Tiny Chills: Not From Ear

People have been disappearing for weeks.

Strange for such a quiet little town.

The earthquakes don't stop,

over and over, the ground trembles, as if the earth’s pulse is racing.

The police are clueless,

The locals whisper all kinds of strange rumors.

Meanwhile, the clinic remains open,

And the patients keep coming.

(Then suddenly-

Static in your ear.)

Suspended from school and grounded,

you have to work at mom’s clinic doing a bunch of chores.

She says you’re getting better at this!!!

Now, do as you're told. Tomorrow, the clinic opens again.

((It’s getting louder, and louder, and louder.))

More patients show up. Some complain about ringing and itching in their ears. Others swear they can hear scratching beneath the flesh. A few remain unbothered, unaware of what moves inside.

((Can somebody stop this noise, PLEASE.))

Armed with a set of medical tools, you examine, clean, and extract whatever may be hidden inside your patients’ heads.

Crawling insects.

Weird objects.

Things that should not fit inside a human ear.

What horrors will the next patient hold?

***((The noise is unbearable. ***

***PLEASE. ***

***                SOMEBODY. ***

***                                       ANYBODY. ))***

The deeper you descend into the clinic’s daily routine, the more the town itself begins to unravel. Something is not right here. Something writhes beneath the walls, beneath the skin, beneath that distant buzzing in your ear.

And there is something more than meets the eye here in Velviano.

((I can feel something wriggling its way to my brain.))