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feel sick. He was torn between looking away from the Something in an attempt to preserve his sanity and keeping his eyes fixed on it to prevent it from moving while it was unobserved. Every single alarm bell in his brain was going off. He could feel the Something on the table emotionlessly regarding him.
Can’t think, can’t stand, going to fall, don’t fall.
Vic stumbled again, leaning heavily to his right before he hit the ground hard, dropping the match onto the floor. The fragile radius of orange light went out, plunging both Vic and the Something into darkness.
Vic’s fingers scratched madly at the box of matches, unwilling to let the Something move about unobserved. Vic’s breathing began to grow ragged as he desperately yanked out another match and shakily lit it. The Something had remained where it was. Vic’s vision began to twist, the edges blurring like a kaleidoscope as he observed the Something again.
Some wall broke in Vic’s mind as he looked upon the Something. He felt a surge of every moment of fear, pain, embarrassment and terror blaze through his mind in an instant. Vic’s dad coming home drunk and angry one night, Vic showing up to school the next day with bruises on his face.
He felt a burning pain on the cut on his arm. He looked down at the wound only to see it regurgitate a thick flow of blood.
Asking Rachel out to junior prom, her laughing in his face, mocking him to her friends.
When the blood cleared, a cruel mouth was left over. Small needle-like protrusions formed teeth that resembled rusted nails and needles that were used too many times.
His father shouting at him, Vic shouting back, the sharp crack and rush of pain as his father’s hand impacted his cheek.
The mouth flexed a few times, opening and closing, plunging its teeth into the flesh of Vic’s arm. Vic tried to scream, only to realize that he’d already been screaming. He couldn’t remember when he started.
His girlfriend leaving, unwilling to even look at him as she fled. The click of the door shutting behind her.
Vic felt the mouth’s teeth scythe into his flesh, setting his skin on fire with pain, as the mouth began to speak.
“Hey, dude, can you keep it down? People are trying to sleep in here.”
That’s the last thing Vic remembered before con- sciousness left him.
By Paedyn Miller