After the school

Vicki Chase

2 .

I rarely dream.

When I sink into the pillow and Angelique's scent washes over me, all I ever recall is that surreal feeling of floating before falling unconscious into blackness. I

appreciate those moments of peace from my own thoughts.

When I do dream, it's always the same. I rise from the bed, it is dark. I walk across the room to the bathroom, with a strange pressure sometimes a tickling sensation

in my abdomen. The floor of the bathroom is ice cold against my footpads. I reach for the light switch with one hand, and run the other over my stomach. I jerk it away

as my skin feels strange, and there is a warm sticky substance on my fingertips.

The light comes on and I see the cause. Under my right arm, down my side, holes. Round shallow holes in my skin, raw wounds, oozing a clear liquid, matting in my fur.

In this dream I am not afraid, even as I see things writhing beneath my skin. I know that they are rising from my womb, in my dream this is logical. I lift my arm over

my head and the holes stretch and distort. I run my fingertips over it, there is a stinging sensation. I press my fingertips into them and the stinging becomes more

intense but not unpleasant, a burning warm sensation begins to radiate all across my side.

It's only when I feel movement right beneath my finger I jerk my hand away. The pressure released sends a jolt of pain across my body. My fur stands on end. I cannot

look away from these holes even as the movement beneath my skin becomes more intense. My flesh is bulging from the pressure just below its surface.

I cannot look away.



Though I usually reserve my note taking for my medical endeavors, but I feel I need to record tonights experience, as it may be significant to said endeavors. I am not

one to believe in premonition, but the sensation I am experiencing is nothing short of panic, induced by of all things, a dream.

I rarely dream, save for one or two strange recurring ones. I had spent the weekend moving some of Angeliques belongings into the house, she is quite the scatterbrain,

(though I mean that in the most endearing way) and I discovered quite recently she had a storage unit in her name which was defaulting on the payments. Scatterbrained,

as I said.

After balancing the account I gained access, and I discovered a number of boxes, old school books, nick-knacks and most curiously a box of personal records. These are

as I write this next to me in my study. I will admit my curiosity is overwhelming but I respect Angeliques privacy, she is quite reserved about her family and her

history. Still... it is like an itch in the back of my mind.

After a glass of wine I had headed to bed, tired from moving around boxes and cleaning out the storage shed. I fell asleep quickly, the sound of light rain on the roof

and Angeliques scent on my skin.

And then I began to dream. In the dream the world was enormous, and I was a tiny spec, no bigger than your index finger. I recall in the logic of the dream I questioned

this and some force assured me I was not a micro-fauna, the world was simply much larger than me. Curious, how our subconscious rationalizes such nonsense. I was

walking along a table, cold underfoot, like stainless steel. It was dark and the reek of chemicals and bleach was heavy in the air.

I could hear heavy vibration, incredibly deep and loud, it made the ground shake beneath me. When I looked up I could see figures, their faces obscured as they towered

above me, only the reflection of their spectacles gleaming in my direction. They are talking and gesturing but I cant understand, the air just vibrates and hums in a

frequency I cant process. They feel familiar, and I am scared, scared because they are so much larger with so much power over me.

I run and become unable to move, standing atop a silver flat plate. It is linked to a number of colorful wires and I feel drained. In the dream I knew they were taking

my blood, all of it, draining from my frame. I can see numbers and analytics in garbled numerals on the walls. I turn to see one of the figures shake his head, and I

know he sees my thoughts. I cry out as he strikes a button on the wall.

There is a split second that follows that lasts an eternity. I seem to view it from outside my body seeing every terrible detail. My body unravels, my skin flays from

flesh in elegant spirals, stretching and tearing, falling from my body as easily as a virgins gown on her wedding night. My tendons snap, every fibers of muscle tearing

and springing back from the bone, their tensile strength lost. My abdomen opens, and my innards pour out exposed and twisting apart. I feel my cells distorting, I feel

my genes betray me, I feel my double helixes come undone, base pairs rejecting one another in a beautiful, terrible moment. I hear their laughter, and I am helpless.

I awoke drenched in sweat, clutching at my wrists, where the flesh first began to flay away. My heart has only just stopped its panicked pace. I do not believe in

premonition, but this dream reminds me of a quest long abandoned. A plan I failed to follow up on, distracted in my romance and my work from my true goals. I will find

those figures from my dream, I remember their names even now. I will find each and every one and make sure they are never able to turn my genes against me...