Paranosis - Chapter 1

Paranosis


Chapter 1 - Keep in Line

"Keep in line," said the man at the counter.

I groaned out a sigh as I stood in line at the drug store checkout. Only one person was at the counter. Five people were ahead of me and only one was behind.

The one behind was a tittering young woman dressed in a black pantsuit. She hugged her phone like an extra appendage and said, "You just need to keep doing what you're doing..."

I shut my eyes a moment. The lights felt too harsh.

I'd just come in for some headache medication and lens cleaner for my glasses during my lunch break. My legs twitched under me and my back gave a little spasm. I couldn't believe I was less than halfway through the day.

The young woman continued talking but I couldn't make out all her words and it just became a rush of incomprehensible jabbering. I stopped trying to listen. Not like I'd glean anything useful from it anyway.

I kept in line behind a tall, middle-aged black man. He smiled at me and said, to no one in particular, "Just gotta wait…"

I gave him an automatic nod and felt the headache coming back.

I evened a bit of my thick, graying hair with my hand and wondered to myself the last time I'd really had fun. The memory that thought stirred up made me wince.

It was two weeks ago. I was doing my normal data entry work. The names and information passed my eyes like graphical noise. My brain felt numbed. It felt like something was terribly wrong with it. But I told myself the work was good. I was glad to have a job, especially with the local recession, even if it was about the same sort of job I always remembered doing.

Then, something felt different inside of me. I looked at the names and I had a different sort of feeling when I saw them. I could imagine them. I could see them and, as I saw them, I saw myself doing terrible things. I saw myself squeezing them till they stopped breathing. Then their name would vanish from my list.

The thought felt so terrible but I also felt so satisfied. I felt a rush, like a blood lust. It made my every thought tremble.

Then, Mike rapped on my desk and said, "Hey, Curtis…Curtis L. Ryan…you around?"

I looked at him and it took me a moment to realize he'd said that to me. When I came to my senses, I was felt terrible but I tried not to show it. I gave him what he came over for and we just exchanged the minimum pleasantries about the weather.

Just remembering that left a sickly feeling deep in my stomach. It wasn't the first time I'd had randomly violent thoughts like that. They came around every so often, usually with a strange, sudden panic attack. I took medication for those.

As I stood there, the sickly feeling became a strange warmth. I took a deep breath but it just accelerated the feeling. I imagined blasting and tossing away everyone in line and just taking what I wanted…

But I pushed aside the feeling before it could do much to my mood. I wished that the drugs I took could help more with the feelings. I didn't want or need them. They made me feel like there was something wrong with me. What normal person imagined such violent things?

I'd never wished to do anyone any real harm. My foster dad, Major Hayward Rogers, pressed that into me at an early age, along with discipline, organization, and respect of authority. He told me so many stories that left me entranced but horrified. I didn't want to end up like the boys in his stories.

With my best efforts, the feelings faded to the point I couldn't even imagine them. I felt relief. In the same moment, the man behind the counter said, "Sir? You're next in line…"

I feel a doubling of relief to finally be done waiting. I walked out with my purchases and aimed myself back towards the office. With my car in the shop for three days, I'd have to be quick to make it back before the end of lunch break. I still needed to grab a sandwich somewhere along the way, preferably something cheap with a satisfying amount of grease.

I tried an impromptu little flex, which didn't do much for my band of belly fat. I could imagine it shrinking a little despite the fact it was probably getting larger. I walked with bigger steps till I tired of that after a little ways.

I looked around. The new super store was going up across the street from the drug store. Currently, it was still a gray, unfinished box. I reminded myself that this was an area of boxes. Boxes all over. The drug store was just a smaller box and the businesses beside it were smaller still.

It seemed like there were new stores opening all the time, new boxes all in a row. But, lately, it seemed like all the stores were ones I couldn't find myself to care about or just the same old thing. So many things felt like the same old things.

I walked even with the curb and followed the middle of it. No trailing onto the edge of hugging the grungy weeds along the inner half where boxes gave way to seemingly endless dust and stagnant plant life.

I didn't even know what people saw in the dark brown mountains that filled every horizon. They jutted so sharply that they had no appeal for housing or any other use. In winter, they became walls of white emptiness.

I clutched my fingers and pressed them into my side as I walked. I wished I could just enjoy things more. I wished I could find little joys like some people did. I wished I could giggle like that woman on the phone and smile like the man before me in line. All that came out was a grimace.

I walked past the box businesses for car repair and made my way under the highway overpass. I slid my plastic bag up my shoulder and tried to think of any music I could hum to pass my walk. My head was entirely blank of songs.

I sighed and put one foot in front of the other. I passed a gas station on the other side of the underpass and briefly considered settling on something from there for lunch. But my mind drifted from lunch as I noticed a strange tent set up ahead towards the curb side of a dusty, empty lot.

The tent itself looked much like the ones I'd seen set up for selling cars where the paperwork and financing was all drawn up. The color was a pleasant purple that glimmered with bright patches in the dull, noonday sun in spite of a passing cloud overhead.

I waited on the crosswalk for the signal to change. And waited. And waited. And waited.

Three cycles passed and, despite the fact I held down the button, the "Don't Walk" refused to change. The nearby, perpendicular crosswalk remained almost constantly green. I had to wonder about my luck. I looked at the curiosity of the tent and slowly turned away when I heard someone hit the light pole and exclaim, "Accused thing!"

I whirled around to see young. red haired girl pounding on the pole with her fist. She wore narrow-oval, gray-framed glasses. She glanced over at me, paused, and gave a little lift of her eyebrows.

I blinked at her till she clapped her hands and gestured with her head. I turned to find the light had suddenly turned to "Walk". The girl, who looked to be in her early 20's, said, "Sometimes things just need a little nudge, don't you agree?"

Before I could say anything, she seized me by the hand and walked me across the street. When we made it to the opposite end, she released my hand and walked on ahead. Even without her holding me, I still felt compelled to follow her. I paused when she turned into the empty lot and approached the tent. I kept my feet in the middle of the curb and watched.

After a little ways, she turned around and looked back at me. Her eyes were brown and looked strangely vast. The red to her hair was so bright and vivid that I could only figure it was somehow dyed to give that tone. It was guided into a voluminous ponytail by a scrunchie and, even then, it settled far down her back.  She was dressed in a pair of high, tan boots that rose with feathered trim almost to her knee. Her shirt was a dense gray and her jeans a vivid blue. She smiled.

I felt so pale and shadowed before her. I tried to summon forth some typical words of thanks but she gripped my hand again and dragged me clear from the curb and onto the dirt. Before I knew it, I was at the threshold of the purple tent. I glanced within.

From the outside, I would've guessed the tent to be no larger than a modest, two-car garage. But, looking into it, it felt twice that size. I saw artifacts and insignia all around the area. I didn't recognize a single thing. In the middle was a large, oaken table with two chairs facing one another.

I gave a little nod and expected that to be it but the red-headed girl led me to the nearest chair and sat me down in it. I finally found words to protest. "What's going on? Who are you? What's the meaning of this?"

She leaned on the chair on the opposite side and traced the top of the back like a crown. Then, she leaned forward and said, "How about I start by answering the easiest question first… My name is Ananya Novikov. Welcome to my home."

She held her hands out and then calmly slipped into the other chair. "I travel a lot so I need to keep my home mobile. It also functions as my workspace."

I sighed, stood up from the chair, and gripped my bag of purchases from the drug store. "I should go. I'm not interested in purchasing anything."

I turned to leave and heard her say behind me, "Who said I was selling anything?"

I knew I should've just left but I turned around to say, "Everyone always is."

She said only, "Not me."

I eyed the room a bit. There weren't any price tags for the strange objects on the walls. There were strange spirals and orbs with ornate surfaces. They appeared carved with all types of colors and textures ranging from pure, soft ivory to deep, stone blue. Their designs looked like nothing I'd ever seen before. One almost resembled a dream catcher I'd seen in a trinket store but this one looked far different.

It looked like some strange image I'd glimpsed in a store magazine once of a particle accelerator image. I had no idea what it meant but it had whorls and orbits and chaos and forms circling and meeting and breaking off like a spirograph gone crazy. I only found the magazine that once.

I couldn't take my eyes off it.

Ananya had left her chair. I noticed her when she leaned between me and the strange, swirling artifact. She noted, "Not for sale, I'm afraid to say."

I leaned back and folded my arms. "Fine…why did you drag me to your tent?"

She interlaced her fingers and said, "I'd just like to help you out."

I listened to her words. They sounded sincere but I still had no idea what she was getting at. I asked her as much and she responded, "Come. Sit back down and I'll explain."

Despite the fact I knew that my lunch break was rapidly reaching its end, I made my way back to the chair. I set my bag in my lap and waited for what she was going to tell me.

Ananya put her hands flat on her table and said, after a deep breath, "I know you feel discontent. You feel weary of the world around you. It drains you. And it gives you thoughts you don't like."

I had to give her a little nod for all that. A good part of my mind was sifting through her statements and referring back to all the paranormal/psychic power debunking things I'd ever seen. I had a feeling that some kind of fortune was forthcoming with an itemized bill included.

She continued, "You feel trapped and you can't get out. You must keep in line and keep in place…You want out."

My mind flashed back to what the man at the counter had said but it immediately wrote it off as mere coincidence.

I shrugged. "How?"

She smiled and said, "Leave that to me. But answer me…if I could free you from all that holds you down in this world….would you want that?"

I had no idea what she meant. But I felt somehow relaxed and not bad. I knew that encountering her was the most interesting thing that'd happened in a long time and I was willing to see where it went.

I nodded.

She bowed her head and announced, "Then that is enough for today. Stop by tomorrow."

My shoulders slumped. I knew her promises were too good to be true. I shook my head.

With a sigh, I asked, "So how much is it for today?"

Ananya frowned sharply. "I told you and I mean it. I don't charge…but…"

I leaned forward. "But?"

She gave a little smile. "Just so we understand each other. If I can help you…if I can free you from all this…I know you would be grateful for that. And you would be in my debt. But not so far as money is concerned. In other ways."

I pushed back. "Then I don't want it. Not without knowing what it would be."

Ananya gently shook her head. "It would have value only to me."

"Tell me what it is…"

She took a deep breath and spoke in what sounded like Russian. Then, she added in English, "That is all I want."

I held my hands up and looked away. "This is getting too weird for me. How do I know that you're not just going to kill me?…I'll be plenty free from all my worries then."

She gave a strange little smile and said, "Kill you? No, Mr. Ryan, you're finally going to live when I'm done with you…"

My blood felt suddenly cold. I tried to think back. I was sure I'd never given her my name. I clenched my lips and shook my head. "I need to go…"

She calmly gestured to the opening in the tent. "See you again soon, Curtis."

It tried not to look back. I held a death grip on my bag of drug store purchases.

I pressed my way out and across the dirt. I finally breathed when I was standing right in the middle of the sidewalk. I turned back, some part of me expecting the strange tent to have mysteriously vanished. But it was still there, the same as before. Ananya crouched and gave me a little wave through the flap. I gave a little cough and walked back to the office.

All the while, I replayed what I'd experienced in my head. I'd read about charismatic personalities a long time ago and how they could hold someone captive with just a glance. I scratched at my nearly-white sideburns.

I tried to piece together how she could've come up with my name. The only logical explanations were the creepiest. She had to have been watching me surreptitiously for a while to learn that information. I'd had a feeling for a long time like I was being watched but I always wrote it off as another undiagnosed mental condition among the many I could imagine.  

I gave an unnecessary look in all directions. I just saw even sand, passing cars, box apartments, and the straight, brown figures of power lines. Turning back, I could still see a sliver of purple from the tent. All's same with the world.

I added to the pace of my steps but kept in the same even line in the middle of the sidewalk. I stepped lightly from curb to curb till I made it back to the business park where the office was.

I took a breath and first made my way to the side bathroom in front. I gave my head a painful crack and splashed a little bit of water on my face.

I looked to the mirror and saw an old man.

My neck through my collared shirt was even more creased than the day before. The lines on my face spread like tense fault lines pressing against one another. My eyes sunk with deep shadowing. My ears always felt like they were trying to migrate off my body. I knew it would only be a few more years and all the silvery hair lingering on my head and all the sandpaper on my chin would turn to white.

I rubbed my hands dry with a paper towel and blew my nose. Before leaving, I also brushed my pants and checked my collar.

I felt a flash of concern when I saw Millie at the reception desk. She usually arrived long after lunch. Holding onto the tip of her desk, I carefully asked her, "In early, Millie?"

Then, I noticed there was something different about Millie today. She'd always had long, brown hair. It would always be arranged in a single, straight arc from her head right down to her waist. And she would always wear the same, sleek black outfit to work.

Today, it was like Millie had gone hippie. Her hair almost seemed as though it had a streaked, lighter tone to it. It also had beads in several colors on many of her locks. Those locks arched and flowed and flowered and bent here and there. More shocking than that, she not only wore a bright yellow top but a bright red skirt as well. I blinked a bit.

While I couldn't dismiss that a young girl like Millie would more readily change her style than someone like me, I found the shift quite surprising. Then, I noticed something else. She wore a small medallion around her neck in the shape of a star. It reminded me of something I'd seen in Ananya's tent. I couldn't quite remember what it was though.  

I wondered but didn't ask where Andrea was. Despite Andrea being the boss's intern, I always found her up with Millie, laughing or talking about something. I figured they were best friends or something like that but it wasn't my job to pry.

It took Millie so long to respond to my words that I was tempted to just forget it and head back to my desk. When she did respond, she looked up at me with befuddlement and asked, "Umm…can I help you?"

I sighed and let my bag go slack. If she was in a mood then I didn't want to linger. I waved my hand, walked around the reception area, and said, "Never mind."

Millie seemed to say something behind me but I didn't want to deal with drama today. I just wanted to finish my work and clock out. I checked around for the clock, fearing what it might reveal. I doubted I'd been gone for more than ten minutes past lunch and I wished I hadn't lost my watch today. The constant lines of the hour and minute hands always kept me feeling certain.

I traced the usual path back to my empty cubical but ran right into a full one. There was a young guy there talking calmly on the phone and leaning back a bit in my chair. He looked about five-two, a bit scrawny, with short brown hair and blue-ish gray eyes. He glanced in my direction, covered the mouthpiece of the phone and asked, just like Millie had, "Can I help you?"

My head shook a little and I said, with no certainty, "That's…my desk." I examined the details of the desk. Though it had the same computer and chair, nothing else looked familiar. It had strange little trinkets, plants, and a little bird with a silly hat. At the top of it, there was a name placard that said, in black script, "Justin".

Justin frowned and said into the mouthpiece, "Call ya back." He set down the phone and slowly stood. "Do you need some help, miss?"

I felt as though struck. I reeled a moment, panted, and asked, "What did you say?"

An even line of concern curled on his face. "Are you alright, miss?"

I breathed sharply in and shook my head. He approached me but I turned away. I felt a sick sensation of empty bile rising in my stomach. He laid a hand on my shoulder but I nudged it away. I told him, "I'm not a woman."

I circled around to look at him. His eyebrow rose and, for just a moment, his eyes flicked down to my chest area. I felt a strange rush of embarrassment. He folded his hands and pressed his lips together. He looked uncertain about what to say.

I could hear footsteps behind me. I looked.

With Millie close beside, my boss walked between the partitions towards me. His squarish, balding head with black-tangles of sweat-matted hair angled a little towards me. His lips were as flat and rough as ever. He looked at me straight and said, "Do you have business here, ma'am?"

I carefully swallowed, set my feet, and said, "I work here. My name is Curtis L. Ryan."

He frowned and squinted his eyes at me with a strange intensity. "Your name is what? Are you trying to be cute? I've never seen you before in my whole life and you certainly don't work here. If you don't have serious business here, you'll have to leave or I'll send for security to escort you out."

Each of his words slammed into me like nails on all sides. There was no recognition of me in his eyes. I could barely feel my legs underneath me.

I looked down. I was the same as I always expected. Same hairy arms. Same workplace attire. Same aging body.

I couldn't imagine this was all some practical joke gone painfully long. I couldn't imagine the boss diverting vital time to a mere prank.

My co-workers were all around me but they didn't remember me and, somehow, they all only saw me as a woman…

I looked to Millie's hip. As usual, she had her cell phone. I remembered she always messed around with the picture function. I asked her, "Can I borrow your phone for a second?"

She stared back at me a moment and looked over to the boss. He sighed through his nose and asked, "Is this some sort of strange protest thing because we're a mortgage company?

I shook my head.

He turned his lips down and asked, "If she lets you borrow her phone, will you explain what's going on and leave peacefully?"

I wasn't sure I could explain it but I was more than willing to get out of here to some place that made more sense. I nodded.

He nudged his head to Millie and, after a moment, she unclipped her phone and passed it to me.

With everyone cautiously watching my actions, I flipped the phone open and selected the camera function. As one last, quiet surprise, I noted the time on Millie's phone read 4:04PM.

With a deep breath, I held the phone out in front of me. Everyone around took a step back. I heard the artificial click and turned the phone to look at the screen.

At first, I thought I'd done something wrong. But, the more I stared at the grainy but clear image, the more I was certain that this was how I looked to my co-workers.

It was a picture of Ananya holding the phone instead of me. The girl in the image had the same red hair and wore exactly the same glasses and top.  

I felt I should've screamed right then. Something deep inside me wanted this all to go away.

But all that felt like static beside a rush of feeling that overwhelmed me. A rush that said one thing….This was wonderful!

I could barely contain my excitement. With the possibility of a hoax pushed aside by photographic evidence, I felt like I was riding an absolute charge through my entire body. I had no idea what was going on but I didn't want it to end.

I looked like a pretty girl with red hair? Incredible. Everyone at work didn't know me anymore? Not as if they much knew me or my name before anyway. I knew the regret that I didn't have a job would hit me soon enough but I was still riding the high of this experience. I felt like I could kiss Ananya.

I had no idea how she'd done it but she'd taken my painfully static life and mixed it up in ways I could never even imagine. I felt like twirling in circles. But, I took a breath and bowed my head.

I looked around. I met the boss's eyes and I told him, "You're right. This was meant to be a protest. But I couldn't go through with it. Despite the bad things said in the media about mortgage companies…I looked at all of you here and I knew you can't all be bad." I looked around to give my lie the finishing touches.

Perhaps it was a little too much but it relaxed the boss. I passed the phone back to Millie and apologized to her. Andrea came from around one of the cubical walls and smiled at Millie. Her reddish-brown locks, which came just to her shoulders and enveloped the sides of her face, were nowhere near as bright as Ananya's. She had on a long, black skirt and sleeveless top.

The boss brushed his hands. "Alright then…" And that was all that needed to be said. Everyone shifted back into work mode. I ambled around the path back. I clutched my bag. My heart was beating in my ears. The front door loomed in front of me.

I had no idea where I was going next but I finally felt excited for it.

I thrust open the door and stepped through it.

What I saw on the other side made me freeze in my tracks. I didn't even hear a door close behind me.

Everything was gone. The world had become a vast, colorless field. There were bare boxes for the buildings. The ground was smoothed away. The sky looked like lingering haze. It all reminded me of an empty stage.

On all sides, there was solid blackness, as though it was painted that way. There was no sun in the sky, just some thin marking where it would've been. Despite the lack of sun, I could see everything on the colorless plane easily. But, I couldn't see any people.

It was like…frail cardboard structures placed together in a child's approximation of a cityscape. The cars were empty, blank, and featureless with not a single driver or passenger.

It wasn't at all what I was expecting. But it was different and I still felt curiosity despite ever-rising fear. The ground trees of a set of box apartments felt like the barest of rough, haphazard sketches. The fence was just a thin tracing.

It walked away from what had become of the business park. I never looked back at the mortgage office.

I made my way through the vast expanse. I ignored the sidewalk. There wasn't any sidewalk left anyway. Since none of the boxy cars were moving, I wandered along the street without any concern either. There was no terrain, just little scribbled areas here and there.

The ground felt like nothing in particular. The air smelt like nothing in particular. There was a complete and utter absence of it all. I could breathe but waving my hands didn't even seem to stir the air. I walked down the middle of the street.

It was hard to place where I was without the usual landmarks but working from the office and knowing where it was in relation to the nearby apartments and the road, I had a general sense of where I was going.

I aimed myself in the direction of where I'd first encountered Ananya. I could make out the crude boxes of the highway but nothing much else in that direction. Walking only revealed more and more nothingness. I wavered around the crudely-drawn lines and found my way back to about where I knew the tent would've been.

I stood on the crude markings of wavy sand and weeds. I saw nothing that would even resemble the outline of the tent. I walked around in a few circles, staring at the ground again and again. Even if I did find the tent in that form, I had no inkling of what I would do then.

It was at that point that missing lunch really hit me. With the rumbling of my stomach, fears of starvation piled on top of everything.

I rested on the ground a moment and thought through this all. I took myself back to where things made sense. I thought back to meeting Ananya. I thought about her strange tent. I wondered if she'd done something to me…

I couldn't recall any moment where I'd ingested anything which could be hallucinogenic. But I couldn't rule out that she'd given it to me when she touched me. Perhaps through some sort of lotion or injector concealed in her hand. I tried to think back and see her hand in my mind and if…I'd seen anything strange about it.

There was nothing. But I knew I couldn't rule it out. Hallucinogens made the most sense. Then, there came a new fear. If I wasn't really seeing the real world around me, then how would I know if I did something harmful or even deadly? I felt a shiver. I wondered if I should try to find the curb and stay there… Just in case.

I still felt curious about this place. I wondered what the rules were, if there were any. Part of my mind began to wonder if this was a place between worlds or something like that but more sci-fi-ish. The rest screamed that this was absolutely crazy and I needed to stop experiencing it immediately. Surprisingly, the screams weren't as loud as I expected.

The effect of all those thoughts was I moved forward with careful but still curious steps. I kept my eyes focused for anything unusual that might resemble an exit.

My path revealed itself as roughly retracing my way back to the drug store area. I walked just past the boxy gas station and under the dark box of the highway outline.

The area with the drug store looked more like one huge mass but I knew the drug store was on the nearest end to the curb area. And I was pretty sure the set of parallel lines was meant to represent the curb.

The drug store was just another part of the box mass but I noticed it had a hole in it around where it would've had the sliding doors. Still holding onto my plastic bag of headache medication and lens cleaner, I walked through the opening. The interior actually had some details. I could see counters and shelves and all the basic details but the actual products and colors were all gone…

No…there was some color.

I saw it. It was right on the floor where I'd been standing in line. I could see a bit of purple material spread across the floor. It only looked about a foot across but I could swear it was exactly the same material as Ananya's tent. I approached it slowly and it rippled as though there was wind underneath it.

The edges curled up and in like it was beckoning to me. I stepped closer but I hesitated. I watched it. Then, a black shoe came out of nowhere and stepped on the fabric. The fabric disappeared into the featureless ground.

I followed the black shoe up. It was connected to a man I recognized. He worked the counter when I was last 'here'. His face looked strange now though. He looked more like a puppet with wax features. His motions were stiff.

He turned his head too far to the right and too far to the left with a juicy crunch. Any human neck would've snapped. I took a careful step back.

His breath seemed to snarl in his throat as he asked, "…Who are you?"

With a moment's hesitation, I lied, "Ananya Novikov." I hoped I'd remembered her last name correctly…and that I still looked like her. And that looking like her was a good thing.

The man's neck centered. His eyes went blank, literally blank. All but the whites vanished. He seemed to be muttering. Then, he asked again, a little louder, "WHO are you?"

I made my way back to the door as inconspicuously as possible. I tried, "I'm no one."

His head bent forward and he peered right at me with his all-white eyes. Then, he jerked back and screeched, "OUT OF LINE!"

I winched. He yelled, his mouth stretching wider and wider to inhuman proportions. Then, it split open. His face and body shifted.

He growled, "Keep in line…"

His cheek elongated with thin projections. His eyes seemed to bleed and turn a sickly, dark color of red. His legs arched up, split twice, and bent down into a long and spindly form. All pretense of humanity vanished.

It growled, "Keep in line…"

He turned into a seven foot, black spider with eight, enormous legs that moved like a vast, swarming wall of shadows. It had no mouth but its eyes fixed right on me.

Even without a mouth, it growled, "Keep in line…"

Part of me thought I could handle it but it didn't vote with the rest of me as I ran back through the opening at full speed.

I turned and saw it had followed me out. I reached into my bag, loosened the bottle of lens cleaner and chucked it right at the creature's eyes. The fluid burst all over…and so did the bottle, cascading like harmless confetti over it.

Again, it growled, "Keep in line…"

I tossed the bag with the headache medication too but it had the same effect. I braced myself. The spider stretched back and gave a rumbling howl with the words, "KEEP IN LINE!"

The howl rippled and echoed through everything. It echoed again and again and met with others. Soon, I noticed the black walls in the distance were moving, flowing like black water. I knew it was more of them.

The massive, endless chorus cried, "KEEP IN LINE!"

Every shadow around the landscape stretched into swarms upon swarms of skittering, giant spiders with a vast sea of dark, red eyes. They boxed me in on all sides.

Their inhuman words swallowed me. "KEEP IN LINE!"

I took a deep breath and stood my ground. I tried to summon forth words of protest or at least scream but my throat seemed paralyzed. I could just pant over and over in gasps.

Their words surrounded all thoughts, surrounded everything. I staggered onto the ground.

"KEEP IN LINE!"

They blotted out the blank sky and swallowed me up in absolute blackness.

"KEEP IN LINE!"

A last screech echoed through me and I couldn't feel anything else.

Then, I felt my breath rasp in my throat.

I forced myself to blink and everything was light. The light slowly diminished to the pale rays of the morning sun through my darkened window drapes.

I found myself wrapped up tight in my bed sheets, clammy and flush. I looked out at the four corners of my bed in disappointment tinged with relief.

In my head, I could still feel a final reverberation of "Keep in line."