You press your back against the bag’s slick plastic wall, wedge your feet against the stack of refuse behind you, and heave upward with every ounce of strength your shrunken body can muster. The lid groans, metal scraping against its hinge. Light spills in—just a sliver—but enough. Enough to climb out.
You grip the edge, pull yourself higher—
And then the world tilts violently.
A sudden jerk sends the entire bin lurching skyward, and you’re yanked backward, tumbling down the trash heap with a ragged scream that doesn’t leave your throat.
The lid flies open.
Taylor’s face appears above you, pale and sweaty, strands of her messy bun stuck to her forehead. Her cheeks balloon. Her eyes are glassy.
“Urghh… oh God…” she groans, hands gripping the bin’s edges.
She doesn’t see you.
Then: BLAAUUUUGHHHHHHKKKKKHH!
A wave of hot, chunky bile floods the interior, hitting you full in the face and chest with enough force to slam your body flat into the mushy garbage below. It’s like being hit by a firehose of stomach acid and half-digested spaghetti. You gasp—instinctively—and suck in a mouthful of reeking fluid so acrid it scalds your sinuses. Chunks of chili, unmistakable, splatter across your torso. Bits of undigested beans and sour cream slide across your chest and arms. You try to scream. You choke.
Taylor retches again, long and wet. Her vomit sluices over the mess already inside, drowning the pad-stained slope you’d just climbed over. You’re pinned by the weight of it, sinking deeper with each heave.
Your limbs thrash. Your hands scramble at slick surfaces, but every texture is alien and wrong—slimy, sticky, soaked in the contents of Taylor’s dinner and stomach lining. Acid sears your eyes. A noodle wraps around your forearm. You kick, sputter, try to climb—but the bag lurches as Taylor drops the bin back to the floor with a grunt.
The world tilts sideways. You’re carried with the vomit wave to the corner, jammed between the deodorant stick and a clump of bloody tissue. Your body convulses. The air is thick with a mix of ammonia, bile, menstrual iron, and grease.
Everything fades.
You black out with the weight of her puke sealing your mouth shut.
•
You come to slowly, dazed, your limbs too numb to move. You’re soaked in tepid fluid that’s begun to congeal into a heavy crust around your chest and legs. Your eyes sting. Breathing is shallow—labored.
Dim light pulses from somewhere above, enough to illuminate the contours of the garbage bag. The upper layers have settled, hardened somewhat, and you lie half-embedded in the aftermath. Your skin itches. Everything smells like sickness and rot.
Your thoughts reel. Time has passed—but how much? You can’t hear Taylor anymore. Can’t hear anything at all except the faint hum of an appliance and the occasional thunk of movement beyond the bin.
You cough. It hurts. Your ribs ache.
But you’re alive.
Barely.
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