21 “Self Defense” by Annya Pardo

i’ve started carrying weapons next to my arms, close to the chest. not unlike a barrier, but closer to a trap rather than a full out assault. i have them properly labeled too. bright red things. but not especially threatening to those that can’t see the obvious “get the hell away from me” color. there are signs so i cannot be faulted when they do their job. at that point it’s just stupidity.

there was a point i reached one day, waking up and finding another sliver of hand missing, a gouged-out arm. my chest bitten up. i was tired of being used for fodder, for nutrition. all without permission. It was disgusting, and it was annoying.

hence the drugs. the weapons are drugs. they’re mean too, they look delicious as far as i can tell from the reactions i see day in and day out. good reviews slipping through mouths that cannot stop moving until their whole body- well until their whole body stops moving for them, i suppose.

it was a diabolical plan for sure. take something that has been ripped from me every night and day – that monsters with a thousand legs feel entitled too – and morph it ever so slightly.

now instead of delicious flesh that was ripped away, they get that and more. their eyes begin to resemble themselves even more – comically wide. their legs, their many, many legs, fidget, and skitter. it tickles. and then they stop.

my favorite part is when they stop.

that’s when they fall off, pushed off by whatever breeze flows that day. gentle or rough, it does not matter. it no longer tickles, and no longer do the parasites chew. it was peaceful for a while.

so, what changes? the sensation of being plucked from myself is no longer even remotely gentle. it’s hard, and it’s not ticklish. it’s an immediate removal of self. my whole body shakes from the ricochet of a part of me being viciously stolen. and not just stolen.

i have no eyes, and yet i watch anyway. as these giant things chew on my self. i think with satisfaction that i will be able to watch them die just as the demons with the thousand legs did, fast and then frozen and then dead.

none of this happens, and i watch in horror as this giant beast’s eyes widen. there is a crunch like it has bitten through stone. the thing has still not frozen, taking it’s time to chew.

and then there is this energy that sparks. i see it in those eyes. it pulls me apart with new and improved rigor, giant mandibles opening – and i can still see pieces of me inside – and shoves more of me in there. it’s loud, and there are more hands. some of them even rip me open further. i am being shaken back and forth and passed around my friends who were in this with me also shake and we all scream and.

my friends and I are now all in homes that are very neatly placed in a line. we are taken care of in return for our own bodies. our weapons are now just targets on our backs. and we are violated like clockwork, and it is so violent. somehow our defense gets stronger, and i haven’t felt a beast with a thousand legs step on me since that day, but the demon with the large claws do not cease to push us to our limits, and they do not care. in fact, I think building the greatest defense in the world would be cause for celebration to them. but it does nothing for me.