The Intelligence Circuit

Walking alone at night had always been an issue for me. The feeling of being lonesome in the middle of a street surrounded by perfectly constructed, cookie-cutter houses; the moon shining ominously overhead, the way everything stood still. A totally quiet desolation. Although inhabited during the day, the town and its merry people retired early to bed; before dusk fall, the sun still setting slowly like a gleaming omen of forbidden knowledge.

Deadening terror will creep up my spine, no matter what town I’m in, no matter how surrounded I am by ornate buildings or cardboard cut-out homes. The sulking humidity, chilly wind. It passes along my face in a cloud of white. Like fog but solid, almost astringent. It clings to my clothing and skin, practically leaving a second layer of gelatinous coating. It sticks to me.

I notice the trees aren’t blowing in the wind anymore, a wretched sight of cobwebs sliming over the landscape. The trees were caught like prey. Catching more and more of the thick wind. I also noticed little black beads scratching the ground, they blew through the wind. Some of the objects were caught in tight linings of the now thicker wind. I stuck out my hand, standing still. The breeze was picking up; the web was building over my outstretched arms. Pin-prick terror building, rising up violently in my gut. My very core shattered. Broken. Shaking. I couldn’t bare this awful hallucination. The web stretched wide between my fingers and across my chest and legs. I used my other arm to shield my face, bending my elbow triangularly to protect most of my hair and head. The web still caught to my ear. I could feel the organic skin weighing over me. It was too large, building too fast. The little black beads were all over me. Under much closer inspection I could see the black beads weren’t nearly as small as I had firstly imagined, or perhaps they were growing. They were also living.

They looked foreign; otherworldly, the creatures – as I soon noticed they were- had black skin and long, exquisitely designed wings. Their creator, however dubious as he may be, had invented this abominable fathom of celestial proportions to inspire fear within the hearts of men as it had in me. I recite this terror without disclosing my location, but I feel the unfortunate soul who should happen to find this log already knows that they are in hell. Geographically, however, I am existing for the moment within the confines of Alabaster, Arizona. Cactus and sand blanket the land outside of the town, I was merely passing through on vacation. Having stopped for the evening to get some much needed rest, my plague of insomnia which has afflicted my ability of keeping normal hours was acting up and the spurred notion of a moonlit walk hastened my weary thoughts. I left the motel room after 3:30 in the morning; I saw the people scurrying into their homes but didn’t piece together their brand of warning for what it was. Maybe the walk would help to bring physical fatigue, I regret this notion.

I hardly find the expressive words to detail the hideous reality facing me now. The web quickly formed a cocoon, or rather a network of sticky arcades stretching over the street. The moon barely luminous through the fibrous skin containing the area. I strongly wish to die; this feeling of bondage and suppression of oxygen is filling my bowels with an insurgence of fear. A riot dwells within. To tear apart my mind by means of self-mutilation. I would rather rip out my eyes, claw out my heart and bleed to pitiful ends than to face the grim exhibition of fright that waits further down this pathway to mortal contention.

I know the insect creatures are waiting for me, even as I crouch behind a fibrous pillar. The wind blows their scent, ammonia and ether, I can smell them. I am quite sure they can smell me.

Small infants swarm the ground, squirming on by me. I step on them, as many as I can but it will do no good. I know how this will end. I also understand why those awful people hide in their residences, cowering for necessary reasons. I don’t blame the poor souls; I do question their motives for lodging in this despicable town. What harboring fear of leaving would keep them here?

Crackling sounds. They move over each other, fighting to get somewhere- they’re mounting up over my feet. They hiss and snarl. Stomping them, hearing that squishing annoyance. Oh, God… I have no future; no soul of mine shall remain beyond this evening.

I think there’s a storm overhead. I can hear thunder, loud cracks of indistinguishable sound carrying the volume of electric current. Lightning shooting overhead illuminating the ebony bugs. They shine like lethal gems; those damned aliens. I recognize them now, cicadas; I know this because of how they shed their exoskeletons and leave them littered around my feet. A native roach-like bugger dwelling upon trees and structures during the summer months. I assume this phenomenon of web wind is of their occurrence here, but how is this possible.

Rain drips down through the roof. It stings from the web, acidic as it burns. It leaves chemically formed abrasions on my skin and seers through my clothing. Every bead of the rain through the web stings like outsourced venom. I move around the pillar, the hallways now emitting gaseous fumes. Inhalation of the direct chemical reactions brings about near euphoric feelings accompanied by overwhelming cough and the urge to vomit. Everything smells of bile; my body feels radioactive.

Chattering. I can hear tendril clicking, the sound of formulated conversation. I am not familiar with the dialect yet find it menacing enough to duck into another pillar. Here they come, the monsters! The cicada beasts, marching through the pale corridors. Seven feet tall, emerald spittle drizzling out of their stinking faces. I cannot process this. Their gnarly impressions of grey skeletal appearance, their skin if you could imagine it as such looked of cracked human bones. Perhaps armor created for protection from the rain or abhorrent violence. Six legs, each grotesque and dripping vile sludge, moved about in stammering motions of pounding fists. Marching. The wings hanging on their backs like independent growths reached over their heads and scraped the ceiling. Marching on. The clicked their tendrils. Wildly moving. On and on. I passed out after nearly three hundred had passed.

I wouldn’t call it awakening, but rather coming to, but when it happened they were gone and the sun was rising. My neck stung with infectious pain, as if poisoned. I reached my hand to the back of my head and felt something ghastly. A sharp obtrusion jutting out of my brain, a jagged piece of metallic construction connected to a small wire extended three feet binding to my spine, fused to my skin. I felt along my back, I felt the clamps sewn meticulously into my skin. The metal chords intertwined through my skin. The pain immense, the fear great.

The sun was rising higher. The corridor was melting and I foresaw no way out. I was surrounded, covered with burns, wired and contracted by a metallic device, and terrified. The ceiling melted down over me, collapsing on top of me. I was pinned to the floor. The walls came down as well, fusing the caramelized webbing into the asphalt. Trapped to the ground, my face protruding through the scorched earth, my body mangled.

I could hear the soft sound of birds chirping as daylight came, the sound of casual conversation amongst humanoids later, the small hordes to town folk huddling around me. The fusion of being in solid Earth, the wire tapping into my brain relaying my panic, pain and pleasure stimuli to the alien creatures who had implanted the device onto and inside of me. They were getting their pleasure while the people panicked and I suffered on through the pain. I do not fear them anymore; I negate their loathsome qualities and defy their will to punish the innocence of humanities ignorance.