[11. WHAT’S YOUR GREATEST PHOBIA?]

It used to be claustrophobia. At the moment, I’d say it’s a toss up between this thing and the freaking eyeball, with the ghoul running in close third.

~~~

When I say a horrifying feeling crawled up my spine, I mean it quite literally.

I shriek and spin around, trying to smack at whatever is crawling up my back. Whatever it is dodges my panicked swings, landing on my right arm, which promptly dissolves into nothing as I lose all control. I’m not exactly thinking straight. Heck, I’m screaming at the top of my lungs. As a result, the thing smacks into the ladder and falls to the ground.

It’s a bug.

Let me repeat that. It’s a bug. Like a massive, gross insect the size of a plate with way too many legs and a mishmash body of a cricket, silverfish, and earwig, with pincers on its backend big enough to look like a pair of scissors (not the safety kind either). Pause for breath.

That unholy thing.

Was on.

My back.

Oh my gosh, I can’t breathe.

This isn’t some soul sucking fear that’s assaulting me. Not like with the giant eye that simultaneously saved me from death and furiously chased me until I was landed in this stupid situation in this stupid alien world where everything and their neighbor wants to eat me. It’s not even like the creeping fear of being alone in a hostile land with absolutely nothing to rely on but myself, where one slip will land me in someone’s stomach.

Nope this is a completely irrational fear. I can easily recognize that. There’s no logic to it. I’m just scared of it, like of clowns or of heights except worse because those things could actually kill you. Well, this might, but I can beat it. I can totally kill it off easily. I know that. But it’s just so freaking gross I can’t even look at it.

Crap, it’s getting closer.

Oh, heck nope. I launch myself backwards as it scuttles disgustingly towards me.

Get away.

Get away.

“Get the freaking heck away from me!” Oops. I yelled that one out loud. I whip out a scythe with my left hand and slam its cutting edge down on the bugger. It pops like a ripe tomato, splattering guts all over my face.

I freeze in absolute horror.

Oh heavens . . . why would you do this?

I tear up. It smells disgustingly sweet. That somehow makes it all so much worse. Should insect guts smell like rotting apricots? Bile climbs up my throat, and I decide to barf my own guts out. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to eat apricots again. Not after that.

Let’s . . . let’s just leave. I need out of here. I feel sick. I wasn’t expecting to be splattered with guts when I woke up this morning, but at least it can’t get any worse at this point.

And of course it will. All my fault. I totally walked into that one and raised that flag. I’m severely tempted to roll my eyes, because in the next second parts of the floor and walls pop off like corks from a champagne bottle and more of those spawns of pure evil come crawling out. Within seconds, the floor is covered with them writing and crawling all over each other. I would barf again, but my stomach just dropped as they all turn as one to stare at me with beady insect eyes, some mid-crawl over each other.

This was all a bad idea, coming out here. This was a very bad idea. I grip scythe harder as they all raise their pincers like some kind of messed up scorpion, snip them open and close a couple of times. They lower them again. My eyebrows furrow. What the heck was that?

As I start inching my way closer to the ladder, a subtle scent wafts across my nose, something vaguely floral. It seems strangely out of place in a basement filled with insects, but that thought only lasted for a split second. I feel myself starting to zone out and lose track of my surroundings.

In that moment, a drop of insect guts rolls off my nose, and I’m again assailed with that disgusting apricot smell once more. I reel back, trying to protect my nose from the stench, then screech as I feel the insects starting up my legs. I swing at them with the scythe, popping bugs and not at all careful of cutting up my legs. I’m pretty sure I scratched them up awful, but the ones climbing up my legs are dead, so there’s that at least.

I get a second of breathing space only to feel absolute anger bubbling up within me when I realize what just happened.

These conniving little gutballoons! They freaking drugged me! First the drug me down the ladder, now they’re trying to drug me placid so they can swarm me? I grit my teeth. That’s it. No way in Jose am I just going to let them get away with that. Nobody drugs me. Nobody.

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I stomp on a bug. It pops. Disgusting, but weirdly satisfying. I pop another, grinning wildly with the adrenaline and mania running through my veins. Blood rushes about in my head (at least, the feeling of it does. It’s a passing thought, but I guess I don’t exactly have blood or veins or adrenaline anymore. Strange that the feeling of it still exists, though). In this haze, I unconsciously reform my arm and pull out the second scythe.

I swing both of them down hard, squishing at four of the bugs and crippling another’s left row of legs.

At this point, the bugs seem to have registered the situation. A bit slow on their part. They start screeching and several launch themselves at me. I swing a scythe at them, proud to note that it was not an unconscious reaction on my part. I can feel myself grinning again as it pretty much bisects them mid air. Freaking bomb or what? Heck yeah!

That’s what, ten down, three hundred and fifty or so to go? Who the heck cares? I freaking don’t. The bugs screech and squirm and surge towards me and all I can do is burst out laughing while hacking them apart. I don’t even care when I get bit. I feel so light headed I can’t even feel the pain.

Another ten or so burst open after a pass of my scythes. They go right through them like paper, it’s a bit ridiculous. I laugh even harder.

I think in some part of the back of my head, I can feel this is a dangerous situation. I’ve lost all feeling in my legs. The bugs won’t stop swarming no matter how much I stomp on them or slice them or pop them open. Even though I am slowly getting more efficient with the scythes, even though the swings are doing more damage and they are feeling more natural in my hands, even though I’m decimating enough to leave a wake of guts and twitching bug legs in my trail, they just won’t stop coming.

I can feel it even as more laughter bursts out of my lungs. My survival instincts are completely shot, and I’m reaching the bottom of my energy way too fast. If I don’t kill all these things before I run out of fumes, I think I just might die.

But the bigger part of me just screams: “Who cares? Hahaha!” Literally. I’m screaming that right now, laughing my head off with tears streaming down my face. This is the first time I’ve ever felt so manic before. I emphasize it with the whipping swing of my scythes. Several bugs pop open.

“Screw these gutballoons!”

Pop.

“Yeah, that’s right, go pop for all I care, you stupid things!”

Pop, pop, pop.

“You know what? Screw this whole world, too! Hahaha!”

Squelch.

“Screw all the creepy ghosts!”

Pop.

“Screw Jerkface for chasing me around like a mass murderer.”

Screech, pop, pop.

“Screw that stupid eyeball for forcing me to this messed-up world.”

Squish.

“And screw that crap ghoul for eating me alive!”

Pop.

“And taking me away from my plants!”

Thump, pop, pop, pop.

“And from my home!”

Slice.

“And from my dad!”

Bang, pop.

“From.”

Pop.

“Every.”

Squelch.

“Freaking.”

Smush.

“Thing!!!”

Pop, pop, pop.

“Hahahahahahhahahahahaha!”

Swoosh, pop, pop.

“I’ll let you all know just how much I”--Pop, pop--“Freaking”--Screech--“HATE all of you!!!!!!”

Bang, pop, pop, pop.

Slice, pop.

Thump, pop, smush, pop, pop, pop.

Screeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeech. Pop, pop, pop.

Stomp, squelch.

I stare at them, foot still lodged in the body of a bug. Alright, I’m gasping for air, but I’m still boring holes into their exoskeletons. They flinch (still creepily as one), and seem a bit hesitant to come after me. That makes sense, because I’m standing in an inch thick layer of gore. Guts and mucus cover pretty much all of me. I must look pretty intimidating surrounded by all the dead bodies of their friends and family or whatever.

“Yeah, that’s right,” I mumble. “Don’t mess with me.”

I think I killed like a third of them, at least. Probably more. There’s still a ton left though. I try not to look it--otherwise they’d probably rush me again--but I’m dead tired. I’m barely standing up as it is. I’m banged up as a tree trunk in a shredder. My feeling’s back now that the mania tide is all washed up and I am seriously hurting bad.

Guys, I don’t know how I’ll make it. I’m not sure I can move at this point.

We face off against each other for what must have been at least five minutes, neither side making any sort of move.

A few seconds later, the look in the gutbugs’s eyes seem to change and immediately I feel like something’s off. It feels like a strange rumbling just outside the edge of my hearing. In the next second, the ground bursts open and a gutbug four times the size of any of the others climbs out.

Great, a boss monster. Just what I needed. Still haven’t gotten rid of the mobs yet. I let the air out of my mouth slowly and drop into a fighting stance.

And then gape as the bugs I thought would rush at me turn and converge on the boss in a surging tide of creepy-crawly legs. The mass swells up like a balloon.

Are you kidding me? You pick this time to literally merge into one massive bug? Do ghosts just need to be oversized or something? I guess that’s why they were all weirdly synchronized. Mr. Boss Gutbug was controlling all them. Either they were all originally together and purposefully split into parts, or they’re a weird hive mind or something. Either way, I can’t really compliment this massive gutballoon on its intelligence.  

The gigantic thing rises up on its legs, stretching itself to loom over me. This big and this close, it looks even grosser than its smaller counterparts. Looking up at it, I experience the strange feeling of needing to barf and sigh all at the same time. Somehow, all the previous tension that came with being surrounded is quickly draining out of me.

It stares down at me, clacking mandibles that I hadn’t noticed on the gutbugs before, before leaning down into my face.

Screeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeech!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The sound rattles my eardrums and makes dust fall from the ceiling. In response, I do the only sensible thing. I scream back, “Shut the heck up, you stupid thing!”

Then, I promptly slice it’s disgusting head in half.