As I was searching for a new song to listen to, I heard something very strange. It sounded like a fly, but it didn't come from anywhere else in the room. It seemed to come from the space between my ear and my headset's ear. Naturally, it startled me, making me yank the headset off my head and shake my head vigorously. When I regained control of myself, I looked inside the headset ear I heard the sound from. As expected, there was no fly. I thought nothing of it from that point, at first, and just went on with my day as usual.
A few weeks later, at my checkup, my doctors told me that they had found something rather disturbing. They said that a small fly had somehow gotten into my brain. I laughed at them, thinking it was some sort of silly prank. When they showed me my X-rays, however, my smile got swept away. They were right; right at the top of my brain sat the small fly that they had decided. They told me not to worry too much about it, as it didn't show any signs of causing serious harm to my brain. I said I wouldn't, but when I left the hospital, with the photos, it was the only thing on my mind.
I had strange dreams about it. Not nightmares, but just weird dreams where the fly, about my size, just sat there, not buzzing, not moving, just staring at me. When I told my family and friends about it, most of them told me not to let it get to me, just like the doctors told me. Some of my friends, however, told me that they had similar experiences with hearing flies from their headphones.
Finally, one day, after making sure that it couldn't be explained by officials, I decided to get to the bottom of it myself. I downloaded a sound image app on my phone. I opened it, put on my headphones, and began recording. Nothing happened for the first minute. I decided to kill the awkward silence with a hum. After another minute, I was still humming, or at least I thought I was. Another minute. Still humming. Another...and another...and another...Hmmmmmmmm.
I was curious as to how talented I was at humming for so long. I didn't think it was even possible. Then, when I got annoyed with it and stopped myself, something frightening happened. While I was quiet, the humming kept going. I thought it was the app, so I tried to adjust the volume. When I did that, the humming sound got clearer, and clearer, until I realized it wasn't humming. It was buzzing.
My eyes were wide, and I was looking almost everywhere. For a few seconds, I saw that the app had drawn what looked like the very same fly. It was at that point that I realized that the buzzing wasn't just coming from the phone. It was coming from the exact same spot between my ear and my headset ear that I remember from that day around a month ago. This time I didn't flinch. I slowly took off the headset and peeked inside the ear.
The fly from the picture was in there. I was surprised but I didn't flinch. Like most occurrences with bugs, it wasn't attacking me. In fact, it wouldn't even come out of the ear of my headphones, at least not until I put it in a jar. After freeing the fly in my backyard. I started to feel better. At my next checkup, when the doctors told me that the fly was gone, a tsunami of relief splashed over me. I was so glad that I was going to be okay. I was free. There were no more flies in me.
The next day, after school and homework, I tended to my garden. Everything was going just fine, when I heard buzzing. It was just annoying to start. It followed me around for a minute. Then, I heard something that was just as close as the buzzing.
"Thanks for the blood, kid," said a low-ish voice. "No need to thank me for mine."
I stopped dead in my tracks, shocked at the realization of what the voice had meant. I turned to my left, and sure enough, there it was. The exact same fly, from the picture, except this time, it was the same size as me, just like in my dream.
As it started to slowly glide itself away from me, I pulled out my phone and recorded a video of the fly. I followed it to make sure the camera got as much footage of it as possible before the fly disappeared into the trees.
I have barely slept for weeks, almost months now. Most of my family and friends, except for the few who had the similar experiences, think I'm crazy. I know I'm not. I've heard it, and I have video proof, but I'm too scared to share the footage, knowing how likely most people would rule it out as action movie effects or whatever.
But the most frightening part, to me, is that every day since I last saw the fly, the world has started to look much bigger to me. Or is it me...getting smaller?
Written by Al Timotheus
Content is available under CC BY-SA