Jumbo Shrimp

What's shaking? Heard you were on assignment?

Cheddar

Yuppers.

Jumbo Shrimp

Where you at?

Cheddar?

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Chapter 2 — Asher

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Shifting glyphs peeled back and lifted off the page. Asher’s eyes watered, his skin tingled as he watched the glyphs float upward, his eyes forced to track their lazy movement, his mouth stuck in the ‘wha’ of ‘what’ position. He couldn’t look away. Couldn’t close his mouth. Couldn’t even blink.

The first floating symbol streaked between paralyzed lids, striking his left eye. It felt like a drop of water. A slight sting, but then it exploded. Pain seared through his eye and into his brain. Burned to his lungs and shot through to his fingers and toes, causing nails to twist in their beds.

The world to the left disappeared as purple oozed over his vision. The purple wasn’t bright, nor vibrant. Instead, it was ominous and royal. The next symbol slammed into his right eye, another searing bolt, and his world disappeared behind the viscous purple shell. Lights and shapes gone, sounds muffled — he was alone.

He stood in a dim room walled in on all sides. Asher reached out and brushed fingers against the wall. It was cold, and purple ink parted to reveal the bluish white ice beneath.

The ice walls cracked and violet spiders trailing wisps of dark smoke swarmed out. There must have been thousands and each one skittered out of narrow cracks without slipping along the slick walls. They collected the ink and began etching glyphs into the icy canvas with glowing mandibles.

Asher knew they were searing the glyphs into his mind — he didn’t know how he knew, but he did. They were just spiders, he could squish spiders. He took the first step, then stopped — it was a losing strategy. There were thousands of them. He couldn’t win the fight from here. It was the page. The ink.

He closed his inner eyes, blocking out the sight of unsettling arachnids, if not the sound of them skittering across the walls. Asher tried to force his awareness back to the physical. He wasn’t sure it would work, but mind over matter and all that. His doctor had told him to focus on the minor things, the minutia, when fighting against hallucinations. That’s what he did. He focused on how the page felt, how the room of nervous teens smelled, the slightly cool feeling of the jersey material against his back.

There was a flicker, a sensation of out there, of outside. He felt the hard floor on his back. He was on the classroom floor! The pain roared back into his mind as awareness returned. Each symbol striking his eye sent shock waves through him. His limbs felt very far away. It was like trying to reach through a world of cotton and Jell-O, but he could move!

He remembered what it meant to have arms and pushed through the fire in his mind to force a physical response. He slapped clumsy hands to his face. The paper was gone, but he needed to grab the wall, peel it back, or rub the ink from his eyes. He didn’t care if he ever saw again — whatever this was wouldn’t claim him.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

He heard O’Leary shouting. A woman’s voice called for help. Another squeaked, “no,” repeatedly. They were all far away. Too far.

Hands pushed at his elbows, and for a moment Asher felt relief — help had arrived, but then someone else grabbed his wrists. They were pulling his hands away, but he had to tear it down; he needed to fight, and they were holding him down — condemning him to lose.

“No. No!” Asher screamed into the void and his concentration shattered. His awareness of the physical vanished. He had lost the battle, watching as the damn wispy spiders continued to scribe on the now nearly covered walls. The pain had passed, but the dread of what his future held grew with each glyph.

He needed a new angle of attack.

He sat down, legs crossed, and settled his breathing as best he could. The last thing he needed right now was a panic attack. He remembered having them in the physical world but couldn’t remember why.

Asher studied the glyphs, finding a comfort in their logic, in the pattern, but he couldn’t find what he was looking for — a weak point.

With each new glyph, the walls would shudder and often a new crack would appear. For a moment Asher wondered if the spiders were on his side. If they kept it up, the glyphs would take the walls down for him.

“If that were to happen, you would cease to be,” said a voice in Asher’s mind. It was soft, gentle.

Whoever it was, Asher knew she was telling the truth. The walls were a construct of his mind. The walls gave him the best chance to survive while learning... the spell? How did he not see it before? The dread came not from the glyphs, but from each new crack that formed. He focused on the walls and decided if he couldn’t win, he’d survive.

He conjured up images of ice in his mind. The way it gave to his skate blade, but held firm against impact. He visualized the walls thickening and repairing and slowly some cracks did just that.

Asher watched as the spiders began to fall one-by-one from the wall to their backs. Their legs trembled, and curled, as each of the spiders, their life's work complete, died in a puff of dark smoke.

Larger cracks were forming now, and a sizeable sheet of ice fell away, but his force of will kept the mental walls of ice intact. Then, as Asher thought his discipline about to fail, the final spider fell from the surface, curled, and died. He sat staring at their work. It was… kind of beautiful. Glyphs covered the four walls, each one overlapped and formed a single unbroken chain of symbols.

Then they flared to life with a deep thrum and blast of purple light.

The walls held. That was good. Asher didn’t want to die, but now it was time for answers. “Who are you?”

“Silence!” The voice struck like a whip, slashing across Asher’s mental form. It lifted him from his feet and sent him flying into a wall. He slid to the ground, feeling his inner body go limp. “Who did this?” she asked.

Asher didn’t know what to say, but he felt acceptance slither through him. He needed to answer. He wanted to give her everything. “I don’t know.”

“Useless,” said the voice. “But I do not deny, the feed will be enjoyable. Your scent is ... aged.”

In that one utterance, the voice withdrew her influence and told him four things. First, she had an enemy. Second, her enemy had made him a target. Third, he was waking up. And fourth, the idea of ending him entertained and excited her. That last one should have terrified him, but all Asher felt was defiance. It was strong and overtook his fear, doubt, and rising panic.

“Good,” said the voice. “It’s good to accept your fate, but bland to accept it so soon. Fight for a while more. It adds spice.”

A loud crack and roar caused Asher to gasp and clasp hands to his ears as the walls avalanched to the floor, melting and evaporating as they crumbled, but the glyphs held their position, floating in his mind. Light flooded past them and the world returned in a rush. Asher saw beyond the glyphs like the cage of his hockey helmet, but even they began to fade to the background as a most wonderful site came into focus.

An ear leaned over him, but it was by far the most beautiful ebony ear Asher had ever seen. He was alive. The world dimmed, the purple holding at the edges changed to black, then the lights flicked off.

His last sensation was of floating.