[3. HOW DO YOU DEAL WITH STRESSFUL SITUATIONS?]

. . . I think something just ate me.

~~~

Everything blurs together. I’m having trouble even thinking straight. I’m hallucinating this right? Surely this is all one very realistic dream. When I wake up, I won't be dead, there won’t be this ghoul eating my soul, and there definitely won't be a gigantic eye filling the sky staring down at us both.

Actually, where did that come from? It just appeared out of nowhere. It's massive and black, with a long, long body that reminds me of an eel. It's kinda wispy actually. It's got these tongues of black flame-looking stuff shooting off of its body. Tentacles? Tendrils? I wonder which is more accurate.

Whatever they are, they're reaching down towards us. I suppose I should be terrified, but it's hard to feel anything through this invading numbness crawling through my chest.

I watch as the eye-eel thing reaches it tendrils down, slipping them gently around the unaware ghoul still gnawing at the pieces of myself. With a yank, the tendrils pull the ghoul up towards the pupil of the massive eye. I'm left puddling on the ground. In a daze, I continue to watch as the pupil enlarges almost to the edge of the iris, revealing rows and rows of pointy teeth rimming the inside of the pupil.

If that's not a death hole, I don't know what is.

With a strange shloop, the tendrils push the ghoul into the teeth-lined pupil-mouth. The mouth immediately snaps shut like a camera shutter, shrinking to the size of a pinhead in milliseconds. The size contrast between what the pupil was a second ago and what it is now is very disturbing, and it all happened so fast that the ghoul didn't even get a chance to struggle.

The eye turn its attention to me. I can literally feel its interest in me increasing, turning into a tangible, suffocating pressure. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. It's hurting again. Fear shoots through me again, driving away the numbness completely. I need to run. I have to get out of its sight, but there’s nowhere to hide; the pressure is swallowing my thoughts and. I. can’t. breathe.

.

.

It’s staring at me.

.

.

I can’t move.

It’s staring.

Need.  

To get out;

  of HERE.

Like something responding to my tortured thoughts, a crack suddenly forms, bisecting the eye in two. The pressure on me decreases like a deflating balloon. I gasp for breath, nearly falling over from lack of air. Dead people shouldn’t need to breathe, right? But I feel like I’m going to faint.

I can feel the pressure starting to increase once more, pressure from intense anger this time rather than interest, but it feels like it's happening on the opposite side of a glass wall. Any moment that wall will shatter, but for now, the pressure isn’t affecting me.

Another crack forms, and I realize that it’s not the eye that’s cracking, it’s the space between the creepy and me. It’s breaking in pieces. Like pieces of a broken mirror, each piece is showing a distorted version of reality. What is this?

I shake as the eye’s tendrils slam into that fragile wall in space, breaking it even more. The massive thing screams. I hastily cover an ear with my remaining hand and huddle to the ground. It doesn’t help much. The air visibly shakes from the force of its voice, setting my ears ringing.

Space cracks further. Any second, that thing will get through. It’ll get to me. Dad, I’m scared. How do I get out of this?

As I watch, a piece of space actually falls out right in front my nose, and I’m left staring in apprehension into a dark, swirling hole.

Alright, between being eaten by a massive eldritch horror and jumping into an unknown dimensional hole, which is scarier? The eye screams again. Whelp, that answers that question. It won’t hurt, right? Afterall, I’m already technically dead. Here’s to hoping I don’t get twisted into spaghetti or something.

Without a second thought, I slip into the crack.

The universe--and it really was a universe--on the other side is absolutely disorienting. What hits me first is a slow creeping cold, chilling to the bone.

Stolen story; please report.

The second thing that hits me is that I’m somehow in outer space. I’ve shifted away from the Earth. I can see it floating far below me, far enough away that I can take in the whole planet. It’s strange looking. The colors are all wrong, all yellow and purple like a photonegative, and the planet itself wavers like a desert mirage.

What’s stranger is that empty space here roils and rolls like drunken waves, visible gravity ripples shifting with psychedelic and bizarre swirls of color. Stars feel massive and tiny at the same time, fluctuating with a strange sense emptiness that wars with their usual feeling of over abundance of mass. The scene overloads my senses in an instant.

The universe shutters violently. It’s accompanied by sound of space breaking behind me, jolting me out of my daze. I can feel it. The eye is coming.

I run.

With no other thoughts, I run as hard as I can. No time to think. No time to pay any attention to the dizzying whirl flashing around me.

Tendrils brush my ankles. Fear shoots through me, and I somehow manage to squeeze out even more speed, moving many times faster what was possible when I had a body. Heck, at this point, it’s impossible to say I’m running, more like shooting through space like a meteor.

Despite the few seconds I buy with my increased speed, my lead is shrinking rapidly. If nothing changes in the next few seconds, then I’m going to find myself joining Mr. Ghoul in Massive Creepy’s stomach.

Sorry Dad. Looks like your daughter won’t make it out of this alive. I’m honestly surprised I’ve lived this long already.

Tears stream past my cheeks, a combination of exhaustion and desperation.

Well, Universe. I’m waiting. You going to throw anything else at me? Or is this the end for me? You’ve already put me through this ridiculous sequence of events, so I’m sure you can pull out one more for me. I’d rather not get eaten by this thing if I can help it. The fact that I haven’t died yet must mean something, right?

Oh wait . . . I am dead. Well there goes my conspiracy theory that the universe is trying to give me a hard day. It just, you know, outright killed me instead.

Suddenly, I feel very tired. This is really all ridiculous. Why am I even trying anymore? This was out of my league from the beginning.

Should I end it?

My speed decreases slightly as the thought flits across my mind. Tendrils immediately wrap around my ankles, slowing my frantic pace. They start crawling up my legs. I shiver. A few seconds later, they reach my chest and start squeezing the breath out of my lungs. It’s uncomfortable, but it doesn’t exactly hurt, which is somehow even more creepy. It cause the corners of my vision to start to go black.

Crap. This is it then. This is the end. I won't exist anymore after this.

I just wish . . . that I could see you again, Dad. Just once.

.

.

.

I'm not exactly sure what happened.

I know I blacked out for what had to have been only a second or two, but between when I blacked out and when I wake up again, a giant spider at least three times the size of the eye-eel creepy appeared out of nowhere, latching onto Mr. Eyeball.

Why do I keep meeting bigger and bigger things today? Should I be concerned? I almost feel sorry for my would-be eaters. Any time something tries to eat me, something bigger comes along. Am I really that unlucky?

Nausea assails me as the tendrils holding me start to whip around, the eye screeching brain-shatteringly at the top of its lungs. The spider slams a foreleg down on top of it, further restricting the eye from moving and shutting it up. Oh, thank heavens! The eye turns and takes a chunk out of the spider’s leg. The spider goes to whack it.

Oi oi. Wait! No! Stop! The leg looms in my vision. It slams into me like an oncoming truck. All I can feel is a crushing pain, then I am ripped out of the tendrils and sent flying into the distance like a shooting star. The force of the hit was so intense that I black out once more.

When I wake up, I find myself still free-falling in space (can I even call it that?). How long have I been going like this? It doesn’t feel like I’ll stop anytime soon unless smack into something. I mean, it is space after all, despite whatever weird dimension I’m in currently.

But still, what am I, your personal football?

I guess that means that the universe didn’t let me down after all. Maybe. That’s still up for debate. But if that’s right, I’m not sure how I feel about it. I don’t believe that the universe is conscious or that some great being has a grand design. And if there is a plan like that, I doubt it includes me. I'm literally the definition of a nobody.

Naw, I’d rather believe this is all a freaky coincidence. Otherwise, wouldn’t that being make my life better? Or at least not kill me?

Not take me away from my dad?

I gulp away tears, pushing away the feeling. I can’t break down here. I’m not out of the woods yet. I trust my gut, and my gut’s telling me that Mr. Eye is still alive after that encounter with the planet-sized spider. Somehow.

It’s strange. I can actually feel the creepy. It’s a faint feeling, but it's definitely there. The creepy is weak, probably injured from the fight, but there’s a good chance it got away considering that it’s feeling just plain annoyed. It's also still looking for me.

I guess it’s a good thing I’m traveling so fast away from it. If only that didn’t mean getting launched like a pumpkin out of a canon. I wonder if I’ll crash like one too. Sploosh. Like that.

I giggle. I wonder how long it’s been since that happened anyway. Must be ages! All that adrenaline--the only thing keeping me sane through way too many life and death situations--has finally run out. My energy has hit absolutely rocky bottom. And so, without further ado, I feel positively, deliciously delirious and my psychedelic, swirling, colorfully mushrooming surroundings must be the cherry on top of that ginormous floating strawberry cake over there. Wait, slow down, I want slice! How do I slow down?

Hahaha! So fast! All aboard the chu chu train! Chu Chu!

I promise, Mr. Rabbit, there are absolutely, positively, beyond a shadow of a doubt, no spiders allowed here. None. After all, I am the president, and I make the rules. I stab out my finger to emphasize my point. I assure you, it’s a necessary defensive measure Mr. Potato. We can’t have eels running around the garden, can we? They must all be packed up and sent to Mars.

Hehe, you’re right this is great, and that’s a planet. Did we make it to Mars? I’ve never felt so much wind in my life! Is it hot in here? Mars is hot. No, wait, it’s cold. Tricky thing, trying to trick me into thinking you’re hot just ‘cause you’re red. You can’t trick me this time. You’re not red. You’re reeaaaalllly white. Woah the white ground is getting sooooo big. I want to touch it.

The ground rushes up towards me.

With a sudden, resounding smack, I black out.