Short Story

The lights are growing brighter and the sounds are growing louder with every passing second. I want it to stop. I need it to stop. I’m sure my head is going to explode. Maybe it is and I’m just dying. “Please,” I cry out, but it’s barely a whisper. “Make it stop.”

Her cold latex hands took hold of my bare arm as she pulled it toward her and said with a smile, “this will only hurt a bit!” I felt a chill go through my body as the hypodermic sword pierced my skin. The white walls around me seemed to be closing in like a vignette photo, darkening around the edges and becoming blurry until suddenly, darkness. I was floating upon a puddle of dark abyss. I laid there for what seemed like hours until my limp body hit the tile floor. I awoke in a daze moments later, my feet being held above my now dizzy head and feeling like I had been hit like a truck. “What happened?” I mumbled as I began to sit up. The room, now filled with doctors and nurses, erupted in voices insisting I lie back down.

Tossing and turning, I tried to move my body but felt very numb. I felt so confused, it was like I was emerging from the deep water. Finally, catching the nurse's’ attention from over the corner, they ran up to me and started examining me except one ran to yell for someone. I started to feel uncomfortable and wanted to yell but the doctor had already arrived.

I sniffle and look towards the door. The door knob is twisting back and forth, but it isn’t opening thanks to my lock and the heavy chair I had put against the door. Chills run down my spine. I feel the goosebumps starting to gather up all over my body, and it feels like someone is sucking out all the happiness existing in this world. One thing is taking over me - fear.

Before I could respond, I feel a stinging pain dig into my neck. I collapse into the darkness.

I tug on the metallic chains that bind my hands above my head, there was nothing but darkness, no light, no joy only agony. I exhale deeply slumping to my knees, my stomach growling out like a wild animal.

It started with a chill, each vertebrae vibrating one by one up my spine. Then the heat, my face flush and palms clammy. I could never keep up with my breathing, for it seemed as though each time I breathed out, I needed more air almost immediately. Soon, my mind was flooded with unsettling images, a new one appearing nearly every second, each worse than the last. Everything that I found comfort in was now an enemy. When will this end? My body could not keep up with the trembles and I could not resist the urge to scream. Was this room always so small? My eyes grew indecisive, darting across the room, until the capillaries within them bulged so greatly that I clenched my eyelids shut. Then, a long, deep breath.

Fear and confusion pumps through your veins as you lay helplessly on a cold metal slab. Weird men and women wearing strange lab coats watch you intently. The only sounds in the room are the ticking of the clock, the hum of the machines, and the occasional chatter of the people in lab coats. The side of your neck throbs with pain where one of the men poked and prodded around with a large needle trying to find a vein to draw blood from. After he draws the blood, you watch him as he strolls away while another person in a lab coat, this time a woman, inserts another needle into your neck. It was just a little poke, but after a few seconds, you notice a difference in your body, a change, but not a good one. With each passing second you feel weaker, you feel even more helpless than you did in the beginning. You lay there hoping that the agonizing pain you are experiencing will soon go away. Some of the people spoke, but you couldn’t hear. After

I was asleep on my stomach, with my phantom arm dangling off of the bed. I've slept like that as long as I can remember, and when I first felt it I thought that my hand had fallen asleep and causing the pins-and-needles sensation that I had often felt. When I tried to open and close my hand, I awoke, remembering in a sleepy haze that I didn't have a hand to open, yet the cold feeling remained. This time it stayed a while, and I could make out the distinct feeling of fingers on my skin. I tried to shake my hand, but couldn't. I pushed down with my left hand and shifted to roll over onto my back, yet the feeling remained, still as defined, and I wondered how long this invisible hand had held me. I shook my wife awake and explained, but she was convinced that it was simply a part of the process. She held me and talked to me in her cooing, comforting voice until, one by one, the fingers lifted, releasing me from the torture of the cold. Feeling it reminded me of the accident.

The pain in my body feels like a fire-storm that keeps growing and can not be managed. The slightest of movement creates an agonizing, stabbing torment that shoots through my entire spine and into my body.

I was skating perfectly fine and suddenly I tripped and fell. As I was falling through the air I could see the ground and it was coming at me fast. I knew it would hurt my hands but thought it would hurt less than falling on my face, so I still tried to catch myself. I thrust my hands in front of me but my left hand was in a bad position. Crack! I heard it before I even felt it. Then my arm was on fire, not like the beautiful fire you see in the fireplace that protects everyone from the cold, but the fire that burns down homes and forests destroying everything in its wake. The terrible monster that killed instead of

I find myself lying in bed, drifting ever so closely to sleep. My body slowly numbs into a more rested state. Abruptly, I am awakened by an incredible force that is pinning my entire body down at once. It is overwhelmingly strong. My limbs wildly try to fight back only to find themselves powerless to this unseen...something...what it is I am unsure. I am physically unable to move a muscle. I try to scream. The noise won't come. I try to scream louder. Still nothing. The more I try to push it off it pushes down harder and harder on me. I am unnerved by the fact that I see nothing causing this intense pressure. I feel breathless. I wonder if I've officially lost my mind. Helplessly, I begin to realize there is nothing I can do to stop this from happening. I give in, accepting defeat. Slowly now the force begins to recede. I find myself making weird babbling noises, grabbing deliriously at my pillows and blankets. I slowly regain control of my muscle movements. And there I am. Still lying in my bed. Yet now I lay terrified, confused, and unsure of what just came over me.

It was 6:00 p.m. and I had been studying for a few hours to prepare for a test the next day in accounting, and it was time for a break. After walking around idly, getting a drink, and clearing my mind, I headed for the stairs. My study area was in the basement where it was private and quiet. However, my wife distracted me and I lost my balance as I turned; my foot slipped off the top step. Time felt as though it had instantly slowed, and I was airborne. Instinctively, my right arm went up to protect my head and face as I fell backward, and my other arm reached out to stop the rapid descent; but, there was nothing but air to hold.

After having waited for three days, unsure of Hannah's intentions or if she'd attempt to contact him again, Todd had been relieved when he'd walked in on it, and felt as if a burden had lifted from his shoulders. However, despite her reply and the security that it filled him with that he hadn't lost her, and likely wouldn't, the man was still pissed, and in truth, it wasn't so much with her, but with himself. The woman had affected him like no other from the end of a keyboard, and Todd was one who enjoyed being in control. Who needed to be in control and yet, in such a short space of time, she'd seemed, without even trying, to take that from him. He wasn't used to be the one waiting, to be unsure of what was going to happen, if he'd be

Brian placed himself in front of me and extended his hand to Liz. "I am not sure if you remember me, but I am Brian Ross. Isabel’s other half and Mary’s brother."