The Itch

Michelle sat alone at her desk in front of her computer, trying to get something to come to mind about what to write about her essay on. It was already midnight and she was exhausted and just wanted to get the assignment over with. Michelle stared blankly at the screen as she tried hard to write. She was feeling a little ill and her arm had been itching. While itching her arm she felt something moving around. The sleep deprivation she had been suffering from made her assume it was just a trick her mind was playing on her.

Michelle began to write her long assignment for her class, she hadn't realized that the whole time she was typing, she kept itching her arm. She watched a drop of blood splash onto her keyboard. Michelle looked to her arm to find that her arm was bleeding from scratching it. Underneath the scratches and the blood, there was something small and black moving around, she stared at it in shock for a moment and then she screamed. Michelle had no idea what it was moving around but she wanted it out. Panicked, she ran to the bathroom to find a pair of tweezers. She placed the tips of the tweezers to the opening of the cut and grabbed the small creature. She tried to wedge the creature out but it was too big to fit through the small hole from where she had been scratching. Michelle hurried to the kitchen to grab a knife to open up the wound just a little more. She placed the knife to her arm and slowly pressed down enough to create a small gash. As blood flowed out from her wound, she put the tweezers back in. Although she tried not to put pressure against the wound, the tweezers kept hitting the sides of her open skin, she screamed it hurt so bad as she wedged the tweezers into the gash, trying to find the creature again. Michelle finally got ahold of the creature and she tried to pull it out, this time the gash was wide enough and it worked. She still had the itch from before, but at least the creature was out of her.

Michelle put the creature under a light to examine it, it looked as if it was some kind of sluglike insect. Michelle was terrified but tried to stay calm. She wrapped her wound up with a large bandaid from the bathroom and some antibiotic cream. After caring for the wound, she went back to her computer and started typing again, trying not to look down at her arm. She began typing furiously angry and wanting to get this over with. She didn't even realize that by this time it was already 1:34 am, and she was only halfway done with the paper. Michelle realized she was going to need something to keep her awake if she was going to finish this, so she threw on some shoes and grabbed her keys to head the the gas station across town. She got in the car and started on her way the the gas station. Everything seemed normal almost, until the itch started on her other arm. Trying to ignore it she did not touch it at all, she decided she was going to visit her doctor tomorrow just to be sure she was going to be okay. Michelle arrived at the gas station and went inside and grabbed a couple energy drinks. At the counter she handed the cashier her money and the cashier just stopped and looked at her arm. "What happened to your arm?" he asked very cautiously, a little nervous expression on his face. She stood for a minute to decide what she should say. "Oh it's nothing, I just had something in my arm probably from an open wound, nothing serious", she replied to him shyly. He looked at her, studying the look in her eyes. It was obvious that the man did not believe her, but he kept silent. She began to walk away out the doors when he shouted. "Wait, ma'am! Come back fast". Michelle walked back up to the counter slowly to see him rolling up his sleeve, he had a bandage covering a wound on his arm and you could see the area was irritated from scratching it. "Does yours itch?" he asked her. She was speechless so she nodded and stood, what was this? They were both clueless on what was going on but felt it was suspicious, they exchanged numbers in case anything new happened and then Michelle was on her way.

Michelle got home and got to work on her paper, around 3:49 she had finally finished her assignment and decided to go to bed. She brushed her teeth, changed into her silk top and shorts for bed and got under the covers. 5 am...there's a screeching noise so loud it wakes up Michelle. Confused and half asleep she gets out of bed and feels something wet and squishy underneath her feet, she turns on the light panicking. Underneath her feet and all over her floor, are what look like at least several thousand of the tiny slugs, all screeching and moving around. Michelle looks at her arms and sees several more open spots in her skin, in which there were slugs coming out of still, not only her arms but her legs and neck as well. She was terrified and had no idea what to do, she screamed so loud she felt her voice should have gone out and then she wept, sat in the corner and wept waiting for the end, she was going to die tonight, that she knew. Her whole body itched, she had a feeling in her whole body that you get when you have butterflies in your stomach, the fluttery,moving,tingling feeling. Except she definitely didn't have butterflies, nothing delightful about this moment in life, she just had thousands of small insects moving around in her body. Taking a while to think to herself what she should do she came up with several ideas, call her parents, a hospital, the police, anything to help, but who would believe her? It took a few minutes for Michelle to remember the guy from the gas station, she should call him, surely he'd believe her. She grabbed her cellphone from the table next to her bed and found the number and dialed it. The phone rang for what seemed like a peculiar amount of time, the dial tone still not distracting her from the screeching of the small insects. The young man finally answered his phone, "hello, who is this?" he spoke. There was a noise coming from his line that sounded like a gushing breeze of wind, was he outside? "Hello! My name is Michelle we.. we met at the gas station, I need help I don't know what to do please help me" Michelle uttered quietly, afraid he wouldn't want to help her. "Where are you Michelle? What is happening has it gotten worse?" he asked her very quietly. "178 Dark Lane, about five minutes away from the gas station" Michelle answered, " it's much worse I'm telling you, I'm going to die there's more and it hurts, oh it hurts so bad please help me". "Okay Michelle, I get off of work in about half an hour, it'll have to wait until then and I will be right over to help you, stay still and stay calm it'll all be okay" the man said calmly to her over the phone. Michelle was terrified, she felt like every muscle in her body was going numb, like the slugs were eating her flesh, perhaps poisoning her blood every time they tore further into her warm flesh. What if she didn't have another thirty minutes to live? "Okay but... please hurry, I'm begging you" Michelle said with her voice shaking. They got off of the phone and Michelle decided to try to occupy her mind and stay calm. She went to the bathroom and started running a shower, they certainly wouldn't all come out of her body but maybe it'd help a little bit. The water was steaming as she got in, almost instantly turning her body red. The waterflow on the open areas where the slugs had gone out of, began to burn not like a sting or a cut getting germ-x in it or anything like that, it burned so bad like something was melting her flesh. Michelle began to feel weak, more and more slugs were coming out and she began to lose blood, some had eaten through her arm all the way and were still going, opening up the small openings in her skin even more, as blood began flowing out of every single one of the holes. Michelle screamed and she fell fast to the shower floor, hitting her head on the side. Her head began to pour out blood, but Michelle was not there, a million slugs flowed out of her body and slid up the walls and out of the window where there was a small slit in the screen. All of the slugs were finally out of her body, gone. Just a ton of wounds bleeding out all up her arms.

6 am..

KNOCK KNOCK...

There was a banging on the door at Michelle's house but nobody opened the door, everything else was dead silent. The man panicked and opened the door, worried for Michelle he bolted in and began yelling her name. Every door he opened and every room he looked, but he was having no luck... until he heard the shower running. He ran to the door where he heard the shower behind and knocked and yelled her name again.... no answer. He slowly cracked open the door, not yet looking in case she wasn't covered. "Michelle, I'm here now are you okay?" he was answered by silence. He opened his eyes slowly and began to scream, he was looking down at Michelle's exposed, lifeless body in the bottom of the bath tub being burnt by scorching water. Even with the water running he could still see the amount of blood that came from her head. He called 9-1-1 immediately and gave them the location and repeated "she's dead, help, she's dead.. and I'm next". The police and ambulance arrived quickly and one officer instantly asked him about the cause, he explained what had been happening and how he met her, the cop obviously didn't believe it, they saw no slugs around. They took the body and took the man home as two other officers stayed to look around, "there's nothing here, let's go" spoke one of them. They walked out, and to their squad cars relieved to be leaving. "Man, I don't know why but my arm is itching really bad, like I might die" he chuckled, mostly to himself. The two officers laughed a little and then they drove off into the distance.