RAHUL wakes up. He has just felt a tickling sensation, as if something is moving over his body. But it is dark inside his bedroom. Even his sharp eyes are blinded by it.
Rahul gropes for his mobile-phone. He gets it, flashes it on his legs, then on his entire bed, the floor, the walls. There’s nothing.
Maybe a roach. Time to spray something and get rid of them. He gets back to sleep.
And wakes up minutes later with an even more irritating sensation. The feeling this time is somehow spreading upwards — from feet to thighs to waist… Rahul half-opens his eyes, his brain dulled by sleep, mind not receptive enough. He tries to move his legs and cannot — his legs are too heavy, not quite his own appendages.
Rahul comes to his senses. A strapping boy of 17, he doesn’t fear many things in the world. He attempts to summon all his strength, trying hard to turn his body and get rid of the pest, but utterly fails.
The creatures start clawing and nibbling him all over. There is a number of them — two, three, and four— increasing every moment. Rahul loses count of them. He finds his body under seize. Their icy touch makes him shivers. He hears a weird and unearthly whisper. Rahul feels almost suffocated. His tongue dries up, lips quiver. He manages to press a bed switch for light. And what he sees makes his flesh crawl — hundreds of little tortoises crawling all over the bed and the floor. They are coming out, in quick succession, of a big plastic container under the bed, their heads sticking out, eyes fixed on Rahul.
Rahul closes his eyes and hollers.
Rahul’s mother comes running. Just as she enters his room all the tortoises are gone. Rahul points at the jar and narrates his tale, “Yesterday I chanced to catch some tortoises and collected some eggs. Seems that they had hatched.” “Shame on you,” was all his mother would say.
