literature

Overdrive

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Literature Text

    You take a brief moment of uneasy marveling at what you have accomplished. This low-level, garden-variety, small-time, no-name, no-shit drafting engineer has just accomplished a feat that would make even the most prodigious MIT snob look lame in comparison. The gigabytes of AutoCAD files and the corresponding reams of seemingly endless blueprints that lay before you represent enough work to keep a roof over your head and food in your belly for months. Yet through a combination of inexplicable energy, insomnia, and sheer work ethic, this monumental feat has taken mere days. You sit back in your office chair, and exhale deeply, the reality still having yet to sink in. You're suddenly aware of the sick feeling in your stomach. It feels vaguely like the usual sort of stomach ache that accompanies sleep deprivation and caffeine overload. Yet there is something else to it; a faint burning that feels as if it were spreading throughout the various mechanisms of your body, pervading every minute capillary and nerve ending it passes.

    Though insomnia is a bitch, it can have its upsides. You would be surprised at how much productivity is lost through the need for regular slumber. Even though you are absolutely exhausted, not having slept in at least two days, you could not sleep even if you wanted to. And strangely, you do not. Even after countless hours of slaving on various engineering projects, you find yourself fighting the urge to dive right back in. You could always use a few more months' worth of income, after all. Throughout this bizarre haze of productivity, you had to force yourself to take breaks. This was critical, because your appetite has recently hit the roof. No matter how much crap you shove down your squawk-hole, you can't seem to keep full. You've even lost a good ten or fifteen pounds in the last few days, which can't be healthy, but it's probably just water weight. As long as you keep eating right, it'll probably even out eventually. But even breaking for a meal was sheer mental agony; you felt as restless as a brand-new puppy, eager to jump back into action. Hell, even now you feel as if you could get enough done to provide for yourself for a goddamn year!

    You thumb through the piles of engineering plans, still not entirely convinced that you had really done all this. You give a cursory glance to brutally utilitarian drawings of machines great and small, electrical diagrams, wiring and plumbing schematics, and various other plans, all plotted out with excruciating detail. It will take forever to contact all of the respective clients with news of their completion. But that will have to wait for morning.

    Instead, you jerk open one of the metal drawers of the office's battered filing cabinet, eager to see if there are a few small commissions that you can finish up in the meantime. As you reach out, you can't help but notice the growing welt on your arm caused by repeated scratching; possibly just a nervous tick you've recently developed. Or maybe it's a bug bite, or maybe you're coming down with a rash. Whatever the case, the fucking thing itches something fierce. You pause for a few seconds of vigorous scratching to ease the burning itch, knowing that it will only return a minute later. But before you can touch nail to flesh, you notice something awful: a small, well-defined lump on your arm. You lightly prod the lump, and much to your horror, the thing slithers across your arm and disappears downward into the muscle, leaving a freshly lit fire of itch.

    Panicking, you scratch furiously where the lump disappeared, but that only worsens it. You scratch, and scratch, and scratch until bright red tracks of blood ooze through the reddened skin, yet you cannot even feel the pain through this insufferable goddamn itch! Your arm is screaming in agony now, and the itching only grows. You risk a brief pause and gaze upon it to find the lump returned, scurrying furiously as if annoyed by your scratching. Your frenzied mind latches onto a singular thought, "There's something moving in your fucking arm!" At this realization, you fumble clumsily for your phone. If you don't get the paramedics over here soon, you're going to rip your arm off to escape this infernal itching and this horrid parasite crawling under your skin.

    Parasite! That's it! Whatever was inside you had sent your metabolism into overdrive, crafting you into a living incubator to sustain whatever horror that is writhing around inside you, and this latest burst of energy was just a side-effect. You abandon the search for your phone and drive your fist repeatedly into your arm, smashing the crawling atrocity. You grab the nearest pointy object—a ballpoint pen—and jam it into the misshapen bead on your arm. You grit your teeth and pry the invader out, dumping it unceremoniously onto your desk. Immediately, the itch subsides, leaving only a bright, throbbing pain in your wrecked arm. Feeling queasy, you examine the dark lump resting on your desk. Amidst a small pool of blood is a small creature that looks like an armored slug. In disgust, you violently swipe the abominable chitin-clad worm off your desk and turn to vomit onto the floor beside you. A steady trickle of blood pours from your arm. If you didn't need emergency care before, you certainly need it now.

    Before you can turn your attention back to finding your phone, the muscle in your arm clenches painfully. A fresh wave of itchy fire spills over your inflamed limb as the muscle begins to spasm violently. At this point, you fall over onto the vomit-soaked floor, grasp your arm, and scream. You glare in terror at your arm as you see dozens of small lumps rising amidst the flesh, tearing at the inside of your skin. Your nails split open as you claw spastically at your arm, cleaving fresh gashes which the parasites use to escape onto the floor.

    You scream again as the rising lumps began to migrate up your arm and toward your shoulder. The itch finally gives way, but in its place is pure, tearing pain as one by one, the tiny insects are birthed from their macabre womb. Your fear-drenched mind begins to black out, but just before you lose consciousness, you feel the tickle of tiny legs scrambling up the back of your throat and onto your tongue. Your last dim awareness was of your own garbled, choked screaming, and the growing tide of frantic, monotonous clicking.

A huge burst of energy can do wonders for one's work life, but what happens when the "other shoe" drops?

Voice Narration: youtu.be/qa38bj-umVs

Written for the first prompt of the following: www.everywritersresource.com/1…

Companion Image made by me: Demon Bug by JuliusMabe
© 2016 - 2024 JuliusMabe
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