Avery Gase
September 21, 2008
The Rhythm Under the Skin
He stared up, his eyes fixated on what he thinks is the ceiling, but the room is dark, so he cannot be sure. The bed on which he lays is hard and unforgiving, but is still better than the concrete floor. He breathed deep on the air that smelled like iron and rain. He could not move, but nor did he want to, for he was in perfect bliss with the room. It started to rain. He could tell from the noise coming from the high window. He likes rain. He closed his eyes, preparing to sleep when he heard scuttling from far end of the room. He was not afraid. He felt no fear in his utopian room. It came closer. He grew calmer. The rain turned into soft thuds on the stone walls. He felt the vibrations from the thing scuttling up the leg of his bed. It began to crawl up under his pant leg and up, it’s eight hairy legs making a soft rhythm on his bare chest. It stopped at his neck. Many more, smaller, eight legged fiends began crawling through the window, for the soft thuds was them falling from the sky. They all crawled onto every bare inch of skin, making him a coat of arachnids. He smiled and opened his mouth, as if he was inviting them into his body. They obliged. They poured into him from every opening. They went in his mouth, through his ears, and under his eyelids. They crawled around under his skin, and he enjoyed the massage their legs gave him under the skin in his arms, head, legs, and chest. They all stopped and began chewing their way out from the inside. He laughed.
He awoke with a start, breathing deeply. He finally calmed down, and fell back to a deep sleep. As he slept, a lone spider crawled up his neck and into his ear to weave a web of mischief in his subconscious.