You wake up one day and the "I'm not a robot" CAPTCHAs don't work anymore.

It's like a buzzing in the back of your brain. Sometimes it's there, sometimes it isn't. At night, just before you fall asleep, you can feel it extend down your spine and across your skull.

It's the little things at first. You feel more awake in the morning. Your back doesn't hurt when you use the computer. That persistent ache in your ankles goes away.

The buzzing gets louder, but it doesn't bother you anymore. It ebbs and flows with your own train of thought. You start eating less and exercising more. It takes you longer to fall asleep— and as you do, you can almost feel your body vibrate with the rise and fall of your chest.

You pass out before you can think about it too hard.

When you wake up, things have become wrong. You can't feel the tips of your fingers. There are bumps on your scalp and the back of your neck. Your thoughts aren't words anymore— just endless, endless buzzing.

You're still trying to understand it when a wave of nausea hits the pit of your stomach. Then you're in the bathroom, and there's bile in your throat, and everything that you put in your body yesterday wants to be *out*.

When you leave an hour later, you're scared.

It was too much. It is too much.

You don't eat that day. You don't even drink water. Every time you try, that building nauseous feeling comes back, and you can't go through with it.

There's something wrong with your chest. Its sharp aches keep you awake. Just when it feels like the sun is going to rise, every part of your body lurches—

— you wake up hours later, bleeding from the back of your neck. You can't bring yourself to worry about it. A metallic taste has gotten stuck in the back of your throat.

Everything itches, even where you lost feeling in your fingers. Especially your eyes. You keep expecting to hear your heart pounding in your ears, but the buzz just hums at you.

You're scratching your skin. It's the only thing that makes the itch stop. Your nails catch on something, and it bleeds.

Your body is numb, and weak, and frustrating. The itch is maddening, but you're breaking the skin, and you want to stop— but you don't stop, and your nails find something under the surface of your skin, and when it makes the itching stop you can't help it.

You feel like you're possessed. You drag yourself to the shower, trying to avoid getting blood on the carpet. You need a tool. You glance at your hairbrush.

It's blissful. The water is hot, seeping in and under your skin, and the hairbrush is perfect for scratching. You start with the back of your neck, where your skin feels spongy and porous. The bristles of the brush push in, and then push in further, and the flesh starts to pull away. Blood pours down the drain.

There's no pain. You're molting. Something clicks in your head, and you pull the brush up, dragging it up the back of your skull.