... of H. G. Worthington

This deep bright sphere envelops your disease.
While the creatures dance for your release.
A distorted reflection into the void bleeds.
Diagrams drawn for all your needs.

The alarms all sounded at once, but we were gone by the time they arrived, sitting under the railway bridge, crystal meth and shooters fucking everywhere. I only found it later, bundled up in my pocket... must have grabbed it in the heat of the moment. Small, round, smooth and hard, a colour that can't be described, just a bit smaller than a golf ball.

I forgot about it again anyway, went up and knelt down above the rail of the railway, my head a few inches away, swaying and listening to it crackle. Feeling everything shift; it became something else, I was everywhere as the railway line condensed inside my field of vision. The line became a mobius strip, the trains ever chasing themselves, attached to my circulatory system and surging forward each time my heart pumped them round. Now becoming giant worms, as thick as your arm and burrowing their own tracks deep beneath the city. They're not stupid; they know better than to follow the tracks laid down for us. Fuck only knows what you find when you step off the path, though probably it's just oblivion of a different kind.

I felt hands round my neck, my waist, pulling me out from one place to another. I curl up, become a beetle, like a woodlouse but nicer, big as a house, protected. Sets of eyes looked down at me, bloodshot and pupiless, watching with envy the glow that surrounds me. I have entered my pupae stage; all is but to wait and grow, the shell like membrane keeping them out.

Maggots. I hatch, flow softly unfurling, new teeth firmly planted into the old fur. I'm underneath the ground looking up, feeling their footsteps above like rain thundering down. I was stolen, infectious waste, on display, viscous and thick like syrup. You can't prop us up without expecting to take our full weight at some point.

It was the flecks of blood in your vomit, the doubt in your eyes seconds before the blast melted your skin. It was selfishness, apathy, the respect commanded by lies, your laughter as you forgot. Already I flow into the spaces between your organs and your bones, you'll know what fucking pain is...