Techne

Techne

Lloyd was incredibly uncomfortable with his situation. Standing alone in a familiar room, he suppressed the urge to scream. Something was wrong, and he couldn’t place his finger on it. He couldn’t place his finger on anything, as it and its brethren were crawling along the floor.

Lloyd screamed.

The fingers--instinctual prey--inched to hide under nearby furniture, taking advantage of the impaired Lloyd. Lloyd’s recovery was swift given the circumstances, only delaying to examine if anything else was missing.

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A/N:

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I’m trying something new with this adventure, and as such, this adventure will only take image submissions.

Lloyd was pleased to notice that the rest of his body was still there. Falling to his knees, Lloyd grabbed at the inching fingers... and failed. He was very much lacking grasps. He palmed a few of the fingers, herding them together with what remained of his hands as barriers. With two palms, he was able to lift a few of them by squishing them together.

Lloyd, clutching four of his fingers to his chest, felt defeat. He had struggled in catching just a few of his digits, and lacked any ability to reattach them. For some reason, he thought they would just magically reconnect--like putting a plug into its socket. Instead, they struggled against him.

A cat stalked at the door, completely silent. Many small moving things squirmed around, trying to hide. As if they could. Efficiently, the cat pounced, trapping two and biting into them. It bit off the tips to kill them, but they continued to struggle. The cat played with them a bit.

Lloyd screamed in pain and the cat jumped, fleeing the room with two maimed fingers in its mouth. He started to give chase, but the cat outmaneuvered and got away through an open air vent.

Lloyd, a man lacking exercise, doubled over in exhaustion. A finger slipped away. Lloyd had to awkwardly put down all of the fingers just to retrieve the one. On his hands and knees, Lloyd prostrated in the empty hallway.

Lloyd inhaled. Exhaled. He did what he could to calm his racing heart. He went over what he knew: his fingers had fallen off without his notice, two of which have likely been eaten, and he has rescued four of the remaining eight.

He had also felt pain when the cat bit into his fingers. He could feel them coated in a liquid, and the mild pain from being bitten apart. He could also feel small bits of the cold tile floor in the other room. Lloyd had been ignoring these feelings, but they had been there. Lingering in the back of his now rearing mind.

He could also smell smoke. Lloyd stood slowly, noting that of four doors in the hallway, one had light flickering underneath. He approached. Lloyd placed the back of his hand--still squishing the fingers--to the door, as he remembered was taught to him by Sparky the fire dog ("Playing with matches only fuels child mortality rates. Woof!").

It was hot.

Lloyd had no way of dealing with the situation. He would have to drop all of his fingers just to try to twist the door knob open with his two palms. Lloyd dropped his fingers at once.

Before he could open the door, it swung open by itself, revealing a distressed colleague with flaming hair backdropped by a roaring fire in their office.

"Help me," they pleaded, their long locks wrapping around the door frame and burning it. Lloyd's fingers began to escape.

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