Mutant Ticks

Date: 8/28/2017

*Warning - Body Horror* I was an observer in a rather unorthodox scientific trial involving these weird ticks. I'm not sure how they had been made, but there were four of them and they were a green-blue color. The human test subject looked like a random man pulled off of the street. He was wearing jeans and a dark blue button-down shirt, tall and slim with dark curly hair. He seemed to be on a first name basis with some of the researchers, but not a scientist himself. People called him Eric. Eric was pacing around in what looked like an empty operating theatre. Most of the people involved in the dream were in the observation area above the room, taking notes. A robot went and got a tick from a sealed-off side room and placed it on Eric's head. Nothing really visibly changed for him at first, but he started getting twitchy and drank a bunch of water. An assistant came down to check on him, and he seemed okay at first. After a while, Eric started asking for more. The assistant and the doctors watching said no, but he kept pushing. He started posturing aggressively, not quite yelling but definitely angry. The assistant was backing away from him, clearly uncomfortable. All of a sudden, a clean slit formed under Eric's nose, and the top and bottom halves of his face peeled open, like eyelids, to reveal an eyeball the size of his head on a prehensile nerve bundle/spinal cord. He stuck his . . . eyeball head out towards the assistant, who back pedaled out of the room, locked him in, and ran away. Eric then walked over to the sealed-off room (the eyeball was gently bobbing as he walked, and very unsettling). He broke in, got the three remaining ticks, and pulled his scalp back over the eyeball head long enough attach the three new ticks. Then the eyeball head popped back out again. An indeterminate length of time passed, and the only physical change was that a fully-clothed mini version of the original Eric appeared. The eyeball monster started banging on the door, demanding to be let out, saying that he needed more power, etc. He was pulling his original face back on periodically, to demonstrate that he wouldn't freak anyone out on the street. Myself and other people were actively trying to figure out how to reverse the process or kill him while this was going on. Suddenly, he collapsed on the ground. The mini-Eric started looking through his hair for the ticks, asking what happened. The ticks themselves had somehow gained sentience and detached, saying that they wouldn't work for an asshole. They went back to the sealed-off room that they had come from. The doctors, who were really stunned and shaken, incinerated the body while it was still in the room until there was no sign of the eyeball monster or Eric except for soot and ashes. The ticks survived in their isolation room, and agreed to live the rest of their lives there and not procreate in exchange for blood and wifi.