Bump

I first felt it a few weeks ago. It was a bump on the back of my head.

I thought nothing of it. I’d probably bumped my head while drunk. Happens all the time.

It would go away eventually, I told myself. Yet whenever I washed my hair, it was there, and it felt... bigger? Occasionally, I could almost feel it pulsate, and a hot feeling would wash over my head. It was unlike anything I’d felt before. It wasn’t a headache, but an almost external feeling as if the warmth came from outside.

I tried my best to ignore it. Nothing but a bump that would soon be gone.

It wasn’t.

Today, I spent the evening watching a bunch of trashy movies and having a few drinks. Every once in a while, though, I could feel it again, the same warmth washing over my head.

Before long, fueled by half a dozen beers, my worries came back.

I stumbled to the bathroom and checked the back of my head. Yet with all the hair, I couldn’t see anything. All I could do was probe for it.

Scissors, I needed scissors. Driven by an almost drunk stupor, I began cutting away the hair around the bump haphazardly.

Before long, I was done, and finally got a better look at it. It was a bump, all right, and a rather big one at that. When I touched it, though, it felt strangely soft.

Where the hell did this come from?

As I stared at it, I saw it was still covered in a few hairs. When I touched them, when I pulled on them, they just came off. I could simply... pluck them out with no resistance.

What the absolute fuck...?

Then, with a shaking hand, I reached out for it again. Once more, the same warm feeling spread all over my head. I began probing it, pressing against it here and there. Then, for a split second, it felt almost as if something was pushing back against my finger.

I cringed and pulled my hand back.

I stood there, hyperventilating. Almost in a trance, I picked up the scissors again.

I poked it once, twice. Again the same hot feeling.

Then I pressed the scissors against it. At first gently, but then harder and harder. Skin stretched and finally broke. I watched as a disgusting, syrupy liquid leaked from the bump.

And then I screamed. The scissors clattered to the floor.

This time, the feeling that washed over my head was as hot as fire.

Yet I almost didn’t register it. The horror I saw pushed aside all feeling.

Slowly, ever so slowly, something pushed itself from the lump. It was a disgusting, tentacled growth. It became longer and longer, as it slithered over the back of my head, probing the outside world before it retreat into the lump on the back of my head.

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