Huge adults

Date: 4/14/2022

We were tiny; there was a huge game machine. Outside was fun; it dispensed soft, colorful bubble-like balls that kids were running around playing with. Every so often the balls would fade to gray. Seemingly randomly. But then eventually they’d turn back to color. I wondered why this happened; I inspected the huge machine— in comparison to it we were the size of gumballs— and I spot something. Up behind the glass where the balls are dispensed from, a hanging cord and a tile cracked open. I carefully crawl up through where the balls come out, maneuvering so that I catcch a moment between when they dispense— in that small moment I make it into the machine. From there I climb the piles of balls and manage to grab the cord, which I use like a rope to climb. Inside of the machine was dark. That’s the first thing I notice. The second thing I notice is a familiarly metallic scent. I can smell blood. There’s money inside; hundreds of dollars which, with little hesitation I grab— just a few of the hundreds!— and walk carefully while my vision adjusts. Eventually I can see. It’s terrible. Bodies are everywhere. Not a single one has its head attached. The necks are gruesome, I can see their throats and muscles from the decapitation. They’re my size, that is small, but strewn about. All of them seem to be my age or older. I feel uneasiness creep into my stomach but I feel as if I have to keep going. There’s a secret I need to find. I have the acute sensation of someone watching me, almost a third-eye sense, like I can see an old woman behind a screen watching me. But it’s quiet, muffled from the playful sounds of children below, and no cameras can be seen even with my now-adjusted eyes. I spot a series of holes in the wall, ladder-like pipes sticking out, and rows of metal slabs on one wall which form what looks, to my video-game mind, like a ladder parkour course up to the ceiling, where a hatch can be seen out of the corner of my eye. I climb them, unsure of if I’m even strong enough to get up. I remember being able to do certain things like this on the monkey bars as a kid, but now, I’m weaker, my arms feel unused to this type of exercise. But I make it. Up top I find myself on a part of the machine far, far above. I can see the kids wayyyyy down below playing. I inch along the side of the machine and can see an arcade. The machines are menacing above us. There’s something that connects the balls turning gray to the bodies. I just know it. I wake up.