It's been nearly four hours after the wasp had deep-throated the hell out of me and pumped my stomach full of eggs. I still couldn't move, though something else I've noticed.. Well.. considering I've been paralyzed, I thought that the contents of my bladder and bowel would find their way out.. but I didn't soil myself. Grand fucking achievement.. but reason behind this had escaped me.. it had to be due to either the way the poison affected by nervous system and body.. or the "honey" that filled me up to my throat along with the offspring of the bugs.. Which, by the way, isn't an overestimation, my stomach was bulging like after a few hours in an all you can eat buffet.

I tried to move my neck - to no success, the same went for the other parts of my body. Unable to lift even a finger.. not even move an eyebrow.. all that was left under my control seemed to be the eyelids, and the eyes..

"Its agonizing to wait for death like that..." - What's worse - I doubted that my death would come quickly. Somehow.. I was afraid, but not terrified.. I've burned out, tired of the maddening fear.. like one would be tired of sprinting..a person could feel terror for only so long. Like jump-scares - after a few hours you stop giving a fuck about fear and start paying attention to other things.. Right now, I paid attention to the lack of any sounds... it was quiet, which had me realize - there was no whispering...

"If you think about it... there was no sign of the whispers other than the dream.. what's up with that.." - I hated the whispers, but now that I've been stuck waiting for my demise from being eaten by some maggots, their presence was rather tempting. I tried recalling everything I knew about the sound.. not the most pleasant way to spend the time..

"Its annoying, its present in the dream... I definitely heard it when the quake began.." - Was there anything else? I really had a feeling that I forgot something. Don't get me wrong, I had great memory, it just refused to cooperate properly.. Instead of the dreams and facts connected to them, I'd remember the play-through of the second not bright souls game using a ladle as a weapon.. really of great use right now!

Then I remembered.. my eyes shifted towards the toad that was still looking at me with the murky tired eyes - laying on its side after the wasps did the same thing to him.

"During the fight... that time.. it wasn't only the sound.. I saw everything nearly the same as in the dream... black.. " - I had no idea how being colorblind was of any use, but I tried recalling the feeling. If only it was this easy to do... Of course I couldn't remember, a "feeling" isn't something that I could just outright fucking remember. Annoyed, I've closed my eyes, but then, as I was going through my memories of the dream... suddenly.. I recalled that there was.. well most probably.. there was no mark on my hand, not like I was certain. That could mean nothing, but at the same time - it could mean everything. At the very least I had to cling to the idea that the mark could magically save my ass in this situation.. otherwise.. I was fucked.

Besides.. all I had to do was sleep, that's exactly the thing I could do. Which appeared to be quite a lot harder to do in the situation than it seemed to me at first. With the panting of quiet breaths all around, as well as the feeling of being stuffed with nearly three dozens twitching eggs.. wasn't the best for attempting to force yourself to sleep. So I had to close my eyes and use the method I came upon when trying out inducing lucid dreams, one that I found useful to fall asleep at least, that was the only use for this bullshit technique.. - somehow the black dream was the only thing that I was sure about - and the only hope I had.. to fall asleep I'd have to be calm, but, despite the unnaturally even heart rate and my breathing - that was happening without my consent, my mind was far from calm. It was anything BUT calm... So I began... imagining a set of stairs going down, with me being on top of them, descending step by step.. slowly, like I was retarded.. trying to kill out any lingering thoughts as I did.

"One..."

"Two.. " - all the sound around me began to fade, or so I told so to myself.

...

"Twelve" - that's where self-hypnosis was up, I didn't hear a thing. Of course it wasn't a real thing, just mere self persuasion. However if you try hard enough, you can make yourself believe most interesting shit, like tooth fairy, or the big bearded guy in the sky.. or that your life matters. Ah.. the good old lies..

"Thirteen"

Only paying attention to the heartbeat and the breathing, I've been going down the flight of stairs for a while. Sooner or later my mind would force shut-down and I'd fall asleep. That's how it usually worked. Slow steps, no thoughts and sound of breathing and the thuds of the heartbeat - super effective version of counting sheep. I felt sleep being right there, somewhere three or four steps further down. My invisible foot rose as I made another step..

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"Wh.. aagh!" - my eyes popped open from the pain that catapulted me back the fuck from the sweet dreams. Something... bit my stomach.. from the inside.

"Oh shitshitshit.. Why so soon?" - Really, not even seven hours had passed and the eggs were already hatching? I looked at the toad next to me, its eyes trembling from the same pain that soon waved over me. Its stomach looked like something was wriggling around in it.. bloated and stretched, I could see the thrusting of the worm-like larva inside.. That meant that the same was happening to me.. and it did..

Feeling of larva, the size of a thumb, violently wriggle inside your gut, scraping on the stomach walls was far from pleasant.. their small, segmented bodies rolling around as the tiny mandibles cut away at the flesh. The thing though.. there were over thirty of them, and slowly they were ALL chewing on the stomach walls! I would scream and roll around in pain if I had the option, I would stick my hand into my throat to force myself to vomit, but.. I didn't have that luxury.. I was still - with the exception of my eyes.. paralyzed.

Pain wasn't that great when compared to the agony which I was facing when injected with the wasp poison, but pain wasn't what terrified. Being eaten alive, not being able to do a thing, struggle, having no choice - that was terrifying.. that.. and seeing what was happening to the toader in front of me..

I couldn't take my eyes off of the sight of his stomach moving in waves, like dozens of fingers were stretching the skin on his belly, wriggling, moving.. The terror and pain in the eyes of the toad was the only sign of the nightmare that it went through.. There were no screams, no thrashing - silent, nearly nonexistent breathing, calm - unfit for the situation.. it.. all of us were going through..

The feeling of dozens of small mandibles ripping my flesh bit by bit, eating at me, consuming my body and blood.. penetrated my whole being.. I felt it all too good.. I could tell which larva was taking a bite, and which was already pulling the flesh out- to rip a bigger chunk off.. Despite that, I was still looking at the toad in horror.. unblinking.. looking into my own nearest future..

The larva were digging through the flesh of the toad... I could see the tiny blackish heads mounted on the fat worm-like torsos' stretch the gray skin of the toad, cleaning it of the remaining flesh and gnawing on the lower layer of its hide.. slowly.. .. slowly more and more black bumps protruded from the round belly of the silently suffering creature. It looked like the skin was covered with dozens of black warts, shiny and growing larger by the second, moving from right.. to left.. as the younglings of the wasps made wriggled their way out.. Finally the skin gave out.. it ripped, letting the larva through.. the tiny monsters didn't hurry, they were chewing on the flaps of the skin almost in unison.. but that took only a brief moment..

Pain in my own stomach became sharper, suddenly there were a lot more movement inside.. the larva thrashed like eels on a hot pan, wriggling and scratching on the stomach and my innards violently.. but I could only.. keep watching.. keep watching the dying toader..

These monsters crawled out of the tunnels they dug inside of the body, being covered in blood and yellowish secretion, as well as the honey that filled our stomachs.. The black gaping holes they made didn't bleed much, keeping open.. revealing the flash that was dug through like some old piece of wood.. The holes looked like cells of a hive, separated by thin lines of flesh and skin.. If there was light, I'd probably be able to see the whole route they made, right into the stomach, where other larva were still wriggling, or digging in other directions.

The ones that dug out.. they crawled out of these black wounds, slowly - the fat thumb-sized larva wriggled out one by one, crawling on the surface of the skin... some of them immediately went right back into the holes, from which other larva started to come out.. some moved in, some moved out, some simply poked their blood-covered black heads out..

I could see that some of the larva didn't find their way out... and kept digging from the stomach, under the skin.. making their way up the body.. The ones that came out of the holes and left, were faster to get up, to the face of the toader.. I didn't understand their rush to get to it's head.. but as three of these vile creatures started to clump over the eyes of the toad...I understood that they were just after the food they enjoyed.. Blood poured , covering the pale, fat bodies of the larva as their small bumps for feet pushed them inside of the eye socket.. until none of them remained outside.. the whole bunch was wriggling under the half-opened eyelid, their bodies curling up into a ball, as if they were making an eye out of themselves.. though I knew that it wasn't the case.. the gluttonous creatures were simply eating every single piece of the eye.. cleaning each other .. I could hear the tiny mandibles scratch on the skull of the toad, as they made their way to the back side of its eye-socket..having completely devoured the eyeball.. their secretions, were flowing out of the gaping black hole in the head of the creature, like tears it couldn't shed...

What was the worst part of this sight? I could still see the chest of the toad rise and fall at the same monotone intervals, calmly.. it was.. still.. alive.

Somehow.. there was no more thrashing inside of my stomach, but I couldn't look down far enough.. to tell if it was because the larva had dug their way out.

My mind tensed as I felt something slowly slide on my forehead.. I immediately clenched my eyes shut, as if that.. could help..