It pressed hard, its massive claws covering her face. Phoebe cried out, afraid that it was going to crush her skull. Muddy water flowed into her mouth. It let up then, and turned its attention to the wound on her torso. The wound had transformed into a gaping cavity. Torn bits of tissue formed an edge around the darkness, hidden by the blue of her clothes. The monster eased her top up to her bra and exposed more of the gash, then lowered one of its paws into her. It reached down and down until its shoulder rested against her breastbone.
Phoebe felt a pressure deep inside herself. Like getting a tooth pulled after the gums were jabbed with local anesthetic, there was a distant feeling but little pain. The memory of its claws in her guts had haunted her since she’d woken up; she couldn’t imagine many things worse than being back in that nightmare. And yet, here she was again, and the anguish she’d expected was absent. She found herself more frightened by the monster-sized cavity splitting her body than the monster itself. Laying there with her heart pounding--she’d felt this somewhere before, but where?--she began to trust that it didn’t want to maul her. Yet.
The idea of touching a fae, or of a horror movie terror looming over her- both made her want to recoil into herself. But it was preoccupied with swirling a hand around inside her, and everything was cloaked in disbelief and unreality, and did it matter if she died again? She grabbed the awful thing’s shoulder, pushing it up and away. Once all of this was over she knew she’d have to swallow her pride and find Quill.
Its demeanor shifted suddenly with her intrusion. As she pushed, it grabbed her hand between its teeth and bit down hard. Phoebe screamed. She jammed the fingers of her other hand into its eye sockets in an attempt to make it let go. It yowled and recoiled, ears flat against its head.
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10.17.20
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Today I bought a wrist brace because, to tell the truth, I've been having mild carpal tunnel for uh... The past few months. I'm going to start wearing it to bed and hopefully that helps. It's annoying to have to use both hands when I'm draining a pot of pasta.