Jigsaw

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It goes on like this for a few days. Extreme back pain. Increasingly painful head pain. Agony every time the bathroom is needed. Being bored in bed. Crying without realising. Scarfing down oodles of food. Sleepless nights.

A couple of new symptoms come in too; barfing every two hours or so. Oh, and eye, nose and ear aches.

Luckily, the sense blasts stay away. I try to forget that ever even happened. And I don't tell Chance or Gabby. No way; they'd send me home instantly, and I'm still counting on me getting better.

Only positives; when food is due and when Gabby and Chance tell me about there day. Don't get me wrong, I get furiously jealous, but it's also nice to hear they're enjoying themselves despite my condition. 

And there's the bump. The oddest bump you ever did see.

I have no idea what's with that thing. Nurse Penelope gives me tablets to help make it go away. They don't work, naturally, but it doesn't seem to be getting any bigger. Honestly, Penelope's visits are helpful, because she says I need to stay at camp whilst she tries to treat me.

Gabby and Chance say I should ignore her and go home. I argue it's the 'doctors orders.'

Mum and dad call too, every night. I told them about the bump and say I need to stay to get it healed. They make me promise that if it gets any worse, I must come home and see a proper doctor. And so now here I am, struggling to get any sleep. Quick phone check; it's 11:42pm. Nice.

I have dozed a little the past few hours, as per the usual. I drift in and out of consciousness, my back never truly allowing such a pleasurable relief. No, it likes to keep a nice tight grip on me, like a slavedriver leading its men with intolerable pain.

"Stupid slavedriver," I mutter under my breath.

Niss is the only good thing that's come out of this trip. Even now, I ponder on how I'll bring her home (and I will bring her home.) and how to convince my parents she's worth keeping.

She's catnapping beside me as I think all of these thoughts, her chest lightly fluttering up and down. Up and down. It's a soothing visual.

So I try to focus on that. I stare, watching only Niss's breaths. Up and down, up and down.

After a while, that's all my mind can focus on; the repetitive rhythm that is my cats sign of life. 

Then my eyes fall shut and I fall blissfully into sleep.

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There's this feeling you get when you first wake up... Like you've come from a different world, a world of blackness, and for a second you have to figure out which one you're in. Then you realise there's no other world and the brightness is the only real one, then you're awake. That's what waking up is, right?

But this is different. Of course the waking up part is the same, but I didn't just wake up. I woke up. Like I was choosing between two different worlds.

My head swirls and everything's fuzzy. My back snaps into place, and I feel... Heavier. Everything's indistinct and then very not indistinct. I get another sense blast, I suppose, but this time I don't coil inwards, I stretch out, nearly knocking Niss off the bed. My gaze falls on Gabby, and I can see the little dangly thing in the back of her throat vibrate through her as she breathes heavily.

In the darkness. Where's she's lying, like, two metres away. With my own two eyes.

And then I realise it's not that dark. I swing into an upright position, eyes like jars lids. It's like looking through a night-vision camera, only less green. Phone-clock check: 3:22am. Yep, it definitely should be dark. So why isn't it?

I groan softly, heaving myself up. I look around the room. My vision zooms at will. I spot the bathroom and my eyesight zooms in on the doorknob. I can basically see the dust flecks. What the actual flip?

I heave myself out of bed, squinting, because the zooming is too much to handle.

I stroll over to the bathroom like a zombie, eyes practically shut, open the door and step onto the cold tiles. I close the door, turn and flick on the light.

And when I turn back, a mirror greeting me, I have a heart attack. My chest explodes, my gut twists, my brain panics.

I screech and topple backwards, covering my eyes with my forearm.

I saw it. It was a giant worm. Right behind me. And bats. Bats were on my head. Big ones.

I breathe speedily, my mind not comprehending, grasping at mad possibilities.

I hear Gabby groan and scramble out of bed, tiptoeing towards the door. Except to me, and my sense blast, it sounds like she's stomping.

"Max?" Whisper, but yelling to me. "You okay?"

"Yeah," I reply, still freaking. "I just tripped."

"Okay." Then she trudges back to bed and I hear her heavy breathing in seconds.

You have to look, I hear myself say inside of my head. You have to. You have to know what was there.

But I don't want to. Please don't.

Still, I don't listen to that part of my brain. Forearm remaining in place, I rise. Turn to where I know the floor-length mirror is. Then I remove my forearm.

I gasp, hand flies to my chest and jolt back. I stare at whatever that is in the mirror with scared eyes.

Tears begin to stream, but they're different to the ones I cried before. They were tears of pain, the result of agony. These are from the extremity. From the inability to come to term with what I am seeing. Because it's impossible. Purely and utterly impossible.

A monster is staring at me.