Full Body Chills - Worm

Episode Date: October 12, 2020

This is a story about death and the way it burrows inside of us.Wormwritten by: Elodie WestoverYou can read the original story at FullBodyChillsPodcast.com Looking for more chills? Follow Full Body Chills on Instagram @fullbodychillspod. Full Body Chills is an audiochuck production. Instagram: @audiochuckTwitter: @audiochuckFacebook: /audiochuckllcTikTok: @audiochuck

Hi listeners, I'm Samantha Ware and I have a story I want to tell you. A story about death and the way it burrows inside of us. So, gather round and listen close. The day that the worms finally came, I wasn't surprised. I'd been telling everyone. My therapist, my psychiatrist, my mom. Anyone who could listen, really. I'd been telling them about it for years, and not a single one of them understood or believed. And all of the pills and talk therapy and doctors and art therapy and ECT and the world can't change my mind. I'm dead.

I'm absolutely sure of it. I hadn't always known. The idea trickled in and out at first. There were always clues, but the moment I paid too much attention to it, the thought disappeared. The fact that I wasn't alive anymore hadn't been apparent until I was in my early 20s.

I had my temperature checked at the doctor's office for a checkup before yet another psychiatric referral. There'd been the scale first, and of course, I'd been underweight. I was always underweight. But last month, I had dropped 10 pounds, and that had been my mom's biggest worry, and my old psychiatrist didn't seem nearly as concerned. So there we were, jumping through insurance hoops to find another person to give me my new drugs, new words, and ignore the things I said. The nurse gave me a weird look and muttered, hmm. She started shaking her thermometer a bit and frowned. This thermometer's glitchy. I'll be back with another, she said. As soon as she left the room, I had hopped from my spot on the paper-covered exam table and grabbed the thermometer.

She had left it alone upon the counter, the disposable plastic sheath still around its metal tip. I popped it back in my mouth and then read the results. 94.6. It isn't broken. The thought had tickled slyly, rubbing up alongside the back of my skull. You're just not like them. But you already knew that, didn't you? You don't have to tell them. You know they aren't going to listen. The nurse didn't come back to try again before the doctor arrived, and in that time I had quickly slipped the thermometer sheath and all into the pocket of my jeans. The doctor hadn't taken my temperature either. She'd simply discussed my weight loss, my sleeping habits, my blood pressure, which of course had always been low.

I said nothing about my discovery and just gave the answers the doctor wanted to hear. All the while, I thought about the thermometer in my pocket and the idea whispered to me. That had been five years ago. I check my temperature daily now. It's one of the few things I can actually trust. Proof that I'm right. It's the only thing that doesn't lie to me. According to the thermometer I hid inside my mattress, I am 72 degrees today, room temperature. I slip my tool back in its home and tuck the sheet back over the hole I had cut. I had to be very, very careful, as my mother had taken the others over the years, since she first caught me doing it. She didn't believe me then, nor does she now. She always throws them away, refusing to even look

at the evidence on the little digital screen. I head to the bathroom I share with my mom and stare into the mirror. A pallid, straw-haired girl stared back at me, features sharp, bruised like smudges of violet beneath her dark, unfocused eyes. Her skin looks mottled with grey, and the few freckles she has stand out in stark relief, pinpoint reminders of what had once made her a little copy of her mother. I lean forward, watching the spiderweb of dark veins in my cheek. I poke it. Pick it. That wasn't there last night.

It's ugly. I press again, just a little. Just a... The vein squirmed. None of my veins have done that before. I pick a little harder. But as soon as I do, it slithers away beneath the surface of my skin. Dang it. I lean away and start itching the back of my hand.

My skin had been flaking off a lot lately. Not that anyone seemed to notice or care. I'd find pieces on the floor, in my bed, on my pillow. I hide them in my drawer of my nightstand. I don't think my mom's found them otherwise she would have gotten rid of them. She would do anything to ignore the truth. In the mirror, my mom appears behind me. She has a glass of water in one hand and clozapine dose number one in the other.

Mirror mother pats my shoulder. Your face is red, Mom remarks softly. I take the glass and dutifully swallow the medication down with tepid tap water. What happened? Is it allergies again? Have you been using the cream the dermatologist gave you? My veins are falling out again. I mutter. Shit, I can't tell her that. I mean... I had a pimple. I say it louder, hoping she didn't hear the first part. She set the glass too hard on the counter and the sound reverberated against the tile walls.

I don't think she believed me. I'm breaking out again. The meds. Mama's quiet at first, then says, you, Maya, Maya, we talked about this. Oh, so now she heard me. I give her a quick nod and duck away, trying to hide my shaking hand in my pajama top. I clumsily dart at the door. Mom didn't bother me again until it was time for my next dose. It's later in the day now. I'm alone watching some cartoon show and my mom is out in the garden waiting. Right then I catch a shadow in the corner of my vision. It squirmed.

I try to blink it away, but the bright, angular characters on the TV remain a blurry mess. I rub my eye, grumbling, and blink even more. Another strange little shadow crawls across my vision. This one takes its time and blocks the screen for a moment with an unfocused haze that made my eye water. I grit my teeth and rub harder. Stars explode through my vision, but the awful sensation in the blur simply won't go away. I push myself awkwardly to my feet and waver down the hall and into the bathroom,

slapping at the light to turn it on. I lean over the counter, and holding open my eye, my breath fogs my reflection. I wipe at it with a sweaty hand and lean in. My nose almost pressed to the surface. And then it appears. A thin black worm squirmed from beneath my upper eyelid and plopped on its own wetly into the sink. I try to catch it, but it quickly disappears down the drain. I'm surprised I hadn't noticed it sooner.

Maybe they've been hiding. Maybe they've been there forever, and I only just noticed them. I give a soft, short sigh and lean back. I take a moment to calm my jangled nerves, closing my eyes and breathing through my nose. When I opened my eyes again, my vision is clear, but the strange black veins were back beneath my skin. They wiggled in stark contrast under the sharp fluorescent lights. No, they're not veins. Those were worms too. They're not just in my eyes. That's not how decay worked. I lean forward and poked my cheek. The sensation of the thing beneath my skin pushing away from me sends a shiver down my spine, makes my teeth quench and my ankles hurt. My near-empty stomach gurgles. I swallow

hard and give another slow inhale and exhale. I wait for the nausea to pass and then I peer over my left shoulder towards the still open door. I call out, Mom? Silence. She was still outside. Good. I had quite a lot of work to do and very little time to do it. I close and lock the door. The second worm put forth a valiant struggle against its capture and expulsion. I'd given up on my short-bitten fingernails and had resorted to dull tweezers and then a blunted nail file before settling on my mother's cuticle nipper. I grunt with the effort as I dig beneath the flesh of my cheek, grasping the creature by its tail, or maybe its head. I don't really know more in biology. I pull. It felt longer than the first worm. After I tug it free, I drop it into the sink, which I had plugged this time to prevent

an escape. The worm thrashes about wildly, searching for shelter. I wipe the nipper clean with the flowered hand towel on the counter next to my failed tools and lean in, searching for the next worm. Maybe if I could get rid of them all, I won't be sick anymore. Maybe I could find a way to be alive again. These worms are the cause of it, I'm sure. I'd seen those videos on National Geographic. They were parasites. They ate things up from the inside.

Worms could really do a lot of damage if you let them get out of hand. There you are. The third worm is just beneath my scalp. My hair is in the way, so I pull out chunks at a time to expose the black invader. Sticky tendrils of red-stained blonde feather the sink. The worms climb all over them, looking for an escape. My face is sore, and my hands are slippery with blood. But I can't stop now.

One look at the worms and their odd little pitter-patter slither against the cold ceramic of the sink is enough to urge me onward. I had to get them out. I had to finish this. Maybe no one else had cared enough to fix me. But I could do this myself. Cut, snip, pull, squeeze, cut, snip, pull, over and over. Suddenly there's pounding on the door. It's my mom. She's demanding to be let in. I ignored her. I need to stay focused. I currently have my nippers deep in a little pit

dug above my clavicle. I tug on another one of the slippery little invaders. Was it squeaking? Or maybe that's just the sound the nippers made against my bone. I had chased it from a spot just under my ear, but this time I had cornered the damn thing. I had a good half of it pulled out when the door bust inward. Mom stands there, pale and wide-eyed, cold confusion spilling across her dirt-smudged sweaty face. The glass and pills in her hands fell to the floor, forgotten, shattered at her feet. She screams. Maya! It's okay, Mom.

I assure her. I'm almost finished. I'm done. I turn around, offering up the nippers and my proof. I give the long, dangling tendril of segmented nightmare a wave in my mother's direction. I think I finally got them all, I tell her.

I'm definitely going to be alive again now. Aren't you happy? I'm suddenly tired. Mom screams, but it's so hard to hear anything. Things start to grow dark and darker. Time dissolves and I try to roll my head to one side. A white blur washes over

me. The muffled voice of my mom is barely audible. She's crying. A blurry image of our panic face waves in the light. Words and sound all mixed in a weird jumble. Closet bean. I don't... Schizophrenia. Cotards. But I never thought... Something this severe.

Oh God. So much blood. Please hurry. Please hurry. Snatches of a conversation soar around me as unfamiliar hands, too many hands, were upon me, lifting me. I floated through the hallway. My mother is at my side. I barely reach out a hand. My words get stuck and drool out of my mouth.

Worms. I got them. I'm alive. Mom is crying. I try to comfort her, but my voice feels wet. My words thick and slow. I can't feel my toes. Or my fingers. I feel cold, but my insides are burning.

My heart, burning, beating fast. Everything shifts to black. Into the warmth and quiet. I'm finally alive. Alive. This episode was written by Elodie Westover and read by Samantha Ware. This story was modified slightly for audio retelling, but you can find the original in full on our website. Full Body Chills is an AudioChuck production. So, what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve?