Nightmare (warning, somewhat graphic)
I’m running down the street, it is dark… just after sunset, street lights are on. There is a creature above our heads we are trying to run away from, it seems to travel down the overhead powerlines… all I can see is a series of long tentacles which seem to not be solid, but be made up of millions of smaller round balls… almost like marbles that are slightly lit from the inside. It writhes as it travels, expanding and contracting it’s various limbs as needed to either shift down the powerline or reach out to grab people. We are running, my friends/family and I, to get to the house where we can hide. I look over my shoulder and see it bearing down on us, it moves fast. One tentacle reaches out and snaps above me like a whip… we keep running, I reach behind me to grab one of my friends by the sleeve, yanking her and shoving her through an open doorway and I hear the snap of the creature and feel a massive sting on the back of my hand. Some of the nodes of the alien have detached and are now under my skin. I duck into the house.
I can feel the nodes moving under the skin of my left hand… on the back of my hand I see bumps, and down the meat of my thumb, almost around to the palm of my hand, I see that node is already growing. They burn and pulse, and wriggle around, I need to stop them from spreading and get them out. My friend grabs my arm just below the wrist to cut off circulation, keep them from crawling up my arm. I feel the ones on the back of my hand trying to find a path into the rest of my body. We can’t get to a hospital, there isn’t time, I have to get them out now. Another friend is searching the house for a knife as I grab at the largest node to keep it from moving around. My entire hand is throbbing, I can feel them moving around, getting larger feeding off the blood in my system. I pull out a pocket knife and open it, poking the tip of the knife just below the largest node… I feel the blade enter my skin, blood drips down… I cut a slice into my skin about the diameter of the node and put the knife down… I squeeze at the base of the node, forcing it to come up and out through the hole I’ve cut in my skin… it is larger than a marble, but gelatinous… and it doesn’t want to come out. I squeeze harder and it reluctantly surfaces, this node has already been transformed into an eyeball, which is staring up at me from the side of my hand. I have to use the knife to sever the connection it has to my veins, it drops to the floor and another friend captures it. I set to work trying to force the two smaller nodes from the back of my hand around to the front, to avoid having to cut myself again, and to get them out before they get any larger.
Now that I’ve been attacked, if I can remove them I’ll be immune to further attacks, and my blood can be used as a remedy for those who have been attacked. These nodes are parasitic… once they take hold the people do not want them removed, they want to attack and spread, so the cure needs to be made into a form that can be dispersed in the air. We are held up in the house for at least 3 days… for some reason we don’t need to close the curtains or overtly hide, simply being inside keeps the rest of the people safe. I can run out to get supplies since I can’t be infected again, however I’m still in danger of being killed outright because I am of no use to them since I can no longer be a host. I make frequent runs, having to duck and hide. And though the nodes were removed from my hand, it still burns and throbs from where they had implanted.
