Sometimes it's on the bottom

You hunch over as another wave crashes through you. You sweat and grind your teeth; it feels like fire inside you.

With a horrible convulsion you feel something inside you wrench loose, and know there’s no holding back now. You can’t help yourself, though; clenching your teeth, clamping your jaw, and trying, trying to keep it down. It doesn’t work.

You crash to the ground, covered in whatever foulness had been previously kept inside you. You pant, choking, spent.

A glance to the side (and up, up, up…) and you are struck by where you’d been. It towers over you, pale and hollow now. Hardly any lighter for your having left, but somehow it seems like a breeze could carry it away now.

You turn away. There’s no time for wonder or nostalgia. You have far to go, and are barely as tall as your thumb used to be, now.

You scurry.