The Reader's Request Book [REQUESTS CLOSED]

Photosensitivity - Full Story

Bolting out of his friend's recording studio, the young American glitch-hop producer staggered across the width of the hallway, tripping over his own feet until his momentum caused his side to crash into the opposing wall. Momentarily slouching against its white-painted surface, Dallin panted for air, his chest heaving up and down on each and every breath while his sweat-drenched shirt stuck to his red-flushed skin. Opening his incredibly blurry blue eyes, the American man stared down what he remembered as being a short corridor. However, the distance between himself and his destination seemed to extend further and further. Groaning, the blue-eyed man pushed himself away from the wall he had rested upon before stumbling forwards into the one which stood opposite.

The glitch-hop musician's knees suddenly buckled as the wall he now stood against seemed to give way. Fearing that he was mere moments away from becoming buried within a pile of bricks, Dallin leant to the alternate side moments before his body hit the ground, his shoulder slamming into the floor as a consequence. With a hiss of pain escaping through his gritted teeth, the young man rolled onto his stomach before pushing himself onto all-fours, once more daring to glance at where his destination lay. Before his eyes, the corridor warped as though someone was coiling it; the ceiling twisting until it looked as though it had become one of the walls, while one of the walls rolled to its side until it had become the ceiling. As the American attempted to scramble upward, the floor appeared to surge away from his hands and feet, before lurching back up, causing him to slam face-first into the wooden boards below. As the ground began to rock like a surface of a storm-ridden ocean, Dallin's stomach rolled, the muscles surrounding it cramping and churning with sickening waves of pain.

Regardless, the blue-eyed man's determination did not falter. Or perhaps, the better way to describe his mindset was desperation, which surged within his mind as the Englishman's maniacal howls of laughter echoed from behind. Abandoning his attempts to stand up, the American man through away his sense of dignity as he began to scramble across the ground like a wounded animal, dragging and kicking his way forwards with as much force and speed that he could possibly muster.

"Oh, come now," the other man grinned, watching as his sickly-looking target crawled across the ground. "Why are you so insistent on making things so much more difficult for yourself?"

Ignoring his words, Dallin continued, scratching his nails into the grooves between each floorboard as he stared towards the front room. Each step the corrupted man took seemed awfully loud within Dallin's ears. The thundering boom of each individual foot fall would hammer into the younger man's head to remind him of the encroaching doom.

He just needed to get to the sofa, where his belonging's lay, namely, his mask and his coat. In the right-hand pocket of his jacket was where his phone could be found. The owner of the house, Charlie Green (also known as the nerdcore and memecore musical artist, CG5), had momentarily left his two guests to visit a nearby shop after the group ran out of drinks far earlier than expected. Having visited the younger man's house countless times before, Dallin had driven past the shop on multiple occasions, so he knew that it was less than a five-minute drive. Having quickly understood the fact he was in no fit state to make a grand escape and leave the house entirely, Dallin's only option was to call someone for help. Not only was Charlie far, far closer than the nearest Arizonian sheriff's department or police station, but the American man couldn't risk his younger friend returning home to such immense danger without any warning.

"Come on, friend," the Englishman cooed in a deeply patronising manner, watching the blue-eyed man pull himself across a rug. "You look so, so unwell... how about we get you back to the office, where you can sit back down, lean back against the headrest, and let those screens take all this pain away, hmm?"

At the mention of the very thing Dallin was trying so hard to escape from, an intense sense of longing entered the American man's mind as the glitched parts of his psyche yearned to return to the screens in Charlie's office. With the memory moving to the forefront of his mind, his brain began to trick his body into believing that the deceptively pleasant process was occurring once again. His muscles throughout his body slackened, and Dallin's movements rapidly slowed as his limbs slumped to the surfaces below one by one. As the last of his self-control faded, the young man's torso dropped onto the sofa while his outstretched right hand fell onto the sleeve of his jacket. His fingers would not close to pull the fabric towards himself. With a defeated exhale, the American man remained still, aside from the deep, heavy breaths he took as he battled with his own mind to allow himself to move.