These are my responses to the Writober Day 3 prompts: Creepy Crawlies.
This morning I had a fun surprise. My little brother came over and agreed to be my model for today’s photos.
New Poem
Flash Fiction
When She Closed Her Eyes
I need to lie down for a minute. I won’t close my eyes, Dyna told herself as she melted into her pillow. But my eyes are so dry. They’re burning and itching. I’ll keep them open. Put a cold compress over my open eyes. Maybe that will work. But she didn’t get up to wet a washcloth. Her body was heavy with exhaustion. It had been three days since she had fallen into that strange underground cavern.
She had walked that same path day after day, but suddenly the earth had let go under her feet. and she was falling. She landed in a moist, dark space. In every spot where light came in from above she saw writhing creepy crawlies—worms, centipedes, roaches, all crawling all over each other. The freeze of fear grasping her brain made her dizzy, but something overcame her with a desperate need to escape. She found footholds in the dirt walls, and pulled herself up with roots hanging down, finding a strength she knew she didn’t have.
After that, every time she closed her eyes she saw those creepy crawlies, not writhing in piles, but crawling toward her. And worse, she could feel them. She could feel they were coming for her. And it was getting worse. She couldn’t sleep. She didn’t want to eat. Everything looked like bugs. And there was this little whisper. She couldn’t tell what it was saying, but it was like a little scritch, scritch, scritch in her brain, getting louder all the time.
“I’ll rest my eyes a little, not close them all the way,” she mumbled into her pillow. And instantly, she was asleep. She brushed away a light tickle on her ear. Then another by her nose. She didn’t feel the slither around her neck, or the pincers at her lip. It was too late. The ancient one that had possessed her in the pit had invited them in.