Fiction Fragment Friday
This week’s story can be read entirely on it’s own, but it is a sequel to the previous Fiction Fragment Friday Monster Hunters which is noteworthy because it was the very first Fiction Fragment Friday. Next week it will have been a year since I started doing these. I did not set out to write a sequel to that story when I sat down to write this one, but after I got a few paragraphs in I decided that was the direction I wanted to go in.
I plan to proved a year in review post next week with some stats, updates, and plans. I will want to do something special for the story as well, but I have not decided what yet. For this week enjoy One Bad Morning.
I woke up gasping for air in a state of complete panic. Pressure pushed against my eyes and ears from inside my head. With great effort I dragged myself out of bead and stumbled to the bathroom. Opening the medicine cabinet, I fumbled with the boxes and dropped the one I needed into the sink. With a frustrated sigh I picked it up and grabbed a pill swallowing it without any drink. Sinuses, allergies, and recurring nightmares are not a good combination for a restful night’s sleep. Unfortunately, I had quite a bit of experience dealing with this combination. The sinuses and allergies I had struggled with my whole life, but the nightmares were a recent development.
Normally I remember my dreams, but these nightmares fade quickly. I had a sense that it was the same dream recurring every night, but the only thing I could recall after the panic subsided each morning was a number. The first night the number was seven and each night after it lowered by one like a countdown. That morning as I looked in the mirror at a tired miserable looking reflection, I didn’t get a number. Instead as my thoughts cleared, I got a strong sense of the word today. While the panic had faded with the adrenaline the general anxiety was only growing.
Throughout the morning a headache grew that pain killers couldn’t seem to touch. It started as the pressure behind my eyes migrating to a low throbbing sensation in the front of my head. As the hours passed the throbbing became a stabbing pain coming in waves of increasing intensity. My coffee mug fell to the floor and shattered into tiny pieces as a particularly intense wave hit me. I found myself doubled over on the floor as the pain ebbed and decided it was time to go to an Urgent Care. With the waves coming faster I didn’t feel that it would be safe to drive myself, so I started downloading a ride sharing app to my phone while cleaning up the mess. That was when the strongest wave yet hit me and I lost all sense of time as I hit my kitchen floor.
My doorbell echoed through the house. I briefly wondered why no one was answering the door before remembering that I lived alone. The pain was too intense to get to my feet, so I just lay there curled up in the fetal position. A loud crack came from the living room as my front door was kicked open. I hoped that whoever it was would pay for the repairs because I didn’t have enough money saved for a new door. A woman with green hair wearing some sort of brown work jumpsuit strolled into my house. Behind her came a tall dark-haired man. They each held what looked to me like a 1950s inspired ray gun in one hand. The woman also held a tablet of some sort in her left hand.
“Alright James the strongest readings are in the kitchen and the bedroom. I’ll take the bedroom you take the kitchen.”
The man nodded and headed towards me. “So help me Lilly if I end up covered in green goo again I’m picking the missions from now on.”
“Quit your whining, it’s not my fault you waited too long to shower last time.”
The man whose name was apparently James finally saw me on the kitchen floor and rushed to my side. My vision was blurring from the pain, but I could hear him muttering, “Please let me be in time for once.” I felt a needle press into my arm. “Stay with me. Focus on my voice.” I tried to do what he said but the pain was so intense. It felt like my head was going to explode. “Lilly get in here his head is about to burst.”
I heard the female voice from my bedroom. “It’s a nightmare parasite. Came in through his dreams.”
“Hold on just a little longer.” I could feel him squeezing my hand. “I need that frequency, Lilly.”
“I’m working on it. Ok, got it. 7.48325 wavelength so frequency of 41.2”
I could just barely make out the man standing and pointing his ray gun at me. The pain was too intense for my fear to take the form of words, but a part of me was just grateful that it was about to stop. A wave of heat washed over my head and I let out an involuntary scream. Something wet was leaking from my ears and I wondered if my brain had been liquefied. “Die you bastard,” was the last thing I heard before everything went dark and I once again slipped into unconsciousness.
Sunlight burned my eyes as I struggled to open them. My throat felt raw like it would the day after a really good concert when I was younger. While my head was sore it was a minor pain. As always, my sinuses and allergies meant that waking up was going to be a miserable process. Still, I forced myself up and into the bathroom to go through my daily routine. By the time I made my way to the kitchen I was convinced it had all been a dream. That was when I stepped in a slippery green goo on my tile floor. I found myself painfully planted on my floor with my head turned towards my front door. It was broken and just sat in place at a slight angle to block the entryway. “I really hope my homeowner’s insurance covers that,” I said to myself. As I lay rubbed my now sore back, I couldn’t help but notice that where the green good touched my bare foot it was starting to itch.
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