"Skin-Tight"

        Shopping was the one part of my birthday that I looked forward to. My friend, Kaitlyn and I went to the mall to get some cute new clothes. Walking through the door, the smell was the first thing to hit me. It smelled like clean fabric, floral but artificial but in a good way. It almost reminded me of pulling clothes freshly out of the dryer. But weirdly cold. And I kind of loved it.

Kaitlyn and I walked over to the shirts, sifting through them and showing them to one another. I had my eye on a long-sleeved black shirt with some text on it. I don't remember what the words were, but there was a cool design with red sparkles throughout. It was really cute.

Before too long, she and I had found some shirts we really liked. But, of course, if you're going to get shirts you have to have bottoms to match. So, that's where we went next. As we walked through the aisles and looked on the shelves of jeans, one of them immediately caught my eye. There was a picture on the shelf beside the jeans that showed what they looked like. They were faded skinny jeans with some frayed tears down the pant legs in somewhat of a swirl pattern. However, there was only one pair left on the shelf. I guessed they were some pretty hot sellers.

I grabbed the last pair of jeans, which seemed like they were sloppily folded and thrown back on the shelf, like someone tried them on but changed their mind. Oh well, it's their loss, I thought as I put the jeans in the cart.

As time passed by and we had decided on what we wanted from the mall, we went to check out then left. it was only $150. Not bad.

We rode home, blasting some music and singing loudly and offkey without a care in the world. Today had been amazing so far!

***

That night Kaitlyn was staying over at my place. My parents weren't home at the time. They were getting some food for us to snack on for the night. I wanted to come with them, but Kaitlyn and I wanted to try on our clothes. And to be honest I really wanted to try on those jeans. So, that's just what we did. We found some outfits and did some poses in them. It was fun. That was until I felt something itchy on my leg. I went to scratch it and felt a lump. Was it trying to move? I reached down to touch it and felt something starting to bite my leg. Was there a bug trapped in my pant leg?!

I screamed and went to try to take the jeans off, but any movement seemed to startle the bug and it would bite me again. I told Kaitlyn after she saw me freaking out. She went to grab something to kill the bug with. I patiently awaited her return, trying to calm myself down, careful not to move my leg. I could feel the bug moving, or at least struggling to, as I felt the fabric around it trying to shift but snapping back into place. This was so messed up!

Kaitlyn came back with her glasses case and swatted at the bug. As the glasses case came down, I was surprised that I hardly felt anything from the swat itself. But the swat must have startled the bug because it bit me again! I cried out in pain as it pinched my leg harder than it had before. I could feel it wriggling, trying to free itself but it couldn't.

Kaitlyn swatted at it harder this time. Still, I barely felt the sting from the swat that you'd normally feel. Was she even trying? Again, the bug bit me and I felt the stinging pain ripple through me. I grabbed the glasses case from her hands and swatted at it myself as hard as I could. Still, I felt nothing. Nothing but another bite from the bug. What was happening?! I started to panic. How is this not killing it?! How am I not even feeling the glasses case hitting me?

In one final desperate attempt to kill the bug, I put my palm down on it and pressed as hard as I could. Still, I couldn't feel a thing through the jeans. I felt the bug start to move forward, up my leg. In a panic, I threw the jeans off. I closed my eyes and quickly brushed my hands up and down my legs to try to fling the gross creature off of me. I opened my eyes to see Kaitlyn staring at my leg in horror. There was a lump under the skin of my leg and it was moving up...