There doesn't seem to be anything to hold the street together any more. It seemed so solid that I'm surprised to see it disintegrate like this. First, the buildings crumble, then the smaller structures, the lamp posts and traffic light, the cement trash cans, and the fence around the parking lot. The sidewalk turns to dust, and the street melts into the ground.
I'm left in a dry, dusty open area with huge rocks, giant plants that are like brown cacti without so many spikes, and a dry river bed. On closer inspection, it looks like these plants are dead, and possibly petrified. This whole area seems totally barren. Nothing here is green.
I put my hand on one of the rocks. It's extremely warm. The ground is warm, too. It's daylight, but nowhere in the sky do I see the sun. I am not surprised. There is no place like this in Ohio. I'm still feeling horribly angry, but I'm also wary. This place is unfamiliar, and I don't know if anything else is here.
As I step around a boulder that used to be part of the parking garage, looking toward the area from which I saw them disappear, I hear a noise behind me. Before I can turn, I feel something impact against the back of my armor & shield, and I'm thrown forward. I curl up and roll onto my side to see that the impact came from the stinger of a huge wasp that is close to half my size.
There are scorch marks around the base of a stinger as long as my arm, where energy discharged from my shield seems to have burned the wasp. It rises in to the air and circles around, then hovers over me. The stinger appears to be poised for use, but the wasp appears to be hesitant to approach. It buzzes angrily, as I stand up and look at it. I'm waiting to see what it's going to do, but I'm also pulling energy from around me. The spikes in the outer shield stand out, arcs of energy crackling between the points. I feel like an electric porcupine, but at least the bug can't touch me without getting hurt.
Slowly, the shape of the wasp changes, slimming down, wings shrinking, head shrinking, front legs becoming arms. As it sinks toward the dirt, the face begins to look vaguely human. He stands on 4 legs, the stinger still sticking out behind him, staring at me with those injured-looking eyes. I stare back at him. I hear a low growl, and then he's moving forward again. He gets just a few inches away from the ends of the spikes in my shield, and stops. He looks furious.
He kind of belches, then vomits a viscous, black ooze over me. It doesn't touch my body, hovering on the edges of the spikes instead. I feel pressure, like fingers are pushing on my skin. The ooze slides down to the ground, and soaks into the cracked dirt beneath my feet. The attack was totally ineffective. I'm feeling simultaneously triumphant at having had no problem resisting his effort, and confused as to what he was trying to do.
Suddenly, the ground beneath me jerks upward hard and fast, knocking me off balance. As I struggle to right myself, it lurches side to side, up and down, tossing me around like a rag doll. I'm thrown to the ground, and can't do anything about how I fall. I feel my head hit a rock when I land, and for a second, I'm completely stunned.
I find myself on my back, with him on top of me, using his six limbs to pin me to the ground. His little tiny mouth opens, and keeps opening, until his jaw has stretched wide, and his chin is down by his chest. At the same time, he motions that stinger forward toward my gut. He bites down on my shoulder and thrusts the stinger in, only to shriek in pain and leap away from me.
The shield wasn't gone. It looked like it was gone, but it was still there. It was just flattened up against my body during the moment when my focus was dimmed. Now, the stinger seems bent at an awkward angle. I'm guessing that it's broken.
I take a few steps toward him, still crackling with energy. I haven't actually done anything yet, and he's all ready battered, bruised, and burned. He backs away from me and belches more goo on the ground.
This time, I jump into the air and try to hover. It takes concentration away from my shield. The spikes don't shrink, but they sag a little. Trying to distract him, I throw an energy ball, but the expression on his face changes.
I can see from my vantage point that the earthquake isn't very big. It only affects a circle about 15 or 20 yards across, the edge of which doesn't reach where he's standing. He wasn't shaking the ground under his feet, only under mine. I decide to try something new.
Staring at him, I mentally focus my energy behind him, moving toward him from back there. I pull at the energy that is in that area, and then push it toward him with as much willpower as I can muster. The effect is a strong gust of wind hitting him from behind. He keeps his footing, but his upper body falls forward, and his face slams into the ground. The wind breaks up before it gets to me.
He quickly rights himself, giving me a livid, hateful glare. His nose is bleeding heavily. He bellows at me and dissolves into a pulsating swarm of normal sized black wasps. The swarm expands, spreading out to surround me, and then they all dive in at once, bombarding me with vicious little attacks, hitting so hard that the impact of each one against my shield sounds like raindrops hitting a window. The horror of being overcome by a swarm of angry, stinging wasps is too much, and I find myself falling to the ground, trying to cover my head with my hands, even though not one sting makes it through the shield. I try to concentrate on adding energy to zap them, but it just won't move for me.
At this point, I'm thrown into a totally different experience. I'm about four years old, swinging on U-shaped metal bar set into the end of one of those A-framed, back yard swing sets, at my parents' house. I can see them standing nearby, chatting with someone. I'm watching an odd little bug that is hovering in front of my knee. It's long and skinny, a little over an inch, shaped kind of like an ant, but with wings, and a more pointy butt. As I keep swinging, my knee is getting closer and closer to that bug. I think I want it to land on me.
Suddenly, I feel burning pain in my bare arms and legs as hundreds of them attack and begin stinging me. I hear my mother shriek at my father, and the two of them grab me, fighting off the bugs, and run toward the house.
The pain is really intense, and it draws me back to the fight. I don't know if I've dropped my shield because of the panic attack, or if they've broken through, but the stinging continues. The natural response of thrashing around kicks up a cloud of dirt, knocking many of the wasps away from me. I find more loose dirt and throw it into the air, hoping to make flight more difficult. I desperately reach for the nearest energy and focus on rebuilding my shield, but I'm afraid I'll trap some of them inside of it.
I take the energy into myself and then try to push it out in all directions in a totally unfocused blast, hoping to turn myself into a human bug-zapper. Instead, it comes out at first like sweat, creating a wet layer on top of my skin. Working with what I have, I harden that. The stinging stops. I put my back to a big rock and try to force myself to focus, despite having a case of the creepy-crawly-heebie-jeebies over all of these wasps. I can still feel them crawling all over the outside of that thin shell.
I close my eyes and picture just the rock that is behind me, how still and hard and solid it is. I find its energy and begin to draw on that. As I do, I can feel the shield getting thicker, until I can no longer feel the tickle of little bug feet on my skin. I'm about to work on the spikes, when I realize I can't hear the bugs any more, either. I open my eyes.
He's just a few inches away from my face, staring at me intently, like he's studying me or something. There is blood encrusted on his lips from his nose. He doesn't look angry any more. His expression is really hard to read. For a moment, I forget attacking, and just stare back at him, trying to analyze his face. I settle on possible curiosity. It's hard to tell.
"Doesn't that hurt?" He glances down at my red, bumpy, wasp-stung arms.
The question pisses me off. Of course it hurts! I'm sure he's aware of that. Why the hell is he asking me?
I throw back at him, "How about your nose?"
He says, "It's broken." His tone of voice sounds totally unconcerned. He might as well have shrugged his shoulders, and added "Meh..." to the statement.
He doesn't look extremely bothered by the pain, not like I am, but it occurs to me that if I'm able to hide that about myself, he probably can, too.
He reaches one hand out toward me, and I zap him. He jerks his hand back, sticks his finger in his mouth, and looks annoyed. I cross my arms. I'm a little stunned to see such a human gesture from him. I feel like a stubborn little kid standing up to a big bully. I set my jaw and draw more energy from the rock behind me.
He stands up, turns around, and walks several feet away from me, turns back, and shoves both hands toward me like we're in a pool, and he's trying to splash me. I don't see anything coming my way, but I feel something wash over me with incredible force. Everything I can see, except him, seems to be breaking apart and melting.
The next thing I know, I'm laying on the couch in my living room. It's dark, and I don't know what time it is. I'm not sure what that was about, but when it happened, I instantly woke up. I have the feeling I was shoved out of the dream state.
I called and talked to my mother about the part of the dream involving the swarm of wasps and the swing set. She said she was surprised I still remember that. I was only 4 when it happened, so it's been over 35 years. I told her I didn't remember, I dreamed it, and it seemed really real. According to my mom, there was a nest in the swing set. Each time I swung that U-shaped bar back and forth, it ground against the top bar, vibrating the nest. No one saw the wasps until they found me and attacked.
No wonder they creep me out so much!
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