Lights Out

The Birth

I can feel it coming.

Something churning and bubbling just under the surface. It was a quiet sort of creation, the kind that sneaks up on you when you're least expecting it. It was electricity in the air but it was more than that. It hung heavy in the air, palpable even while sitting in a calm cafe drinking a coffee. 

I've always had a sixth sense for things unseen or unknown. When I was six, I begged my mom to let me spend a whole week with my grandpa. He had health problems, too many to count, but he had been on the upswing. The medicines and treatments had been working, so my mom was confused why I was so desperate to spend so much time with him. A couple weeks after that, my grandpa had a heart attack making dinner. The gas from the stove ignited a towel that fell, setting the whole kitchen ablaze. My mom stopped doubting me after that.

But this was different than a death in the family. It felt more personal than that; a personal vendetta someone was more than eager to set in motion. But I can't pin down what I was feeling, and maybe that scared me the most. I've never had issues pinning down the sense of doom.

But the cafe was starting to feel suffocating, so I finish my coffee and step outside. It was unusually bright and sunny for October, but I wasn't complaining. Winter had never been my favorite season and it always felt like a season of death and frozen screams. Construction across the road became a downfall but other than the noise and dust, it seemed a peaceful day.

And then I felt it. My stomach bottomed out and my palms grew clammy. My body seemed to be floating and not quite my own, but where was the feeling coming from? I quickly sat on the asphalt, my head immediately sandwiched between my knees. I wasn't looking forward to losing my breakfast. I also wasn't looking forward to the black smoke snaking under my legs.

It looked like a velvet snake, winding it's rotund body in a seamless dance. I looked to the construction zone, but their smoke was a cloudy white color. It wouldn't come from them. It wound itself around one leg, squeezing slowly like a constrictor, and then it branched off to wrap around the other leg. It was methodically encapsulating my whole body in thick, sulfur fog. My gaze snapped between the passersby, but none looked my way. No one else could see this.

I quickly got my feet and ran, hard when there was little feeling in my lower body, but I didn't want to be around other people. The hair on the back of my neck prickled as the thing continued its ascension. I finally collapsed behind some garbage cans, scaring a scrawny cat who yelped and took off. I wish I could follow.

The black stuff had made it to my chest and now, I could hear a sound with it. It was a hiss, low and guttural. But as my top half began to lose feeling with the rest of me, I realized it wasn't hissing. It was low moans and voices speaking.

"The girl cannot know..."

"It wants to be born...it HAS to be born...we are at risk..."

"Quickly, before it dies..."

The smoke began to dissipate. It was still climbing higher, but it formed an ombre hue against my bright clothing. But it wasn't really dissipating, it was melding. It was sinking into my flesh, into my bones. My body was loose like jelly and I could feel the smoke wriggling inside of me. What had it said? Something wanted to be born.

Not knowing if this would work, my fingers clasped the inky tendrils. It shrank and slipped from me like water, forming new tendrils so it couldn't be caught. Still I fought it, grabbing and losing branch after branch. Until one didn't slip free. It screamed like a stuck pig, jerking uselessly as it tried to get away from me.

"She knows! Hurry, before it's too late..."

"Yes, hurry, hurry, hurry..."

The voices grew until they were one, chanting as more smoke evaporated into my body. I pulled, yanking the thing bit by bit until it was nearly tearing. I pulled and relented, the smoke becoming a fish hooked on a line, and slowly it worked. It became a whole form once more, my willpower coming back as more and more came. The hissing became inaudible again as the slinky became no more.

Once the thing didn't have a host anymore, it truly evaporated. The lank leftovers drifted past my face in the breeze, looking like strands of hair. What looked like the last of it came out and I could have sworn I heard it say "accomplished" or something similar, but after it was gone I felt normal once more. My breath came heavy and hard as I sat next to the dumpsters, the stench disgusting me but also invigorating me. 

When I got the strength to stand, time continued to move forward. No one knew I had just fought something inhuman. No one knew it had tried to possess me, for what purpose I'm still not sure. Whatever the case, I went straight home and scrubbed myself raw in the shower. My skin crawled with goosebumps remembering the snake-like feeling of the smoke wrapping around skin.

Weeks passed and I stopped thinking about the smoke. The words it hissed became a bad dream and life continued as normal. But when I woke at three in the morning, my sixth sense so intense I thought I would pass out; it all came back. I shrugged off the feeling and the vomiting that came after as trauma or PTSD. Something that wasn't what I knew deep down it was. The morning after, as I stood before the mirror and combed my hair, something pushed against my stomach. A snake slithered across my abdomen, the shape reminiscent of play dough as it stretched the skin outside. It would be born after all.