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***

When I wake up, I hear the chittering. They like to come in when I’m unconscious.

“Just be still,” one of them says.

Say yes. Say yes, I remind myself.

But I can’t. This is new. There are too many of them. Far more than ever before and I just know they plan to kill me.

The fear starts to rise. They aren’t touching me yet and so there is no rage to help me. I get up from the cot shakily.

“I must not fear,” I recite. “Fear is the mind-killer.”

It recedes the moment the first pincher touches my naked skin, glorious rage filling the gap it left behind. I keep up the litany in between crushing whatever limbs are closest to me. The bugs pile against me, and I scream out my rage, fists and elbows flying.

“...there will be,” I punctuate the last word with an elbow to a chitinous throat, “nothing.”

I cry out, staggering when one lands a blow to my shoulder, then get my balance back and kick one of the fuckers right in the chest, the sound of it caving sending a fissure of ecstasy through me.

Then one of them finally manages to knock me off my feet and they rush me as I roar.

“ONLY I WILL FUCKING REMAIN,” I scream out, wriggling, but not able to move the sheer weight of dozens of them on top of me.

I’m panting when a new voice speaks. “She is perfect,” says someone in an oddly wet language. “I will transfer the credits now.”

I try to look past the writhing bugs, but then there is a stinging pain in my neck. Another needle. My vision blurs as I curse.

One and done. One and…

***

When next I open my eyes, I am back in my sleep chamber, mouth dry, remnants of tears sliding down my cheeks, and with a copious pink slime slathered all over my body.

It takes a moment of silence for my brain to catch up with that tidy little bit of info before I squeak in horror and proceed to scrape the offensive stuff off my person with reckless abandon.

I sincerely hope this came from my mind snapping and crushing bugs, anything other than that and I am going to curl up into the fetal position and cry.

I can’t get to my back because something is holding me in place.

Then I realize this is a different chamber.

There is a beep, and then I fall, my legs giving out beneath me. The ground rushes up to meet me, and I crash down hard. Pain shoots through me, but I can't focus on it. Something is in my lungs, burning and choking me. I try to cough it out, but my body is weak and unresponsive. Tears stream down my face, blurring my vision, but I can just make out someone rushing toward me.

She reaches me, her hands gentle but firm as she tries to help. Luckily I can’t move my limbs or I might kill her.Only bugs get that, I remind myself, my lips moving but no sound emerging.

My body is heavy, my movements sluggish, but I manage to expel the gas from my lungs, each cough a battle. A vent system whirs to life, and fresh air fills the room. I can finally breathe, and my vision clears enough to see her face. She's saying something, but it's hard to focus over the pounding in my ears.

Then it clears and I wish it hadn’t.

"Aren't they so delightfully powerless?" a voice says, and I flinch.

The creature I set my eyes upon looks nothing like the bugs I’ve been crushing over the course of the past couple of weeks… or months.

Unlike the scratchy, high chirping sounds those ones made, this one's voice is cruel and grating.

It's face and skin remind me a bit of a dolphin, albeit with the sort of consistency you'd come to expect from a slug, paired with three trunk-like legs akin to an elephant and the copious amounts of slime oozing all over. The perfect image for nightmare fuel.

I want to scream in fright, but it comes off as more of a pathetic whimper after an initial screech.