The hunter in the tangled thicket looked out through bloodshot eyes at the forest clearing. He felt his anger boiling up from his cauldron of festering rage. Why did his father dislike him so much that his only childhood memories were of beatings and scathing remarks? He still had the scars that his father had inflicted. Even his mother hadn’t wanted him. Sometimes, she even sent him to bed without supper for no reason at all. Now that he was no longer a child, he could finally get back at all those who had caused him grief. His world was a dark, foreboding place as he tried to keep his escalating insanity in check.

A young woman was kneeling on the yellowed grass in the open space, picking wild strawberries and humming a little melody. Why should she be happy when he was so miserable? He took careful aim with his rifle, imagining she was a rabbit, and shot her in the back. She moaned as she flailed her limbs, trying to survive as she gasped her last breath.

The huntsman smiled to himself as he pondered his name, Chase. It was such an appropriate name for one who preyed on others. Running over to his young victim, he prodded her with his rifle but she didn’t budge. He wiped the saliva from his toothless mouth, slung her over his back, and headed back into the forest to the little dingy cabin where he lived.

“Ma! Pa!” he yelled, still trying to attain their approval after all this time. “Here’s another one for the barbie! Stoke up the grill!”

In a house down the street,

lives a girl you should meet.

She can hear your heartbeat,

but don’t let her watch you sleep,

because then she’ll stab the knife in deep

Something's crawling around inside of you.

You can feel it move and you can feel it squirm, but you don't know what it is because you can't move and you can't see anything at the moment except blackness.

Strictly speaking, it doesn't hurt, but it feels disturbing. Whatever it is, it crawls underneath your skin, under all the layers of your dermis, and you can track its movements thanks to the pressure it applies between your muscle and your skin, until it disappears to where you assume are the gaps between the touch-centers of your nervous system. Then, you feel something crawl and squirm from another part of your body, say your arm, or your leg, but you're not sure if that's the same thing or its cousin.

It is a maddening sensation, as your body's sanctity is repeatedly violated by an unknown presence that refuses to leave. You cry but you hear nothing but your own echo. It is either uninterested or incapable of understanding you and so, it continues to squirm.

Time goes by. You get used to it after a while. Human beings can, after all, get used to just about anything. One minute, a bump, the next, it disappears. What bothers you is how you can't move and can't see, but can still hear, touch, taste, and smell your environment.

There doesn't appear to be anything wherever you are because you can't hear anything other than your breathing, your heartbeat, and your slight tinnitus.

The air doesn't smell fresh. Stale, perhaps, but not foul. There's the faint taint of oxidized metal, but nothing worse than a rusted slide in an old park.

You feel a little cold, but not because of the ambient temperature. If you had clothes on, you'd feel all right, but right now all you feel is the interaction of skin, air, and whatever it is underneath your skin.

As for the taste, well, is dry a taste? You feel thirsty, and it's starting to feel like whatever's going on with you has gone on for a while.

Time marches on until you feel a new sensation.

Hmm. Curious. A truly new sensation. It appears that it, or something else, has made it to your internal organs. You're not sure, but it just appeared, and if your sense of internal anatomy is correct, it has just made contact in-between the soft-tissues of your small intestines. You can really feel the probing as it squirms about with no particular purpose or direction - it's just moving around and slowly herniating your organs.

This sets off another attack. You try to scratch at whatever it is that's inside you, but you don't feel anything contact with your skin. You try to move your arms, but there's no feedback. It's almost as if your arms are no longer there.

That makes you try to move your feet, but again, absence, gone, like a phantom. That makes you wonder - since when have you been unable to move your limbs?

After what seems like hours, you stop feeling the displacement of your organs. You try enjoying this period of rest, but you feel weak and exhausted. Your mouth has turned to chalk and your thirst and hunger is set to ten. It is getting harder to breathe. Your head feels like it's about to explode. You have so many thoughts racing inside your mind that you are confused and muddled.

"What's happening to me?"

"I'm so thirsty."

"I want to stand up.

"I want to lie down.

"I'm getting dizzy."

"I feel so bloated."

"My heart is racing."

"I'm so thirsty."

"Am I going to die?"

It feels like the world is closing in on you and existence itself is painful.

But it doesn't end.