My Cardboard Balcony

I Trembled by Belinda Roddie I trembled once I reached the podium, and I opened my mouth, but I could not get a word out. Suddenly, a black storm of spiders erupted right at the spot where my tongue met my teeth. The audience was on their feet and screaming. One poor girl fainted. The noise was so loud and intense that suddenly, my ears fell off. The world was disintegrating before my eyes. "This has to be a dream," I thought, "or else I've gone completely mad." Amid the cries of panic, the spiders began to melt into ink on my fingers. I awoke with a harshness in my lungs like sharp smoke.

They said that the disease, on average, would remain dormant in the human body for seven to twelve years. After that, as even the most professionally minded and steel-stomached doctors said, "All Hell would break loose." It was bad enough that the victim would be in constant chronic pain and ultimately unable to walk. But months into the spiral, their vision would be taken away. Then, their hearing. And finally, their speech, so they could no longer scream.