Undetermined Insect Man

The pain had transformed from the sharp pain of the sting or bite or whatever to a dull pain that spread up the arm. For a while he thought it was subsiding, though it continued to spread, but now it was picking up again.

"Hey, man. You alright?" Carter asked from the opposite side of the comic magazine stand. They usually walked by every day after school looking for a second-hand find. Carter did not feel alright. He felt his inside beginning to churn, and that awful feeling where your jaw muscles start to relax to prepare for a possible vomit.

"I think I'm getting sick. Wait here." and he hasted out of the Games and Comics store, heading for the mall toilets. He could feel whatever was happening gaining speed. He almost tripped himself in a stumble, and the fashionable tare in his jeans ripped open to a hole. It was like the body didn't quite want to do what he told it to. He was sweating a lot, he imagined. It felt like it anyway. The world was getting more and more out of focus, the closer to the toilets he got. Perhaps he shouldn't have gone alone, he thought. He clearly was about to collapse and need medical attention.

Shaking from cold he slammed the "family toilet" shut and locked the door, and his glasses fell to the floor. He just stared at them, as if everything else in the world just became unimportant. On the tiled floor lied his glasses, bought in August last year a few weeks before the semester started, so he would have his adjustment headaches before any classes. Only he could see the glasses clearly on the sharp grid of grout and tiles. It was like everything else that was going on had just stopped.

He turned towards the mirror. While he could see clearly, he didn't believe his eyes. It was him, but like a five, perhaps even ten years older version of him. That is if he did everything right during those years. When someone suggested he should lose weight he used to joke that going up in height would be a more efficient way to lower the BMI. Well, he just did. Though from what he could see of his chest size under the now hilariously too small clothes was any indication his BMI wouldn't have moved very much. Muscle mass is much denser than fat after all.