What happens when you are supposed to be working on one project, but cannot think, focus, or concentrate? You write some other meaningless piece. This is the product of perhaps too much caffeine, not enough sleep, and an attempt to not be so wasteful of the 30 minutes it took to write…
I hope you enjoy… And don’t let the bedbugs bite….
There is something moving in the shadows here. I find myself inspired, frightened into running for my life. Somehow the darkness closing around me helps me feel more secure perhaps affording me someplace to hide from whatever it is that pursues me. As I run along in the darkness I can feel clinging branches tear at my face, and my clothes. There is a sense that the darkness is alive, clawing at me, trying to grab ahold and stop me, to hold me in place to await my fate. I can feel hot stinging pain in my legs and across my entire body as the limbs lash and whip at me. One such limb tears across my face and I feel stinging pain shoot through my eye. Not stopping I continue my run, raising a hand up to my eye I can feel tears streaming from it, as I try to shield my face as best I can. I begin to think that I may actually make it out of this alive. I can see lights in the distance, perhaps a farmhouse? perhaps a street light? All I know is that I continue my mad dash through the darkness towards the light. As I get closer and closer to the source of the light I can see the outline of a large building in the distance. Perhaps a factory, perhaps an airport? I can’t tell, all I do know is that I must keep moving. The dense darkness seems to leer at me, the clawing becoming more insistent, as if it were aware of my proximity to safety. I can hear screams and howls in the distance. I know it’s too late for the others, but if I can make it out of the darkness and into the light of this building, perhaps there is hope for me. That’s when I see them, 3 small figures emerge from the building. I know who they are, and most importantly I know what they are. The “children” as we called them, denizens of this cursed place, they appeared to be no older than 8 or 10. Yet in 30 years of observations of this planet, no one had ever reported seeing a single adult among any of the inhabitants. I knew I had to make a hard decision, either exit the woods, and be seen by the little ones, or stay in the darkness and take my chances with what lurked within the dark shadows. It was while I was contemplating this that my choice was made for me. Feeling the clawing branches grab hold, I found myself tossed to the ground, tripped, or hung up on something that had seized ahold of my foot. Frantically I tried pushing my captive bonds away, but only to feel my body becoming numb and my hands useless from the numbness that was spreading from whatever these bindings touched. I want to scream, but the numbness which is quickly overtaking me chokes out my scream to nothing more than a loud whisper. With horror, I look up and see a large hulking shadow take form over me. It assembles into some shape whose visage I am horrified by, and thankful that I cannot make out entirely. I can feel myself being lifted up by unseen arms, as I am carried out into the light. The three figures I saw earlier look towards me, and their faces light up with joy. I try to steal a view of what it is that is carrying me, but to no avail, I can feel every muscle go limp in my body as the great side of the buildings great doors open up before me. My vantage does afford me a view of the inside of this large building. Rows and rows of bodies, carefully wrapped in fine silken cocoons. I can see several of the child like figures gathered around the bodies wrapped in their cocoons. The children were rushing about, from body, to body. Large syringes in their hands, they appeared to be injecting themselves, and the bodies at various times. Then I realized why there were no elders on this planet, they were all harvested for the young, to keep them young. As I came to the end of a row of bodies hung in their silken cocoons, I can feel myself being hoisted up to the ceiling. It is then that I can see the frightening sight of a spider, perhaps 12 feet in size, looking like a large tarantula hanging me neatly along a row of many others. As I hang there waiting for the children to arrive, and do to me as they will, I can see the desiccated bodies of my crew, and ship mates all lined up in this row. I now know why we were warned not to come here.
