I found it when I was real little. Just a kid, playing in the dirt in the backyard, poking roly-polies and digging up earthworms.
After lifting up a muddy rock nestled between two sprouts of monkey grass, a little brown-black centipede crawled out onto my palm. I eyeballed its tiny legs with curiosity, not knowing then what it was. Its digits pitter-pattered up my forearm, tickling me.
I ran to my mother, who was sitting out on the porch. When I tried to show it to her, she told me plainly that she didn’t know what it was. She didn’t see anything.
When I pressed further, her eyes went wide and she excitedly acknowledged the bug. I was happy then, not realizing until later that she only thought I had a new imaginary friend.
It wasn’t long before the centipede ran the rest of the way up my arm, slithering beneath the sleeve of my shirt. Its slender legs danced across my skin as it travelled onto my back. When I went back to my bedroom, I removed my shirt and watched over my shoulder into the mirror as the little bug nestled itself over my spine.
My pudgy kid fingers struggled to reach behind me and pull it off, instead feeling the pointy feet press into my skin. I don’t remember it hurting back then, just tickling in a way that I enjoyed the sensation of.
My new friend stayed there, occasionally crawling around higher or lower, sometimes on my shoulder or the back of my neck, from then on. A few weeks after finding it, I learned what a millipede was in a picture book. That's when I named him Mr. Milly. I realized he was a centipede a short while later, but the name stuck.
Of course, as any kid would, I tried to tell other kids about him, teachers too. Nobody seemed to recognize him. There was even a point, around fourth grade, where my parents had me see a psychiatrist. Mr. Milly was dismissed as a figment of my mind that I’d soon grow out of.
The first time I felt something off was when I entered the sixth grade at a new school. We were all introducing ourselves in math class. When it was my time to stand, I felt a sharp sting in the center of my back, causing me to yelp out, thinking I had been poked by someone with a pencil.
The students laughed at me as I rubbed my back. The familiar warmth of embarrassment creeped up my cheeks and I went on with my day timidly.
When I got home that afternoon, my mom asked me all the questions you’d expect a mom to ask after the first day at a new school. I told her about the incident in math class, and she told me off, scolding me about needing to grow up. She didn’t want to hear any more about Mr. Milly.
After the lecture, I went to my room and removed my shirt to inspect him. That was the first time I realized he had grown. I was shocked. He was now as wide as my spine and at least eight or nine inches in length.
I really started to feel his weight after that, gripping onto my spine with his pointy legs, each one pulling my skin and pinching it to keep hold.
My scrawny hands attempted to remove him, just as I had when I was younger. My fingers wrapped around his warm, hard exoskeleton, and I tugged hard. He dug deeper into my skin as a response, and I felt his limbs as they hugged the bone beneath. Pain shot up my spine and I was forced to give up.
I tried to keep it to myself, scared of my classmates’, or God forbid, my own mother’s reactions.
I’d feel his occasional pinches or bites when taking a test or giving a presentation. It never happened often enough for me to get used to it. Each one surprised and hurt me, always leaving me shuddering for the day.
I resented Mr. Milly. I wanted him gone. But I didn’t know what to do.
After manning up and admitting my back pains to my mother, she took me to a specialist in eighth grade. The doctor couldn’t see him.
It was only after an hour of being exposed and embarrassed, my skin being pressed against cold, hard metal that I was told to put my shirt back on. He couldn’t diagnose me with anything more specific than chronic back pain, something to be treated with an occasional ibuprofen.
Despite my best wishes, it only got worse as I entered high school. Mr. Milly grew to become big enough that I could feel his weight at all times. I gained a hunch.
His legs wrapped themselves all the way out to the sides of my ribcage. They gave me periodic stinging jolts throughout every day. As much as it hurt, I lived with it.
One memory from this time that stands out to me was when I was a sophomore. I walked out of the last class on a Friday with some classmates. We had made collective plans to go to one of their houses to watch a movie. Just as we exited the door of the school, Mr. Milly bit down hard, his sharp mandibles clenching around my spine, right below the shirt collar.
I shouted out in pain, fiery neurons shooting out across my back and shoulders. I collapsed onto the pavement. The other kids feigned concern, but ultimately, I was left limping home alone.
It became a regular burden, and after a while, I gave up on the social world. I had to stay home. I kept taking medicine at the behest of my mother even though I knew it wouldn’t work. I had to lay down just right for the pain to subside. Just me and Mr. Milly.
By the end of high school, although I had managed to get by just fine enough with my grades, I had no friends left. Through the pain I had managed to keep my only real passion, music, going.
I had been practicing the trumpet with the intent of applying to music schools for college. Hours upon hours of preparation locked away in a room all alone. It was the only thing that really added to my life in a way that I liked. Luckily, Mr. Milly tended to leave me alone during these times.
When it finally came time for auditions, I drove three hours north to reach one of the schools I had applied to. I felt the familiar weight of Mr. Milly return as I stepped out of the car and approached the building.
I received a nametag and was ushered towards my warm-up room. I wondered if they could see the monster on my back under my collared shirt. His legs wrapped themselves all the way around my torso while I sat there, trying to play a few notes.
When I was called to go into the concert hall for the audition, I struggled to even stand. His weight was staggering, like I was lugging along a full hiking backpack. By the time I reached the door, my forehead was slick with sweat. My stomach churned and a bottomless pit formed.
They called my name. I walked in. The judges sat far away in the empty hall behind curtains. They called out for the first excerpt.
I took a shaking breath and attempted to calm myself. I raised the mouthpiece to my lips and started to play.
It started out audibly shaky, but okay. Mr. Milly squeezed his legs around my ribcage, pressing the bones into my lungs. My breath hitched in my throat and I could hardly breathe.
The notes began to sputter and die, falling limply into the front row of empty chairs.
A chill ran through my whole body when I heard the sound. I spastically finished the excerpt and lowered my horn. Mr. Milly tightened his grip and my cheeks were flushed red.
They called for the next excerpt.
I sighed with relief. I was terrified they were about to kick me out. As Mr. Milly relaxed himself, I began to relax too. I raised my horn and began to play.
Suddenly, the mandibles closed around the nape of my neck and dug into my skin, cutting deep and spreading a terrifying warmth over my skin in an instant.
I dropped my horn from my face, barely keeping a hold of it in my left hand. I doubled over and my mouth fell open, silently shrieking out, trying my hardest to contain my misery lest the judges hear it. Sweat beaded up and fell to the floor in drops, fading into the wood.
I reached behind my head and felt his own, larger than the palm of my hand. It was hot and hard. I pulled, my fingers cutting as they gripped the edges of his exoskeleton. Tugging only made him dig deeper, and the pain was electrifying. I felt something warm and sticky.
My right hand was covered in blood.
“Uh, thank you. You can leave through the side door now,” a faceless judge called out, attempting not to sound embarrassed by my performance. The voice sent me reeling.
I limped out of the room. By the time I was greeted by an assistant in the hallway, the blood was gone. Mr. Milly’s head was no longer visible above my collar.
As soon as I left the building, I collapsed in the grass and sobbed. All that time. All the effort. It all flooded into the front of my mind. I had ruined it.
No.
He had ruined it.
Something had to be done. No matter the cost. I decided it then.
That same evening I returned home and kept my answers vague when my parents asked. I tried not to relive the audition in my head but it kept coming back. I was ashamed.
When I went to my bedroom for the night I made sure to lock my door. I pulled my shirt off and looked in the mirror.
My body went numb.
Mr. Milly covered the entire span of my back, his dark brown-orange segments hard and defined, gleaming in the light. His legs circled around to the front of my body, holding firm against my ribcage and stomach. Pointed feet pierced my skin where they burrowed themselves in. Two giant tubes, the antennae, protruded out above my head.
Around the back of my neck was the mouth. His two giant mandibles, appearing more like black lobster claws, were attached rigidly to the top of my spine.
I braced myself. My clammy hands wrapped around the sides of the middlemost segment covering my back. I felt the sharp edges and the soft, hot underbelly. I pushed it away from my back hard.
The edge of the shell cut deeply into my fingertips just as the tips of his legs tore at the skin on my stomach. I couldn’t hold back my scream of pain and I pushed further. Blood and sweat poured onto the ground.
There was a fire melting my entire torso. My chest looked like a Christmas present being torn open, bits of red muscle protruding from underneath. I pulled even harder and the legs finally lost their grip, each flailing wildly in the air as they lost contact with me.
Just as the last one fell, the mandibles bit down.
They cut deep into my neck and bright red blood spattered across the floor. I dropped to my knees and clenched my jaw. I felt their grip upon my spine. Each pull after that brought immense, paralyzing pain with it. I had to stop.
I let go of the body and stood up. I glanced around the room with my watery eyes until finally settling on the sharp corner of the nearby dresser. I stumbled over and turned my back to it.
I shoved my back into it. I heard a loud crunch and a high-pitched shriek behind my head. The mandibles loosened slightly. I lifted myself forward. I dug my heels into the floor and drove my spine into the dresser again.
A wet, visceral smash. I heard something splatter to the ground, finding brown entrails and black skeletal shards pooling up beneath my legs. The mandibles grew looser again.
When I lifted my body, the mandibles shut with renewed vigor, cutting deeper into my body. My head involuntarily tilted forward, and I felt cool air rush over a huge gash behind my ears. With one more push, I flung myself into the sharp wooden edge.
Another ear-piercing scream behind me preceded a loud thud as the bottom half of Mr. Milly fell to the floor in a tangle of limbs and guts. The mandibles finally opened, allowing the rest of him to fall into the pile. I fell forwards, unable to catch myself as I collapsed to the ground.
In a pained haze, I watched from the floor as the front half of Mr. Milly raised his antennae above the pool of organs. He searched the floor with them before quickly scuttling away, leaving a brown, sticky trail behind him.
I closed my eyes and embraced the cool ground. The pain slowly faded. When I opened my eyes again, the entrails were gone. There was no more blood. No evidence of a struggle. When I sat up, I realized that I was no longer wounded.
I winced as I felt the back of my neck, which was completely fine. I stood and observed the room. No sign of Mr. Milly.
That was a month ago. It felt nice at first, the weight being gone. I was actually happy that morning. I still am happier, in fact.
But I still feel a lingering sensation, that tickling on my neck. I haven’t seen Mr. Milly since he slithered out of sight.
But I hear it. His legs pitter-pattering in the walls. In the ceiling.
Anywhere I go.
Always near me.