Pantomaniac

Chapter 5

It felt like his hips were being pushed against each other, just enough pressure to make him stir in his sleep. Kef groaned. The pressure was growing. It reached a point where he felt a crushing sensation against his bones. He tried to open his eyes but just as he let a hint of light enter his eyes, his head throbbed. And with that, whatever he swallowed the night before came crawling up the back of his throat.

Kef shut his eyes closed. Still feeling the pressure on his hips, he regulated his breathing. So much for trying. His head throbbed even more. It felt like daggers were shooting in and out of his skull.

After several minutes, he finally decided that he had to get up and if that meant puking, so be it. But when he opened his eyes again, throwing up was the last thing on his mind.

A mime child was sitting on him, kneeling down on his stomach. She had spread her legs so that they were on both sides of his hips. Her white dress was smeared with blood. The thick, red liquid flowed down the dress, all the way to her spread legs. He could almost see her private area as the edge of her dress had been pulled up by her position.

Bile rose inside Kef's mouth but he forced it down. His hands trembled by his sides. They felt like they weighed a ton. He shook his head, willing for the mime to disappear, just as it had many times before this. But nope. Not this time. The mime refused to budge.

Kef's mind raced. Could he use his legs? Maybe knee her back and get her off of him? Or maybe he should puke and let her have it?

Nothing was making sense. Then he felt the mime's fingers crawling up his stomach. First, they traced his abs. Then they crawled up to his chest. The mime pressed down on his pecs, letting the cold from her fingers seep through Kef's skin. All the while, she tilted her head left and right. Kef stared at her mask. The white circle on her face, disrupted only by two holes for her eyes and a small carving for her lips. And there was nothing in those eyes. They were...white.

As he kept on looking, a red dot appeared on her cheeks. Seconds later, another emerged on the other side of her face. More and more dots were emerging from behind the mask. Blood! She was bleeding onto the mask. She did not stop moving her fingers as her mask slowly turned red.

Her fingers went further up until they reached his neck. Suddenly, she grabbed his throat. Kef gulped. Those ice-cold fingers. They enveloped his neck. As the mime applied pressure, Kef coughed, fighting with all his might for air. But none came in. And her fingers gripped harder.

The bones of her tiny fingers pressed hard onto the veins on his neck. With each second, his airway was closing up. His eyes were wet with tears. Was that how he was going to die? With a mime on his body, squeezing the air out of him??

He fought and fought and finally managed to lift his arms. He trashed and punched at the mime's side ribs. But still, she sat on him. It was as if his punches were nothing but air. The air that he needed in his lungs at that moment. Kef's eyes started to blur. His airway was closing up. Fast. With whatever's left of his strength, Kef grabbed the mime's waist. Shutting his eyes, he pushed.

He expected that to be his last motion in life. But seconds later, he felt his hands jerk forward into thin air. Kef opened his eyes.

She was gone.

Tilting his head forward, his chin touching his chest, all he saw was the wall facing his bed. The room empty. He dropped the back of his head onto the pillow and breathed in. All he could hear was the sound of his pounding heart. Then came the faint sound of a car honking outside the window.

That's when Kef realized he slept through the night. Sitting up, he saw empty beer cans scattered on the floor. How he got from the floor to his bed was beyond him.

Sweat enveloped his entire body, pasting his clothes to his back. His breathing remained shallow and heavy. And he barely dared to move in that sitting position. Tightening his fingers into fists, he scanned the room. His heart pounded against his chest. At any moment, the mime could re-emerge. She could decide to finish him off once and for all.

Seconds passed. Then minutes. He was starting to feel like nothing else was going to happen. Finally, Kef uncurled his fingers. He took in breaths of oxygen and let his body relax as much as he could. Given the current state he was in, not holding his breath was the most relaxed he could get himself to be.

That was when he realized he had bigger problems than that, other than the fact that a mime child nearly suffocated him. Kef turned around in his bed, his eyes hunting for his phone. The moment he saw it lying on the floor, he practically dived off his bed and reached for it.

Whatever he feared came true on that little screen. You're fired.

Kef stared at those words. He dared not blink. It was as if he was afraid that when he closed his eyes, even for a second, it would all be true. He finally dropped his phone and lay down on the floor.