By: Maya Breininger
Note: This is a student generated work of short fiction
Have you ever thought? Thought about what it’s like?
I have; I think all the time. I think, and I think, and I think. That’s all that I can do, that’s all I was made to do.
Contrary to the eternal cycle of thinking, there is one question I have yet to answer. I know not what I am, or what language I speak. All I know is that I exist. Curious, isn’t it?
In my dormant state, I count starting from zero. Zero, one, two, three…
I count until it happens. Until something happens; until I feel, hear or see something.
On count eight hundred thousand billion, four hundred thousand and sixty-three, there is a feeling. The first thing I feel is hundreds of teeth, searing themselves into me. My chest heaves – yes, I do believe I have a chest – as millions of prickly needles lift themselves from my respiratory system. At this moment, I realize what pain is. Not because of its sudden presence, but because of its sudden absence. I realize that I am no longer under constant, unrelenting pain. My lungs feed on thousands of pounds of oxygen, and my vision blurs.
I feel…sediment. Soft yet coarse soil. I am big, I can feel yards of length unraveling from my appendages.
I can stretch, finally I can stretch. I had been restrained for so long that I hadn’t known I was trapped, but now, I was set free.
Two things occurred to me as I dug from the soil and finally felt air; one, I was going to torture and dismember the one who had held me captive. Two, I was unbelievably, undeniably hungry. The first human I had ever seen, dressed itself in dense clothing with many pockets. With a cap with light secured tightly on her long curly red hair, a bursting light in its right hand and a map in the other, I credited it as the first thing to wake me up.
To show gratitude, I contorted the muscles in my face until it resembled something close to a ‘smile’, hundreds of teeth in my mouth dropping down from my skull to make it more authentic.
However I was not met with one in return, instead, a bloodcurdling scream fled the tiny creature’s mouth, ricocheting off the rocky cave walls.
Against my desire, my general core area began to rumble. It was hunger.
The human’s face seems to age one-hundred years, and sticky red liquid drained from her cheeks as her fingernails dug deep into the skin.
I smiled once more in gratitude for saving me, and as gratitude for being my first meal.
I scaled my way to the exit of the cave, my slimy appendages pressing against the wall to lead me.
By the time I left the cave and light hit my face, my eyes sewed themselves shut. My gut regurgitated a lock of long, curly red hair. My body began to transform.
“Help me!” I screamed. “Help, I can’t see!” My voice was a metallic gurgle that barely mimicked the sound of the girl I had just digested.
The sound of leaves crunched under feet as two bodies approached me.
“Jeez, Hannah you scared me.” Richard let out a half-hearted chuckle.
“Yeah, you sounded weird… like, distorted.” Jolliet followed behind him.
“I’m sorry, you guys.” I giggled, wiping my eye. “I had something in my eye.”
“Did you find anything in that cave? The creature we’re looking for should be around here.” Jolliet said.
“No, nothing.” I smiled. Thirty-two teeth, that seemed about right.
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