The Unseen by JL Bryan

ankles, her shins, and then up over her knees and thigh.  She struggled and tried to kick, but her body couldn’t move at all.  The brown fluid left her trapped and defenseless.
    She felt them biting and stinging her legs with teeth like poisoned needles.  She tried to scream but only inhaled the thick brown fluid.  She choked.
    The dim shapes swam closer, and she felt them chewing and burrowing into her stomach.  An eyeless spiny worm swam toward her face.  Its circular mouth flared open, revealing a pink throat ringed with disturbingly human teeth.
    The creatures chewed softly inside her stomach and intestines.  The unseen creatures dragged her down, twisting and churning her until she felt sick.  She was drowning in a fluid that tasted like Kilbeggan whiskey gone rancid.
    They pulled her down into darkness, spinning her faster.
     

     

Chapter Four
     
    The vomit crashed against her back teeth as she awoke.  She clamped her mouth shut with her hand as she sat up, then pushed herself to her feet.  She stumbled through her dark room and out onto the landing as the pressure in her stomach approached critical mass.
    She didn’t make it.  As she raced along the second-floor landing from her bedroom to the bathroom, puke sprayed through her fingers, whiskey and stomach acid spattering her clothes and the floor between her socks.
    Cassidy burst through the bathroom door and knelt at the toilet, letting her stomach empty itself.  Nothing came out but brown fluid.  She’d had a few double shots on an empty stomach.
    It wasn’t the whiskey, she thought. It was the nightmare.
    She hacked out more fluid.
    “Sounds like you’re up.” Barb leaned in the doorway, watching her with amused sympathy. “So is the club out tonight?”
    “ No.” Cassidy wiped her mouth and took a deep breath.  She flushed away her puke and splashed cold water on her face and hands.  She ran her fingers through her clumped, slept-on hair—long and red, though much darker than the red nature had given her, plus a little black and purple here and there.  Studs and rings ran up both her ears.  Tattoos along her arms generally followed a poisonous-plant theme—belladonna, hemlock, deep blue wolfsbane.  Her first tattoo had been a black rose over her heart, in memory of her father, who had loved Thin Lizzy’s Black Rose album.  Peyton had liked that one so much that he’d had Cassidy draw a vine of black roses on his neck.
    “ I’m a freak,” Cassidy said out loud, and Barb laughed.
    “ Who isn’t?  You sure you’re feeling okay?”
    “ I didn’t poison my brain enough before sleeping,” Cassidy told her. “I just need to take something and I’ll be fine.”
    The air around Barb’s head seemed to thicken and burble, and Cassidy saw glimpses of the nightmare things, coiled worms and strange creatures with sharp, twisted shells.  They were like transparent projections, not really there at all.  Cassidy swiped a hand at them, then blinked, and they vanished.
    “What was that?” Barb asked.
    “ Have you got anything on you?” Cassidy asked.
    “ Maybe...”
    “ Don’t tease me, Barb.  My stupid brain is going off.”
    “ It’s your lucky night, baby.” Barb held out a pair of tiny pink tablets engraved with arrow-shot hearts.
    “ Are you serious?”
    “ Got them as a tip, from a guy who forgot his wallet but remembered his drugs.  Good enough?”
    “ Perfect, thanks!” Cassidy lifted one of the pink circles. “You’re taking it with me, right?”
    “ I’m not letting you have all the fun.” Barb popped the remaining tab into her mouth. “Let’s go.  It’ll be one by the time we get there, but you can catch the last hour.”
    “ Yeah...let me change into something less puke-stained before we go.”
    They drove to Midtown, three miles away but a different world—the nightlife here was larger and had a more corporate feel than the spots in her neighborhood.  They had to park and hike to reach the