Lesley straightened up from his examination of the box to look back towards that the man he'd followed into the store. The man had spoken again, another apology. Looking over the situation, it looked like he'd had another near-collision with one of the drones, perhaps an actual collision, Lesley had missed seeing it. The drone had made some sounds as well, perhaps an apology of it's own, but there had been a slightly different... edge to it? Lesley frowned and casually tucked the box in his hands under an arm, and continued to watch this one non-vague element of this dream.
The man seemed a bit tense. Fairly precice in his movements. But, given the press of bodies in the store, contact, or near-contact anyways, was a bit inevitable. The man continued 'shopping', occasionally offering "Excuse me" or "Sorry about that". But then Lesley saw one of the drones back up into the man...
"Oof, um, excuse me," the man said to the drone. But Lesley saw it this time. Just a moment after contact, the man had changed... Some kind of additional limbs had appeared. Attached to the man's shoulder blades and stretching over his head... Lesley hadn't gotten a full look, the limbs had been there and gone in a split second. But they had looked quite unpleasant.
Considering, Lesley stepped in closer to the man, casually eyeing the boxes on the shelves. Standing right next to him, Lesley paused, then suddenly reached forward to a box right in front of the man, deliberately closing in for a light touch. "'Scuse me," Lesley said as he did...
"Oh, sorry." The man stepped back, but Lesley had seen them clearly this time. The arms had appeared again. Gaunt, distorted, unhealthy-looking, and each ending in wickedly clawed hands. What was more interesting was that these hands seemed to be grasping at the man's head... The man himself seemed unchanged. Still polite and civil, at least. He went off to peruse things on a different shelf.
Lesley provoked two more such encounters in the store, each time acting as if he was unintentionally coming into contact with the man. Each time the arms appeared, and Lesley got another look at them. The claws seemed to actually be cutting at the man's face and head, but whatever wounds they caused seemed as ephemeral as their own existence. They also seemed to be distinctive to this re-memorable man, as when Lesly bumped into a few drones, nothing similar to these arms appeared. Frowning, Lesley awaited the right moment and stepped up behind the man, suddenly reaching over a shoulder for yet another box...
Lesley snatched his arm back, crying out and cradling his arm. Four gashes lay there across his forearm, blood seeping from the cuts. The man turned and looked aghast at Lesley's injury. "I-I-I'm deeply sorry... I'm so sorry... Are you alright?"
Lesley nodded. The cry had more been in shock than in real pain. "Yeah, I'm okay, it's only a scratch." Indeed, the cuts seemed to be fading away. Slowly, but they were closing on their own, pain disappearing, not even leaving scars as they healed. Lesley was far more concerned about what the arms were doing to the man...
They hadn't dissapeared.
The claws cut and tore, sliced and ripped at the man's head, wounds vanishing almost as quickly as they appeared, leaving no trace in their wake. And through the barrage, the man hadn't changed his expression of shock and concern... over Lesley's injury. The arms flickered, then dissappeared again. "I-I'm sorry..." The man quickly turned and set the few boxes he'd been carrying back on the shelf, then rapidly made his exit from the store...
Go back - Go to the parent episode.
Sat Sep 17 03:47:46 2005