Thread by @Brad_Kul

As I was driving to work today, I noticed an odd, thick hair under my arm.
It didn’t look like a normal hair and it was the only one in that area.
I did what any normal person would do, and went to grab it, to pull it out.

As my fingers got near it, it moved.

It was swaying or twitching all on its own!

I finally caught it between my thumb and middle finger, and pulled.

It wouldn’t come out. It was moving more, trying to escape my grasp.

I pulled even harder.

The skin around its base began to open up.

I pulled it more and the skin stretched and I could see black.

I felt no pain, so I kept pulling. I wanted whatever it was out of me!

The skin stretched even more and I realised what I was holding.

It was an insect’s antennae and I had pulled a live cockroach out of my skin.

The hole under my arm didn’t shrink.

It kept growing.

I threw the cockroach out the window and looked at my arm.

There was nothing inside the hole, just blackness.

I needed to know what was happening, so I craned my head around and when the hole got large enough, and snaked myself inside the empty blackness.

I fell.

When I hit the bottom, I couldn’t see anything.

Where was I? Was I still me?

The air felt ancient and undisturbed.

The ground was sloping, so I started walking down.

It felt never ending, like I was somewhere that existed before time.

I lost all sense of who or what I was as I walked.

I came to flat ground and I could see.

There no light source, but I could somehow see.

I was standing in what I can only describe as an underground natural cathedral.
A vast empty space, except for a small object in the very center.

I moved towards the small object, edging closer and closer whilst trying to make sense of what I was looking at.

It was a small child.

A boy.

The boy was sitting cross legged on the ground, knuckles on the ground, holding something in his right hand.

I stopped in front of him.

I was terrified.

The boy was me!

It was clearly me at around four years old.

The object in his hand was a blade, a sharp but well used knife blade with no handle.
His hand was bleeding from holding it.

He must have been using it to shave his head.
His hair was gone, but he had cut too deep in patches and taken chunks of skin out.
He had blood running down his face.

He looked up, straight into my eyes.

But he had no eyes himself.

Instead he had what looked like glass or polished stones, one white and one black.

I knew he was going to talk to me.

I didn’t want to be there.

I felt too hot and too cold at the same time. I thought I might vomit or faint.

My knees were shaking, and my body was close to collapse.

He opened his mouth and there was nothing inside.

No tongue or teeth, just blackness.

I thought he was about to make the most horrible sound.
I thought if he spoke, it make my ears bleed or my heart explode.

I did not want to hear what he had to say.

I could not handle it anymore.

But I knew I had to.

And when he did speak, it was not a scream or a shout.

It was a whisper.

It was calm.

He whispered,

“Do not let them hurt me.
Do not let them take me.
Do not let them kill me.”