It started in the girls’ changing room after gym. Standing on the cold tile floor while scrubbing off the sweat with a wet wipe. I’ve been here so many times my movements are automatic, almost involuntary, whilst I am in my own mind, milling the minutes until next period.

My movements halted, I was scared. Am I trapped? Dying? Using my joints is now similar to the clicking in place of metal gears. Click click click. My first instinct was to hide until I could regain my composure. An unknown sickness took over me. The girls can’t see me like this, it’s too much. They’ll look down on my weakness.

“Adina?” It slithers in and out of my ears like a cold wet worm. I force my head in her direction, my neck creaking loudly for her to hear. Then it happened, she giggled, she thought it was a joke. I’m a joke. I try to tell her I feel wrong, but my tongue, it’s heavy. Too heavy. The words do not form and my voice like low thunder vibrates up my throat into a moan. Panicking, all I could think to do was to lean my head towards the ground to move my tongue. A quiet thought, a reflex, a quick fix, I don’t know what I was thinking.

She giggles again. All of them are now looking at me. Shame, I feel on my shoulders. Now heavy and dragging my body towards the ground. The ground is all I can now see, and my descent towards it. A few of the girls screamed, and my head hitting the tile clanged. But nothing was felt for me. I am definitely dying. I feel awful. I close my lips and look down shyly. I don’t know what else to do but make less of a fool of myself. But as fast as I can react to hide it, it keeps happening. I feel so cold and almost slimy like I’m having the worst fever dream of my life. My skin has a constant ache like it’s been submerged in water for weeks. Throbbing, every drop of liquid is sweating out of me. It’s hard to tell as I sit rigidly like a ceramic mannequin, my skull touching the changing room floor, but right now I’m willing to bet other liquids are making their way out of me other than this unholy sweat. I close my eyes just as my stomach begins bloating with every slowed breath I am taking. This couldn’t be worse. Liquid is now up my nose, my eyes open with shock. Blood. I can only see feet around me, I feel like I’m going to explode.

I move my hand to the bench on the wall. The pain was screeching. I do the most impossible task of what was left of my life, and pull myself up. Standing lightly hunched, as best as I could do in the moment, so I am no longer a laughing stock. My face is numb and frozen, which adds to my vulnerability and shame. I cannot even crack a smile to lighten the atmosphere. The girls are all still staring. A few left to get help, I bet they’re laughing in the corridor though. “Did you see how ugly Adina looked falling to the floor?” This will never end. The girl next to me is reaching a water bottle in my direction. It makes me feel nauseous in the bowels of my stomach. Stabbing pains in my mind and body even imagining what it would be like to taste that water right now. I can feel it running through my system like swallowing a billion hot beads. However, her hand looked odd in the light of my dizzy sickness. Was she sick too?

Her skin was now bright like neon. Just with my eyes, I could feel the smooth arm reaching towards me, against my face, and chewy and tough clenched in my teeth. Like only wanting crackers when sick with the cold. I slap the water bottle out of her hand. It hits the wall opposite and there is a loud annoying “HEY WHY’D YOU DO THAT?!” I bite down on her arm. The bones crunching like a crispy bacon burger. The blood oozing into my mouth like hot and sweet tomato soup. The girls are running but now that my craving has been satiated, I can feel a buzzing in my head. The space between my ears is vibrating towards a higher altitude. Like a flower blooming towards the morning sun. A cozy warmth like I’ve never felt. The girl with less of an arm, is grieving against the grainy painted wall. I am only focused on the lack of shame holding me down, the weightlessness I gained after giving in to the sickness and its craving. My eyes bulging and buzzing with energy, looked upon her. Her screams all of a sudden became a deeper moan as her body clicked and jerked like a mechanical clock. I also now see at my feet, what appears to be, in a pool of blood, a fraction of the top off my skull. I looked at my nice conditioned, and straightened hair, attached to a fragment of loose skull at my feet. Something inside me now is telling me this was right from the start, and that is where that fraction of my skull belongs. Whatever this sickness is, is now me. And her.

The door clangs open as the PE teacher throws it open with a first aid kit. She never looked so delicious. Her hair pulled away from her tired, bare face. Her deep cut top is delivering a prime view of her neck and shoulder blades. My mouth clicks open. I felt four clicks as my jaw unhinges on its way towards her jugular. Sweet like doughy cookies with a melt centre. Oh? And a surprise biscuit crunch in the middle. On her way to the cold tile, I rip her humorous from its socket. Her feet being lovingly devoured within the loose teeth of the girl next to me.