"The Other Within you"

The air is thick, with something you can't name. 

 You’re in your room, lying on bed but something is wrong. The silence is too loud. It hums, a low, constant vibration that feels less like sound and more like a pressure against your eardrums.

 A deep, hum that seems to originate from inside your own mind.

 Your eyes snap open. Darkness. Absolute, suffocating darkness. 

You reach out, your hand searching for the bedside lamp, but it's not there. 

Or rather your fingers brush against an empty space where it should be. A jolt of cold sweat shoots through you. This isn't right. 

You know your room. Every bump, every curve, every familiar object in its place. Yet, your hand finds only a unsettling void. 

 Panic, cold and sharp, begins to stab at the edges of your mind. You push yourself up but your muscles feel stiff as if you haven't moved for days. 

The bedsheets feel rough and coarse beneath your palms, not the soft cotton you remember. A faint, tremor runs through the floor, a rhythmic pulse that seems to match the beat of your own quickening heart. 

 "Hello?" Your voice is a strained whisper, swallowed completely by the darkness. It sounds foreign and thin . No answer. Only the hum, growing subtly louder, deeper. 

It feels like the entire room is vibrating, a low continuous hum that makes your teeth ache. 

You swing your legs over the side of the bed, expecting the cool, smooth wood of your floorboards. Instead, your bare feet land on something soft, yielding, and damp. 

 A choked gasp escapes you. What is this? 

You pull your feet back, a wave of nausea washing over you. The texture was wrong. Like wet, cold earth, but… softer, Spongier. You force yourself to take a deep breath, but the air is  tasting faintly of damp soil and something metallic, like old blood. 

Your heart is a beating like a drum against your ribs, You need light. 

You fumble in the direction of your phone, which you always leave on your nightstand. Your fingers brush against something solid, smooth, and then... warm.... Too warm.

 It shifts slightly under your touch. You snatch your hand back as if burned. What was that? A surge of adrenaline floods your system, sharpening your senses, yet distorting them further. 

The hum is now  vibrating through your bones, making your vision swim even in the absolute darkness. Your eyes strain, trying to pierce the gloom. 

Gradually, a faint sickly green glow begins to flow into the room.

It was not from any source, but from the very air itself, a thin, phosphorescent haze that reveals the terrifying truth. This isn't your room. 

 The walls are not plaster, but a shifting mass, like compacted decaying flesh. 

Veins, thick and pulsing with that same sickly green light, thread through them like a vast, organic network. The floor isn't wood, but a spongy, undulating carpet of dark, damp earth, pale roots that twist. 

 Your breath gets trapped in your throat. You try to scream, but no sound comes out. Your throat feels constricted, as if it’s closing in on itself. This is impossible....

 This is a nightmare. I must be dreaming. You pinch yourself, hard. Pain, sharp and immediate, on your arm. This isn't a dream. This is real. 

 The bed you were on, was no bed. It's a mound, a dark, pulsing heap that seems to be part of the floor. And the warmth you felt? It was coming from 'it'.

 A terrifying realization washes over you: you weren't on a bed, you were on *it*. A shadow detaches itself from the wall, a movement at the very edge of your vision. 

You whip your head around, but there's nothing there. Just the pulsating green veins and the oppressive, silent hum. Your mind races, trying to rationalize, to find an explanation. 

 A terrible fever dream? But the sheer, visceral *wrongness* of it all overrides any logic. You become aware of a new sensation. An itch. Not on your skin, but *beneath* it. A crawling, slithering feeling that starts in your arm and spreads rapidly across your chest, your back, down your legs. 

It feels like a thousand tiny insects moving under your skin, a symphony of unseen life burrowing deeper. You slap at your arm, frantic, but it does nothing. The sensation intensifies, becoming a burning, gnawing pain. You look down at your hand, illuminated by the sickly green glow. Your skin is no longer smooth. Tiny, dark lines, like fine cracks in porcelain, crisscross its surface. And beneath them, a subtle, rippling movement. 

 "No," you whisper, the word barely a breath. "No, no, no."

The hum intensifies, becoming a low growl that seems to resonate from the very core of the room. The walls pulse harder, the green light flaring brighter, then dimming, mimicking a monstrous heartbeat. You stumble backward, trying to get away, but there's nowhere to go. 

Your back hits something wet and yielding – one of the pulsating walls. A sharp, stinging pain shoots through your spine as the wall seems to *absorb* you slightly, pulling at your flesh. You push away, repulsion warring with sheer terror.  

From the shifting, organic walls, dark tendrils begin to emerge. They are thin, whip-like, and tipped with something that shines wetly, like obsidian shards. 

They stretch towards you, slowly, deliberately, like curious fingers. Your rational mind screams, *RUN!* But your body is frozen, gripped by a primal horror that has turned your muscles to lead. 

You watched as one tendril reaches your leg. It coils around your ankle, surprisingly gentle, but firm. The obsidian tip brushes against your skin, and a searing pain runs through you. You look down. Where the tendril touched you, a small, dark hole has appeared on your skin. 

Not a cut, but a perfectly round, dark as if something has been *sucked out*. And from within the hole, a faint green light begins to glow, mirroring the light in the room. 

 The terror begins to eat you alive, sharper than any physical pain. 

What is happening? Is this some sort of parasitic transformation? Are you being consumed, turned into something else? 

Is your body you’ve known your entire life, no longer your own? More tendrils emerge, twisting, reaching. They brush against your arms, your chest, your face. Each touch leaves another small, glowing spot. 

The crawling sensation beneath your skin becomes unbearable, as if whatever is there is reacting to the new openings, trying to escape or perhaps to 'enter'. 

Your resolve shatter. This isn't just about pain or fear; it's about the obliteration of self.

 If your body is no longer yours, if your very cells are being rewritten, then what remains of 'you'? 

Your thoughts, your memories, your consciousness – are they next? A new sound breaks through the hum. A faint, wet squelching, like something moving through mud. 

It's coming from inside the mound that used to be your bed. The mound ripples, expanding, contracting. From its depths, a form begins to rise. It's amorphous, undefined, but massive. Darker than the walls, a hulking mass of pulsating flesh and gnarled roots. 

It has no features – no head, no limbs, no eyes – yet you feel its gaze, its attention, solely on you. It 'knows' you. 

 The tendrils on your body tighten. The burning pain is constant now, an internal fire. You can feel the dark lines on your skin deepening, widening, becoming cracks that glow with the sickly green light. Your skin feels stretched. 

Then, you taste it.

 A metallic, earthy flavor fills your mouth. You cough, try to spit, but your tongue feels thick, swollen. 

You realize, with a cold chill that the taste is coming from your 'inside' . 

 Your reflection appears, shimmering faintly on the surface of one of the thickest tendrils. But it's not your reflection. Your face is distorted, elongated. Your eyes are wide, black pools, devoid of pupils. 

From your skin where the cracks are deepest, small, pale tendrils, identical to the ones now binding you, begin to emerge. They push outwards, painfully, tearing through your flesh.  

This is the ultimate, horrifying truth. You are not just being attacked, you are being 'transformed'. You are becoming part of 'it'. 

The lines between your body and the room, between consciousness and this organic nightmare, are blurring, dissolving. 

 The creature in the center of the room, the source of this grotesque symphony, lets out a silent, internal roar that reverberates directly inside your mind. It's not a sound, but a pure concept of hunger, of assimilation, of boundless, consuming will. 

 You try to fight, to pull away, but your limbs feel heavy, sluggish, no longer fully responsive. Your own emerging tendrils, alien and horrific, begin to move independently. 

One of them, still small brushes against your cheek, and you feel the slight, familiar sensation of your own skin, now part of the transformation. 

Realization crushes you, there is no escape. Not in death.

This thing wants you 'alive', wants to integrate you, to make you part of its  existence. 

Your individuality is being erased, your very essence merged with this parasitic entity. You are becoming a cell in a monstrous, growing organism.

 As the remaining fragments of your human consciousness begin to fade, getting consumed by the overwhelming presence of the hum and tendrils.

 A thought flashes through your mind. This wasn't an invasion from outside. This wasn't some ancient evil that found you. 

 This 'thing' was always here. It was always 'inside'.  

You were just waiting for the right conditions to finally bloom into 'it'. 

 The last thing you see, before your vision fully dissolves into a swirling vortex of green and black, is a glimpse of your arm. It's no longer an arm. It’s a mass of dark, pulsating flesh, laced with glowing veins, ending in a cluster of thin, searching tendrils. 

 From its surface, hundreds of tiny holes have opened, each one humming softly, hungrily, reaching out into the thick air. 

 You are no longer "you." 

You are merely another part of the room. 

Another piece of 'The Hum'.