The first time I saw the worms I couldn’t have been much more than seventeen. My grandfather whom I had loved dearly had fallen ill and wasn’t expected to live through the night. I had been crying on my bed when I noticed them. There were only a couple of them that time. They didn’t look like garden worms. Instead of being long and pink, they were short, fat and white. They left a trail of thick liquid on the floor of my bedroom. I’ve never been a fan of bugs so naturally I kinda freaked out. I tried to hit them and squash them but as soon as my hand made contact with their slimy skin, pain shot up my arm. They started burrowing into my hand. I didn’t know what to do. I tried to pull them away but every time I’d grab one of them the others would bury deeper making me drop the worm I was holding. The dropped worms started attacking my other hand. Soon they were too deep for me to be able to reach them. They left circular holes in my palms, about half centimeter in diameter.
My mum had heard my frantic commotion and come in to check on me. I had raised my shaking palms to show her the holes the worms had left but she just stared at me in confusion. I started trying to tell her about the worms and what they’d done, but she just sighed and told me I’d had a nightmare. I turned my palms so I could look at them, hoping that she was right. The holes were still there. My mother couldn’t see them. After she left I started to cry. I wanted so bad for the worms to not be real but I knew that they were. I could feel them moving under my skin. They were wriggling and shifting and I could feel it.
The worms kept showing up. Every time I saw them there seemed to be more and more. At first I tried to fight them. To stop them from burying their fat little bodies into my flesh. It never worked. Every time there were too many of them. They’d bury into any exposed flesh that they could reach leaving those small circular holes that never really healed. No one noticed. No one else could see the worms. Some of them noticed that I was acting “different” but they made no effort to help me. Not that they’d understand if I told them. Eventually I began to give up. The worms would come and I’d just sit and wait, letting them do as they pleased. I started wearing long clothes just so I wouldn’t have to look at the holes that covered most of my body. No one else could see the holes anyway, but even if they could I don’t know if they’d care.
There are thousands, maybe even millions of them now. I can feel them moving around under my skin. My body is more holes than flesh. I can’t look at myself in the mirror any more. I don’t want to see what they’ve made of me. I can barely get together the strength to leave my room anymore. The worms are everywhere. I can’t escape them. They’re inside of me. And there’s nothing I can do to stop them.
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