The Doorbell rings

Tess Stands on the porch

Early by an hour,

Corsage in hand

Phoebe opens the door Immediately

unsurprised,

As if she was standing right in front

Her smile is big, so alarmingly wide

Her other features almost seem microscopic

Tess lifts the corsage to her girlfriend’s hand

Sliding the band onto her wrist,

Before entering the car

Phoebe’s fingers look longer than normal

The ride to the banquet hall seems long

For 15 minutes by car

Crows caw above head, 

Almost seeming to follow them,

As if warning Tess

She looks over at Phoebe 

Wondering if she too,

notices the crows

But Phoebe’s features 

have seemed to blur again

‘It must be the car’

Tess thinks

As they approach their destination

Phoebe breaks the silence

“Turn in there”

The parking lot

The lisp in Phoebe’s voice is gone

Replaced by a quiet, but noticeable rasp

The banquet hall’s exterior is bordered by bugs

Tess isn’t too bothered

it is the middle of spring 

As they walk in together heads turn,

Phoebe doesn’t seem to notice

She doesn’t seem to notice the new bugs either

Disgusting, the board should have chosen a cleaner venue

Black beetles and ants lines the hall’s inside walls

Despite the bugs,

Tess brings Phoebe to dance floor

Prom is fun for a bit

Phoebe rests her hand on Tess’s shoulder,

Her fingers seem even longer than they were on the porch,

Her nails seem sharper too

“I’m going to the washroom”

Phoebe says

As Phoebe leaves 

Tess notices 

Every eye in the room is trained on her,

Every head turned

It feels strange, 

Uncomfortable

It has been a while since Phoebe left

thirty or forty minutes

Something is wrong

When Tess finds her

Phoebe’s sitting on the bathroom floor

Cross-legged 

Facing away from Tess

Something is very wrong

“Phoebe?” 

Tess inches closer

Placing a hand on her arm

The beetles are in the bathroom too

Phoebe turns around,

Chills go up Tess’s spine

Her face loses all warmth

Phoebe’s face is unrecognizable

Her features are distorted,

Changing rapidly 

like channels on a television

“Why would anything be wrong?” 

Tess scrambles for the door,

Only to find a wall of students blocking it

She- it gurgled, moving towards Tess in a fashion that could only be described as ‘Slithering’

Anything left of Phoebe is gone now

Blonde hair replaced by ram horns,

Human body replaced by a mound of flesh with

4..90- uncountable legs

As the creature slithers forth

Tess tries to look away

She tries to distract herself from the fully empty eye slots

Slowing blocking her view

She tries to distract herself from the empty but loud voice entering her mind, or the white slowly taking over her consciousness

But she cannot resist long

Quickly the voice becomes the only thing she hears

and the white takes over.