(HSSC2) Second Skin: Choose your fate, page 1

Page One:

You awake seemingly trapped within a blur of hazy lines. Shapes merge and revolt against one another, light regurgitates darkness and the walls seem to mimic the heaving of your own chest with every gasp inhaled. This perpetual sensation of motion breaks, as does the sweat of your brow. A liquid savior that washes away these strange visions from your eyes in a torrential flood; a god whose taste is enlightening, but also fleeting in the realization of its complacency.

The moist sheets appear to cling to your flesh, which does not even seem to adhere to itself. Is it a rash or some sort of allergic reaction? Regardless you can feel the avid fever raping every pore of your body. The overwhelming desire to rake your nails, or in fact any nails, over your skin to just cease this infernal itching sensation. Shedding yourself from the bed, you succumb to the notion that you are more ill than you can even fathom.

Parched from the nocturnal steam bath that you must have unconsciously taken, you grab the nearest glass and gulp down the remnants of the container from the night before. Neither the vodka nor the flat cola does much to quench your thirst and so you stumble to the bathroom sink. With a twist of the faucet, cool water cascades into your cupped hands and over your wrists that have become reddish, pink from irritation.

�What is wrong with me? This is not just an ordinary flu.� You think to yourself.

At that moment, a bottle of Vicodin tumbled from the open medicine cabinet and into the sink. Perhaps if you take the Vicodin you could numb yourself enough to sleep the worst of it off or you could just cave in and actually go to the doctor although you hate hospitals.

If you would like to kill the pain with the Vicodin and sleep it off please continue on page two.
If you would like to suck it up and go to the hospital please continue to page three.

Page Two:

Returning to your bed, you burrow beneath the stale covers and twist this linen womb about you tightly. The indifferent arms of this surrogate mother do little to appease your uneasy mind. Tainted images and peculiar sights continue to pervert your vision. An imagination run amuck can be the most detrimental of allies and at the moment your Senate of Sanity is turning on one another for fear of spies. Calm down! Breathe slowly!

A slight tremor quakes the surface of your skin, as the shadows of the room appear to have deepened to great chasms. In one of these overcast corners, a spider hangs from its syrupy abode consuming what appear to be miniature blueberry pancakes. There is a slight breeze flowing from some unrecognized location that gently sways the insect. First to the left and then to the right. The repetitive motion reminds you of the pendulum to an antique grandfather clock and soon enough you are hallucinating one rather hairy timepiece with many legs scampering about the corner of the room.

�This is never going to work,� you irritably mumble to yourself! �I need something to stop this manic itching!�

In frustration, you fling the covers away and present yourself before the bathroom medicine cabinet. Like an angelic messenger before your eyes, a bottle of calamine lotion illuminates the shadows between you and tranquility. The promise of tactile forgiveness is within your unworthy grasp, but as you reach for the bottle something disturbing catches your eye. A grotesquely large scab has formed upon the back of your hand.

If you wish to use the calamine lotion please continue to page four.
If you cannot help but to pick the nasty scab please continue to page six.

Page Three:

Spewing your existence though the sliding glass doors of the emergency room, everyone seems to vacate your path. You assume that it is just your paranoid disposition that they treat you like a leper. That is until you see the horrific expression on the attending nurse�s face.

�My God!� She cries. �Please just wait right here and I will get the doctor.�

Mere moments later you are led to a private room where a doctor nearly stumbles while racing into the room. You can tell that he is attempting to stifle his shock as the relaxingly cold stethoscope touches your chest. The skin shifts, as if not anchored to muscle, with every relocation of the medical instrument.

�Can you tell me where is hurts�, he questions in a way that almost seems as if he is talking to a child? Perhaps he is being demeaning, but you get the impression that he believes the situation to be much worse then some common flu.

�To tell you the truth, it does not hurt that much anymore. It is more like I have the itch of poison oak or something of the like.� You respond.

�Well, I can not really make a proper diagnosis, but I would like to take a battery of tests if you don�t mind. Please wait right here and I will be back in just a moment with the paperwork.� The doctor states as he backs out the in-door without ever taking his nervous eyes off you.

This whole visit has made you nothing but uncomfortable, however you know that it is probably for the best even though you feel as if you should have just slept it all off now.

If you want to sneak out and just crawl into bed, please continue on page two.
If you want to wait for the doctor to return please continue on page five.

Page Four:

Moments after slathering yourself with calamine lotion, you finally feel normal enough to transpire into unconsciousness. As you wrap yourself into the comforting blankets that only minutes ago felt like burlap, you seep into a fathomless slumber that holds you closer than anything you have ever known. Much like a calm, cold nothingness.

The spider-clock in the abyss indicates midnight with a screech that you, only upon fully waking, realize is the agonizing sound of your own voice. Lying in a pool of various fluids, you peer down at your body that seems to have wriggled out of its own flesh in your sleep. Muscles and a hint of skeletal structure writhe themselves at your command. Quickly you scan the room in the hope of finding the absent epidermis only to witness it standing upright like a hot air balloon at a side of the room.

Fear saturates your mind and the phantom sensation of electricity rumbles over the space where your skin used to be. There is quite few seconds left before you pass out against your will. Quick decide!

If you wish to plunge yourself into the mouth of your former skin in order to reclaim your flesh, please continue on page eight
If you are in shock too deeply and wish to see what your absent skin does, please continue on page seven.

Page Five:

The doctor returns with a pile of documents and you nervously shift your weight upon the paper-covered examination table. Upon seeing you, he freezes dead in his tracks, but you feel no temperature change in the room. Actually you do not feel anything any longer. Numbness overcomes you as if your tactile sensations are completely absent. Perhaps they went on vacation. I hear that the cherry blossoms are blooming in Japan this time of year.

�Are you ok,� the doctor questions with a slight quiver to his voice?

As you reach your hands to your face, you realize that there are a multitude of scabs written across your face. Upon scratching one off, an extreme pressure shift infiltrates the room and the doctor is evicted from his terrestrial positioning. He literally flies towards you, condenses into the size of an orange and disappears into the gaping hole where the scab use to be. The suction of this strange never-ending hole seems to attract everything not tied down in the room.

As you raise your hand to the hole, in an attempt to disguise the horror of it all, your hand disappears�then your arm�then your shoulder. Before you disappear, your last thoughts are that you should have stayed in the safely of your own bed.

Page Six:

You run your fingers over the scab to discover that it is abnormally adamantine and rigid almost as if it has the properties of some strange alloy. You pry with your nail under one of the edges and it feels like there is an odd sort of suction keeping this coagulated canopy in place.

When you were only a child, you could never help but to excavate your scabs in the hope that you would find a concealed treasure beneath. Unfortunately you never did, but that did not seem to hinder your efforts. Your arms and legs record the history of these archeological expeditions with all of the scars accumulated over the years.

As you peel the covering forward, the atmosphere of the room seems to shift on you and any loose objects are swept up in a twister like funnel. Horrified you grab onto the bathroom sink to steady yourself as the world coils around you. Affixing your gaze on the sink to keep from becoming disoriented, you realize that the toothbrush missiles and comb projectiles are not only spinning about, but also are actually being sucked into the hole that the scab was once covering. Your grip fails in a moment of distraction and you fall head first to the sink.

When you awake to consciousness, you are sprawled out upon the tiled floor and the whirlwind has concluded. Was it an illusion because of the fever; the tricks of a fatigued mind? At least it is over and that is what�s most important.

However, you quickly realize that there is an excruciating pain on the left side of your face. It seems as though you have been resting your face on your lacerated hand and the pressure has been building for some time now.

As your left eye is torn from your skull, you attempt to cry out in pain, but are muted when your vocal cords follow shortly behind. A precession of organs follow like some surrealistic parade in a butcher�s shop. Your entire body is disseminated piece by piece as it is sucked into the hole in your hand. Could it be a gateway to another dimension, you ponder as chunks of your gray matter are torn away.

Page Seven:

You watch your skin inflate even further and begin to feel the pressure of a wind tunnel attracting you to the other side of the room. It seems that the suction is originating from the mouth of your prior flesh. You grasp onto your headboard, as the pressure gets so great as to lift the rest of your body from the bed.

The swirling oral vortex grows and grows in intensity and your body is wretched in half. Fortunately you do not stay conscious enough to realize which happens next. Whether you die from the loss of blood or it is your grip that fails you.

Page Eight:

With a wet kind of feline grace, you pounce to your feet and dive into the vocal orifice of your former self. Fighting against skin and membrane to turn yourself upright within your own skin, a dimensional vortex opens and you are transported to a location beyond your own.

The ground rushes towards you and sound succumbs to a splash upon your assault of the ground. As you reclaim yourself from the landscape, you realize that you still do not have any flesh, but also that there is no pain any longer.

You stand before the world, whatever world this might be, naked, but with a feeling of such unity that your prior skin-vanity becomes unnoticeable. There are little skinless bunnies hopping about and playful skinless kittens climbing skinless meat trees. The sky is a muted shade of red and the skinless sun rains down comforting heat upon your exposed back. There is even an attractive skinless girl sitting on a skinless veal bench and you think to yourself.

�I wonder if she would like to grab some coffee?�

[edit on 30-10-2004 by Jonna]

[edit on 30-10-2004 by Jonna]