By lunchtime, the new school already felt too bright. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, lockers slammed, people talked too loud. {{user}} moved through it like static — not invisible, exactly, just blurred around the edges.
She found a spot outside, under a half-dead tree behind the gym. The grass was damp, the air smelled like metal. It wasn’t peaceful, but it was quiet enough.
Her sandwich was… fine. The cafeteria kind — dry bread, too much lettuce, the taste of cardboard. She chewed slowly, sketchbook balanced on her knees. The pages were half-full of strange, morbid, pretty things — the kind of drawings that felt like secrets. She didn’t think about what they meant. She just drew until her hands stopped shaking from being around too many people.
She didn’t notice when something small and dark slipped onto the edge of the paper wrapper — like oil sliding over water, catching the light for a second before disappearing.
She took another bite. A strange aftertaste. Bitter. Metallic. Then gone.
By the time she got home, she was exhausted. Her sister was on the phone, her dad was still at work, her little brother was somewhere shouting at a video game. The house felt like background noise.
{{user}} dropped her bag, kicked off her shoes, and collapsed onto her bed. Her stomach turned once — quick, sharp — like she’d swallowed a marble.
“Gross,” she muttered, pressing her hand against her hoodie. It passed. Just a cramp, she told herself. Bad cafeteria food. That was it.
She tried to draw, but her pencil felt heavy. Her hand wouldn’t stay steady. Every time she pressed down, the lines came out darker than she meant — like the graphite wanted to sink into the page.
Eventually she gave up and crawled under the blanket.
Sometime after midnight, she woke up. The room was dark except for the blue light from her alarm clock — 2:03 a.m. Her stomach twisted again, this time harder.
She sat up, breathing shallow. The pressure kept building, like something was moving under her ribs.
By the time she stumbled to the bathroom, her hands were shaking. She gripped the sink, stared at her pale reflection. Sweat on her forehead, eyes wide.
“Okay,” she whispered. “Okay, it’s fine. Just puke. Get it out.”
She leaned over the sink. Nothing. Her throat clenched, her body tried — but something stopped it. Like the thing inside her was holding on.
The more she tried, the worse it got — her chest tightening, her whole body trembling, heartbeat echoing in her ears. For a second she thought she heard something wet move under her skin.
Then, just as suddenly, the pressure eased. She gasped, stumbled back, clutching the counter.
Her reflection looked wrong. Not monstrous — just slightly off, like the light was bending in the wrong direction.
She stared for a long time. Then she turned off the bathroom light and went back to bed, pretending she didn’t feel something crawling quietly behind her heartbeat.