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--
The kitchen tile feels cold against your cheek. Opening your eyes, you try to comprehend the kaleidoscope of spinning angles, corners, and diagonals of the cabinet inches from your nose. The peeling beige painted wood and rusted hinges never looked so beautiful.
When the world settles, you peel your face from the floor, and you notice the week's worth of crumbs and grime littered by the island: dried cranberry juice, cereal, and… glitter? *Saren didn’t clean the floors again,* you thought.
You grab the broom from against the fridge and start to sweep.
You notice ten numbers written on your right wrist very faintly. Some of the 1s looked like 7s, or maybe they were 7s that looked like 1s?
You continue to sweep. It’s hard to see all the tiny bits under the dim light, so you try to crutch down to get a better look –– but you can’t.
Your back: a slicing pain stabs you along your spine. Doctor Vogler warned you about sudden movements. You sweep up as much of the crumbs as you can, holding your bandaged back as it subconsciously droops to the left side.
The night sky peaks through the open window, as the flickering TV competes with the faint crescent moon. A grumble escapes your stomach and the slight shake irritates your back.
*Food will help.* You scan the fridge: mouldy cheddar, month-old garlic ravioli, and yesterday’s expired 2%. *Okay, cereal it is,* you sigh. You grab the milk jug and scavenge the bare cupboards for Saren’s supply of Butterglass® cereal. As you pour, the Butterglass® shards twinkle into the bowl, their little pink and purple wing-outlines twirl into the milk, and soon the sugar-glass that binds their edges dissolves. You take a large spoonful and feel the delicious crystals slip down your throat.
In the top corner of the kitchen, the pixelated TV catches your eye. You swear you see blurry wings flutter out of the screen, but maybe that's just the medication playing tricks on you? Dr. Vogler said the side effects could be "strange" if you didn’t take them every 2 hours.
A ~~Breaking News~~ title plugs your gaze from the mysterious moths. It's about the Butterglass® cereal.
[[Unmute TV ->Caterpillar]]
[[Turn-off TV ->Cocoon with pupa]] You turn the knob to the bathroom door. Peering through the crack, you brace yourself for the creature –– for Saren.
Pitch-black. Saren is nowhere.
“Hello?” You whisper while stepping out of the bathroom, “Saren?”
You creep back down the hallway to the kitchen, propping your back straighter with your hand on your hip. There’s a prickling agitation on your left side, as your spine pleads to shift to its old curvature.
Your hand touches your scar’s crevasse, twisted in a beautiful arc; ending just before it is visible from the front. *This is the most severe case of scoliosis I’ve ever treated.* You remember a doctor saying. *Was it Dr. Vogler? Were they even real?*
You remember how your back arched so far to the left that your lungs felt like they would burst against your enclosing ribs. Your breath travelled through the morphing chamber of your lungs, as it twisted to accommodate your spine: suffocated by your own body.
Tracing the hallway’s rim, its own uneven trimming feels similar to your scar. You follow it into the kitchen. The dim lighting touches all the Butterglass® wings shattered in twinkling pieces on the tile. Some of the cereal flutters off the ground in beautiful swoops, dancing in a synchronised sequence in the air. The violet and rose colours are hypnotising. *There’s no harm in admiring the butterflies until the side effects die down. Maybe it'll even calm me...*
But the pinching in your back intensifies. You try to adjust your weight to your right side, yet the pain does not leave –– it only grows, shifting further up your spine.
Something pierces your flesh. You scream.
You fall on your knees, hunched over as your back clicks to the left. Your left lung squishes into your ribs. Dragging your left side, you crawl towards the window, to fresh air. You can hardly breathe.
As you gasp, sucking anything to fill your lungs, you see a shimmer in the reflection: magenta glitter and soft-purple sparkles fluttering. It’s so beautiful –– *you’re* so beautiful.
[[Touch your reflection in the window ->Laying eggs]] You pick up the bathroom’s wall phone with your right hand. The ten digits written in sloppy ink are practically gone, smudged and glossed with your blood. You decide the 1s *just* look like 7s, and you dial the number.
*Ringgg. Ringgg. Ringgg. Rin––*
*“Who is this? It’s three in the morning––?”* A voice yawns deep.
“Dr. Vogler––” You whisper, “I’m seeing *things*. It’s outside the door.”
You hear jerked rustling on the other end. *“Goddamit, Martha, wake up!”* The voice was faint but frantic, *“They called **again**!”*
A shriek rattled the phone. *“TELL THEM TO LEAVE US ALONE!”* A frightened voice pierced through the scratchy buffering.
*“Listen, kid! You can’t keep calling our house!”* The voice rose, *“I don’t know who you think we are, but we’re no Dr. Whoever-the-fuck!”*
“No, no, no, no,” You curl-up into a cocoon, surrounded by lavender-coloured capsules. You clench your temples and feel your back stretch *too far*. The bathroom tile, the purple pills, the woman’s ear-splitting cries; your crooked back arched too much. “You did my surgery a few months ago. Dr. Vogler, please don’t say that––”
*“YOU NEED SERIOUS HELP! DON’T CALL US AGAIN!”* The line goes dead.
You feel the bathroom tile, your tears that sting your swollen eyes raw; the purple pills on the floor. *This is real. This is real. I am real.* You tell yourself. *I’m just having withdrawals.*
You stare at the pills –– days and weeks worth. *When did I stop taking them?* You thought. ***Why** did I stop taking them?*
You pick up one of the orange bottles, staining it with your half-dried blood:
~~Take 1 capsule by mouth every 2 hours. No more than 3 capsules every 8 hours. Side effects include: nausea, vomiting, memory loss, visual hallucinations, auditory hallucinations, death, rebirth, spiritual awakening, quarter-life crisis, are you even real? Flutter, FlUTteR, fLutTEr––~~
Frantically you dump pills into your palm; a dozen others falling to the floor. *The hallucinations just need to stop!!!* You throw your head back and let the purple capsules fall to your tongue in parallel to your tears. They claw their bodies through your throat; a sharp resistance in your dry swallow.
You fall back against the wall with a huge sigh, as the pill shifts down your throat. *Everything should go back to normal now. Everything will be okay.* You pick yourself up from the tile. It’s time to apologise to Saren. You already feel lighter, like you could flutter away.
[[Leave the bathroom and confront Saren ->Adult Butterfly]]
You turn-off the TV.
The kitchen spins into a sea of dancing moths, their pink and purple sugar-glass twisting into sharper spikes, as they screw towards your face. Shielding your eyes, you collapse to the tile, your back pinches, and you let out a YELP––
[after 2 second]
But nothing.
[after 2 second]
Your peak through your fingers. The kitchen cupboards, its peeling paint and untreated rust are still. Butterglass® cereal is scattered on the floor in broken, glittered chips. They’re drowning in small milk pools.
“Are you alright?!” Saren pants into the kitchen. The noise of his footsteps lag in the background, they sound so far away down the hallway. But he’s right in front of you, offering a hand. “Did you take your meds?”
You shake your head and allow him to help you up. Your back slugs to the left slightly, reminiscing in its old curved pattern, but you force it straighter. Saren’s hand, cuffed in yours, is coated in a thick red.
“Jesus, you’re bleeding!” Saren darts back down the hall, “I’ll grab the first-aid…”
“I’m sorry,” you manage to say as red drops hit the floor, “I don’t think I took my meds earlier. The side-effects are freaky as shit––”
“Dude,” Saren comes back into the kitchen slowly, “your meds are spilled everywhere… What the fuck happened?”
Watching the blood drip from your hand––
[align center]
drip
drip
*splat*
[continue]
You look up to meet Saren’s gaze. His once grey irises morph into large, black sacks bulging from his sockets. He walks closer to you, offering the first-aid kit with an extended arm; an antennae popping from his head. Your back cracks against the kitchen counter and you stumble forward; your bloody hand springing you off the tile immediately back to your feet.
You scurry around the island and break for the bathroom. Looking backward, a giant figure –– a moth –– levitates with its wings extended in the hall's archway. You notice a slight pink shimmer radiating from its fur. A few more leaps and you slam the bathroom door. Eye-sacks peer through the closing sliver. It craves the light.
[[Call Dr. Vogler ->Leaving cocoon]]
[[Leave the bathroom and confront Saren ->Adult Butterfly]]You unmute the TV. An anchorwoman holds up a box of Butterglass® cereal and shakes it with a glove covered hand. Russells from the sugar-wings colliding are heard from the box.
“A statement released by the FBI earlier today notes that any Butterglass® cereal packaged after February 1st of this year, should be assumed to be laced with LSD.”
The aftertaste of the cereal turns sour. You let out an anxious gasp, and bring the cereal box closer to scan for a packaged date: March 29th.
The anchorwoman continues, “The Wonderfly® facilities were raided by the FBI this morning at 4:17am after suspicions of drug laundering were tipped-off by a whistleblower. Just 5 months after the company’s opening, on November 20th of last year, Wonderfly® began laundering LSD through their cereal facilities.” Placing the box on her desk, she snaps off her latex glove.
You look down at your palms and they start to ripple. You try to catch the sparkles that waterfall onto the kitchen title from your hands.
“Well, Fran, cereal these days is already addictive with all the sugar they put in it. But now there’s hallucinogens, too?” The anchorwoman looks to her left as the camera swings to another anchorwoman in a fitted suit.
When you bend forward to examine the glittering purples and pinks, a sharpness slashes your spine.
A red banner glides across the screen that reads:
~~Nowhere to flutter, my butterfly. Nowhere to flutter, my butterfly. Nowhere to flutter, my butterfly. Nowhere to flutter, my––~~
The words layered on top of each other until the red banner consumed the entire pixelated screen. You startle backwards, gripping the counter’s corner.
“Wait until you hear the next ~~Breaking~~ story, Jan.” The suit-wearing anchor shattered the red banner with pointed acrylic nails. She stacked some pages against the table and looked directly into the camera, her forehead almost breaking through the screen. “The government’s been cooking maggots in your milk!”
You quickly snatch the TV remote. Something is seriously wrong –– we need to take our meds.
[[Turn-off TV ->Cocoon with pupa]]Your hand reaches for the window, touching the cold glass.
Large, shimmering wings expand in your reflection. Their roots seem to stem from your spine, as they flutter in large strokes. The wings are light lavender with pink swirling accents.
Glitter springs off your body and pirouettes through the air. Your wings release the knots from your back and unravel the pain into soft tickles. You spin and twirl on your tippy-toes as your purple wings glide you across the tile. You fly. You flutter.
Your wings stretch across the kitchen, detailed like flower petals embellished with violet lace. Your head just kisses the ceiling as your wings extend further.
Until it snaps.
The left wing splinters into fractured pieces, and your body swings limp to the side. The wing rips from your spine as your right tries to keep you fluttering. But the right wing fails.
Your back continues to arch as you howl. Your back feels raw and torched.
You collapse to the tile with your face against the floor. Tears well in your eyes. *I just want the pain to stop.*
[[Close your eyes ->Egg hatching]]