The Clears

………after-none/back/fading back/peering through the black holes/dark fades out/their city is around me/the servants of the mouth/ they can all see me here/they can all hear me/getup-getaway/drifting in on concrete and up through the dirt and air and I breathe and I see/eyes around me growing into white hot stares/a smear of faces/a grinning rainbow flash/a blur of colour now here comes at me/the mouth it says/the mouth it says/lets take him to the mouth it says/and then I suddenly remember the visions and I stumbled to my feet, a wave of fear rushed over me and I started backing away from them. I turned into the crowd to get away but I could already see them making calls into secret devices and I knew I had little time before the FEEDERS got there and took me to the mouth. NONE had told me about a safe place I could go to if i ever needed to lie low, but I knew I would have to make contact with the other two before I could go there. I doubled my pace and headed further into the crowd. It was busy with a hungry buzz, they need to consume soon I thought to myself, and I don’t want to be around when they do. There were no Mouth-Police around so I headed through the crowds to find the nearest phone. When I did eventually find one it was a beaten up old red phone box, someone had written “0+0000” on the door, I knew this was a sign for me and headed inside. I took the book NONE had given me out of my bag and looked for the number. I tapped the sequence of zeros and ones into the key pad (001000100001000001) and held the phone to my head. NONE has promised me this would work no matter what and i could find the other two, no mater what. A noise like fire crackled at the other end, it began to grow louder and louder until it started to hurt my ears, I shouted down the phone “its me, its me!” but the noise drowned out my voice as it grew more intense. I dropped the phone, opened the door and ran out onto the street. It was them, I had dialed them and now they knew where to find me. A group of conjoined bodies floated towards me, I pushed past them and a razor of chattering teeth pulsated from their mouths in anger, I ran off as quickly as I could. All around me false leads and trap doors and labyrinths. Screaming neon skulls and backwards firework implosions. Black light soaking up ultraviolet thoughts, eating you away atom by atom. Nano-shops in the foam selling off tiny bits of you. Piece by piece, lost and stripped and torn and consumed and all of it to the mouth. Nowhere was safe, nothing was as it should be. I needed to get to safety fast.