Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-33904527-20180423204707

Danny sighed heavily as he stared aimlessly out of the grubby car window a few inches from his face. His rural, countryside neighbourhood was usually a vibrant scene, coursing with energy from people going about their business as they did every week. But today, on a rainy Saturday evening, it seemed lifeless and dull. Together with the dimly lit sky, the downpour changed the bright colours he was used to seeing to boring shades of grey, like he was watching an old, black and white movie from the 1930s. Nobody was outside, and few cars were on the road. Just the same as most of the time him and his dad went out for their weekly shop at the local supermarket.

After a few more minutes of the worn BMW rolling across the bumpy gravel, it stopped, and Danny glanced over to the supermarket. There it was, a regular-sized square of brick and mortar with a flashy sign on top that read- “Johnson’s”. It had been there for a while, but it was well-maintained by the staff, and had reasonable prices, so it had quickly become a popular place to shop for food all around town.

“Grab the bags” Danny’s father, William, said as he unbuckled his seatbelt and shuffled out of the stained driver’s seat. Danny reached around the back of the car, grabbing two re-usable plastic bags and quickly following William through the rain and across the spacious car park into the supermarket.

Stepping into the produce aisle, William produced a list of items written on the back of a dirty envelope from his coat pocket. The aisle was clean and organised, with a few other people standing around, examining the various fruits and vegetables. The floor shined, lathered with a fresh coat of polish that made Danny feel guilty about stepping on it with his mud-caked trainers. His legs chafed annoyingly due to how baggy his jeans were, and his usually spiky black hair was drooping after they had run out of Vaseline (that was on the list).

The rest of the aisles were pretty much the same, and Danny and William eventually made it to the checkout, having collected everything they needed in an undersized trolley. While William placed the food on the checkout table, Danny stood awkwardly next to the till with his hands in his pockets. Suddenly, William produced an empty water bottle from one of the bags.

“Danny, could you please put this in that bin in the corner there?”

It was such a simple instruction. But if the events preceding the shopping “experience” had never been, then Danny could’ve thrown the bottle into the bin without issue or second thought and continued with his day. Instead, Danny took the clear, plastic bottle and placed it in the bin, not even thinking about what he was doing, as if he was a robot designed to perform one menial, repetitive task.

Danny blinked.

Suddenly the bottle was back in his hand. He was standing next to the till again. A weird sensation began to wash over Danny as he slowly came to realise something. He couldn’t hear. Or feel. Or smell. Or even taste. All Danny could do was look.

Panic creeped over to Danny and laid a hand on his shoulder, sliding its bony fingers up and down his spine, giving him a nasty chill. He glanced down at the bottle, beginning to lose more and more control over his body. The bottle was fused to his hand. It had become him. There weren’t even any burns. It was as if the bottle had just been there all his life, like an extra limb. He tried to shout out to William, but the words came out garbled, and the movement of his tongue was slow and heavy. It felt like a slug in his mouth. He was facing the wall next to the exit, which was now withered and old, with paint peeling off it, and cracks forming around the edges, but he couldn’t turn around. Something in his body wouldn’t let him, like a primal instinct that alerted him to a predator.

A cold sweat was forming on Danny, but it pooled in his shoes and climbed upwards, all the way to his scalp, getting in his eyes, nose, and mouth. It was a disgusting feeling to say the least, and all Danny could feel was that he was choking. It soaked his clothes, too, giving off a revolting stench that was the only thing Danny could smell. He tried breathing through his mouth, but the sweat tasted like vomit, mixed in with sickly sweet cough medicine that would slide down your throat and stick to your mouth. The wall started to ooze the sweat, coloured a tangy orange that reflected its taste. His vision was blurry due to the overwhelming amount of sweat in his eyes. Flakes of hair were being shed from Danny’s head, and he could see them falling to the floor out of the corner of his eye.

Danny blinked.

Suddenly, Danny was sat next to the till, from the perspective of the woman that was scanning the food. The sweat had gone, but he still had no control over what he was doing. Effortlessly, the woman’s hands scanned the food, which was now mouldy and broken, spilling onto the counter as it moved along. Danny didn’t even recognise some of the stuff that was on there. Every time the food was scanned, a shrill, unearthly screech would ring through Danny’s ears, never the same shout, but always terrifyingly loud and agonising, like the person screaming was being tortured. Cautiously, Danny glanced up at William.

William’s face was upside down. His mouth was where his forehead should’ve been, and his eyes were an inch away from his chin. He had feet for hands. Gross, blistered feet that had veins bulging in every direction, and cracked, brown toenails. Nobody else noticed, and nobody else cared. It disturbed Danny greatly to see his father, the man who had raised him alone for 17 years, mutilated in such a hideous way. People around Danny seemed to appear normal, but talked in a strange language that he could not comprehend. Listening to them for too long gave him a headache. Lastly, the prices coming up for the food made no sense at all. The “numbers” reflected the language people were speaking, but there was no consistency, every item had a new set of symbols.

Danny blinked.

Just as quickly as before, Danny swapped the checkout lady for William. Danny found himself gazing into the bags that William’s foot-hands were dropping food into. The bags were organic. Meaning they had sprouted from the floor like trees. Greenery poked out from the yellowish bark, misshapen and hypnotically tangled with other spots of greenery. The floor below showed no sign of damage, but the bags were without a doubt, rooted in place there. It was the only somewhat pleasant thing Danny had seen.

Inside the bag, was a mystery. It seemed to be a bottomless pit, just a black hole that would swallow anything that was put inside it. That was what happened with the food. It would just evaporate into the darkness. Danny couldn’t even hear a thump of the food landing somewhere. A clear view of one of the supermarket’s windows didn’t provide any information. There was nothing outside. Just endless white space as far as you could see, like the supermarket was positioned on the edge of time and space itself.

There were no customers anymore. Just William, the checkout lady, (who had changed into an obese, horrifically ugly troll-looking character) and the physical body of Danny, who looked like he was in the process of melting into a viscous fluid.

After seeing all this, Danny was mentally exhausted. He couldn’t try and resist any longer, and had lost the capacity to think, and keep taking in what he was experiencing. There was no explanation for any of it. None that he could find that wouldn’t lead to the possibility of him being crazy. He knew that he would never recover.

For the last time, Danny closed his eyes. And kept them closed.

For a while, nothing happened. Then, he heard whispers. Voices that were telling him things. Secrets of the universe. Things he didn’t want to know. It was unbearable. The whispers grew into voices, and the voices grew into shouts. And sounds. Sounds of pure fear. Of anger and regret and sorrow, and heartbreak. They were pure emotions channelled into a few noises that drowned Danny in a whirlpool of revelation that was spinning him around, sucking him in. Farther and farther down the rabbit hole. Through the lion’s den. Across a burning sky. Over a mountain of pain. The only recognisable sound was his heartbeat as it became faster and faster, like a machine whirring into overdrive. Until, as the voices reached a crescendo, it cut out altogether.

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beeeeeeeeeep.

“We’ve lost him” 