She tried not to scratch at it anymore. At least, not in the daytime. Not when people were around.
They couldn’t see it, of course. They could see the nibbles and the scratches but they couldn't see the thing really leaving them behind. They could only see HER, bloodshot eyes and ragged nails, hands and fingers always moving over herself, touching, patting, searching.
But they could not se IT, so it must be her. Of course it must be her.
So no scratching allowed when the sun was up, no matter how many nibbles and scratches. No matter how much it moved and squirmed just under her skin. When the sun was up, people were up, and people saw but didn't really see.
Night was different.
She was alone with it at night, and it was alone with her.
At night nibbles turned to bites and scratches turned to gouging slashes, but at night she could scratch back at it.
Claw for claw, bite for bite, in the night she could fight back, always.
Usually.
Tonight was different. Tonight it was playing a different game.
It didn’t bite, it didn’t nibble or skitter or scratch or gouge.
Tonight it burrowed, going deeper than sub-dermal. Going deeper for what reason?
Tonight she panicked.
Her own nails, bitten ragged down to the raw quick of them, could not go deep enough. Her teeth, somewhat sharper, were still blunted and few. She tried, oh she tried, but they could not go deep enough either.
Not to where it was. Not to where it wanted to go.
What was it doing in there, doing to her insides? She couldn't see it, she couldn't know without seeing and she needed to know.
Needed.
She keened as the searched the gutters, raising a few heads from the others who shared her streets with her, but they paid her little mind as she searched and searched until she found.
There, beneath the dumpster, a fork. Glimmer, silver, Excalibur for her.
Inside it squirmed, it snuggled it --heavens forbid-- it nested.
Outside she raised her multi-tined implement and brought it down, took it inside to where it was.
Not once, not twice, but until she could see, until she could know.
The fork fell. Her blood pooled around her knees where she knelt.
It skittered away, it’s young following around it. Towards the camp they went and she knew.
Finally, soon, finally they would see it too.
No longer panicked, she slept.
***
Inspired by Panic
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