A Day In The Life - {Watty Awards 2015}

Chapter 14: Sea Of Monsters (Jeb)

Every cell in my body resisted it. There was a small pinching sensation in my arm. I didn't want to wake up, but I did. Of course, when I did, there he was, tucking a syringe into a small leather case. His mask sneered at me. That was the last thing I remember before I felt what appeared to be my thoughts filling with liquid. They swirled about in my head, not ever properly making sense the way that they were supposed to. I felt, in an instant, dizzy,  nauseous, and nothing. Simultaneously, my senses blended together and I felt a strange, indescribable sensation. It was as though my brain could no longer hold information properly. The room swirled around me and I could barely tell that he was backing slowly out the door.

 

This continued for several hours. I could not tell up from down. After a few minutes, I heard a voice. I recognized it, but for the life of me could not tell whose it was. “Jeb? Jeb?” The voice was definitely female, but what was female? I tried to ask who was talking, but my mouth could not form the words. A few seconds later, I could not even remember the words to put into a sentence. A few seconds after that, the definition of sentence escaped me. I could no longer think complete thoughts.

 

“Jeb!” The voice was back again, so far away that I could barely hear it. “Jeb!” A shadow flashed across my vision, waving back and forth over my eyes. I heard a snap of the fingers and the shadow flashed across my vision again, more rapidly than before. It made me very dizzy and I could no longer even keep the grip I had on my stomach, which already wasn’t great.

 

After I emptied my stomach beside the person whose hand had been waving over my head, I wiped my mouth and sat up. The room looked strange. It no longer looked like a room. There was a barely perceptible light in the middle of the room, waving around in a circle. It shone light on the oddest of places. I followed it with my eyes, as it was the only thing I could see of the room by this point.

 

Then I saw who the voice must belong to: a girl sat next to me. I knew that I knew her, but for the life of me could not remember her name. I tried to ask her where I was, but could not remember how to operate my mouth. I mumbled something at her.

 

“What? Look, this isn’t the time to be making unnecessary noise, Jeb.” Jeb. Who was Jeb? She looked away from me for a moment, at what I would assume was the door. “He’s coming.” Who’s coming? I began to crawl toward what I assumed was the corner of the room, realizing a little sooner than anticipated that I was already against the wall, when my head landed with a sharp crack on the wood and dirt of the wall. This turned the room into a swirling vortex of colour. Where before I couldn’t see anything, I now saw everything in electric rainbow technicolour. In all honesty, this felt like the beginning of a really terrible optical migraine, which I experienced frequently enough as it was. I began to wonder if I had been through enough to have a migraine. If so, I would be going through serious Hell starting soon. The thought, of course, like all my others, disappeared more quickly than it came, fading out of my brain. I pictured myself reaching for it, trying with all my might to catch it, but when I reached it, it just felt like more air and slipped through my fingers. I ran for it, but was restrained by some sort of leash on each of my arms, which held me to the wall. I briefly realized that this must be how cats feel when they try to reach the laser pointer.

 

I sunk to the floor, my back to the wall, feeling sorry for myself that I had not been able to reach the thought. I wondered briefly what the thought had originally been, as I had spent so much of my brain power in chasing it that I had forgotten what it was in the first place. I felt myself begin to cry and felt the need to vomit again.