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           I don’t think anyone knows where it started, I actually don’t think anyone knows.  That isn’t unusual for these types of videos after all it was just a silly dance, right? This was all just a coincidence we didn’t do this, did we?

          It was the night before finals 11th grade was all but a memory and I was already making my summer plans.  My finger drags across the smooth glass screen as my page refreshes my last videos view tracker tiks up from 10 to 15, again my finger drags and again the number grows to 18 (color me excited) of course everyone will say “ A high school girl dancing on the internet, how creative?” But this is for me not anyone else. Who cares what they think?  I swipe to the left and there she was DanceBr@t17 she moves so fluidly yet her arms and legs lock into place on each beat and this odd echoing pulsating sound shouldn’t work but she finds a way, and just like I’ve done 163 time before I study every move that accompanies each rise and fall of the beat I train my arms and legs to move my body the way she does. Finally I have the dance down after a few hours and one too many knocks at my door from Ralph telling me “Your mother won’t be happy if she gets home and you are still awake!” Oh Ralph as if you have any say in my life I did not come from your nether regions.  

          By the time I finish the video and hit upload the sound used by DanceBr@t17 already has fifteen thousand accompanying videos and her original video is up to 45k views in only 2 hours that’s incredible and…post.  I swipe back over to my profile and drag my finger down the screen refreshes 20 views my heart thumps as I hear my moms car pulling into the drive way I drag the screen one last time 47 views, the screen goes dark as I lay in my bed gripping my phone ecstatically awaiting the morning and my view count. The sun breaks through the morning California sky and shines directly through my window onto my sleeping face I wince and just as wisely as my eyes open is my phone unlocked and I’m dragging my finger down, 10k views “Oh, My God!” I exclaim a little too loud “Hey! Shouldn’t you have caught the bus already!” My mom hollers through the door “Um ya Oh My God! I’m late Mom.” I hurriedly throw so baggy sweats on and a Bowie shirt my dad left in his closet, he isn’t going to be back for it, in a lot of ways I feel like this shirt.  

         The music is loud in my headphones as I bike furiously to school, it’s quiet and my brows drip sweat down my cheeks and I taste the salt on my lips.  The song ends and I hear it for the first time, a steady thumping in my ear a buzz as if a bee was stuck in the canal of my ear I swat at the phantom bee as I lose balance on my bike and the front tire clips a curb I go over the handle bars and the sound intensifies the bee grows angry at my attempt to kill it I hit the ground my air desperately escapes my chest. I sit up and my bodily pain pales in comparison to the buzzing in my ear, the low and steady thumping in the back of my head like an authoritarian knock on my bedroom door.  I slap my head and squeeze my ears until they turn red and burn the sounds persist and suddenly and with one final knock and a furious buzz I fall back, It’s gone. 

          My eyes open as I’m laying on the asphalt across the street from the school and suddenly everything that happened to me has just gotten worse. Did anyone see me? Oh god now I’m an even bigger freak, please please please let them be anywhere but near a window.  I walk my bike up to the school grounds and realize there isn’t anyone here. I remove my phone and check the day it’s Wednesday I drag my finger down the screen and I couldn’t believe it 25k views. My heart is lifted back from the sinking it had just done. But where is everyone?  

         I go to wipe my brow and realize I’m not sweating, the sun is being covered thank God.  I look to the sky hoping for rain clouds and there it was…. Jutting from somewhere off in the distance a monolithic spike has erupted from the ground I almost didn’t notice a plane small and fragile compared to the structure that is now grasping for the sun from its earthly slumber the plane falls like a bird trying to fly for the first time without realizing its wings are not yet developed.  The plane helplessly falls to the ground and instead of a splat the ground shakes.

         I taste it again salt but no wait copper I feel a large drop from my nose I go to wipe it and leave a streak of red across my face.  That was the first I’ve moved since I saw it.  I look around and I see them everyone coming from their houses to stare many of the girls like me their noses bloodied they all were frozen the same bloodied or not.  My eyes narrow I get back on my bike and start back to my house frantically I pedal and the empty streets from before are filled with people and the occasional car stopped in the center of the street but I pedal faster and towards the spike and I taste salt this time tears as I turn the corner on my street and my house is gone the base of the spike jutting from the very foundation of my home heat emanates from the spike and  so intense my tears and sweat and blood are now dried and crusty on my face and than I notice it the spike it has scales it’s wet and as I look it pulses and the skin deforms and I realize the spike begins to bend. I look down in my hand is my phone I slowly drag my finger across the screen 75k views. I point the phone at the object as I exclaim “It’s A Tentacle!”