Gasping upon the floor, she found her own breaths catching up in sympathy. Her teeth each held a small cathedral inside...and each of these churches was at war with the other.
She'd never been the social sort. To look at all those "cool kids" online... to imagine that chem-fueled haze... to imagine how it must have felt...that was as close as she always felt she might be.
She'd heard the beetle metaphor, of course. She'd even imagined swallowing that little insect. Such daydreams had given her no insight.
Her eyes were almost blue and when she walked into the room, she gasped.
It lay there crying on the floor.
And suddenly, she understood.