Consuming

Before that day, I was as whole and individual as you are now. I had a solid education and a steady job supporting me, and I lived in a nice enough city- we didn't have much crime or poverty, and the citizens were smart, and tended to mind their own business. I seldom had to worry about interacting with them, of course, because I had the good fortune and, frankly, prestigious honor to have owned what many have called somewhat of a modern palace. It towered over the hillside at three stories tall, and while it was a tad large for only one person I cherished every moment of isolation I found within its walls.
You see, the thing about my house that really made it so fantastically well suited for me was that, even in an area so cramped as the city that I officially resided within, I was able to purchase a house that was completely separated off from the rest of the world. I was all alone on the rocky waterside cliff, not another soul for miles, and I was able to finally secure for myself the solitude that I had lusted for as a young adult growing up within the admittedly more noisy city limits. I savoured every afternoon I spent alone in a horrible fashion, wandering through my grand halls. I could hear the faucet dripping from halfway across the house when I left it on, and sometimes did so intentionally just to appreciate this exact bit of information. I remained in isolation, lounging amongst my belongings and not having to miss anyone at all.
When I woke up on the day in question, it was to an indistinct humming, and I had at first figured that I was having some problem with my heating system, and I resolved to call a repair in around noon. I glanced out the window of my second floor bedroom and, upon seeing the snow layered up to eye level, decided it would have to wait until it became warm again. It was of no importance to me- I had the week off, it was warm enough inside my house, which is to say that it was as warm as it ever became, and the humming was too faint to notice unless you really focused on the silence, and even then, it was too low pitched to be a bother. I hummed along boredly and wandered down to my kitchen, taking a moment to appreciate how the blocked window dimmed the pristine white room to a tolerable brightness for once, and how the oddly shaped kitchen framed my utilities neatly with corners and portraiture. I opened the fridge and had the misfortune of coming across a terribly large spider that sat smugly upon my would be breakfast. It was nothing like a tarantula, but it horrified and disgusted me just the same and I crushed it to death with little hesitance, rendering the leftover bread pudding inedible. I threw it out with an exaggerated sigh and scrubbed my hands clean in the sink that was tucked in beside the refrigerator. I truly had been looking forward to eating that.
The unpleasantness was shoved to the back of my mind and I scrambled eggs for a replacement. I threw cheese and vegetables and all sorts of pleasant things inside before serving myself and settling down to eat. I arose and walked to the counter to brew myself some tea, only to come back and find, sitting well and proper like a little monarch utop my breakfast, a single, ugly little fly. I was sickened and immediately reminded of the spider, but I did not wish to throw this food away as well, and so I merely shooed it away, praised myself as a pacifist and tried to convince myself that the fly had not done any harm just sitting there. I ate it peace for a while before I began to notice the humming in the walls of my beautiful house, which had, somehow, begun to get louder. Odd, I thought as I finished up my breakfast. What could possibly have changed?
I got up and put away my dish before stomping my way into the living room. Rrap, rrap, rrap. I was utterly delighted by the clack of my slippers, and equally upset to hear it disrupted by the buzzing of another insect. This was ridiculous- the inconvenience of breakfast was evolving quickly into a plague! I brought up my hand in measured irritation and shooed away the fly, briefly wondering if it were the fly from breakfast, and if so, what it was doing all the way down here. I kept walking, but was disrupted again by that same familiar squealing buzz. I spun around, ready to kill whatever pest awaited my fury dead, and was brought to the shocking realisation that it was, in fact, the heater which made that noise. I was furious, to put it lightly. I felt queasy and my head began to throb. All this noise- I might as well have called over my coworkers for tea if this was to be the status of my afternoon- except that I was snowed in, and that wasn't really an option. Fantastic.
I had, believe it or not, briefly pondered the advantages of calling the repairman early before I looked out the window and saw the snow piled up, crushing any light and all hope I had of fixing the annoyance quickly. I fell back upon my couch and stretched out in a brief imitation of peace, but I found no such luxury. That constant, droning buzzing pounded in my head and I shook wildly in barely contained fury, my vision blurring a bit.
I snapped my head up, looking at the table and saw several flies, clumped together and writhing as a mass of horrible monstrosity. I was then overcome by both a healthy amount of fear and the bottled up rage that I had never felt before, like the mass of flies was the match struck upon a blazing internal fire and my emotions, the soup in the proverbial pot, bubbling up and teeming to the brim. I felt my hand reach towards the magazine once more and curl it up, clenching the book in my fist and swinging down with a sudden, horrible smack that left the mass, which I could now discern as four or five creatures, an awful, pathetically buzzing glob of guts and fuzz. The buzzing of the house paused for a moment before roaring up in vengeance, sending an electric pain through my head and leaving me on my side, clutching at my temples in hopes of any precious, momentary relief. I sat back up, all the fury and heat of a moment ago returning and carting my agony off to oblivion.
The room grew darker, but all I noticed was that constant, infernal buzzing growing louder. I got up and began to pace, my vision clearing a bit when a fly buzzed past my nose. I started back a bit a felt something else hit my back. I turned and realised that every inch of my walls were covered in flies. Writhing, buzzing, disgusting little beasts crawled and flew and fell around me, and I screeched in panic, making a mad dash back to the kitchen.
I stomped and swatted the whole way, but for every fly I managed to smack down out of the sky, fifty magots and more flies yet would quickly take its place. I was ready to hurl my guts out, both in disgust and on the off chance it would scare them away, and then I felt one of the horrible beasts worming its way into my ear. With a shriek I may otherwise be too embarrassed to admit to, I clawed out one of the slimy, fuzzy insects that was attempting to pull a chunk out of my earlobe. More came, climbing into my mouth and nose and ears and eyes and swarming around me. I collapsed down to the floor hard in a contorted, defensive straddle position, covering as much of myself as I could with my hands, pulling my cloak around me tightly and rocking as they, coming at me in waves by the millions, invaded my horribly loose clothing and laid their eggs all over my body and I felt every one of them, burrowing and twitching into my flesh as I screamed and thrashed about wildly in a desperate but feeble attempt to get them off. In that moment I would have done anything to be free, to be with people and to be outside!
It was hopeless, for as much as I struggled and as I thrashed about, I could not be free of the solid grasp that held me. Can't you tell just by looking at me, at my deformities, at the horror I have become? I have become one with the swarm now. We will all be safe, as long as we are together.