. Not just using one hand, but he's got some skill with the nub,
too. Real talent. I try not to be rude, but I'm too tired to be
reserved, and my brain isn't exactly functioning on full capacity. I
stare, hypnotized by his handless wrist, and find a small treasure box
of humor inked around his nubbin. A dotted line with scissors; I like
his moxi. He hands me the change and my book, and I smile big and
groggy, the pain swelling back up into my brain.
1AM
dew hits my face and my shoulders are on fire, and in my strict
attention. The vacation is over, now's where the fun parts begin. The
real world quickly torn from thought. It starts off like IcyHot was
poured onto my spine, and vigorously rubbed in. I recognize the feeling
well enough. When I was younger, a friend of mine suggested IcyHot as an
awesome lubricant to wax a dolphin with. I don't know if he was joking
or not, but I gave it a go, and punched him in the face later. My balls
and boner were on fire, like I was designated the devirginizer for a
cheerleading squad. As I crumbled into the driver's seat of my car, my
spine was just in the icy stage.
I
sunk my foot onto the pedal, holding it as steady as I could, speeding
toward what little comfort I would find facing this in my own home. The
headlights on the other side of the interstate blended together like
dancing melting marshmallows. My mind consumed utterly by the pain, I
could barely focus, and struggled greatly to do so. The sore iciness
built steadily from an 'I must've slept on it wrong' to an uncomfortable
'I guess I pulled something,' soon I'm sure it'd make its gentle segue
into 'FUCKING CHRIST!' I had to get to my apartment before that
happened. I've shut down under the physical stress before, but doing so
on the interstate at 90mph wouldn't be good to explore. I doubt it's
something I could walk away from.
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