His eyes were open but his body couldn't move. And he wanted to move. Move away from what his eyes looked at. A gargantuan reminder of everything he should have evacuated from the restaurant kitchen so long ago but didn't because he was lazy and overwhelmed. But it had gotten done. Finally. The accomplishment had lifted the weight of a thousand worlds from his shoulders. So why was he being haunted by the rancid remnants of what had been thrown away? Because it had been there for so long, nestled in the comfort of plastic bins and plastic buckets and loosely covered with plastic wrap and tin foil, its odors lingering but not pungent, just enough to let you know it existed, that it should be dealt with at some point, but not today. 

But today had come and gone, forced by government authority. And the it was pissed.

Dillion suffered from sleep paralysis and as he lay there suffering, a slave to what his eyes beheld, it stood there, its odors pungent, not lingering. And it had a voice, sounding exactly like what a massive six-foot shape of rotting food might sound like—guttural, repulsive, gassy. It stood beside his bed as Dillion lay on his side, staring, frozen. If only he hadn't been lazy and overwhelmed. If only he'd listened to his brother who had willed him the restaurant and had told him time and again to make it the most important thing in his life. Balls.

The only body part Dillion could move was his eyeballs. He scanned this towering creature of spoiled organic matter as his nostrils continued to take in the scent of nutriment death. It had a humanoid form, that of a 400-pound person. A graying roast beef for a head, the size of a hubcap, glistening gelatinous liquid dripping from it. Two full-sized salmons for arms, tails at the ears, flapping and flapping and flapping. Its torso was of mixed vegetation—two rotting lettuce heads for breasts, the rest...a brownish, blackish dying garden. Its legs were carrots, nothing but carrots, all colors of carrots, and the feet were lasagnas.

When Dillion saw those oozing, runny lasagnas, his stomach lurched and bile rose in his throat and out of his mouth, landing on the pillow. The it extended its right arm and the salmon tonged the bile. Dillion barfed again, and again. The salmon slurped up the stomach contents, eventually finding a place in Dillion's mouth. It sank within his throat. Dillion tasted metal and sour fish and he barfed again. It spewed up around the fish and landed on Dillion's cheeks and chin. He wanted to pull the salmon away but couldn't. He willed his fingers to move, his hands to move, his arms... But will was all he could manage. That and a sort of panic words couldn't describe, and more stomach ejaculations. How was this all going to end?

The it shoved the fish even deeper into Dillion's esophagus, nearly breaking his teeth and jaw, and stealing his breath. Dillion saw the blackness approach and he fucking welcomed it.