Must Be Stress

20260311

Prompt from DailyPrompt.com

It started with constant, nagging headaches. A warning sign which is all too easy to ignore. Esme added painkillers to her morning and evening supplement routines, and resolved to take some time off. It was the lights in the lab, she was sure of it. Nasty buzzy things. Sitting under them for ten hours a day would give anyone a headache.
Then she started getting itchy. First on her scalp. She tried not to scratch, she really did. Knew that’d only make it worse. Her mother drummed that fact into her, growing up. But despite her restraint, the itchiness spread down her spine across her back and down her limbs until everywhere. Itched.
She did the usual - made sure she hadn’t changed shampoo or body wash or anything, then tried changing them all one by one. Took advice from Jane in accounting and started having kale smoothies for breakfast. Sent a photo to her doctor, and got a brief phone appointment where they praised the steps she’d taken and earnestly urged her to “reduce stress”.
Though it all the headache gnawed, and her skin was increasingly raw.
Today, when her alarm dragged her from sleep, she realised with a pleasant jolt that she had no headache and almost no itchiness. How wonderful! Finally whatever plagued her had sorted itself out.
She fumbled for the alarm clock. Her arm felt… sluggish. Wooden. Had she slept on it funny? Shaking it didn’t help, and in fact aggravated the remaining spots of itchiness. She squinted in the bright light from her “body rhythm alarm clock”.
At first she thought it was the strong shadow casting her arm a dark red. Then she tilted it, so the light shone correctly, and realised no, her entire limb was a deep, glossy crimson, with ragged pale ribbons hanging off the itchy spots.
When she reached her other arm - just as clumsy, just as crimson, just as alien feeling - to touch the translucent papery strips, she realised they were her skin. Hanging loose.
Ah, Esme thought. I’m having a stress nightmare.
That was relieving, in a detached way. She managed to turn off the alarm (almost knocking it over in the process). Another relief - normally in nightmares alarms wouldn’t turn off no matter what, because the real one was still going. Then she laid back down and closed her eyes and tried to think.
It occurred to her that, if she was thinking about this nightmare, it must be one of those “lucid” ones. Couldn’t you will things to happen in those?
So she opened her eyes and held up her hands and willed them to go back to normal. When that didn’t work, she willed herself to wake up.
Hm. Clearly there was more to it.
Perhaps, if she managed to get back to sleep, she’d wake up for real. Which probably meant headache and itchiness. Ugh.
Might as well enjoy this while it lasted.
With a philosophical sigh she rolled over and snuggled down - ignoring the papery ribbons brushing against her. It’d all be gone when she woke up.
Four hours later she was woken by angry buzzing. Texts. Her boss saying he’d sent someone to “check on her”.
Oh shit.
Esme looked down at herself. At her glossy crimson carapace. At the shredded human skin surrounding her, cast off in the night.
How to reassure him that someone checking on her wasn’t necessary? She’d have to-
Wait. Why would you arrange a visit to an employee’s house just because they didn’t show up at work one morning?
She set the phone aside and got up, struggling to balance on feet suddenly slick and round.
Had to look. She didn’t want to, but… she had to. She took a deep breath and pulled open her closet, a stranger staring back from the mirror inside of the door.
Ok. Ok. Not as bad as she’d feared. Bad, yes, but… could be worse?
Honestly the worst part was her eyes looking exactly the same. Two spots of familiarity watching from an alien visage.
Unlike the glossy, hard flesh on her limbs, her face looked… spongy. A texture unpleasantly like raw pastry.
What’d happened to her nose? Had it fallen off? Was it somewhere in the nest of skin and hair lining her bedding? She supposed it must have. She turned her head one way, then the other, inspecting her new, minimalist profile. Ears were gone, too. Just little round nubs left.
She felt she really ought to be panicking, but hadn’t the first idea how to start.
Her phone blared her work ringtone. Shit. Boss again? Or the person he’d sent to 'check'?
Neither. It was Rory, who worked a few cubicles down. Thankfully whatever substance coated her fingertips could still work a touchscreen to answer.
“Listen.” Rory gasped, his voice tight and frantic and slightly slurred, as if his mouth wasn’t quite the right shape. “Wherever you are, get out and call the police - get to a hospital - the source, it wasn’t secure-!”
A sharp crack. Rory gargled. The call cut out.
The ‘source’?
Esme had been under the impression she was working for a company which developed multivitamins. She was now sickeningly confident that wasn’t the case.
Dropping her phone, she dove into her wardrobe and yanked out the most covering outfit she owned. She’d look horribly out of place, out of season, out of everything, but it only had to keep people from running screaming until she reached the hospital.
Did she have time to call a taxi?
No. Someone was already on their way. She’d go to the bus station and call a taxi there. Or maybe an ambulance. From the payphone.
Balaclava, gloves, hood pulled low, tottering on her misshapen feet shoved into wellies, she set off with her day bag, already packed ready for work, clutched to her chest.
She’d give the laptop to the police. Hope that they, or the doctors, or somebody could do something.

Prompt was “Your character is unknowingly coming into daily contact with a toxic substance. They have no idea until they start noticing its side affects…”