A minute or three passed, and still, he only felt the light eskimo kiss of a small creature's whiskers on his cheek. He imagined every animal known to creation, but when he opened his eyes he found one that he hadn't expected.
A pure white chinchilla.
“Jiminy... fucking cricket,” he stammered as he clawed himself away from the little black eyed creature and made his way to nearest corner.
“Where in the fu-” before he could finish his thought a small voice in his mind answered.
“From the blood. You saw.” the little creature said and looked directly into his eyes.
He screamed.
…..
To say he wasn't himself when he woke up the next morning was a bit of an understatement. He opened his eyes at.. half past ten?
“What the hell,” he stammered as he shot up in bed. He hadn't slept that late in years, and as he stretched out his limbs, he found that his muscles didn't hurt quite as much as they usually did. He also noticed he had not woken up in a panic or coughed up any blood.
“Weird goddamn day,” he said to himself as he pissed out a surprisingly clear stream of urine.
The wonders never cease apparently, returning back to the one room that served as every room in his apartment. If he was rich, and this was in some desirable neighborhood, he would call it a studio; but to the downtrodden, it was a one room apartment. Without even a fucking door. As he turned to look, he found there was, in fact, a door. What in the living fuck.
He came back and sat on the bed and began to retrace his steps through the day before. Had he gotten drunk? High? Yes to both earlier in the week but yesterday his memory barely made it into the afternoon. He had gone to the box where he picked up some scraps, and then… a chinchilla?
He laughed at the memory, or was it a fever dream? A chinchilla in that place coming out of a pile of blood and bone? That was way past even schizophrenic crazy, maybe the hallucinogens he had done earlier in the week had kicked in when he crawled through that window and hit his head? That made some sense at least.
He was rubbing his head that thankfully did not ache when a small voice said, “Over here.”
Without hesitation he raised his head and looked over at the little breakfast table he forgot was even in this house, and on it sat a small cage and a pure white chinchilla.
He paced around its cage pulling his hair and feeling like he was rending a square path in the faded hardwood surrounding the breakfast table.
He was screaming, “Shut up, shut up, shut up,” over and over, and each refrain was answered ‘don't be afraid’ by the small white beast.
Oh but he was.
The beast's eyes slowly turned a glowing red as he lost his will to the darkness again.
Comments