Parasite

I had just opened a film memorabilia shop with a few friends of mine and was going to the store with my mom to pick up a few things for the store when it first occurred. Something sweet and wet and warm dribbled from my nose onto my upper lip. By the time I had reached up to dab at the nosebleed, the blood had crusted over. Instead of wiping it away, I had to scrape.

A few hours later, the phenomenon repeated itself, this time originating at my temple. This time, I reacted quickly enough to catch some still wet blood on my fingertip and watch it turn brown and hard over the course of a second. It looked almost like the tiny bits of burnt batter one sometimes gets on the edges of a muffin tin. I crumbled it to dust.

The third time, I sensed it coming and ran to a doctor I knew living in the area. The blood leaked from my eyelid and onto the finger I pressed against it. The doctor and I observed the hardening effect together.

"What do you think could cause this?" I asked, staring at the line of reddish brown scab in my hand.

"Well, accelerated clotting could have many causes, but -"

As he spoke, the scab began to change. It elongated, gained several thin offshoots, blackened in areas, and yellowed in others. A tiny wasp lay on my finger for a moment after the transformation had completed, then flew off.

"Ah, now we've gained quite a few more symptoms to work with! A diagnosis should be much easier."

Without much to say to that, I followed him into his house and let a cup of tea go cold in my hand as he researched. Another blood wasp sprouted from my leg, this one slightly larger than the last. I went to a window to let it out of the house. There, I froze. On the other side of the glass hovered a wasp as large as a guinea pig.

My last thought before waking was, "I'm going to bleed to death birthing wasps. That's just not fair."