Hesitate
Dan can’t decide so quickly between the two relatively simple options, “Truth or Dare?” so instead he hesitates instead. He sucked in a breath. He felt the wind of the breath wash over his bottom front teeth and gather in the back of your throat. He paused for a second, holding that air while he thought before it all puttered out from between his lips. That one breath already helped him feel calmer, more in control in this bizarre situation.
Then, he started to fidget where he sat. One hand jostled over his knee, bouncing and picking at the skin before he started to shift on his butt, trying to delay the decision by getting comfortable instead.
“After all, I just got here! I gotta get comfortable first!” he convinced himself, mentally conversing back and forth between his two halfs.
He looked around the room, trying to avoid responding just yet. He needed more time still to process why everyone was being so weird. He looked out past the circle of his friends, all seated in a uniform shape. He looked past their unnerving stare and instead into the setting itself. It was a living room, the classic size with windows on either side of the corner. Though, curtains hid them from the outside world and blocked out any remaining strands of light that may have otherwise snuck in and illuminated the dim space. The walls were plain, bearing almost no design on the darkened shade of wallpaper. The furniture too was oddly the same, nothing seems to stand out. Nothing was old enough to cause disgust, but nothing was new enough to impress. The colors were all the same dark, dull shades that seemed to meld back into the wall. It was as if everything was made with the same design plate.
“It’s all so drab...” he murmured, only to himself as he eyed the furniture closer, noting that it was at least a modern design and the room was clean, though all cast in a dim, somber shade that aged it.
Squinting a bit, he searched for anything that stood out in the otherwise were dull scene. Then, gaze falling, he spotted something that seemed to sparkle out from the otherwise matte flatness of the room. There, on the zipper of Pammy’s backpack, ignored against the back wall something caught his eye.
Focusing, he saw the tag on her keychain featured a glittering unicorn charm. It looked so delicate, almost as thought it could be made of glass the way it glistened suspended there. Dan couldn’t help but stare at it for a long second before he suddenly gave a shrug and met Patty’s eyes. “Dare.”
Pammy doesn’t seemed surprised by the response, instead, she smiles calmly like she knew what he’d pick. Then, she gestures to the center of the circle where a glass of a thick, glinting, pearlescent liquid sits.
“Was that there before?” His brows furrowed together. He couldn’t imagine that he’d missed it when scanning the room, but how else could it have gotten there all a sudden?
“Your dare is to drink” his friend said tonelessly. She showed none of the usual excitement when administering a dare, but just let the words fall, dull and monotone from her lips. Dan crinkled his brows further. He couldn’t puzzle out what the game was here, but instead, he leaned towards the glass.
Plucking it up from the carpet, he inspected this daring object. It seemed harmless enough. It was in a plain glass with a faint sweet tinge wafting up from the contents. The liquid inside seemed thicker than a typically beverage. Instead of sloshing inside the walls of the container, it instead seemed to ooze inside.
Tipping it towards himself, Dan’s eyes scanned the surface of the thick liquid. The smell hit his nostrils, which flared at the sweet though faintly fruity aroma. Breathing deeper, the undertones seemed to bring with florally smells. “That’s weird...” he thought, though nothing about the beverage screamed danger. So, tipping the glass, he allowed the contents to begin to slide down over his tongue.
Barely any flavor crossed his pallette with the first gulp and with the second, the glass emptied. Setting the glass down, his brows knit again. “Was that even a dare?” he asked allowed, waiting for some signal from his stomach that they’d hidden something gross inside a mask of pleasant sweetness, but nothing came. It was though he’d only had a sip of water.
But then, suddenly, the room seemed to shift. The objects all seemed to shrink before his eyes. Dan blinked, trying to clear through any effect of that drink. Suddenly thinking it may have been spiked, he turned to his friends, but they seemed so much shorter than him suddenly.
“Guys? What is happening?” he asked, confusion clouding his mind before suddenly, his balance seemed to shift. Everything seemed off. The room wasn’t balanced and a discomfort began to flood his body. His bones seemed to be cracking. His entire body seemed to be shifting, flooded with alien sensations, but then, everything went black.
Written by Picklessauce69 on 23 April 2016
