Venom

• Zachary Nicoll, Grade 9, Gympie State High School
• Short Story
• 2014

Excellence Award in the 'Write As Rain 2014' competition

My muscles clenched in agony as the creatures fangs left my body. My vision immediately started blurring and the pain was increasing rapidly. What had bitten me? Where had it come from?
I opened my mouth to scream but nothing came out, or was my hearing decaying as well? My mind was clouding and my wound was oozing pus, my raised pulsing veins turned purple as the venom mixed with my blood. The room seemed to start shrinking, all four corners closing in on me. I tried again to cry out for help, but I didn't really know what I was saying. Then suddenly I heard a thumping noise, of something big and mighty.
"A giant!" I exclaimed inside my ever clouding mind. The door, now almost a metre away from my seemingly shrinking body, burst open and a huge, blurry and monstrous figure came through.
The now seamless world was fading and the giant's body moved in slow motion, as everything else raced at the speed of sound. The strangely majestic darkness was closing in and my arms were as cold as ice. I sensed a warm hand touch my near frozen skin. A glance at what was touching me would have been easy if I were not paralyzed by the poison. Something in my head told me that this "thing" was not sinister and was here to comfort me.
I could hear a low rumbling sound like something was trying to communicate with me, but I was not able to respond. I felt icicles on my nose dripping onto my chest and burning a hole straight through my body. By now the infectious darkness had taken over and all I wanted to do was sleep.
Warm sensations went under my head and legs, and air rushed beneath me. Then everything stopped; all feeling, sense and emotion was gone, my pounding heart beat had halted.
"Could I be dead?" I asked myself anxiously, "Well obviously not, you’re talking to yourself right now!" I replied rapidly. A beam of hope, bright as the Sun, began beating down on my body, melting the ice and warming my bones. I hear my heart beat and something else; a voice! The darkness was fading and the beacon of hope shone brighter. A familiar voice was beside me and an unfamiliar in front of me, dressed in white.
"Just like in a hospital" I thought hopefully. Everything was coming together, piece by piece, bit by bit. The darkness had dissipated completely. My mum and dad were sitting next to me and at the end of my bed, a nurse.
"Oh he's awake Fredrick, he's awake!" My mum exclaimed to my dad.
"Austin, we were so worried" My dad explained, "that nasty spider bite almost had you!"