"Something Inside of Me" by Devin Cabrera

There’s Something Inside Me

by Devin Cabrera

I felt the cool air on my face as I burst to the surface, gulping in a lung full of air as I came to my senses. I licked my lips, enjoying the taste of the saltwater upon them.

I spun around, looking for David’s head to be poking up out of the water nearby. But he wasn’t there.

Maybe he was staying under a little longer. The man did have the capacity to hold his breath for a long time. I blamed the five-a.m. jogs every morning.

That cooled my nerves a bit, and I allowed myself a chance to take in a few deep breaths, then some more, and yet another. 

A seagull flew overhead, chasing after a female gull in the skies. It let out a piercing cow-cow-cow as it came near, warning other gulls of the possibility of a threat.

The waves crashed against the shore, and I struggled to listen over them. Everything that had seemed so quiet a moment before now seemed so loud.

I swam toward the beach, standing up once I got to shallow water. My feet now trudging through the sand once more, I looked for David’s footsteps, but any trace of what had come before had disappeared.

And so had David.

He never came back that night. After waiting a few more minutes at the water's edge, I called the authorities. They dragged the water and had the coast guard search the beaches nearby, but they couldn't find his body. After several hours of searching, a sullen-looking officer told me they were calling off the search.

I fell to the ground in tears as they told me that the most likely scenario was that his body was taken by a shark or other large fish. I couldn’t hear anything else they said after that.

After the authorities left and the lights from their vehicles stopped leaving chromatic aberrations in my eyes, I stood in front of the window of the beach house and stared at the ocean, watching the waves hit the sand and then retreat into themselves.

I had waited in front of that window all night, keeping my eyes open and turned toward the water even though I could no longer see anything. As the sun rose the following day, my eyes drooping from lack of sleep, I saw something on the beach.

In that instant, I ran out to the water, still wearing my clothes from yesterday. My hopes were very high, and I was preparing myself for disappointment.

But then I rounded a bank of sand, and there he was.

It was David, walking out of the water like he was Poseidon, king of the ocean. His long, wet hair clung to his body as he pushed through the waves toward me, and I ran forward and embraced him, breaking down into tears as I cried into his shoulder.

He didn't know what had happened to him and couldn't account for the last twenty-four hours, but I was just glad to have my David back.

Except, he didn’t seem like the David I knew.

There was this constant pained look on his face, and I would catch him staring at me out of the corner of my eye, looking at me like he had no idea who I was, like he was studying me.

One day, David left the bathroom door cracked open, and I accidentally caught a glimpse of him inside. What I saw left me in shock.

His shirt was pulled up, and in the mirror, I could see something moving around in his stomach, crawling underneath his skin.

I stepped closer to the door, wanting to get a better look.

Just then, the floor creaked loudly, and I looked down, cursing at the old floorboards beneath me. When I looked back up, David was there, peering through the crack of the door back at me. His breathing was heavy, and his chest rose up and down with every puff of air that escaped his lungs.

He forced open the door, and I stood frozen in place, not knowing what to do.

David walked forward until his skin was touching mine. 

It was only then that I got a good look at his face. It contained a look of fear I hadn't seen before, but I also saw my David in those eyes again.

"There's something inside me," David whispered as if he didn't want to wake up whatever it was.

I looked down, seeing his skin pressed against mine. I could see the thing in his stomach moving, like a child in the womb, examining the vessel next door.

My own flesh.

I looked back up at David, but his eyes had gone cold. They had turned to a dark, lifeless black. His mouth gaped open, and words came out, though his lips never moved.

“THERE’S SOMETHING INSIDE ME!” David screamed.

I was so close, and yet I couldn’t run. It was like my legs were glued to the floor. I tried to back up, but then I felt the wall behind me. There was nowhere to run.

Just then, I felt the presence in David's stomach begin to move, pressing through his skin up against mine. It traveled upward, and as I watched, hundreds of tiny legs crawled out of the back of his throat as a strange creature made its way down his tongue. His jaw dislocated itself, making room for the rest of the thing to escape.

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

I screamed as if my life was at risk, and it probably was.

The next thing I knew, a thousand legs were crawling into my mouth as the thing transferred itself inside me, making its way into its new host.

My screams cut off as my airways were choked. My vision went black, and only one thing ran through my mind.

THERE’S SOMETHING INSIDE ME.