Imagination #TNTHorrorContest

Imagination

  I was falling through space, or at least what seemed to be space, with colours and wild, ugly beasts bearing tall horns and nasty teeth shooting past me, casting colours of their own across my body. As I watched, my hair seemed to surround my small body, the long brown locks curling every which way as if my hair was weightless, which just made me think even more that I was in space. The hair seemed to protect me from all that was shooting by, and it almost made me feel safe in this unfamiliar setting.

  It took me a few moments to realize how clean it smelled inside of what I assumed to be my own mind. It smelled almost sterile, but it wasn't a definite scent. It seemed more diluted to me than anything. Perhaps all of this is just a product of my vivid imagination...

  I tried moving my body around, but found that I couldn't and sighed in frustration; not that I’d want to anyway. My face felt hot and sticky so I assumed the rest of my body surely must have felt the same if I could feel it. I tried wrinkling my nose in distaste for my current situation and it twitched, so maybe what was paralyzing me was mostly focused on my lower half, rather than my face?

  It almost felt like something that wasn't quite cushiony but wasn't quite stone hard was pressed up against my small back, but that could possibly be the clothing that I'm wearing. However due to my current predicament, I couldn't look down and confirm that suspicion at the moment.

     I sat for a few good minutes just glancing around, looking as best as I could, and trying to get a feel for all of the wild beasts shooting past me. I saw a few with dark fur and some with scales and they all seemed to come straight from a horror movie, each of them their own unique genre of scary. They all appeared to be flying, whether with wings or something else, in random directions.

  None of them moved in straight lines and none of them had a specific pattern in movement, so it was even more odd to see. I then realized that these are all products of my mind and it baffled me that I had thought up each and every one of these creatures some time in the past.

  Several of the creatures had more than two eyes, with even some on their hands or back, but several more of them had just one that I could see. As they all shot past me, some like bullets and some like lazy ducks in a pond, I couldn't help but notice that every single one of them had some sort of a little, yellow band on their ankle, like something you might see at a doctor's office for patients that might stay awhile.

  “What is that..?” I muttered, knowing very well that I hadn't ever dreamt of these bands. As one particular beast with blue and white striped fur and a long tail flew by me at a very slow speed, I looked at his ankle band. On the band was a little white strip and a string of numbers and letters that were in no particular order. “3A6097ETB?” The monster looked at me as if it had been called and flicked its long tail, as if in recognition. I guess that means that those numbers and letters were simply way of being recognized in such a big place filled with random monsters that might be hard to identify by memory. “So it's like a social security number or something…” I muttered quietly before sighing loudly.

  I looked around again as best as I could without moving my neck, once again finding myself frustrated with my state of immobility. In my limited field of vision, nothing seemed more peculiar than the ugly beasts with yellow anklets, tall horns and their own specific horror genre for everyone around me so I dismissed it, hoping that none of the monsters would lash out at me.

   “Ally~” I heard. It came from a voice that seemed to be everywhere at once, deep and scratchy, as well as inhuman. It chilled me straight to the bone, sending shivers throughout my entire spine.  Becoming frantic, I looked around again, borderline desperate to find the source of the frightening voice. None of the beasts around me seemed to be the owner of the voice, which scared me even more.

  “Who are you? What do you want?” I whispered, trying to calm my now racing heart that seemed to beat louder than the inhuman voice that was speaking around me.

  “I am nothing, and I am everything. I am nowhere and, yet, I am everywhere. What am I?” The voice asked, and I remained silent, racking my brain for anything that could possibly be the answer. After a moment, it clicked.

  “Air...?” My breath quickened, and I found myself feeling more and more breathless as time went on. “But that is impossible..” I whispered. As soon as I finished speaking, I felt my body suddenly loosen as well as feeling flooding back into me.. The dry, coldness of the rest of my body came crashing into me like the ocean during a storm, and it sent another violent shiver down my spine. I took this opportunity of possible temporary mobility and spun around, trying but failing to find the source of the voice.

  “Correct, but all that is not possible is plausible, do you not agree?” I felt blood rush from my toes to the tips of my fingers as the wet heat slowly moved from my face to my left ear, as if someone or, more appropriately something, was breathing on me. That clean smell also disappeared, leaving behind a stench that only a rotting corpse could manage to acquire.

  A moment later, the voice changed to an almost feminine tone that sounded sickly sweet, like the robotic and forced voice of an old children’s toy, but the smell stayed the same. “...Ally~” cooed the new, feminine voice, sounding much closer to me than the other, more beastly voice. Suddenly, the feminine voice deepened considerably, as if suddenly becoming serious. “It’s time to take your medicine...”

And everything went black...