Little Deaths (Lance)
Lance opens his eyes reluctantly, he is afraid of what he will find now. He has already seen one of his friends tortured with needles and another one fall to his death. He does not know how much more he can take. As he looks around this new locale, his eyes widen in amazement. He is in a meadow, a huge field where the grass is green and so tall that it reaches his knees. Small white and pink flowers grow between the grass, adding bright colors to the landscape. The sky overhead is a gorgeous azure blue and the birds that fly across it sing happily. This place is beautiful.
He hears his name being called and turns to see his four friends, all very much alive, standing just a few feet away from him. He runs to them and hugs them all, holding JC and Chris longer and more tightly than the others. He asks these two if they are all right and he receives two hesitant nods in return. He can see the drying tears on Chris' cheeks and the pallor of JC's face and he winces. They are not all right.
"What is going on?" Justin asks, his voice colored by desperation and confusion.
They all shake their heads; they have no answers. They agree to walk and see if they can find the road or a house with a phone...something...anything.
Lance turns and begins to trudge through the high grass, his friends at his side. They walk for a few minutes in silence, seeing nothing but the wide expanse of the meadow. Suddenly Lance feels strange eyes upon him and he turns his head quickly.
Yes, there, to his left. Two cats. One black, one white, watching him. Motionless except for the lazy swishing of their tails.
Cats in a meadow. Strange. He shakes his head and moves away from them quickly. He likes cats and normally he would have approached them to pet them, but there is something about these animals that unnerves him.
He takes a few more steps and then senses that his friends are no longer with him. He turns around, avoiding the stares of the odd felines and sees that his friends are a few yards away from him.
"Guys, what's the matter?" he asks as his nerves begin to tingle with apprehension.
His friends look at him in complete confusion and tell him that they cannot move. Lance looks down at their legs and sees that the tall grasses are wrapped around them. He is beginning to feel fear now as he senses that things are again not right. That they are, in fact, horribly wrong. He goes to take a step forward to help his friends but finds that he cannot move his legs either. He looks down in surprise. The grasses have wrapped themselves around his legs also. They bind him as if they were chains of steel. He tugs at them but they do not move, and all he does is tear his hands on them.
He looks up and is about to speak when he hears a sound close to his ear.
A buzz.
An insect of some kind. Damn! He hates those things! He waves his hand in the air and again prepares to speak. The noise comes again; the buzz, only it is louder this time...closer. He feels a twinge of fear as he waves his hands in the air in an attempt to get the thing away from him. He looks up at his friends and sees that they are too busy trying to free their legs to notice him.
More buzzing. On either side of his head now. More of them. He waves both hands in the air, hoping that they'll go away. He feels something touch his arm, feels it begin to crawl up his arm, and he swats at it as a small strangled cry of fear escapes him. This gets the attention of his friends and they stop what they are doing and look at him strangely.
Lance manages to say "Guys..." before more of the insects surround him. He can make out that they are bees, wasps, and gnats and his heart contracts as he begins to panic. He can feel several of them alight on the skin of his arms and this time they sting and bite before he can swat them away. He cries out in pain and tries to step backwards.
He has to get away from them. He cannot bear the feel of them on his flesh. He cannot bear their little gifts of pain; he cannot bear their horrible sounds. In his desperation to flee he forgets that the grass around his legs will not allow him to move and he falls heavily to the ground.
He is vaguely aware that his friends are calling his name frantically but he cannot focus on them long enough to answer. All he can focus on are the creatures that now surround him like a living, breathing cloud.
More and more of them land on him now. They are all over him. He cries out in pain and fear as they sting his arms and his neck, as they crawl under his shirt and sting his back, his chest, his stomach. His mind reels from this assault as he tries in vain to understand it somehow. Why is this happening? Where are they coming from? Why do they only come at him? Oh God, why don't they stop?!
He continuously swats at them and yet there are always more. They now cover him like a second skin. His cries of pain have turned into unintelligible moans and he knows nothing except the feel of them, the pain, and that he wants this to stop. He wants the ground to open up and swallow him whole. He wants this to STOP! He can feel salty tears on his face as he begs for this to end.
The swarm; so huge and solid now that it resembles a living being, sees the tears glistening on his pale skin and alight on his face. His terrified screams echo through the air.
He screams until he has no breath left and then he screams some more until he is hyperventilating, gasping for air that will not come. As he opens his mouth in a desperate attempt to breathe the monstrous insects dive into it and fly down his throat.
All rational thought leaves him as he feels their legs, their stings, their bites, within him.
He can feel himself growing insane.
He can feel his mind fracturing.
He would rather die than feel this terror and pain any longer.
With one final piercing scream he allows the stark, naked fear to engulf him and his vision, his senses, his entire MIND fade to black.
**FLASH**
The blinding light returns and overwhelms all once again as dark eyes glitter with malicious joy.