Writing Prompt #10 — Accidentally Unplugged

Prompt: After blowing your nose, you notice a metallic slug in the tissue. When you look up, your office looks very different.

“Yeah, absolutely, I’d love to do that. We should definitely do that soon. How about— crap, hold on Jenny,” Thomas said as he quickly snatched a tissue from his desk. He put it to his nose and sneezed. Though his mother told as a child time and time again to never look into a used tissue, that it was a disgusting habit and as if what stuck there was some sort of secret, he always found himself doing it anyway. It wasn’t yellow, or green, or even a shade of mucus he had ever seen. . . It was shiny, metal and shaped like a slug.

What the hell? he thought. Now’s not the time, I’m so close to going out with Jenny. I’ll figure out what’s the deal with the slug later. As casually as he could he kept his composure, and covered the slug with the tissue and put it on his desk, then turned back to Jenny.

“So like I was saying, we should. . .” Thomas words trailed off as he saw Jenny and the office behind her. Jenny’s flesh was lime green and rippling, her hazel eyes now a putrid yellow, the brown hair he once thought as beautiful and full now laid flat on her head, slicked down as if by oil. When she asked if he was all right, he saw the misshapen teeth, the cavities, the yellowed holes, the gangrenous bleeding black gums.

He glanced to where he thought the restroom was, in this misshapen place, then muttered, “I, uh. . . I don’t feel so well. Can you hold on please? Thanks.”

As if wading through water, he drunkenly moved through the narrow aisles, passed each cubicle filled with hellish creatures hunched over their work. He pushed open the restroom door, which left a film of stickiness on his hands, and went inside.

There was no restroom beyond the door. The swaying floor stretched into a blood soaked horizon, disappearing underneath the earth.There was no sun, there were no clouds; it wasn’t night either, for no stars or moon could be seen. Blackened things with ten or twenty small wings flew overhead in the deep red sky, and hidden in the yellowish pink high grass flanking both sides of the floor, something crawled with a guttural moan.

Thomas stumbled back and hit against the wall. His legs gave out and he fell onto his backside. He couldn’t feel his feet. Dumbly he groped his body and face, to ensure he was still the same, that he was the one who hadn’t changed. . . but as he brought his hands up he realized that wasn’t true.

The pin-pointed jagged fingers rotated in his hand like a buzzsaw. His yellowing palm seemed to melt endlessly. Thomas continued to inspect his body, now noticing he wore no clothes. The fleshless arms long, thin and sinewy, reminding him of a mantis’s arms. His shoulders were sunken and concave, where a urine colored liquid seeped out from his insides and streamed down his back.

He looked up into the dark ruby sky and refused to look down. He didn’t want to see more, too terrified to view what the rest of his torso could possibly look like. Thomas put his crudely formed hands to the wall and slowly pushed himself up.

Something suddenly burst through the restroom door. A giant monster with horns that scrapped the sky and hooves made from snakes that slithered over the floor. It towered over Thomas and held out its massive open hand. The metallic slug sat inside. Before Thomas could prepare himself, the monster gripped the back of his head, pulled it back and rammed the slug into his nose.

The world spun and swirled, rippled and ebbed, then went completely black. After some time he came to. He saw the white tiled ceiling, felt the cool marble floor below him, and smelled the mint scented urinal cakes. His manager leaned over the sink, washing his hands, peering in the mirror that covered the tiled wall.

“You okay?” The manager asked.

“Yeah. . . Yeah I think so,” Thomas said as he slowly got up and went over to one of the sinks. “What happened?”

“I don’t know, just found you passed out here. I sprinkled some water on you then you groaned and started to wake up.”

“Oh, okay. . . Well thanks for looking out for me.” He said as he yanked a paper towel from the dispense, drying his hands.

“No problem, gotta’ protect the company’s hardware. See ya’ later.” His manager said as he pushed open the door and exited the restroom.

When Thomas returned to his desk, he saw the tissue paper empty and no matter where he looked, he couldn’t find the metallic slug again.

 

Read my previous prompt, “The Cute one, CutyPy’th.”